Dear Constituents,
We know that many of you may be wondering how to connect to what has become known as the Occupy/Decolonize/99% Movements. We recognize this as an important moment in our history and the beginning of a potentially dramatic shift, so have also raised this question for ourselves.
This Saturday, November 12th, communities of spirit, faith and transformation are being called upon to demonstrate the transformative power of practice at Occupy sites wherever they may be. One of our partners, Transformative Change, designed SIT4Change to explicitly lift up the importance of spiritual, heart-centered presence within movements. It is just one way to connect that could be of interest.
Watch the powerful 2-minute video here: http://www.sit4change.org
Read the Open Letter to Occupy: http://bit.ly/occupyltr
RSVP and invite others: http://on.fb.me/s4c-nov12
We hope you’ll join us.
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Open Letter to Occupy
From: Organizers of SITChange
Week of November 6, 2011
We, the organizers of SIT4Change, stand in solidarity with and deep support of the Occupy/Decolonize/We Are The 99% Movement sweeping the country and the world. We support the essence of the call for change that Occupy sites the world over are expressing.
We are aware that while any diversified movement will face unresolved challenges, we believe the following that are facing Occupy can be readily addressed:
Inclusion: A perceived lack of people of color involved in the US national Occupy Movement. Occupy is being construed as a space of mainly white people. While we know that is not true in all instances, the perception dissipates the movement’s strongest message: that the masses belong to this movement. This is a movement of The People.
Compassion: Some have begun to use the language of the 99% to be against the 1%. While the 99% language is powerfully illustrative, an “us vs. them” frame makes the conversation about people vs. people when it is clearly the underlying system that is at fault for enabling and condoning massive economic imbalance. We don’t need another angry movement, we need inspiration.
Nonviolence: Local police have been overtly willing to use unnecessary force against Occupy sites with only the most egregious acts being challenged. While many in Occupy have made efforts to disavow random acts of violence and destruction, especially in light of confusing incidents at Oakland’s General Strike, within the general public there are still questions as to whether Occupy is a potentially violent movement.
To counterbalance these flawed, but prevailing perceptions:
- Occupy must clearly convey its unwavering committment to diversity and inclusion.
- Occupy must show its efforts are focused towards destabilizing unjust behaviors and systems, rather than people.
- Occupy must declare itself aligned with nonviolence as it challenges and refuses cooperation with those systems.
The mass social movements led by Gandhi and King sustained themselves through the challenges of nonviolent direct action with personal practice to help them remain centered. Arab Spring Muslims continued to pray five times per day in accordance with their tradition even in the midst of rising up against dictatorial rule. We see Occupy as potential carriers of these admirable people-driven movements.
Occupy has succeeded in capturing the attention of the nation and world; now it’s time to capture minds and hearts.
We believe this can happen by making the connection people have to the movement even more sustained and profoundly personal. While everyone may not be out of a job, or have lost their homes, nothing is more personal than most people’s connection to spirit, to faith, and to transformation within their own lives:
- Many people of color and poorer peoples organize around their faith.
- Indigenous, earth-based and practitioners of Eastern traditions organize through ceremony and/or connection to spirit.
- Many yoga practitioners, non-theist Buddhists and atheists organize in relationship to self-transformation.
What these groups have in common is a connection to practice: of prayer, of meditation, of centering, to embody their values. Values that translate beyond personal interest into collective concern. Thus, we propose explicitly reaching out to communities of faith, spirit and transformation to broaden and deepen support for Occupy. This will succeed in creating space for the many families, church groups, synagogues, mosques and temples that are committed to justice, while showing that the Occupy movement extends its invitation to those that are most often not invited.
SIT4Change hopes to generate this profound connection through a call to action this coming Saturday, November 12th. It is an invitation for a critical mass of spirit- and faith-based communities to show up at Occupy sites everywhere. It is an opportunity for people to demonstrate the transformative power of practice and to make a connection of the heart to this movement for change. For us to truly OccupyTogether.
