For Gaza

No matter how deep we bury ourselves, the bombs still find us. The very earth shakes with an intensity we have never felt before. Our innocence cannot protect us. Our hopes cannot shield us. Our love cannot keep us alive. Our beliefs will not keep us safe.

We thought if we could just hide down here, deep in the earth, we would be safe. But we find that safety is an illusion we carry in our hearts, a feint memory of a time when the bombs did not fall. Families are torn apart. Children are torn apart. Bodies are torn apart till we cannot recognise where the parts came from.

And above all, the sounds. First a whistling, closer, then a thump and a shudder and suddenly, silence, the noise so loud our ears cannot hear anymore. Crying is useless. Anger is useless. In our pain we are dumb and deaf and speechless, so we scream.

And still the bombs fall. Perhaps they are sent in hate and in anger. Or perhaps they are sent by someone who no longer cares about anything, someone who, if asked, might say, I'm just doing my job.

A beacon to all

In these uncertain times, when climate change is rushing toward us at the speed of a hurricane, when politics makes a shift to the right and all around are fundamentalists and crazy politicians with as much insight as your average fly, when resources are running out, when democracy reveals itself as the tool of the rich and voting the ritual abdication of our right to decision making, when hope itself appears foolish and not even innocent, anarchy stands as a beacon to all - the only credible hope for humanity.

Rooted in the dreams and desires of us all, whether we admit it or not, anarchy is the voice of reason, an appeal to our better natures, carrying the possibility of a decentralised and sustainable future built on love and respect.

The Spanish knew something of this in 1936 and the Zapatistas know it today.

Millions have known the same throughout history and millions still do.