We dream of revolution daily. A daydream mapping a new reality. A sudden radical change to the status quo, the reclamation of our humanity. Some overcome torment and go on to inflict it on others, some become silent — their disillusionment, crippling, people like us become radicalised and determined to bring about a change for the common good whatever it takes.
Cognitive dissonance is a well-documented phenomenon. We listen to music that speaks of humanity and revolution and healing, yet, we are reduced to being mere consumers in a materialist culture, using drugs and booze to numb our pain. Our redemption songs have become escapist melodies; our hearts and minds anaesthetised. How curious it is that our actions do not reflect our highest choices.
Consumerist culture has rendered us commodities. The violence inherent in the way we view the world has us tearing ourselves apart as we live under conditions that require us to act against our best interests daily. Simply going to the market to buy the goods we need to survive requires us to participate in supporting the oil industry. Forcing us to put the knowledge of the destruction we are complicit in out of mind for long enough to present a facade of normalcy, to perform the modern equivalent of chopping wood & carrying water. But, at what cost?
Societies have been built on notions of power and control leading to dominance and destruction. This is not who we are. We are stardust born of the soil. We were made to love. We were made to rejoice. We were made to be custodians of the land that supports life, not exploit it and extract the very generative force from our shared abode. Sages through the ages have been advising us to return to love but do we even know what that looks like?
Codependency is our modern cult. Instead of taking shared responsibility to co-create only that which serves all our needs, we are slaves to greed. We shift blame, we point fingers, disabling ourselves and our children, robbing one another of life and liberty. All because we bought into the lie told by capitalists and colonisers. We traded our sovereignty for comfort and convenience. If only our amnesia had not taken hold if only we had not believed the untruths we were told. Fret not, we have now. We can look within and let the truth of our hearts lead the way.
We are human beings, not a special interest group. Our desire to be treated as sovereign individuals without pressure to conform to commonly held ideals of acceptability should not make us radical or revolutionary. We do not need special laws to be created to govern our humanity, instead, we need the laws that deny our freedom of expression to be removed.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion are noble aspirations in a world filled with violence and bigotry but simultaneously an example of how capitalists have taken ideas aimed at fostering unity to divide us. The social justice movement has gained momentum and DEI policies give the impression of making strides at ushering in a more equitable world. Alas, within the confines of a capitalist framework, such ideals are virtually unimplementable. Instead, we are forced to debate our humanity because those who deny difference maintain their power and insist that we tolerate their intolerance.
The current status quo has created a situation where corporations are afforded more rights than humans and simultaneously tasked with parenting a broken generation. Progressive corporate values attract the disenfranchised and abused, conning them into thinking they’ve found the belonging they have craved for so long. Their birth parents were absent, slaves to the machine or, even worse, subjects of migrant labour to give their offspring the opportunities they never had.
Societies are crumbling all around us as the economy has been disproportionately valued so when we think of progress or success we tend to consider only financial terms with little regard for the impact on people and the planet. We can’t pay our way to mutual respect for our shared lives and livelihoods intertwined with our natural environment.
Our value is inherent as humans and we should not have to perform our suffering to be deemed worthy of our human rights. It is simple, but in a society awash with notions that some are more worthy than others we often face all manner of oppression being passed off as progress.
Try though I may, I cannot fathom how categorising people according to their differences is progressive. We certainly need to address the injustices inflicted on those deemed to be less worthy because they aren’t white cis-het men. Still, we also need to dismantle the continued classification of humans according to the divisions imposed by Western imperialists.
We often call for bodily autonomy, agency, and consent for everyone. Simply put, this means that each person has rights over their own body and cannot be dictated to how they may use their bodies provided they do not infringe on these rights of others. This is why we are determined to dismantle white-heteronormative-patriarchal-capitalism, a system of oppression that reduces us to the least interesting aspects of who we are.
When a group has held disproportionate power for such a long time it becomes hard to imagine a truly equitable path. By othering those we claim to be striving to include, are we not setting those othered folks up for a new form of insidious oppression? The ones who fit the “right profile” are emboldened to feel justified in their assertion that the marginalised are being afforded special rights.
Of course, their position is wildly inaccurate, however, if we fail to recognise the mindset that created the conditions for the convergence of crises we are facing to flourish, we will not be able to arrest the spread of misinformation pedalled by the ones who hold the power, privilege, money, and undue influence within the confines of the current neo-colonial capitalist framework.
What can we do? We can resist. We can love one another. We can tend to our gardens. We can stop buying what we are being sold and treat everyone we meet as human beings worthy of dignity, life, and liberty. We don’t have to re-enact the violence we have been subjected to. We can stop. We can create our world anew.
This is not a message from your higher self confirming you are on the right path. This is a chastisement of your complicity in inhumanity. Turn back from illusion and rediscover yourself.
