Why does Earth Day need to be "taken back?" Where did it go? When the holiday emerged in 1970, it was to generate enough momentum and people power to change policies in the U.S. government, policies that were much needed in the era before clean air and water legislation. And the first Earth Day resulted in exactly that - mass change. System change. Earth Day entered the world with panache, with passion, with people power. It caused strong new environmental legislation that made lasting change. Earth Day was born out of the collective dreams of people who knew they could make the changes they wanted to see in their communities.
Students in the US mobilizing this rhetoric are the ones demanding clean energy solutions, that their universities divest from the fossil fuel industry, that the system starts to change. These students know they are powerful and they are ready to unleash their fury at any given moment. They know that their individual choices and lifestyles are meaningful, but that mass change is both possible and necessary. These students are seizing Earth Day as their own. By taking the reins of their own movement, they are giving voice to their own dreams, dreams that are organically grown from the ground that they occupy as inhabitants of the earth.
Here in Chile, it's happening too. And it is quite a storm. On Earth Day proper, April 22nd, 2013, hundreds of thousands will hit the streets for "La Marcha Para La Recuperación y Defensa Del Agua" (the March for the Recuperation and Defense of Water). From north to south, real people from real communities will migrate and gather in the nation's capital to speak out against the unjust and inhumane privatization of water resources. Due to government legislation, water has become a private commodity, depriving communities of the water they need to grow food and sustain themselves, leaving them at the hands of large companies who prefer to sell the water that they own to natural resource exploiting companies. Water as a human right barely exists anymore. Natural resource exploitation is a sad reality in Chile, a country so rich in forests, rivers, glaciers, mountains, and desert. In my encounters with Chileans in the regions I have explored (Santiago, Patagonia, Pichilemu, Valle del Elqui, La Campana), people are proud of their land and their communities. They love their country. But somewhere along the lines, power shifted and control was lost. Land and resource rights diminished, and large-scale, corporate natural resource exploitation became a national priority. A priority over the people.
But Chileans know they are strong and powerful in numbers. They are passionate because this issue affects them, their families, their neighbors, and their children- personally. Earth Day belongs to them because they are of the earth. They are sustained by the earth. They know their piece of earth better than anyone else. Their communities are deeply rooted in place. And water is as essential to place, and as essential to life, as breath.
Earth Day in Chile, and around the world, does not belong to corporations. It doesn't belong to government. Earth Day belongs to us, the ones who live off the earth, the ones who know and love the earth, the ones who are the earth. Earth Day belongs to us, the ones with spirits to dream of a better future, the ones who band together and raise ruckus. The ones who take to the streets.
Mañana, el poder del pueblo subirá en las calles de Santiago. El movimiento subirá. El agua pertenece a la tierra y la gente que vive de la tierra. El Día de La Tierra es suyo, es nuestro.
This post should be read by Chileans! Or tomorrow during the march, you should be on a loudspeaker reading this with INTENSITY! In Spanish of course! CHI CHI CHI LE LE LE!!
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