Why To Resist
As an activist, I regularly hear from people that they consider activism so negative. "Can't you do something positive, something more constructive?" This perspective comes from a place of privilege, where people feel like they contribute to a better world by gardening, recycling, and donating to charity every once in a while. For sure, there are wonderful people doing wonderfully positive things in this way, but they tend to ignore the systematic violence by the wealthiest and most powerful people who are holding humanity hostage and who are destroying the planet to serve their insatiable greed. This violence sadly cannot be stopped by creating a beautiful garden or even by people withdrawing from capitalism and trying to live off the land, even though such things could be part of the solution.
Ultimately, what we need most is the dismantling of the systems of power and the end of capitalism as the primary force driving humanity off a cliff, turning the planet into a polluted wasteland. People who have been colonized have already known this for hundreds of years and have resisted out of pure necessity and struggle for survival. There is no hunting when the colonizer kills all the bison simply to subjugate you through starvation. There is no subsistence farming when you are dispossessed and displaced because the colonizer wants your land for resources. There is no quality of life when international companies come and destroy forests, pollute the water, build mines, and murder people who dare to stand up against the destruction, theft, and intimidation.
The genocide Israel is committing on the Palestinian people, with financial, military, and political support from the US, the UK, and most European countries, has revealed more clearly than ever that international human rights institutions are powerless in the face of capitalist and geopolitical interests of the elites. And although the public opinion of Israel has plummeted worldwide and millions of people have walked in marches, calling on their governments to take action to pressure Israel to end the genocide, there has been zero progress in putting an end to the slaughter of Palestinians, to the horrific videos of shredded, traumatized, and starving Palestinian children that fill our phones every day.
While of course the genocide in Palestine is horrific enough to organize and resist, it's also a litmus test for the future of humanity. As climate and ecological breakdown are accelerating and disasters and food insecurity will lead to global chaos and uprisings, the elites have tools and techniques for controlling, terrorizing, and genociding entire populations, tested in Palestine, at their disposal. Whoever actually believes that the insane militarization that is being promoted is for the purpose of our collective safety?
Obviously it sounds pretty scary and no fun at all to try to put a stop to the people who pursue these levels of murderous power. No wonder folks would rather focus on picking littered cigarette butts off the street and call it a productive day. But if you're ready to become a real activist, where to even begin? And do we even stand a chance?
Check it out on the next page: How To Resist
