(in response to surprised news reports about women’s participation in Tunisia and Egypt)
by Samanthi J Gunawardana
When Claudette Colvin took a stand, sitting on a bus,
When Adrienne Rich wrote to us,
and my sister bell hooks spoke back,
they reached across time to another place where
Bahissat El Badia implored from the Egyptian desert
Pandita Rambai travelled, and started women’s organizations
and Seitosha asked women to awake.
My Mother, nobody according to history books, but courage beyond measure
takes my hand so we can stand together with the woman who plucks our tea—
Arti Oraon. Pregnant. 22. Denied maternity leave.
Jayaben the lioness in the Grunwick zoo, has left us, so we must carry on her work.
Gertrude Hambira raises her fist in solidarity, somewhere from her exile;
it is seen as far as Juarez: Susana, we will remember what you told us,
Ni una muerta más ("Not one more death")
There wasn’t always the camera phone, held high above our heads
No twitterers, we were heard for our silences,
for our rock solid fists held high,
our love, our anger, the tendrils of hope and frustration.
We witnessed the way in which sitting down became a movement
The way in which one step, led to a thousand, and we joined hands
with each other, with our brothers, with our children,
on broken cobble stone, on ancient paved streets, on dusty red roads,
Tarmac and heat, tarmac and snow,
We were always the revolution
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
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