This Land Is Your Land…
by
Hilary Bettis
Photo
by David
In a denim shirt
and blue jeans, Noam Chomsky, perched in an old plastic chair, waits for a
gathering audience at a New York Housing Works event. I happened to, out of
pure luck or fate, be one of the first people to arrive. I approached Mr.
Chomsky with a burning question: “What is our next step for the Occupy Wall
Street Movement?” In his gentle demeanor, Mr. Chomsky spoke of past movements
that created sweeping change for humanity such as the Labor Movement, the Civil
Rights Movement, and the Arab Spring Movement. “Every social change in history…
comes from concerted, organized public action and struggle over a period of
time.”
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| Noam Chomsky at Housing Works in New York City |
Back at Zuccotti Park, I hear, in the distance, a fiddle cry with a
Woody Guthrie song as members of a local teacher’s union sit quietly grading
homework assignments of children still too young to understand the struggle
their adult counterparts face on their behalf. A middle-aged woman tells me she
is there because others struggled to keep children out of factories. She tells
me it is her turn to keep corporate greed out of schools.
A young black
man in a leather jacket holds up a sign that reads, “No State shall make or
enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of
the United States.” He tells me he is there because his father participated in
the Great March on Washington. He tells me he needs to understand his roots so
that he can protect his future.
An Egyptian
woman in a hijab types furiously on her laptop sending out messages of hope and
unity on her facebook and twitter account. She tells me she was a part of the
Arab Spring Movement that gave her the opportunity to leave Egypt and pursue
her dream of an education at New York University. She tells me she has never
had much hope for the world until this past year.
Occupy Wall
Street is an extension of human rights movements that have existed for
generations. We are all here because our ancestors struggled, patiently and
dignified, for a better way of life. But we must also recognize that change
will not come overnight. The winter nights will be filled with moments of fear
and hopelessness and pain and hunger and frustration. There will be media
rhetoric that will attempt to discredit us. And narcissistic egos that will try
to divide us. But if we continue to stand in solidarity we will overcome these
moments together in ways that bind and strengthen the human spirit for
generations to come.
As a great man
once said, “[Human Rights] …was never given by a gift from above. It was always
given by struggle”
