U R Light

Remembering Your True Nature

You are here: Home / Blog - Inspire / Esoteric (Soul) / * 2012 / ‘Brazil’ – Hunger Strikes, Rallies, and Effecting Change

‘Brazil’ – Hunger Strikes, Rallies, and Effecting Change

By

* This popular post is excerpted from Awakening Instinct * Running the Gauntlet * Windows Through Time – A Trilogy by Ariole K. Alei.

 

I participated in the United Nations Earth Summit’s parallel conference – the Global Forum – in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992.  It was a 10-day gathering of over 180 heads of state, plus media, aides, and non-governmental leaders.  And concerned citizens like myself.

One day I participated in a local rally.  Thousands of Brazilians flocked to the streets, in their style of public demonstration.  There were platform trucks on which leaders stood with megaphones, guiding the crowds in chants of protest.

I walked with them, because I believed in their cause.

At one point I began to notice the drone … of … military helicopters, circling low above the crowds which now snaked street-wide for blocks and blocks.

The thought crossed my mind that my parents might be terrified if they knew where I was and precisely what I was doing.  And yet … I was simply walking.  Marching in protest with other human beings to state a concern and support a cause.

A few days later I was back in Vancouver, my home city.  A colleague of mine had planned a hunger strike in front of a politician’s office in protest of the logging of old growth forests, a cause which was a hot topic in the media then.  I had agreed to support him.

It was a four day hunger strike.  I joined him in fasting for the full four days.  And I physically sat with him on the sidewalk outside of the politician’s office one day.

The pangs of pain I felt in my abdomen already on the second day gave me so much compassion and understanding of the millions – perhaps billions – of people who are hungry and starving, each and every day.  I was choosing to not eat.  And for merely four days.  I knew, in my mind, that this pain and discomfort would end.  And precisely when it would end.  I was in control.  Starving people – at least from the outer appearance of their situations – have no choice.

That was the first revelation, the first ‘maturation’ I gained through this experience.

The second was … a realization of amazement.  That … in Brazil, and countries like it, people are intimidated from speaking their minds, their concerns, through physical threat of incarceration and torture.  In Canada, and countries like it, people are intimidated from speaking out via psychological intimidation.

We brand people as ‘crazy’.  We outcast them.  We scapegoat them.

We have such a tight hold on the ‘minds’ of our populace.  A hold so invisible.  In cultures such as Brazil’s, the oppressor is visible, named and nameable, seen.  In cultures such as Canada’s and other ‘developed’ countries it appears innocuous.  It is just as potent.  It is invisible, hidden, surreptitious, sly.  We are not to notice it, not to question it.

It is the gauntlet.

* Hundreds of readers have been enjoying this provocative post.  It is an excerpt from “Running the Gauntlet – Navigating Our Way to Our Fully Embodied Potential”, one of three ‘mini-books’ in The Trilogy Awakening Instinct * Running the Gauntlet * Windows Through Time.

To read more ideas like this, peruse the entire book … Awakening Instinct * Running the Gauntlet * Windows Through Time – A Trilogy by Ariole K. Alei.

Click on this link to get quick access to

  • Preview the book 
  • Download the book
  • Purchase a softcover copy of the book
  • Listen to a Free Intro to the Audio Course based on the book
  • and / or Purchase the Audio Series based on the book

There’s so much more at your fingertips to enjoy and be inspired by – right now  🙂

Questions to Ponder:  In what ways do you ‘give in’ to intimidation?  What leadership potential – potential to beneficially effect change – are you suppressing?

Want more info on ‘Running Your Gauntlet’ and ‘Living Your Full Potential’?  Want personal mentoring in exploring what  it is to live YOUR full potential? 

* Images with gratitude to ruraluniv.ac.in, indymedia.ia and koreyking.com

Comments

  7. This is such a great resource that you are providing and you give it away for free. I enjoy seeing websites that understand the value of providing a prime resource for free. I truly loved reading your post. Thanks!

  14. lol a lot of of the feedback bloggers submit are a bit spacey, in some cases i ponder if they even read the weblog posts and reports before leaving your 2 cents or whether or not they mearly look at the title of the article and compose only the first thought that pops into their heads. at any rate, it is nice to read smart commentary once in a while

  15. I not too long ago came during your web page and occur to become understanding along. I assumed I would personally depart my initial comment. I actually do not know what to say besides that We’ve loved analyzing. Respectable website internet site. I’m going to maintain visiting this weblog actually regularly.

    • Thanks for your question, Aleta.

      Firstly, I recommend – as this clearly interests you and draws your attention – that you read “Awakening Instinct * Running the Gauntlet * Windows Through Time – A Trilogy” from which this post is excerpted.

      What the conclusion of this post / article describes is something very subtle: how we control ourselves (and each other) in our culture. How we ‘keep inside the prescribed box’.

      In Brazil and military-based countries like it, pressure to subscribe to culturally agreed norms (interesting – considering exploring the meanings of ascribe, conscribe, and their relative ‘scribes’!) is physical – threat of physical consequences if you cross the line. In Canada and non-military-based ‘developed’ countries, this pressure is asserted psychologically. It is far more subliminal. The populace itself is entrained to be the administrator – by expelling, condemning, outcasting, humiliating those who stand up and step out.

      I am not a ‘gloom’ gal. I encourage people to recognize their various ‘energy leaks’ and attune to co-creative, pro-active, forward-moving, highly-energizing ways to step out into their true wave and ride its exquisite flow 🙂

      🙂 Ariole

  20. We are a group of volunteers and starting a new scheme in our neighborhood. Your post provided us with valuable information to help us get started|.You have done an impressive job!

  35. Hey how are you doing? I just wanted to stop by and say that it’s been a pleasure reading your blog. I have bookmarked your website so that I can come back & read more in the future as well. plz do keep up the quality writing

  44. Having made those comments, next is to acknowledge that while the angst has to do with someone else’s life (words & actions) being observed (and that there is likely no effectuve “protest march” for myself to engage in!), the “actions” I CAN take are a lot “inner” to ensure that my own boundaries are engaged and that I am being responsible for my own state of being. And that does have its effects.

  45. In what ways do I give in to intimidation? Well, the challenge right now is what I can do in a situation right here in this community. There’s intimidation, manipulation, and very subtle, slippery abuse being used against a dear friend by her boyfriend. Those who know this boyfriend recognize what he’s doing and are dismayed that she’s still with him. For one thing, there’s danger of her amazing potential being thrown away due to his sabotage. Another fact is that she already tried to kill herself due, in part, to his pressures on her. However, she herself doesn’t want to deal with the situation, saying that if anyone says anything about what is seen to be happening, it’s just gossip and lies. Her manner towards me, then, in my encouraging her to have strong boundaries, feels intimidating; that I’m NOT to do or say anything about the facts that are SEEN to be happening. IF I say anything about the facts of what he does, she says I’m being evil, crazy, unfair and picking on him for no reason. If it’s a statement about him, personally, it’s only been explanations about the blocks to his mental/emotional development due to his own early abuse; not blaming him for it. This requires discussion and clear seeing and thinking. It FEELS like 2 levels of intimidation are going on. The 1st one from him to her; the 2nd one from her to anyone who sees. True, this is on a ‘right-here-personal” level of experiencing intimidation, rather than national or global. Still, as the political starts with the personal, the complexity of this personal level probably is expressed on that larger level also. ??? So—yes,—I am stymied as to what could even be done on a practical level when the abused (the emotional “captive”) doesn’t want to be freed. It’s not like there are any chargeable crimes being committed here that would warrant intervention by authorites who CAN’T be ignored!

Trackbacks

Leave a Reply