HURRIYYAH COLLECTIVE
protect ya neck protect ya rage
DAY OF RAGE, JULY 1ST 2020
Dear comrades, Samidoun, a Palestinian prisoner solidarity network, called on Palestinians and their supporters to mobilize for a day of rage on July 1st, 2020 in response to Israel’s plan to annex the majority of the occupied West Bank. This plan is happening at the same time as massive rebellions all across Turtle Island in response to the extrajudicial killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. This is a time of deep global grief and rage as the forces that collude against the sanctity of life and dignity tighten their grip around our necks. But it is also a time of deep and unrelenting resistance as the people wake up to their collective power against the imperialist and colonialist forces that conspire against us.
Imperialism, colonization, and state violence pin us down under a weight, and it is easy to stay suffocated by our pain. When we succumb to pain, we become mired in a fixed state of hopelessness. Rage, on the other hand, liberates us. Rage gives us power. Rage allows us to see beyond our individual agony and towards the dark core to which all our pain can be traced. We invite you to dream of everything our collective rage makes possible. What is its enormous potential? How many fires can be lit from its depths? What will these fires transform, what will the flames lick into shape? What world will be built from its ashes? With love and rage, Hurriyyah Collective
beware beware of my hunger and my anger
اﺣﺬر اﺣﺬر ﻣﻦ ﺟﻮﻋﻲ وﻣﻦ ﻏﻀﺒﻲ
Write down! I am an Arab You have stolen the orchards of my ancestors And the land which I cultivated Along with my children And you left nothing for us Except for these rocks.. So will the State take them As it has been said?!
Therefore, Write at the top of page one: I do not hate people, I do not assault anyone, But…if I get hungry, I eat the flesh of my usurper. Beware… beware… of my hunger, And of my anger.
mahmoud darwish, 1964
a collaborative exercise
DICTIONARY OF THE REVOLUTION rage/rāj/noun emotional, physical and intellectual action against all that believes i'm unworthy the corrosive force of injustice made external A breaking, an awakening, a wrecking, a reckoning
the gap between the world we have and the world we need collective indignation at the indifference to suffering the human in the battle between human and machine, machine as genocide the weight of generations of trauma a map The fear of death in action (borrowed from the Korean idea of rage illness, )
화병
the audacity to remember
a collaborative exercise
DICTIONARY OF THE REVOLUTION rage/rÄ j/noun A fire that burns so bright, I follow it to freedom Physical reaction to injustice
A necessity for the colonized A burning fuel that demands change
having long memory, no matter the trauma that disrupts it sanctified by blood and history resisting an unjust status quo Sets flaming havoc to capitalism centers justice and dignity for all the highest moral and political clarity
KILLS THE COP IN YOUR HEAD & HEART IS ABOLITION NOT REFORM
SETS FIRE TO THE PRISONS
IS BLACK POWER
IS POWER TO THE PEOPLE
RA
no hope without rage KNOWS NO BORDERS
TAKES BACK LAND IS INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY IS INDIGENOUS SOVEREIGNTY
REUNITES FAMILIES & KEEPS THEM TOGETHER
HONORS ANCESTORS & RESPECTS YOUTH
MAKES SURE WE ALL HAVE ENOUGH TO EAT
GE
BURNS DOWN THE STATE
IS COMMUNITY DEFENSE
no rage without teeth IS LOVE
KEEPS US SAFE
FEEDS OUR SPIRITS LIGHTS OUR WAY GETS US FREE
So we live like caged beasts Waitin for the day to let the rage free Still me, till they kill me I love it when they fear me
TUPAC SHAKUR
a feminist reimagining of rage "There must be those among whom we can sit down and weep and still be counted as warriors" Adrienne Rich
Rather than a patriarchal expression of cruel, reactionary anger, a feminist interpretation of rage knows rage comes from the softest, most tender parts of us, and that our engagement with rage is an iterative process that uncovers power with the people, rather than power over the people. A feminist rage is not retributive, not punitive, restorative. A feminist rage is righteous and in service of the people.
EGAYOV • 5 EGAP
When we detangle rage from its patriarchal imagining, we liberate the feminist power the word holds. When we abolish rage as a patriarchal concept, it becomes clear that principled rage, liberatory rage, is an abolitionist project.
We harness the energy that comes from our rage, recognizing that our power lies in our great capacity for radical empathy, and the immense emotion that produces. Empathy is created by softness, and that softness is the same root that grows rage in our bodies. Being conscious of the link allows us to feel our feelings fully, and prevent a dissociation between our anger and our sadness. In a patriarchal world, it is demanded that we lock away the soft parts of ourselves in favor of the harsh. A feminist rage pries open our hearts and lays bare our despair so that we cannot hide, so that we are compelled to act. At the heart of our anger, there is a wound. A feminist rage acknowledges the wound. Only what is acknowledged can be healed. Towards a feminist rage, and towards an abolitionist future.
rage as legacy: I am, at times, asked to be softer, less drastic, less frantic. Our people are being corralled and killed, and I am being asked to dampen the spirit that seeks to free them. And to this I ask: what will my rage leave for my children? And what danger would the abandonment of my rage allow? I envision my rage burning a hole through cement, exposing soil. I plant seeds in the earth revealed, seeds that blossom into new futures. My rage is fruitful - it waters and grows. It is a rich soil fertile with microbial wonder. Now, my babies smell like my milk and feel like fresh skin. Soon, they will sink their teeth into skins of plums, cherries, tomatoes, and my rage will have torn down any wall separating them from the land that feeds them. My rage will defy man-made boundaries and false maps. My rage will bow down in salat and rise up in anger, and set free the masses.
a mother's du'aa My rage will build and build and build and destroy and build and nurse and nourish and plant and grow and destroy and build and destroy and build and build and shape and hold and soothe and liberate. My rage is undying, a legacy of love grown in the womb, my rage is the placenta that sustained a body. My rage is also the hand that oiled a baby’s skin, the voice that shushed his cry, my rage is your mother, your mother, your mother, three times your mother, and my rage holds a Qur’an, a baby, and a raised fist. My rage is its own nation, is its own power. My rage is a protection of what is holy. The streets they have claimed still lay claim to us. My people, my land, my homies, my babies, the ancestors and the progeny, are all sustained by my rage, will be saved by my rage. The legacy of my rage will be freedom. May our rage light up the world, abolish the state, and liberate our babies. Ameen.
organizing for power Freedom is a constant struggle and we need to engage in that struggle with other people. Reactionary rage that feeds the ego does not get us free. Organized rage directed at our enemies does! We call on all people to join or start an organization working for justice in your city. Let’s get organized so we can tear down the machinery of death that makes living impossible. The stakes have never been higher. The world we want is closer than we ever dreamed possible. What seemed absurd just yesterday is no longer absurd. That we lived so long this way is the true absurdity. Individually we are embers, sputtering flicks of light that can be easily quelled. Together we are the flames that reduced the Minneapolis Third Precinct to rubble and soot. Together we are the tires burning at the Gaza border obscuring the vision of Israeli snipers. We are the flames licking the edges of every American flag. We are blazing cop cars in New York and Ferguson. Together we are a fire no enemy can extinguish.
readings and resources a non-exhaustive list
https://tinyurl.com/ dayofragepdx
Used to be stay safe now it's stay dangerous