In the Face of Empire

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When occupied people face the empire, they generally become so overwhelmed by its power that they start to think that the empire will remain forever and that it has eternal power.  Jesus wanted to tell his people that empire would not last, that empires come and go. When empires collapse and depart it is the poor and the weak who remain…The most dangerous thing for the oppressed and occupied is that at some point they lose faith in themselves, in their ability to change the status quo… The oppressed have to begin thinking what seems to be unthinkable.  They have to know and realize that “yes, we can.”

 

Resistance is action not reaction.  Resistance requires faith, so that it can stop being caught up in the vicious cycle of retaliation that favors the powerful and tries to mirror it.  Faith is nothing less than developing a bold vision of a new reality and mobilizing the needed resources to make it happen.

          Mitri Raheb, Faith in the Face of Empire

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The denizens of power fill the streets, faceless

Armored instruments of oppression

Empire incarnate

 

In the courts, judges bought and sold

distort justice until injustice

flows like a mighty river

 

Victims are victimized yet again

transformed into villains

by their oppressors.

 

In the halls of power, people

who have sold their souls sit

and ponder the imponderable

having lost faith

in love

having abandoned morality

for the sake of convenience

 

At the command of empire

factories spew forth clouds of poison

darkening the sky

until breath is gone

and the planet

gasps for breath

 

Insignificant, marginal

weak

we are overwhelmed

and cede victory

 

What can we do?

Resistance seems futile

counterproductive

violence producing violence

hate producing hate

 

cowed, I sit at my keyboard

fingers stilled

 

There is nothing I can say

nothing I can do

to change the ways things are

 

I am not faithless

but I have no faith

that I, that you, that anyone

has the power to combat a power that seems

unassailable

 

I want to come out fighting

spewing words and hate

carelessly

reactive

 

And yet I know there is no victory

If empire secedes empire

even if it is my empire

 

The promised land is not filled

with the rich and powerful

but by the weak and meek

by the hungry poor

 

who, in love and humility

abandon the ruins of empire

and turn again to the land

 

plowing and planting

hoping for the water of love

to create a harvest

of justice and peace

 

I want to think the unthinkable

that this WILL pass

that I have agency

 

I can change the way things are

I can create a new reality

where dominion is replaced by servanthood

greed by generosity

exclusion by welcome

fear by assurance

hate by love

 

Yes, I can

Yes, we can