Inspire Change : A March for Peace, Justice, Love, and Freedom on the United Nations International Day of Peace.

by Alyssa Monet Chambers
September 21, 2024

Inspire Change: Speech On Puerto Rican Independence


The speech given during the Inspire Change March was as follows:
Assalamu alaikum and good afternoon, 
I begin in the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful as I stand with you all today in the name of peace.
What is peace?
Peace as defined by the Oxford dictionary is the absence of disturbance or times of war—and today so many people speak in this language of ‘protecting their peace.’ Oh I don’t really follow politics, I’m trying to protect my peace. But peace cannot be found in ignorance. You may find your happiness and bliss in the ignorance, but you cannot find peace. Ignoring a thing does not make it absent. We hear these questions ‘If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one there to hear it does it make a sound?’ Of course it does! It’s real whether you decide to observe it or not. In the same way, we cannot find peace until disturbance is absent. And disturbance won’t be absent until people are free from oppression and injustice. In the great words of Malcolm X in his speech here in our city in January 1965 “You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace until he has his freedom.”
The United States of America as a concept claims a monopoly over freedom. We project this ‘land of the free’ bravado while living on land stolen held captive. From Turtle Island to the Kingdom of Hawai’i to my beautiful Island of Boriken, which you know as Puerto Rico and more, the United States’ real monopoly is over peace. They control who gets to live free from disturbance in their daily lives and who gets bombs and calamity. The same bombs tested in our waters, hurting our people are then sent to Palestine to decimate theirs. My land of Boriken is the oldest colony in the world having been occupied for over 500 years first by the Spanish and for the last 125 years by the imperial American entity where they’ve committed genocide against the indigenous Taino people of Hispanola, now the Carribbean Islands, established their militaries, dropped and tested their bombs, and continue to hold the people and the land captive. I ask, where is their freedom? Where is their peace? 
Seven years ago almost to the date, Hurricane Maria decimated our island creating a humanitarian disaster leaving millions without electricity, not being fully restored for 328 days. A disaster for which the aid we received were paper towels thrown off a truck down for the masses to fight over like dogs—privatization of our power grid in a move which has only left the island subject to even more frequent outages—and our people living in the most widespread poverty at more than triple the rate of those living in the continental US. 43 percent of our people live in poverty, are actively being removed from their lands, their waters, and their families as conditions on the island become increasingly unsustainable for us and increasingly desirable for the rich who come to exploit our lands and our people. It’s past time we said enough is enough. Its past time for the United States to give our people the independence we have been fighting for for over 500 years. Its past time for us to imagine what change will look like.
We talk so much about the issues plaguing societies and not enough about what the new one will look like and how we will get there. What needs to be represented there? This practice of visualizing all the possibilities is the reason why creativity must exist in our lives. We work our 9-5s and it’s on purpose that we have no time to live, to have hobbies, to create. It’s on purpose that it’s so easy for us to live only in the confines of the boundaries set for us physically and mentally. It’s on purpose that from young we are disciplined for not reaching the desired ends because our means to get there were untraditional. We’ve been trained to discard and dispose of our creativity. It is no coincidence that funds for music and the arts are consistently dwindling while funds for mindless and often propaganda filled entertainment and militarized policing continue to rise.
To have peace, we first must muster up the courage to get outside and do something about the disturbances that plague our societies. We must take action in every way possible by any means necessary. Whether that looks like opening the door for someone or giving a swipe at the turnstyle, shopping at marginalized businesses, boycotting and ending mindless consumption or whether it looks like getting out in the streets, demanding justice, demanding freedom, and demanding peace. Social media outrage is not enough. We must take action en masse. And then… we must envision the structures and ideals we want for our new future. We must participate in activities that require us to use our creative minds and then turn around and imagine what the ideal could look like. Read the books, consume the art, participate in the acts of creation. That is how we inspire change. That is how we create lasting peace and not. just. the illusion of it.
The legacy of Puerto Rican freedom fighters in New York can be seen in the actions of the Young Lords who demanded the change they wished to see. Their strategic and creative tactics demanding the needs of their community are recognized in their hijacking of medical vans to treat their neighbors to the occupation of Lincoln Hospital which is the reason why we have the patients bill of rights today (though if i must say the Young Lords did it better). We stand in one of the greatest cities with a legacy of creativity, imagination, perseverance, and determination. Let us continue this legacy today and everyday until we reach peace. 
Thank you for your time and assalamu-alaikum.