Photo: Stacy Lanyon
I’m from Brazil, and I moved to the States a few years ago
for a number of different reasons. I was finishing my college here. I went to a school, which is known as being a radical and progressive university. When I got there, I really couldn’t find where the progress was,
where the radical people were organizing. I was looking for it because I just feel it’s
necessary. A society that doesn’t have people organizing in a radical way, I
think it’s a dead society. So I was really looking for those people, and
it was really hard to find, but that reality changed. In July, I saw the email from Adbusters calling to Occupy Wall Street. A few weeks later, a friend of mine from school
sent me a Facebook invite for the assemblies at Tompkins Square Park. I was
totally down for that, totally down. Occupy Wall Street? Obviously, I wanted to
do that. I went on Saturday afternoon to Tompkins Square Park to check it out, and
then I never let it go.
The park was really intense. I was arrested even before September 17th, when we did a "test drive" and went to sleep on Wall Street. That was a reality check for me. Even being a foreigner I wasn't afraid of being arrested because I knew that had to be done. I saw the potential of it. I saw the
historical moment. It was coming after big things happening in the world.
What was happening in Spain with the indignados was something that resonated with me. I was
following online, and I wanted to take a plane and go there. Seeing the chance of it happening here, I embraced it.
Since the first days in the park, I couldn’t leave it. I had to be there. I had to make sure it was happening. I did what I could, from media to PR, documenting it and sharing what was happening, learning and helping to expand it in all directions. I was very excited about the Spanish Assembly. It was not about translating. It was about shared reality. For me, the entire park made sense in that way. Everybody was speaking one language, a language of the heart that anyone could understand. It was beyond any border or nationality. We were all part of a huge community with a shared reality that was powerful and optimistic. Every time I think that the occupation only lasted two months, I can’t believe it was only that. It felt like an entire year.
Since the first days in the park, I couldn’t leave it. I had to be there. I had to make sure it was happening. I did what I could, from media to PR, documenting it and sharing what was happening, learning and helping to expand it in all directions. I was very excited about the Spanish Assembly. It was not about translating. It was about shared reality. For me, the entire park made sense in that way. Everybody was speaking one language, a language of the heart that anyone could understand. It was beyond any border or nationality. We were all part of a huge community with a shared reality that was powerful and optimistic. Every time I think that the occupation only lasted two months, I can’t believe it was only that. It felt like an entire year.
Since the beginning, I felt it was important. You have to have this balance. You have to have the people working
against the people that hold the power right now. We are creating history as it
goes. We can either sit down and let the power build upon itself , or we can balance it, take it over. This
is crucial. This is important. We have to write our own history. The people
have to write their own history. It’s crucial. It’s essential. Being in the
United States, especially being a foreigner in the United States, I saw the
chance of being in the heart of the power of our capitalist system. Being in
the belly of the beast, Wall Street, what a chance to speak to the power
directly. So it’s crucial to have this force here balancing the power in the
world because the impact that we have here in New York resonates around the
world. It is a very symbolic city, and the entire world pays attention to what happens in the heart of it.
What I want is a more human world, where every life is valued and has the means to flourish in it's own way, all nature, animals and human beings. That means the commons have to return to the people. With the structures of power that we have in place now, power is what is valued, and it just builds upon itself. I don’t
have a name for what I envision because it’s
something that has to be worked on as we go. I haven’t seen any solid proposal forward
that I want to see. We have to build it right now. We have to create it. That’s
what we are striving for, for this creation. We are working on finding out how
to rebuild it. The world that I envision is a world that doesn’t
kill our ecosystems, which is what we’re doing, a world that doesn’t destroy
the planet that we live in. It’s basically a world that’s reasonable enough to
value what is important, which is life, life as an ecosystem, as the world, life as a human life and the beauty of humanity, which is definitely not
creating profit over progress, but exploring the human potential and making
it possible, and this being the most important thing.
I am working for a world where all of our potentials are not going
to be oppressed by any form of dominance or power, a world where we will be able to exercise
all of our beautiful potential because we will have all of our basic needs
fulfilled, basic housing, food, education. Those all should be fulfilled,
and it can be fulfilled. We have resources enough to fulfill that for everyone. We actually produce so much more than we need. We just haven't learned how to distribute it. We are destroying our own world. What kind of self-destructive species are human beings? I think we are better than that.
The problems are the structures that we have in place. To change that, we have to have a real serious increase of consciousness and a serious cultural revolution in the sense of changing the set of values and the set of ethics that are current in our society. We need a paradigm shift, and I think it starts now, within ourselves, within our movements. Right now we are oppressing each other, even inside the movement. Even among the people who are striving for this new world, we are oppressing each other because that’s the education that we have, so we have to challenge ourselves. We have to challenge the system, and as we go, we have to challenge ourselves too.
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
http://buildingcompassionthroughaction.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stacylanyon
https://instagram.com/stacylanyon/
https://twitter.com/StacyLanyon
http://stacylanyon.com/
The problems are the structures that we have in place. To change that, we have to have a real serious increase of consciousness and a serious cultural revolution in the sense of changing the set of values and the set of ethics that are current in our society. We need a paradigm shift, and I think it starts now, within ourselves, within our movements. Right now we are oppressing each other, even inside the movement. Even among the people who are striving for this new world, we are oppressing each other because that’s the education that we have, so we have to challenge ourselves. We have to challenge the system, and as we go, we have to challenge ourselves too.
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
http://buildingcompassionthroughaction.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stacylanyon
https://instagram.com/stacylanyon/
https://twitter.com/StacyLanyon
http://stacylanyon.com/