What I am Fighting For

Written by: Edward Louis Johnson, Credit to Sofia Teixeira Oliveira for the Artwork.

The cynics will have you believe that we have already lost our fight for the future. They will point to heightened divisions as unsurmountable, seemingly unbeatable lobbyists standing in the way of change, and above all argue that our humanity never extended beyond our own motives. To these voices, we were never one, only married to the convenience of each other, we were never friends, only tied to a necessity of one another, and we were never neighbours, only bound by design to be together. 

Today, we do indeed face a greater divide. A deterioration of political discourse has fostered more polarisation in every nook and crevice of our world. With tensions on the rise, protesters are shouting ever louder and with ever more anger. Their concern is derived from a desperation to be heard; screaming that we are ailing, if not yet failing, to fulfil our promises bestowed in us by us to have each other heard, seen, and accounted for. 

People are falling through the cracks, but instead of looking for solutions some seem to just keep pounding – causing even more unbridgeable divides to grow. The cynics will have us know that this serves as undeniable proof of our complete failure. They look away, seeing just a lost cause in our common goal of better. They disassociate, believing we do not have what it takes to meet the moment. But make no mistake, we are the moment. 

These paths chosen through history may not have been fruitful, yet still we strive to improve what we were given. We cannot listen when told that we do not matter, that our voice is beyond what matters, because we so evidently do. Whether on the march in protest, small actions of kindness, and humility of knowing better than knowing everything, we are the change that we seek, those we have been waiting for, and in this moment we must rise to the occasion.

We cannot fight fire with fire, then everybody is bound to get burned. Instead we must realise that if we are to win, we will not do so at any cost wherein we lose the very essence of the promises we seek, our sense of belonging with each other must increase. We might stumble in our pursuit, mumble in our disagreements, but we are one people, facing the same challenge. There is no us and them, only us and our shared fight for tomorrow. To see beyond ourselves is to see society for what it is, us, and that it is worth the sacrifice in rising above. That is what I am fighting for, us and our common future. That is what we must fight for, each other.