Loss, Healing and Struggle
La perte, la guérison et la lutte

Activists occasionally allow themselves to treat stories of suffering or healing as “proto-political”, or to bracket the space and time in which people experience loss as politically empty. Why dwell on endless horror stories, they tell themselves, when what is needed is comprehensive action on a higher, more political level? “Don’t mourn, organize!” goes the well-known movement slogan. In reality, argues this article from the World Rainforest Movement Bulletin, this "emptying out of the space of loss" can undermine political work. Patient understanding of concrete experiences of irreparable loss needs to be be better incorporated into activists' work.