All to often, American's only think of ourselves. We spend endless amounts of energy focusing on our own culture, political issues, and cultural productions. Even in allegedly political circles a strange parochialism persists.
How much stronger would U.S. social movements be if we engaged in regular dialog with translocal initiatives--the Zapatistas, the Korean Anarchist Movement, Irish Nationalists, Indigenous people in struggle throughout the world all connected directly with projects in our own communities.
Monolingualism and a profound lack of curiosity are dooming the bulk of the U.S. public. Immigrants are some of the few people in the United States who still have the ability to frame the debate beyond a narrow-minded patriotism and a naive self-obsession. Multilingual indigenous people and immigrants and from African, Asian, and Latin diasporas all present unique opportunities for people in the United States to connect to struggles beyond those presented in our Capitalist media.
Progressives and progressive media are guilty of xenophobia, racism, and parochialism as much as anybody. Until we resolve to erase the borders from our mind and broaden our political, cultural, and social interests while investing in our local communities, the United States will continue to stomp about the earth ignorant and hostile, lost in its own narcissism, wasteful, and destroying the possibility of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Only through a significant investment in face-to-face interaction within our own neighborhoods, workplaces, schools, and streets coupled with a strong urge to network our localisms with others throughout the world can we create an alternative globalization that can over-through neoliberalism and neoconservatism. Liberating ourselves will require both local and global investments, networks, and projects entirely autonomous and hostile towards oppressive systems.
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1 comment:
It won't succeed as a matter of fact, that's what I believe.
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