Good article Umair Haque.
Malidoma Somé, an African Shaman, said that the most common human emotion is grief. We are born and we die. Death is not the only loss but is is the one loss that predominates in all cultures.
It seems that both the patriarchy and capitalism creates so-called “winners” and losers. Even the “winners” become losers through dehumanizing practices of objectification — dehumanizing others is a dehumanization of self. Objectification removes the spirit of a person-animal, (through objectification humans are not thought of as animals) plants, soil, rock, earth, water, air and fire — the nearest star — the sun.
Capitalism is a logical off-shoot of the patriarchy. Capitalism is a divide and conquer mentality and as such destroys spirit. After all spirit cannot be sold off into pieces and remain spirit couched in awe and mystery.
The fires of Australia push all my grief buttons. In October of 2017 I had to evacuate my home in Sonoma County. Thankfully my home was spared, but friends were not so fortunate. Each year the fear of fires loom large. Many people, animals and homes were lost. In 2018 our valley was inundated with smoke from the Paradise fires for nearly a month. It was dangerous to go outside without good breathing masks. In 2019 we were spared by forced power outages by our power company PG&E (7 outages in all in my area) perpetrated by a company more interested in shareholder dividends than in maintaining the powergrid aka public safety — not upgraded for 30 years. Now they are saying it will take 10 years to bring the grid into the compliance with state safety standards.
With more and more impacts of extreme weather, rising seas the grief will severely impact all of us in a very short time. I have “seen” that about one billion people will survive climate crisis, and modern civilization will be gone. Humanity will be living in an agrarian age — no industry. My concern is the unnecessary suffering humans as animals and the other animals, land, earth, air, sky and light hard being forced to endure while the so-called power-possessors squander our future via the greed and inherent shortsightedness of quarterly profits at the expense of our home — planet earth.
Acting with all resources and technology now without regard to the cost — we will all need to make sacrifices that we won’t like and will resist — we may be able to reduce the loss and mitigate the suffering in some small measure.
