By David Brooks on March 6, 2024
resistance continues to send signals of hope, photo: Bill Hackwell
Seems that everything here is on the brink of disaster, that is the constant narrative in the political arena, in the media, in academia and in the arts. By the way, with the Oscars scheduled for next week, we can see if Oppenheimer wins and remember that the gift of that scientist and his team could soon be back in the hands of the irrational actor Trump in the role of Dr. Strangelove. Only that they are no longer movies, but what they call reality (although it is not yet known if the end of the world will be broadcast on the Internet so that everyone can watch it on their phones, unless they are distracted by a video game or some scandal among “stars”).
In the face of all this, acts of resistance continue to send signals of hope, nobility, beauty that are the antidote to the poison of wars, economic brutalities, racism, violence and cynicism with which the American way of life is decorated these days.
Last Saturday, thousands took to the streets once again in various parts of the country to demand that their government stop being complicit in Israel’s genocide and to express their solidarity with the Palestinian people.
The Sunday before last, young Aaron Bushnell, an active member of the air force of the world’s most powerful military apparatus, sat down in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington and immolated himself chanting, “Free Palestine” and leaving the message, “I can no longer be complicit in genocide.”
“Aaron did not die in vain,” wrote his friend Levi Pierpont in The Guardian. “He has already inspired so many more to stand up for truth and justice. It breaks my heart that his life ended this way… All we can do is listen to the message for which he died: the horrors of genocide in Gaza, the complicity we share as members of the military and as contributors to a government that lavishly invests in violence.”
Also this past week – as almost every week – there were actions against gun violence, for pushing for action to curb climate change, for labor rights, for indigenous rights, for women’s rights and for economic justice in various parts of the country. Many supporters of these efforts often celebrate them, but have doubts that they can do anything about the “giant triplet of racism, extreme materialism and militarism identified by the Reverend Martin Luther King.
These expressions of resistance, dissent and rebellion are accompanied by their historical predecessors who return to each struggle to accompany the new generations. Suddenly old stories emerge – thanks to teachers and historians who are heirs to Howard Zinn – that offer solidarity to the contemporary moment where the right wing seeks to censor books and history across the country, such as the 70th anniversary last week when students at Indiana University initiated what they called the Green Feather Movement. In the midst of the McCarthyite era, there was a call by education authorities to ban the book Robin Hood in Indiana state schools, since that figure stole from the rich to give to the poor and that, they claimed, “is the communist line.” The students went to fill bags of chicken feathers at a farm, then dyed them green to represent Robin Hood and his gang and threw them around campus in a protest against censorship. They were investigated by the FBI for their stunt, but that movement multiplied at other universities around the country.
Despite the overwhelming wave of disastrous news that nurtures collective despair, sages like Noam Chomsky, among others, have reiterated for decades that social movements are “civilizing” forces that democratize this and other countries with their relentless actions and that “that’s the way to change things” in this country. As long as these rebellions, dissent and resistance exist, there is a possible future no matter what, and that is why it is so vital that their exploits, deeds and stories be told and sung every day.
Source: La Jornada, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English