Where We Are: In The Middle of A Revolution Based on Self-Respect

In 1983 June Jordan went to Nicaragua on a solidarity voyage with the feminist organization MADRE and wrote home with a new clarity. In her 1984 article for Essence she explained why it was so crucial for the US to install dictators all over the world and to cover up the revolutionary brilliance and accountability of movements like the Sandinista movement in Nicaragua and the New Jewel Movement in Grenada. She said that if the oppressed people of the world witnessed the dignity and bravery of these revolutionaries “next thing you know, most of us would find ourselves in the middle of a revolution based on self-respect.”

The reality is that the same country that has installed corrupt authoritarian rulers all over the world for economic gain, is now surviving a corrupt authoritarian regime also based on greed. So this is where we are. In the midst of a revolution that is calling us to remember who we are and hold to the lessons of those who have overthrown authoritarian regimes before us. This week after studying the words of June Jordan, especially “Nicaragua: Why I Had to Go There” and her poem “safe” composed in a dugout canoe on the Rio Escondido on the way back from the Afro-Caribbean and Miskito indigenous region of Bluefields, Nicaragua 20 of us named our current revolution. The workshop “a revolution based on self-respect” was a clarifying redefinition of safety through solidarity. Our group poem is below. I recommend reading it aloud to remember where we are and what we need.

Where We Are

by the participants in “a revolution based on self-respect”: June Jordan and Dangerous Solidarities

“next thing you know, most of us would find ourselves in the middle of a revolution based on self-respect.” – June Jordan in “Nicaragua: Why I Had to Go There”

In the midst of a revolution based on breathing

In the midst of a revolution based on deep care

In the midst of a revolution based on practice

In the midst of a revolution based on laughter

In the midst of a revolution based on the depth of our roots

In the midst of a revolution based on the wisdom of my ancestors

In the midst of a revolution based on presence

In the midst of a revolution based on interconnection

In the midst of a revolution based on love

In the midst of a revolution based on adventures of the soul

In the midst of a revolution based on dancing and loving

In the midst of a revolution based on falling together

In the midst of a revolution based on  we don’t yet know

In the midst of a revolution based on witnessing the unseen

In the midst of a revolution based on recognition

In the midst of a revolution based on the recognition that we are already, ready

In the midst of a revolution based on what the children deserve

In the midst of a revolution based on ‘becoming the action of our fate’

In the midst of a revolution based on our healing evolution

In the midst of a revolution based on loving the earth back

In the midst of a revolution based on the grounded-ness of the soil

                                                                          and the lifted-ness of the constellations

In the midst of a revolution based on the fierce winds and the gentle winds

In the midst of a revolution based on respecting the dark

In the midst of a revolution based on third eyes opened

In the midst of a revolution based on channeling

In the midst of a revolution based on mutuality

In the midst of a revolution based on joy

In the midst of a revolution based on possibility and abundance

In the midst of a revolution based on bravely walking towards life

In the midst of a revolution based on questions

In the midst of a revolution based on abiding care

In the midst of a revolution based on embodied safety

In the midst of a revolution based on breathing together

If you’d like to participate in the replay of this workshop you can access it here: https://sangodare.podia.com/a-revolution-based-on-self-respect-dangerous-solidarities