With this announcement pending and this article coming on the new partnership between IDEX and Black Lives Matter last week and the AWID Forum coming up this week, I was reflecting a lot on the difference between the global solidarity my organization works to embody in our partnerships, and the global development that I studied in school, the idea at the core of our industry.
And sometimes, only poetry will do:
The Practice
We look within first.
We pause, we listen, we ask for clarity.
We hear and are greeted by doves,
wherever we arrive.
We see the iridescence
on the thorax of a bug.
We wait for moons to turn
and dawns to appear
across the faces of those
across from where we sit.
We prepare, ready the minds,
and then let the unfolding begin.
Clasp hands, lock arms,
and build the world – again.
Then we regroup. We grieve. We are numb,
but never alone.
We remind each other
of the groundswells
witnessed, and yet to come.
We remind each other
to breathe,
and lay our hands on for healing.
Girls’ faces bitten by dogs.
Boys, girls, branded criminals, before they are grown.
Knees upon the thorax, a windpipe
closed,
forever.
Live feeds to the murders.
The laid hands cannot perform miracles
beyond the telling,
“You are surrounded by life,
beating when you can no longer
feel the sun.”
***
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This is beautiful. I suggest one more difference: Solidarity is what we do because we have to do it to be who we are; global development is a job we may care about, but we do it for money.
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