Solidarity is not a matter of altruism. Solidarity comes from the inability to tolerate the affront to our own integrity of passive or active collaboration in the oppression of others, and from the deep recognition of our most expansive self-interest. From the recognition that, like it or not, our liberation is bound up with that of every other being on the planet, and that politically, spiritually, in our heart of hearts we know anything else is unaffordable.
Interpretation
Solidarity arises from a shared understanding of our interconnectedness and the rejection of complicity in injustice.
This quote by Aurora Levins Morales emphasizes that true solidarity is not merely an act of goodwill or altruism; rather, it emerges from an understanding of our interconnectedness and the moral imperative to resist oppression. It suggests that our own integrity and self-interest are tied to the struggles of others, and that recognizing this connection is essential for genuine liberation, making it a matter of collective survival rather than optional kindness.
In practice
This quote can be used in discussions about social justice movements.
Right here in our bodies, in our defense of our right to experience joy, in the refusal to abandon the place where we have been most completely invaded & colonized, in our determination to make the bombed & defoliated lands flower again and bear fruit, here where we have been most shamed is one of the most radical & sacred places from which to transform the world.
What is required to face trauma is the ability to mourn, fully and deeply, all that has been taken from us. Only through mourning everything we have lost can we discover that we have in fact survived; that our spirits are indestructible.
The sick do not ask if the hand that smoothes their pillow is pure, nor the dying care if the lips that touch their brow have known the kiss of sin.
Is not the very beginning of privilege, monopoly and industrial slavery this erecting of the ballot-box above the individual?
My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people's.
The seeker's silence is the loudest form of prayer.
You treat world history as a mathematician does mathematics, in which nothing but laws and formulas exist, no reality, no good and evil, no time, no yesterday, no tomorrow, nothing but an eternal, shallow, mathematical present.
According to the law of nature, wherever there is an awakening of a new and stronger life, there it tries to conquer and take the place of the old and the decaying. Nature favours the dying out of the unfit and the survival of the fittest. The final result of such conflict between the priestly and the other classes has been mentioned already.
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