Beginner's Death

(when peace & liberation fall prey to semantic confusion)

hello sunshine. as i attempt to remain sane, i’ve been caught up in working on my poetry book. it debuts fairly soon and reads like a rueful stream of consciousness. i cannot wait to be rid of this mammoth thing in my heart and make it ours to share. ps, i’ve shared the playlist i created a while back, in the process of writing these poems. let me know what you think! <3

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duality has been on my mind lately. i’ve always thought it to be a lovely concept: an eve for each morning, bitter vanilla essence, a burning cigarette stench, wafting through the foliage at a local park. all romantic pairings, something to be dazed over in passing thought. however, i find a gruesome reality resides in its underbelly. the inability to call a thing what it is and furthermore, to shroud it in this misguided belief that duality matters more than anything, and how this is a strange and boundless place to live. i’ve listened to people use phrases like conflict and genocide interchangeably, had an argument with someone about the meaning of genocide (in which they told me that the very decimation taking place in Palestine was not one), and found idealistic babble of ‘peace and love for all’, falling in tendrils around my feet. it bothered me, how seamless it was to decide that semantic overlap was easier on the conscience than focused word choice. to call a thing what it is and mean it. as such, it felt more than necessary to speak on a particular pattern of said overlap: peace and liberation being treated as synonyms and the inevitable harm of praying for duality, in a time that calls for precision in our language.

there is a poignant difference between peace and liberation. they are both necessary, both something to behold. but in moments such as these, where it is a matter of life and death, they cannot exist interchangeably. especially within conversational context and to think otherwise, is perhaps more harmful than anything. in her book, Killing Rage, Ending Racism, bell hooks defines peace, or better yet, positive peace, as not merely the absence of conflict but the presence of justice. what fascinated me about this definition, was the blatant acknowledgment of necessary action, before the air of tranquillity. that profound warmth could exist, but not without marking its genesis in retrospection of what the cold had done. one cannot start without the dismantling of the other. in an age defined by the desire for social change, peace, as explained by hooks, is not in the slightest what we’ve been taught to understand it to be. it is clear that in order to revel in the beauty of how the earth and sea meet, one must acknowledge where the soil ends and the river begins. peace is not just something to be hopeful for; it involves a plethora of action: of undoing the systems that sought to drain people of their spiritual mobility. the same mobility that calls for radical utterance in the wake of radical transformation. in that sense, peace exists in a vacuum of progressive behaviours, geared towards said transformation. it is not the silence, but the acknowledgement of the noise that once was.

liberation, on the other hand, is both a preface and developing axiom. where peace exists as a state, marked by its own conditions, liberation is a literal body of work that includes peace and its varying actions. in the same way that harmony can be contested and argued over, the ideas and theories surrounding liberation exist in political, social, literary and economic multitudes and thus, liberation must be referred to as the tree and not a branch. textbook linguistics aside, how we use ‘liberation’ and ‘peace’ in our conversations matters. there is a beauty and dare i say, evangelism in understanding that as we pray, speak, beg and share our hopes for peace in the midst of chaos, we cannot turn our backs to the reality of this state, existing as a product and condition of something greater. that a call for amity between two people, cannot be held straight without acknowledging what the exact problem is. if we cannot say what started the fire, who are we to beg that it ends soon?

this culture of selective acknowledgment, that propagates a call for ‘peace and love’ is incredibly disingenuous and eradicates all efforts put forth by people who have put their lives on the line, for the things they believe in. the reality is that as much as you hope for peace, what you should really be highlighting is the necessity for liberation. and unfortunately (or fortunately), liberation will never be a promise of calm. we ought to chew the fat instead of nibble at it and this means unpacking decades of harm, working to actively heal and in some cases fix it, until that presence of justice can truly be felt. if you want peace in Palestine, in Congo, in Haiti and in Sudan, it comes with a silent promise to sit through the discomfort and allow yourself to respect the laws of precisely calling a thing what it actually is.

in this case, the symbiotic and subconscious use of ‘peace’ instead of ‘liberation’ for some of us, is where we ought to start. and for others, there really is an inherent understanding that their desire for peace, actually comes with the announcement of liberation at some collateral level. however, they are unwilling to fully commit and so, everything becomes hedonistic when you call for amity but cannot unpack why it is needed. which begs the question: what are you actually praying for?

there is no such thing as a neutral phrase, in the throes of genocide, war and racial imperialism. furthermore, for the sake of our own humanity, we cannot be reckless about using ‘peace’ in statements where liberation is the definitive word. they are linked and feed from one another, but peace is a literal by-product of liberation and this simply cannot be ignored or swept under a rug. the days of mindless or intentional apathy are dying, especially when we have access to heaps of information about what the things we say, actually mean. as such, tension creates change. this is how our movement towards working together for actual peace, is birthed. before we force people to yield to the ideas of tranquillity, may we acknowledge the thunder and how it continues to strike. and in the same light, may we find stillness in our search for justice.

in jest, i dub this shift in language, as the Beginner’s Death. i’d like to believe that there is a beautiful grave for our egos to find rest and where the most intentional version of ourselves can be crafted. a version that exercises caution, but doesn’t abuse it for the sake of individual safety. a version that makes sacrifices instead of contemplates them half-heartedly, until it is too late. and finally, a version that knows that though peace and liberation can exist simultaneously, they are not some inextricable dual pairing, spoken of with an air of frivolousness and should not be idealised as one thing, not when the lives of so many are held in the frays of these words.

alright, that’s all from me,

Thando. x

quote mentioned:

Killing Rage, Ending Racism by bell hooks

Waiting on a Rapture playlist