The Real Beginning of Freedom
1. Hope and easy engagement. People are not motivated by hopelessness - so every justice campaign that has any long-term possibilities of actual change needs to be motivated by hope and everyone gets to start somewhere. Easy engagement (the idea that anyone can be part of a movement to end injustice) is a key ingredient to allow people to hear and then join in the great and beautiful call to live another way!
2. Reality and Slogan Busting. Now, the hard-core justice folks know better than to believe a fancy website with some cool slogans. If we are honest the reality of trying to get girls/women out of the sex trade, healed and helped and living whole lives is a heck of a long road and difficult journey. This is not going to happen with a bumper sticker and a hopeful ideal.
So hope and easy engagement can easily collide with reality and slogan busting and make justice even harder than it is already - but I think we can hold these things in tension in a way that keeps the long road to freedom in touch with the hopeful folks who are just beginning the journey - perhaps offering injections of much needed hopeful, less cynical and more idealistic notions of freedom and possibilities and those who are just beginning get the long-term view, wisdom and experience of the tired but committed crew of justice fighters.
In other words - this could be really good news for everybody. :-)
Let's do more things together for the long haul towards freedom.
If you haven't' been involved in the Freedom Relay - you should start training for next year - we are only picking up momentum at the very beginning of a long journey - and it's going to be worth it!!
Check out Stop The Traffik while you are at it to join another campaign that is happening right now - changing the world through hopeful ideas and radical living.
Join the revolution.