The usual format is to begin each blog with a quote. In fishing around for one, I could not come up with any better than the standard one exasperated mothers ask their children, especially teenagers, on a regular basis. No, only two little letters, packs a wallop. Used negatively, it can and does curtail dreams and growth. Unfortunately, that is what is most associated with this word - the thwarting of a desire. It is something that we chafe against. Yet it is a very powerful word. Young children learn it early and use it to assert their independence, separateness from others. No, mine, me all define the self. Here I am. No.
No is empowering when used to set our boundaries. A study out of the Mayo Clinic+ says that no can be a great stress buster. Not only is it not selfish but actually healthy for you to say no to requests that do not serve your best interests. It is not fair to others to always say yes when you are not really committed to what you have just agreed to. It also prevents the best person for the job from stepping into the gap that you are halfheartedly filling. Before saying yes, reflect on what your priorities are, how much effort is this going to require from you or how much you are being motivated by guilt. And then when you mean no, just say it - no thanks - briefly, unapologetically, respectfully, honestly, assertively leaving no doubt in either your mind or the other person's and then move on and be ready to stand on your no. What part of no, do you not understand?
Some nos are just that, a simple no. Some nos are NOS and demand unwavering action. Such is the case with what is happening with the Shuar people in the Morona-Santiago province of Ecuador as they prepare to wage a battle to the death for their ancestral homeland. That is a formidable no. In case, you do not recognize the name Shuar, they are the "head shrinking" Amazon tribe. In addition to their storied reputation, they are the only unconquered tribe in the Americas, never having surrendered or signed a peace treaty. Not that they haven't had the opportunity. The list of would be conquerors includes the Incas, Spaniards as well as the governments of Peru, Ecuador and the United States. With their tradition of severing the heads of their slain opponents, removing the skull and shrinking the head by boiling it to create what they call Tzantza, they are fierce warriors, something on which they pride themselves.
Interestingly, they fight to protect peace. To them, war is necessary to ensure that the jungle is a peaceful place for all of it inhabitants - the plants, the animals, the rivers, even the insects. Peace that is not inclusive of all is not true peace. Their latest battle concerns the rich resources on their land to which Ecuador has sold the mining rights to foreign powers. The Shuar people have been on this land since before the time of Christ and see the protection of it as their sacred duty. They are very clear as to what their 'no' is about: the land was not the government's to sell, they will not give up their traditions to work in the mines, they will not let this land be polluted from the results of the mining. For any of this to happen is death anyway; not just for themselves, but for the land that they are charged with protecting as well. And so they will fight to the death to save this forest that has provided for them so well over the centuries using the ancient method of their ancestors - the spear. Not just the men but the women and the children will fight as well for their land and the right to live as they wish.
What is fascinating about this is not just the intensity of their no but how centered it is and how reflective of their culture. Gender roles are very strongly defined and are balanced between the men and the women. The men's role is to cut down trees for boats and houses, hunt animals and kill other men when necessary. Sons leave their homes of origin when they marry and go to the house of their father-in-law and come under his leadership. Women tend the gardens, prepare the food, raise the children. Daughters when they marry stay in their birth home with their families so that the work can be spread among many female hands. While this may sound traditional, here is the key: women have the authority to tell the men to stop - enough trees have been cut, enough animals have been hunted, enough people have been killed - to prevent them from destroying nature. And so these "savages" live in harmony with their land in a sustainable manner, taking only what they need and defending it with warfare only to preserve that harmony.
I pause to let that sink in - the fierceness of their nature to defend and destroy is balanced by the word no that is respected and listened to. Obviously, they do understand all parts of no. How different would the "civilized" world be if we listened to a well reasoned no, enough, stop. I have often wondered how much is enough - is your first billion enough? How about your second? Has enough concrete been laid down for subdivisions? Isn't unregulated growth cancer? What is our definite no, enough is enough? We are unsustainable, out of control and yet we are hell bent on more.
It is time for the older women to step forward and say very firmly - NO! STOP! ENOUGH! - to take a page out of Code Pink co-founder, Medea Benjamin's book. This anti-war group has taken to crashing Congressional hearings to gain attention for their causes. As Benjamin quips, "You can get away with a lot as an older woman."*
And so as someone who has already committed the unpardonable sin of getting older, who lacks the good sense to color my gray hair and to have work done to fix this atrocity, I say NO, ENOUGH to the following:
- War and more dead people and devastated lands. No mother should have to endure what Cindy Sheehan has in believing that her son who was killed in the Iraqi war died for nothing. Her politics aside, what horrified me most about Sarah Palin was her glib off hand remark at the Republican convention where she handed over her bright new penny of son to the horrors of war. If the restraining hands of mothers who have borne the children and nurtured them no longer holds then we are all lost.
- Fracking, the horrible rape and pillaging of our lands and waterways for the hopes of a false economic boom when more sustainable, less damaging to the environment alternative forms of energy are available.
- What Economist John Perkins calls "predatory capitalism" as espoused by Milton Friedman in the notion that the only responsibility of business is to maximize profits without regard for the consequences to either human life or the environment.
- Sexual abuse and the marginalization of any person due to race, gender or creed.
NO MORE! ENOUGH! CEASE AND DESIST!
*Time Magazine, September 13, 2013, Photo-Bombing for Peace, Alex Altman
+ Mayo Clinic http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/stress-relief/SR00039
** http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/22/20638292-pope-attacks-global-economy-for-worshipping-god-of-money?lite
And just for fun to show that we older women still have it, here are some gray hairs that have no intention of going gently into that dark night of old-age fashion: https://www.upworthy.com/what-happens-when-an-old-woman-says-no-to-how-fashion-orders-her-to-be?c=upw1
No comments:
Post a Comment