Poetic justice: A world of human rights

We want human rights because…

No human being is illegal, 

No human being is a minority,

No human being is undocumented

Everyone has a story to tell, a history to be made, a dream to fulfill, a life to live to the fullest, to the deepest end of time

Everyone has the right to grow old, live gently, love openly, work passionately

We want a world where our families…

Can live together free from fear and borders

Have human rights that are untouchable

Have poetry, bread, laughter, horizons, dreams that can’t be stopped

Can have children every year, every season, because there are schools, childcare centers, homes with heat, jobs with living wages, nutritious meals, healthcare, choices to be made, options to be created, and nobody goes to war

Are led by single mothers, single fathers, teen mothers, teen fathers, queers, lesbians, gays, transgenders, and everyone praises them because they take care of the present and the future.

We want a world where our communities…

Can live, love, labor, stand still or walk freely without fear of tomorrow

Are part of a living community of communities

Respect the natural world and her seasons

Remember our ancestors everyday, because we are ancestors-to-be

Respect the elders, the newborn and young with equal portions of energy, wisdom and hope

Listen equally to women and men, to elders and youth and make no decisions that will harm the newborn, the infirm, the disabled, the unemployed, the dreamers or the ancestors

We want a world where our leaders…

Have no more say than the poorest and certainly don’t earn more than four times than a farmworker

Don’t have to have a university degree, be a lawyer or speak English

Listen and don’t impose

Consult and don’t confuse the people

Dialogue and dream together with those nobody wants

Live and work with those they purport to lead

Understand that everyone is a leader

Build organizations and movements where everyone is a leader

Set up the chairs and sweep the floors after the meeting

Know that only communities and peoples can have visions 

We want a world where justice means…

That women don’t have to confront tanks with stones to demand bread and peace

Children don’t have to work, but have all the time to study, learn, dream and play

Our elders are not abandoned in the shadows

Borders are mutually agreed upon and interdependent or they don’t exist

We want a world where no borders means…

People have the right to a home, health, education, land, healthy community, place, the natural world, music, poetry, peace, justice, languages, colors, art, love, family, solitude, sunsets, silence and bustle

Military leaders cannot send our sons and daughters to war because we resolve our differences through dialogue and sharing resources.

Hunger is an exhibit in the museum of antiquities

We can talk through the night in each other’s pleasure and love and wake up early to go to work, study, worship, or play because tomorrow will come without worries or fears.

Passports will be stamped: she/he knows his/her human rights and is free to enter.

We want a movement where human rights…

Are the highest form of politics, of strategy, of being

Are the language of everyday meetings and conversations

Are on every agenda, on every tongue

Are not a on a long list along with civil rights, racial justice, environmental justice, social justice, l/g/b/t rights, women’s rights, children’s rights…

Are the passwords of community, brotherhood/sisterhood

Let us dream that this world of injustices cannot last long and that another world is possible only if we organize and fight for a new day

We want a world of human rights…

Because everyone is important in the movement, in the community, in the family, in the relationship of struggle and justice

Because dreaming in color is the only thing possible or desirable when we go to bed alone or together

Because sorrow must end and anguish becomes impossible

Because everyone deserves hope and certainty

Because it IS the world that can’t be stopped

Because everything is possible when everyone has human rights