Some days being a person is excruciating. We have learned to navigate discomfort so adeptly that our culture could be defined by our ability to look the other way. Do we look away because we don’t care about the suffering of others, or do we look away because we simply don’t have the emotional capacity to bear another ounce of it?
Looking the other way serves the immediate need to escape the pain of bearing witness to human tragedy. The downside is that this strategy has disconnected us from those around us. Untold obstacles plague nearly everyone we meet, we commiserate in silent glances not daring to draw attention to the injustice of it all, terrified that if we did we would be opening a pandora’s box of grief and betrayal knowing full well that we are not equipped to process it amidst the pressures of modern life.
How much longer can we continue sweeping our humanity under the rug, pretending that we are okay with running on the never-ending treadmill of consumption trying to dull our senses to the knowledge we are hurtling toward our own demise?
We reward those who suffer silently, sacrificing their authenticity on the altar of shattered dreams for a slice of a pie that leads to nothing but heartburn and regret. Maintaining composure has become a widespread art form though we should really be losing our shit, refusing to be part of a so-called society that criminalises poverty and bestows praises upon murderous thugs.
Throngs of people who believe they made it through their trauma unscathed demand that systems exact turmoil from those who follow after. Outsourcing their agency to the institution consoles them into thinking they will be absolved of their actions. They forget that here we are subject to natural law and spiritual principles. How convenient it is to distance oneself from one’s brethren for a bag of salt.
Words. A force of creation or destruction. Who decides which words matter? How we talk about things influences how we think about them, which has tangible real-world consequences. Using our word in service of our ideals can be a double-edged sword. Ultimately, words are inert. In and of themselves, they have no meaning other than that assigned to them through mutual consensus.
The issue of being misunderstood or misconstrued remains a factor in every interaction, particularly because of the connotations attached to our choices to use a specific word instead of another. So what then of the words we don’t understand, the words we utter in disbelief, the words we mutter under our breaths?
Do words hold the power to liberate us from the tyranny that is post-modern culture, or are we doomed to exist in a vacuum of meaninglessness, devoid of substance? Our words have been overused and misappropriated to become some approximation of the definitive. Even as we say them, we know we are simply going through the motions, fulfilling the glut of content creation to feed the algorithm we neither understand nor care to. Mining data, for what, for whom? Our brains — the new frontier; our thoughts and emotions — collateral damage.
We see an abundance of literature using neuro-linguistic programming to seduce the reader into feeling seen, heard, valued, and believing they are part of something greater than themselves. Don’t forget to drop your dollars on the way out. We are deceiving ourselves into staying on the path to disillusionment, tropes rolling off our tongues. So glibly we repeat empty words and broken promises, pointing at something yet amounting to nothing as we drown in thoughts and deeds that serve the machine and rob us of our humanity.
Perhaps, once we have run out of words and squarely faced the shattering of the illusions we hold so dear, we will come to recognise the beating of our hearts, the medicine drum, the song that sings a new world into existence.
The sooner we start refusing to debate our humanity, the closer we will be to a just and equitable society. Now is the time to shift away from power and domination to forge a new way based on ethics and collective care.
The assumption that fundamental human rights are subject to culturally defined biases is flawed, it fails to recognise our shared humanity. It may even lead to the misconception that rights are subjective, as though certain conditions would preclude a human being from claiming their right to exist.
Assumptions are a fertile breeding ground for misinformation. A lack of empathy may lead people to make assumptions about other cultures based on ill-informed delusions of their own cultural superiority. The notion that human rights are up for debate is laughable, yet, the consequences of indulging this absurdity are devastating with far-reaching implications, especially for those who do not benefit from the privilege bestowed upon the dominant group.
Imagine for a moment that each of us is a sovereign human being. Our right to be here is intrinsic. This does not mean that our actions are without consequence. However, it does mean there is no reason for some of us to be denied our rights because of others’ belief systems.
In South Africa, we have a progressive bill of rights that adheres to internationally agreed-upon standards. Unfortunately, we also have a Constitution that protects itself and the very laws designed to enslave us by refusing to acknowledge our lives and dignity.
Apartheid was a crime against humanity yet we still have politicians in positions of power who refute this fact. This threatens the sanctity of our hard-won human rights by opening the floor for debate about whether or not we are deserving.
Because the law was written by blood-thirsty colonisers, apparently in an attempt to enrich themselves without retribution at the expense of people and the natural environment, this legacy continues to cripple us as learned criminals know the loopholes all too well. This existential threat is exacerbated by a reactionary population whose fear of the unknown causes them to compartmentalise their human spirit and, in so doing, demand solutions to an imagined problem that is, in fact, a symptom of a far greater crisis.
Culture is not static. It evolves and changes in response to the environment. Cultures crumble when principles are eroded by short-sighted ambition and individualistic material gains. Human rights are not given but rather claimed. Emancipation from mental slavery is indeed key to our liberation. Many of us continue labouring under patriarchal abuse unaware of our value and, as such, incapable of claiming our rights due to ignorance of their existence.
