The Movement Continues

The path over the past two years has taught me that there are always unexpected twists and turns along the way. From mountain passes to Sufi shrines, in the classrooms of the elite and protests in the streets, through the jungles of New York. Along dirt roads and crowded concrete. there has been heartache and victory, love, loss, and adventure, and at the end of it all a greater understanding of self. Two years. And on a sunny day in May upon the lawn of the “Ivory Tower,” we were already hailed as the champions of tomorrow.

While graduate school came to an end, the learning will undoubtedly continue. I shall return to my classroom before Columbia – rural villages, thick forests, and dusty trails. It will be on the soil, which for so many, is the single most important facet of daily life. Rural Liberia, the settler colony and nation-state once-carved in the image of the United States, will be where I search for answers.

Across the giants of Africa and Asia, vast tracts of land have been ceded by state governments for agro-industry and resource extraction. The justification is growth, progress, and development through direct investment in aspiring economies. Natural resources lie at the center of these projects from bauxite to timber to platinum. For those who reside in the countrysides, land, which has been passed down for generations, is often the most valuable resource: “the source of their sustenance, the site of their livelihoods, and the locus of history, culture, and community.” 

Land plays no small portion in the on-going struggles for sustainability, self-determination, and survival. It is often a complex, tenuous issue at the heart of conflicts. Yet too often, mainstream development discourse myopically focuses on simple economic expansion without paying due attention to the fibers that bind communities. What does development look like beyond the growth of capital and what do rights mean beyond the declarations of any state?

Beginning in the early 19^th century the American Colonization Society, sought to rid America of its’ blackness. Bolstered by the likes of Monroe and Jefferson, the “Back-to-Africa Project” believed that co-existence would never be peaceful, feared mixture, and were steadfast that a black homeland could not be established on the very land where slaves had shed their own blood and tears. There was also the danger a free black population posed to the institution of slavery. Thus a new civilizing mission to West Africa began, accompanied by the inherent hierarchies of identity that mirrored the superiority complex of white supremacists in the takeover of North America.

The result: a cycle of violence between indigenous and settler, where victim and perpetrator alternated roles over the next 400 years. Fast-forwarding to today, Liberia evokes connotations of civil war, profound loss, and amazing resilience. But alongside history and politics is the question of how can a country rebuild while respecting its rural realities? When land is at the heart of a conflict how can it be surrendered without the input of its inhabitants?

I am preparing for the challenge, the perspective, and the humbling that is sure to come. In anticipation I’m staying on my grind to be mentally sharp and physically fit. I try to picture the open expanses: the bright red of the mud, the black of the night, and the green of the trees. The inevitable tears will fall when frustration and loneliness hit hard. But I pack with me the lessons learned from solitude and service in the Himalayas. I draw strength from the wisdom of family, friends, and comrades, remembering to trust the process and having faith in the script that leads me forward.

And so the movement – for community ownership, against corporate domination – continues. In a handful of weeks my journey will take me to the forests of Liberia. The excitement and fear roll together as a creeping anxiety arises deep down from my core. And while it’s true we all must walk our own path; I continue to remind myself that we never walk alone.