Watch the entire film "Disruption" on Youtube

The film "Disruption" on the biggest, most essential and life-contingent social justice issue of our time, Climate Change:

Run Time: 52 Minutes
Release Date: September 7, 2014
A Film by Kelly Nyks & Jared P. Scott

The Biggest Global Climate Justice March in History, livestreamed on Democracy Now!

http://www.democracynow.org/

The Great Social Justice Movement of our Time-- the Climate Justice Movement!

My blog post re-posted on iied's website:

http://iied.org/can-voodoo-help-resolve-climate-change

Voodoo for Climate Change Justice at the CBA8 Kathmandu Conference

The mid-1990’s found me involved with a group of Haitian grassroots activists, largely a part of the Liberation Theology Lavalas (or the “great flood”) movement, and their supporting Haitian-American counterparts.  With the return from exile of the first democratically elected Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the air was electric with expectation, “Espwa”- or hope, that finally a change for the better was possible.  Words like “Democracy,” “Dignity,” and most commonly, “Solidarity” were bandied about in the air like new-found treasures.  Supporters of Aristide ported t-shirts and banners quoting the then-President, “Randevou bo tab la,” or “Let’s meet together at the table.” Aristide’s invitation was clear: everyone needs to come to the table to meet, plan, and contribute, and everyone, simply everyone has something valuable to give to the movement for positive social change.  Not only was this recognition of everyone’s value and capacities, rich poor and in-between, it was also a call to action: this movement couldn’t be carried by just one person.  In order to have a chance at manifesting a new vision of a democratic Haiti, moving out of misery (if only into the next level of poverty), everyone needed to step up and give what she or he had to give, and to do it for the long haul.

Working alongside farmers and villagers across Haiti, I came to learn a bit about Vodun, what is commonly (and incorrectly) termed “Voodoo” in English-speaking cultures.   I learned how many Vodun spiritual practices were masked behind Catholic practices, the Haitian Lwa syncretized against Catholic saints, in order to protect and continue the spiritual practices carried over from the Yoruba, ancient Dahomey, Ibo Landing.  Haitian social structure in village life was built around the structure of the crossroads in Vodun, the crossroads where the worlds of the ancestors and their living descendants met, and where everyone brought their own particular skills and resources to contribute to village well-being, all unique but equally valued.   Aristide’s call for solidarity in action, “Randevou bo tab la,” gains deeper resonance, power and meaning.

Today a local-to-local climate change Community-Based Adaptation (CBA) and Climate Justice movement is emerging across regions, across the globe, with potential to lead the way for the world’s coping (adaptation) with the impacts and threats of climatic change.  This last April 24-30, the 8th CBAconference facilitated by iied took place in Nepal(with many global and local partners).  At the beginning of the conference, I had an opportunity to sit and speak with Dr. Saleemul Huq, senior fellow in iied’s Climate Group and Director of ICCCAD, and chief organizer for the CBA8.  From Saleemul, I heard words that stirred memories of my early days in Haiti, “Dignity,” “Respect,” and most powerfully, the need for global “Solidarity.” 

Saleem’s words struck a powerful chord with me, as I see the current emerging local-to-local climate justice movement, and the efforts of CBA networks, as another stage along the continuum of global movements for social change and justice.  This recent CBA8 saw local practitioners, community partners, UN representatives, large donors, NGO workers, heads-of-state and governmental representatives from 62 different countries, 6 different continents, all together at the CBA table. Here we were all equal, each person’s role and experience a necessary piece of the climate justice puzzle. The challenges that climate change poses for us are truly existential, and require all of us, no matter what role or label, community or culture, alliance or affiliation, to step up and contribute the skills and the resources we have in order to tackle and cope with the vast, and at times overwhelming, complex difficulties which climate change brings to our doorsteps. 

“Randevou bo tab la!”  Come together to the table, everyone has a seat at the table, and everyone’s contributions are needed and important. This is not a pat on the back, recognition simply of human capabilities in corners great and small. This is a call to action! A call to come together in solidarity, to care for, protect, and work together for the sake of dignity and respect of all life, all beings. 

Will you come to table? And what will you bring?

To Begin Anew

January 2, 2014

To Begin Anew


A spiral twists upward like smoke clinging to the cord, rising, swaying, drawing air, building force--
It tells me what I know.


Broken desire mends into new shapes- it is softer, threatens less. Calm replaces turmoil.
We kill it so we may love. We tame it so it will not be our end.

In the frozen flooded winter blue meadow, the animal labors against the night. 
Veins bulge, surge and strain under the yoke.
The blade of the slitter cuts the Earth, the rotors turn the packed plain exposed, clumped and broken.

Mist rises and floats from his flanks into the bitter, biting air.  A sheen crystallizes in perfect symmetrical glittering ice, rising over musculature, sinews and bone.

In theYear of the Horse, shall it be to run free, unbridled, fire streaming into the tailwind--
Or, domesticated, will we keep ours a beast of burden, a worker of the fields?

*

It will scatter in the old tea leaves, the splayed intestines and bones will resonate this truth.  The smoke it forms a twisted, curling mouth, "let go."

Let go, let go, let go.  So to begin anew.



e.parry, 2nd Jan. 2014