I was surprised by the ICJ ruling. It was more acknowledgment than I anticipated. And also, I know these courts will not take to the full extent what only the People can make happen.
This is a huge blow to “Israel,” and the ICJ acknowledging genocide is absolutely historic. South Africa leveraging the ICJ opened an unprecedented path. And also we must keep the rest of that path in mind.
So many people shared with me they were “disappointed.” Rather than disappointment, I encourage you to reframe that as your inner reminder that there is more to that path.
Remember we are fighting for an end to the occupation, and LandBack for a free Palestine.
I challenge us to change our mindset about this current judicial and legal system. Instead of continuing to expect justice within an unjust system, let’s apply what we know and learn to build a just one. There will only ever be partial paths in the current judicial and legal systems because they are not built for actual justice. Many have become systems of punishment.
And that goes all the way back to the enslavement and genocide of Black and Indigenous people. And all the way back to the punishment of disabled people, poor people, gender non-binary folks, and anyone outside of cis white het imperialist dominance.
Punitive systems are 100% extractive. They only take. They take from those who do the harm, but they also take from those who have been harmed. Because in these current systems, the end goal is not justice. There is only the replacement of harm with punishment. These systems are only built to destroy. They are not built to nourish or heal. Everyone loses in the current judicial and legal framework.
So we must reach back to abolition to reach forward to liberation. And I say back, because abolition is not something we need to invent anew. It is already an idea that especially Black women have been teaching about for centuries. It is a practice that Indigenous communities have had deeply embedded in healing justice circles for thousands of years.
Abolition, as our elders and ancestors taught and fought, is not about prisons or punishment. It is about understanding oppression itself. It is about acknowledging the vast amount of work we need to do to remain in community with one another with ourselves.
It is about how we choose to heal. And how we can create communities that are more focused on growth and liberation, rather than revenge and transaction.
No matter what this system does, we keep doing our work of liberation. May we transform that binary system of win or lose into the and also realization that we the People can build something better. We do not have to be dependent on the institutionalization and colonization of punishment. Instead, we can be on the crystal clear path of what it means for everyone to be free.
Abolition now more than ever.
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