Let’s Talk About Our Salvation
We heard so many slurs, so many monosyllables as money
and mendacity hit the campaign trail. Reeled with the
superlatives; ears bleeding, eyes blinded, hearts broken,
shuddered with the ugly vile-nasty-ism. We watched
in dismay, the ceremony of shame, as the old law breaker,
became the new law maker. A smokescreen of tweets bleated
and abused concealing policy, the links with Breitbart,
flooding our platforms and screens, turning our blood cold. Yet
still we utter, still we declaim, filling the streets of cities
and towns, with our bodies and breath. Our banners rock with mirth,
we are so not done yet. Hell no! A new generation joins us on the
sidewalks, the boulevards, the squares – across the world, their legs
strong, love on their lips. Swinging hips holding the Mexican,
the Muslim, the other, locked in an embrace, birthing new possibilities
in the republic born in genocide and slavery; reshaped and exulted
by the dream factory. Remember the Alamo! That was Mexican,
it’s kinda in the name, isn’t it? They called it manifest destiny,
pushing west, icons and tropes still haunting the movie theatre
today. La la la la land, we are awakening. John Wayne wasn’t always
the good guy. Good guys, let me tell you about them, they’re up at Standing
Rock, right now, facing guns and water cannon, ice on the ground,
with only smartphones, prayers and the spirits of the ancestors
to protect them. And while I’m at it, I’ll tell you another thing
for nothing; the forgotten were never forgotten by Alice Paul,
Kathleen Cleaver, Lucy Stone, Olive Morris and bell hooks.
We move together, memory in our arms, bones of dignity, courage
in our bellies, compassion on our shoulders, the future in our hands;
we rise, still we rise, and we will rise again and again and again.
Anne Enith Cooper 2017
Image taken at the London Women’s March 21st January 2017
I wrote this poem after the tremendous global women’s marches, open to all genders, which took place immediately after the inauguration of the 45th.
Looking back at this poem a few weeks before the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamilla Harris I’m asking myself if, with hindsight, it was hopelessly idealistic having seen the apparently inexorable rise and consolidation of the right in the USA culminating in the armed attack on the Washington Capitol building yesterday, January 6th 2021, by supporters of the 45th and far right extremists in which five people died.
At the time the women’s marches were reported as the largest protest on a single day in the USA. “Women’s March against Donald Trump is the largest day of protests in US history, say political scientists” Matt Brookfield, The Independent. Protests took place in 550 cities and towns in the USA and 100 globally. It was estimated over 6-7 million participated in the USA and worldwide with 4.6 million within the USA. In London it was difficult to get anywhere near Trafalgar Square, let alone in it, the crowds were so large.
We’ve endured four years of an administration headed by a premier who actively encouraged the “alt right/ libertarian right; replete with reactionary attitudes towards women’s rights and the alt right is really a euphemism for those who wave the Confederate flag alongside the swastika, don tee shirts celebrating the holocaust, brandish (Walmart) Tiki torches in a gesture that evokes Ku Klux Klan rallies and mob lynchings and drive vehicles into crowds of peaceful protestors.
Despite all this it seems to me there has been no cease in our struggles from Black Lives Matter, to Standing Rock and Extinction Rebellion, to mention but a few, even during the pandemic, across the world, with women playing a part front and centre. And it is not just a struggle of resistance but one that envisions a new world free from all oppression, violence and inequality, living in harmony with our planet.
We are so not done yet!
Image taken at the London Women’s March 21st January 2017
A blog post by Anne Enith Cooper
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