We will make this call through our networks of spiritual leaders, organizations, partners and institutions that are committed to economic justice and deep change. But nothing is more welcoming than an invitation, therefore:
We propose that you, the Occupy organizers at each local site, endorse SIT4Change and take up this call to action to invite people to your site in solidarity on November 12th, 2011.
We ask that you utilize the valuable networks this movement has created and reach out to the spirit, faith and transformative leaders in your community and support their presence.
We encourage you to call upon your local practitioners, meditators, clergy, yogis, people of faith and keepers of spirit. Invite them to share 108 minutes of their own expression of the sacred, of prayer, of ceremony, and of compassion as individuals, as families, and as communities.
We believe this can do nothing but enhance the Occupy movement, furthering its potency and image as a movement of The People, for The People and by The People. All 99% of the People.
We hope you will join us.
In peace & with great blessings on this collective journey,
The organizers, partners and supporters of SIT4Change
Additional information, including a short, powerful video, History, About Us, FAQ and Event Instructions can be found at http://sit4change.org, and we welcome questions, comments, clarification and feedback here: http://sit4change.org/contact
2 Comments
I agree with the spirit of this, however the suppression of anger by faith communities is a complex matter. What is needed is disciplined leadership, compassion and the holding of space to allow the expression of anger emanating from injustice to occur with purpose. I had previously been a sympathetic advocate for poverty issues, until I got firsthand experience of injustice that really opened my eyes after several years and several instances. It was not until I expressed anger over my personal injury to elected representatives and other people with some positions of power that I got any negotiating power and I’m trying to use it to shift the balance. Moreover, the building of solidarity within and across faith communities should be done with some humility in regards to the secular origins of this movement. Secularity is a foundation for inclusion, and certainly there is a reasonable fear that institutions of faith are very quick to be opportunistic. There’s a poster every week with one of these guys, this week its some guy selling ‘Deep Truth’ for $75 a lecture. That’s not going to work as spirituality, and there’s much more spirituality and deep truth in listening to Rage Against the Machine at certain moments for me. That said, I’m a believer in believing in a wide expansive soul divine being, a Creative Great Spirit Godhead Mother/Father Kingdom of God within us all, and the power of myth, symbol, rite, ceremony and gnostic truth so long as its object and subject is love, justice. And there is no hope for any success without nonviolence as the guiding principle, andn no realistic hope for a movement without any breaks in that discipline – there will be moments of eruption given the weight of pressure people are under globally and the grand difficulty in getting everyone on board with nonviolence, particularly those in desperation. Violence will always backfire, the lost battles in a victorious nonviolent struggle, and there will be sideshows, but with faith we shall overcome and forgive having walked a mile in the shoes of the oppressed. May I quote the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King – “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final say in reality”.
I was inspired to add a suggestion, as someone who has felt both the merits of the initial angry push that made Occupy a movement, and the transformative, long-term engagement and decided to lead and to be the change. My suggestion is that Occupy is the first round, and transformative change the second. But those who are comfortable and sympathetic, and more privileged and want to help must remember their own vulnerabilty as the source of their inspiration otherwise it will be far to easy to go back to easier paths and turn away from the suffering as we have done for so long. The saying is this ‘if you have come to help me, you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, let us walk together.’ Next, I want to suggest that the movement’s next stage be called ‘the Rising Spring’ or ‘the Global or Planetary Rising Spring’ to give respect to the Arab Spring, and to denote the spirituality in ‘Rising’ and in ‘Spring’. We need the artists, the poets, the filmmakers, the musicians, the eccentrics, the nonconformists, the bohemians as much as we need the faith communities. The free spirits have been most marginalized in this day and age, and historically have been integral to movements of liberation. They don’t always sit for meditation, eat right or do yoga, but they write and sing with intensity and fire, and they deliver the poetry and make the myth of human greatness real again. From Occupy and the Arab Spring to 2012 and the Beginning of the World as We Would Like to Know It- The Rising Spring, a suggestion from a poet whose work may be found on the wall of a local cafe in the village of Wakefield. QC. by A, Jinha