Nobody’s free, until everybody’s free
In her speech (audio of the speeach)at the National Women’s Caucus, Fanny Lou Hammer uttered the words of the title of this article. It has since been echoed by people and struggles all over our earth.
I have used this slogan in posts and writings as a way to signal my position and to show that I understand that things are connected. It wasn’t until I was on a five hours drive listening to a conversation on Upstream podcast that I actually internalized and understood what this phrase means.
It wasn’t me understanding it in the sense that my brain 🧠 understood it, this was a deeply physical and spiritual reaction. I felt it and I got shivers all over when my body and mind internalized what this meant. I could feel my grandparents energy around me, I saw their faces. Deep inside me I knew what “nobody’s free until everybody’s free” meant. It was unlike anything I’ve felt before in my life. A spiritual experience which took me by surprise. This wasn’t understanding something on an intellectual level, I was feeling it with my entire being and being connected to something greater.
My thanks go to Meital Yaniv for helping me get to this place. It was listening to her conversation in Healing from Zionism w/ Meital Yaniv on Upstream podcast that I arrived in this moment of understanding. Engaging with her words and story enabled me to get to this new place of understanding and I’m truly grateful.
I invite you reading this to listen to the episode with an open mind and engage with the words being said. It will be well worth the time ♥️
These are connected struggles
I have been active in protests for Palestine lately and I have said that “I’m a visitor to this struggle” and I was trying to be an ally as best I could following others lead. Others who’s closely connected through family and friends to the liberation of Palestine. In that moment in the car it dawned on me that:
“I’m not marching only to support and show solidarity for others to gain their freedom, I march for my me & my family and all living beings on this earth”
me, just now
I go out and march for my kids to have a better future. I want to give them a chance to live a full life on this earth. That is why I’m out there, this is why the fight against Israeli occupation and genocide is my fight too. Colonialism in its present form is what Israel does in Gaza. What is destroying the earth is the capitalist death machine which is fueled by destruction and exploitation. Capitalism requires othering of fellow humans in order to function, the same way the zionist state requires othering to make their people perform unimaginable atrocities to an entire people.
Photo by Jannik Abel source
I marched for the Sàmi peoples rights to their land and to persevere their way of life. Combatting the illegal building of windmill farms at Fosen. A project which destroys the land, threatens their culture and way of living. This project has been ruled as a human right violation by the UN, while the governments has pressed on. Targeting activists instead of following the ruling made by the UN. This struggle is against a capitalist system which requires exploitation and destruction of our earth. It requires the Sàmi to abandon their way of life and become wage laborers in towns and cities, because our “green transition” is the next frontier for capital accumulation.
I fight and struggle is also for my children. It is also for them I join the struggles for freedom for Palestine, fight to end the cobalt mining exploitation in DR Congo, fight for Syria to be liberated from their dictatorship and for first nations of the america’s to have their land back. It’s why we must fight for trans peoples rights. Why we must join the environmental movement. Their struggles are mine because we fight the same thing, it’s the system which requires death, destruction, exploitation and suffering to ensure a fraction of humanity can enjoy life.
Ending capitalism and its demand for endless growth by exploiting all living beings for the purpose of wealth accumulation for the individual is the struggle. It is what connects these struggles and we must unite to fight it.
Nobody’s free until everybody’s free ✊
I now know deep inside me what this means and it’s not just words. It’s an obligation to bring about a world in which all living beings can exist.