Alicia Pace (Santropol Roulant)
Am I an Activist?
When considering the questions
pertaining to NOW activism, I found myself tripping over the word ‘activism’,
despite an awareness that the term is open to new definition and exploration.
I have observed my language over
the past months since our gathering in
For me the term ‘activist ‘ implies
an exclusion. A with us or against us attitude. In university I protested on
the streets with “women take back the night”, the rise in tuition rates,
various campus causes. And it was I who mimicked that exclusionary impulse. I
didn’t understand those who could not see how important it was to give your
voice and feet to such causes. Yet while I felt a certain rush, comradery and
even strongly believed in what was being “fought” for, something didn’t feel
integrated. There was an emptiness to
the method. Perhaps that is how I started to define and then reject “activism”.
I realized that what was missing for me was a feeling of deep relationship and
integration. That it was more powerful to be a feminist, in my actions,
thoughts, deliberations than it was to hold up an abstract idea or concept. I
wanted to engage with love and thoughtfulness not just intellect and
righteousness. I dropped out of the mainstream message and medium and receded
into a quiet yet more powerful mode of just living as the woman/feminist that I
was. So my “activism” took on a new look. I left the protests and overly
intellectualizing my reality and moved into deep conversations with family and
friends about what it meant for us to be strong, whole women in today’s world.
Looking and finding my own power in daily interactions rather than a book
definition of feminism.
I have not revisited my resistances
or ideas attached to “activism” since that time. I know that I am deeply inspired and moved by
people who are steeped in their own exploration and learning. Reflecting upon
it now, I would best describe myself and kindred colleagues as “engaged”. Perhaps that sounds too open, too vague, but
the quality of engagement leaves space for each of us to move in the areas of
our passion and still meet in a common space of exploration and collaboration.
Be it water or education or organizations that we immerse ourselves in…
engagement, for me, is our commonality. It is inclusive, infectious and
lively. In that light, NOW activism is a
movement of people with purpose and passion, who attract and energize others to
engage with their own lives and learning in more profound ways.
Recently I had the privilege of
being with and 85-year-old Gurwhali man who lives in a village in the lower
Himalayas. His name is Saklanaji and he
has been reforesting the mountainside of his village for over 50 years, one
tree at a time. Driven by deep conviction that the trees are our salvation in
this crazy, polluted, materialistic world, Saklanaji climbs the mountain paths
each morning and greets his work a determination and integrity that moved me.
During my time with him, Saklanaji
surprised and inspired me. At any given moment he had my companions and I shout
from the top of our lungs into the Himalayas asking the world to renounce its
destructive ways. He would suddenly sit in the middle of the path we were
climbing and create/recite a long poem about the trees, love and loss. He calls himself a madman and wanted us to
know that the power of one madman consumed with love and purpose can change the
world. At the least it can change the face of a mountainside, the water flow,
the ecosystem and in turn the village itself.
He was taken to courts over 23 times in order
to have the legal right to plant trees on a mountainside that no one owed. He
lost his first wife to TB, his brother to the fight for independence. He has
fathered 8 children by his second wife and all the while planted trees without
fail. Never losing sight of his mission.
When we first arrived at his home
he greeted us with a song and said that his poetry made women cry. I thought
this was romantic and then found myself two days later crying as he looked into
my eyes with such tenderness and emotionality. His dedication and lyrical sense
of purpose in turns touching me and challenging me to reflect on what moves me
with intensity and love in my own life.
And so, 12 years after I let go of
the recognizable activist in me, I find myself in contact with powerful,
engaged, loving people like Saklanaji and I cannot help but be drawn into their
web of passion and purpose.
I am attracted and energized to
work with people who don’t advertise their activism… they are their
activism. There is a lived engagement
and commitment to learning and compassion. NOW activism can be reflective and
analytical but it must be lived and not in a protest here, or paper there, for
me it needs to flow through my daily actions. Saklanaji is what I consider a
NOW activist. He is a madman. Full of purpose, flanked by action, driven by
love. He doesn’t ask me to become an “environmentalist” or to even spread the
story of his work. He asks, what I will do with the inspiration garnered from
my connection with him?
There are NOW activists, in all
corners of this world. From a village in the
As I take the oak seeds in my hand,
Saklanaji, throws down his walking stick and embraces me with strong arms
saying, “You are my daughter, you are my sister, you are my mother,” and
blesses me as I bury my fingers into the dry, cracked earth. I wonder how this seed will find what it
needs to grow into the oak it has the promise to become. And yet there is a
forest around me. One madman/poet can change the world. In that sense of the
term, I too am an activist NOW.