The mere fact that we are willing to entertain a debate about people’s humanity shows us how disconnected we are from our authentic selves and how dependent we are on external validation. This decimation of the human psyche has been deliberate. We have submitted ourselves to oppressive regimes by believing the lies we have been told about ourselves.
We have been led to believe that most of our material suffering is a consequence of so-called human nature and actions we have taken when in reality it is a consequence of capitalism and our abdication to it. We believe that poverty is a personal failing, that we attract abuse and degradation, rather than recognising the truth that we have been systematically robbed of our sovereignty thinking it was our choice.
By validating the idea that violence can be culturally sanctioned we are signing our death warrants. We build culture by mindfully choosing our words and our actions. We determine our trajectory, we are more than mere cogs with no choice but to maintain the status quo. We have been hoodwinked into thinking we bear no obligations in making our rights a reality.
Our failure to assume personal responsibility for our actions has rendered us powerless. We have unwittingly handed it over to institutions and the state. We have muddied the waters by granting personhood to entities with no hearts. People are not property, and the value we have assigned to things is based on an illusion that plays on our greed to justify our hateful actions in service of the machine.
We cannot, in all good conscience, assert that culture determines human rights knowing that language shapes culture. The English language, in particular, centres the individual and effectively objectifies the other. These false binaries have no place in our society and should certainly not determine how we are allowed to live.
It has been mathematically proven that we are strands in a complex web of life. If nothing else, this is evidence of our inherent value unconstrained by cultural expectations.
It is time to reject any ideology that disconnects us from our shared humanity. While our personal experiences may be subjective, our right to be human is universal.
Our planet is our mutual home that sustains life. We cannot expect to continue destroying it without destroying ourselves. The time has come for us to stand united in the knowledge that we are born from the same soil and reclaim our shared humanity.
Each of us has it within ourselves to create the life we choose. However, we can’t ignore the enabling and disabling circumstances around us if we are truly interested in humanity’s liberation. Every person has the same basic mechanism: body, mind, and emotions. Our vehicle for expression is subject only to the laws of nature, and our application of spiritual principles will determine the quality and tone of our experience.
Although it may be true that we ultimately create our reality, this commonly pedaled new age trope is reductionist at best if it fails to consider the other 8.1 billion odd inhabitants of this planet whose realities intersect with and influence our own.
So how do we navigate this consensual shared reality in ways which honour our values?
Language shapes culture. The coloniser’s language of individualism has, in part, advanced the agenda of disconnecting humanity from itself. We have come to accept the oppressive yoke of global capitalism as human nature and rush to the defense of abhorrent behaviour under the guise that it is human nature after all.
We speak of oppression in terms of ‘they’ and ‘them’ though we have internalised these narratives passed down through generations of violence and abuse. We call them generational curses as if inflicted upon us by some external force. Truth be told, it is the perpetuation of violence in our thoughts and deeds through traditions and rituals that we allow the ‘they’ and ‘them’ to continue their murderous rampage meted out by zealots.
Those who set up these systems of oppression eons ago have long since left the planet. Their bloodlines continue hoarding the wealth amassed at the expense of those who internalised notions of power and domination, master and servant: false binaries intended only to bring us to our knees. The door is open, but we remain caged.
We are quick to point fingers and cast blame, but that doesn’t solve the problem. Those who created the global systems of enslavement knew full well that there would come a day when we would not be able to distinguish where we ended and where our psychological shackles began.
Now, a handful of billionaires dictate the path forward that serves naught but their interests as we blindly and unquestioningly maintain the status quo. Critical reasoning and compassion are perhaps our best tools to dismantle our mental prisons and prevent future generations from suffering our same fate.
We can start by reclaiming the narrative. We can use words that create not destroy. We can refuse to be complicit in our dehumanisation. We can say no.
The decision to curate reality according to the values of goodness, beauty, and truth is deliberate. Every day, our choices can either create or destroy the fabric of our global society. Right now, communities are fractured as our tribal values intersect with our conditioned programming leaving us in a constant state of uncertainty, not knowing what to believe. I have found it helpful to believe nothing and trust no one. Some may say this is a philosophy of despair, yet it is a pragmatic solution to the age-old problem of navigating consensual reality. Choosing to interpret life through symbols instead of words leaves room for the truth in our hearts to be brought forth. Language shapes culture. The colonists’ language of power and domination has bereaved us of our shared humanity. We need to find a new language, the language of the heart, the language of interconnectedness, the language of care. Symbols reverberate deep within us, expressing that which words cannot. Curating our reality by placing symbols that remind us who we are around us can bring us back to equanimity when the demands of the world are too much to articulate and the burden of pain is too much to bear. May we be reminded that it is we who hold the power to choose differently and create the world anew by curating the influences that shape our thoughts and deeds.
