It’s been a struggle the last few years, with the ongoing genocide in Palestine perpetrated by Israel and the United States; the expansion of Zionist Israeli control of Palestinian, Lebanese, and Syrian land in their “Greater Israel” efforts; the unprovoked, unwarranted attack on Iran by the same actors already named; and the widening destruction of the planet by the few and wealthy, in charge. The US is holding people, including US citizens, hostage in concentration camps. Our politicians, who have always been liars, have become insatiable liars.

Power concentrates in institutions and individuals, in militaries, monarchies, taxation, surveillance, economic coercion. This organization and concentration outweighs the power of numbers. Large and diverse and dispersed populations are less likely, or perhaps less able, to come together, divided across economic, racial, class, and other lines.

Never mind that those in power stoke those divisions.

When livelihood is tied to these institutions, even indirectly, when people’s survival depend on their jobs, access to social services, access to grids run by corporations such as their water and power, it can serve to shackle people into fear and complacency. If you can’t fight, and you can’t flee, you play dead, and economically and socially, you play dead by turning inward and sticking your head in the sand.

And yet.

In the last few years, people around the world have come together in beautiful solidarity, to protest against war and genocide, to demand the freedom of American-held hostages on our own soil, to call for the release of this country and its destructive grip on the world.

Humans are kind. People are compassionate, communal. I’ve been reminded of this again and again, when I see harm done by one, and the many work to undo that damage.

But what I am also reminded of is that the minority who do cause harm, who do perpetrate violence, are the ones who hold the most power. Of course, they are few among many, and the many together are far more powerful than the few who band together in their violent orgies. I have seen people screaming in the streets, and their demands met with force, and yet, other times, their screams are heard and make positive change for life on this planet.

Why is this?

Because the few in power know that the many can topple them, not at first, not immediately or even quickly, but eventually. I don’t know enough history to provide concrete examples, and the ones that do come to mind, such as the the Haitian Revolution, the French Revolution, Seminoles in Florida, I don’t know enough about to say definitely it was the many who overturned the few. I think that’s the case, though I don’t know the details, and I don’t know the hows. But I do know it happened, and it can happen again, and again, and again.

Concentrated power is never permanent, though it changes hands, and continues on in much the same way, unless stopped. When the wider population coordinate and sustain their collective goals, their effect on systems can produce dramatic evolution. When the populace shares the same narrative of, we are all suffering injustice, that shared narrative becomes a shared yoke to plow the fields into more just plains.

I don’t know much, but I do believe this: collective resistance will lead to collective change.

(Excuse any typos; I’m too tired to care).

By: Rania Hanna