Where do we go from here?

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EDDIE.WILLIAMS

After the event with the national police who have blindsided our people once again, i think it is important to shed some light on this situation. To put some context to this reality, the best way to do it is to go back into history so that it would serve as illustration...

The bus boycott that triggered the Civil Rights movement came into effect after the boldness of black seamstress, Rosa Parks when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus in 1955.

As a result, the people mobilized and began to take drastic actions and not reactions to assert themselves and their rights as citizens of the United States. On the heal of that situation, Martin Luther King Jr, provided a framework that would eventually lead his people to certain accomplishments. One important accomplishment was, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that prohibited discrimination in public accommodations and employment and even in the voting polls.

However, the significance of the bold and courageous act of Rosa Parks caused a brilliant idea to come into effect through Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and diverse personalities that became leaders of the Civil Rights. For King, if he and his people was to accomplish anything under segregation as people they had to come up with an idea. As a result, they put something in motion: organizing, strategizing and planning.

Where do we go from here as a people after the intention of the national police agents on the island to keep perpetuating colonialism?

First, we need to organize ourselves as a people. We cannot continue reacting. If our approach is to sit back and wait to react when something happens we will continue to have these kind of outcomes and be at a disadvantage. Instead, we need to begin the process of organizing ourselves, albeit, Raizal council or authority. But it is necessary that we begin organizing so that the direction would eventually become clear.

Second, strategizing our goals and desires after we have been organized will become or turn out to be eventually our speech or rhetoric in any and every formal and informal dialogue spaces. Be it, conversing with the colonial presence on our territory or even among ourselves. Furthermore, it will create a consensus or our framework in respect to our projection to the future as a people and for our vulnerable land and living space.

Lastly, planning our actions that will lead us to accomplish our desired goal for ourselves as people and territory. In other words, our planning process and design for the future as a people and territory will not be dictated or originated by the colonial powers. Instead, we will have our own design for our future without any external violation and from there we will act, speak and move in a direction that would eventually lead to the results we are striving for.

As the people involve in the Civil Rights movement saw it fit to organize as a people, develop a strategy that will become the logos, pathos and ethos and design a plan of action that will lead to results that will alleviate somehow the burden on their people shoulder as a result of segregation. I think likewise, it is urgent for us to move in this direction as a people to become active-rather than reactive. To be a people with an action plan and not reacting to events and situations that surface and so blame each other and perpetually seeking for a Moses/Jesus figure. We are the stars of the show and not one individual. The collective must overcome the individual.

Este artículo obedece a la opinión del columnista. EL ISLEÑO no responde por los puntos de vista que allí se expresen.

Última actualización ( Lunes, 21 de Octubre de 2019 05:08 )