‘Freedom is a habit we need to start practicing’

Our organizing demands clarity of purpose in our actions in order to mutually reinforce our shared struggles, as peoples and nations, seeking to reorder our world. Actions that do not move us closer toward these objectives have to be jettisoned.

If we can accept that raw opposition exists in the silences between battle cries and spectacularized public sentiments, we can recuperate the power of a potential found in interstitial disruptions of state-made memories. If we accept the current corporate form of Indigenous activism and Afrikan electoralism as the basis from which to articulate our political demands, we will encounter a form of colonial bondage which dictates that the struggle for freedom be waged in terms that are already accepted by state institutions.

What does this freedom look like? As George Manuel reminds us, “They say freedom has no colour. It’s pure white”.

Our survival as Afrikan peoples and the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island will be determined by how well we are able to build movements not for the sake of their own motion, but with the capacity to conceive and enact transformations of our existing political institutions. The textures of this transformation will require us to weave our resistance with fabrics of creativity and accountability.

These dreams of freedom mean that our acts of resistance are inextricably linked as Afrikan peoples and Indigenous Peoples of Turtle Island. But fundamentally, what this means is that we need to seriously, purposefully and with urgency begin look to each other — not to the state — for our self-determination.

“Freedom is a habit”, we need to start practicing.

Read More | “Building connections across decolonization struggles” | Luam Kidane and Jarrett Martineau | ROAR Mag