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Liberation now
By Zoë Williams
williamz@mscd.edu

This is it: my last hurrah.

After filling this column space for three years, this is the most difficult column I have had to write. With little effort, I can think of dozens of disasters worth opining over.

Bloodbaths prevail in Iraq, Palestine, Somalia, Darfur and Afghanistan. U.S. officials are knee-deep in corruption. Immigrants face growing injustice from the government. Scientists estimate that the oceans will be dead in 40 years. Cell phones are driving bees to extinction. More than one million children die every year due to a lack of clean drinking water.

The world is a scary place right now. Anyone who tells you otherwise is probably trying to get you to invest.

Movements to deconstruct this paradigm are nascent at best. We donate money, volunteer, write letters, sign petitions and vote, all in hope of bringing about the slightest change. Nevertheless, we are too distant from power and too bogged down to manifest even the smallest bit of evolution. Welcome to politics at its best.

Meanwhile, CEOs, politicians, lobbyists and media moguls roll in wealth and power. If you relate to my point, you are probably adjusted to despair. I can’t promise much hope, but I can say there is another option.

Official titles, leadership positions, money and laws only have as much power or legitimacy as we give them. It is a radical idea, and the time for such ideas has come.

We can walk away from the status quo. We depend on the same system that wreaks global havoc to provide our food, medicine, shelter, education and safety.

Angela Davis said radicalism is the idea of “grasping things at the root.” Let’s learn to feed ourselves, take care of our basic health, maintain our homes and defend ourselves. Let’s share our skills of teaching, healing, construction or farming in exchange for our other necessities. This isn’t Communism or hippie jive, but a way of life that does not involve mass suffering.

It is inevitable. By the consequences of our actions or by natural causes, our world is going to change drastically. The planet is suffering and its people are getting restless. Mass consumption and global domination cannot carry on forever. As much as I wish there was an easy way out, anyone wishing to change this paradigm better prepare for a fight. My wish for the future is that I will see you there, dear reader. Onward to liberation.