I recently read of twenty-eight, Latin American human rights and environmental defenders, murdered last year. They were indigenous people defending their lands and way of life. Only one of those murders have been successfully investigated and prosecuted.
We know corporate interests willfully allow the violence towards indigenous leaders. We know United States military training and weaponry support corporate militias. We know that the governments ruling over indigenous lands rarely investigate or convict those guilty. And countless violent crimes go unreported. We know this as surely as we know about the School of the Americas or the juntas that put corporate puppets in power. We know this even when the media buries their stories, even when our faith leaders couch their demise in twisted verses of faith. We know this, all of it.
And I asked myself, “What is the price of silence?”
What is the price of silence towards a nation that deems the oil fields in the Middle East as their sovereign right to claim? What is the price of silence over lies told and believed that leads us to war and countless innocents dying?
What is the price of silence as Flint, Michigan and others continue their struggle for clean water and transparent government?
And when you discover the water in your community is no longer drinkable; or that the ethanol plant is poisoning your air; or when uncontrollable fires or rising waters make it to your back door, will you be silent then?
To whom will you turn? Who will defend you? Our silence has chipped away at our hope; it diminishes our ability to fight back. Silence is the disease of our time, and allows the voice of ignorance to prevail.
So when I ask myself, “Can I live with this?”, and the answer is, “No”; surely my silence will end.
photo is from Cultural Survival
let kindness win 