I stand with North America
North America, the great continent. The landmass that runs from the Arctic Circle down to latitude 15 degrees, well below the Tropic of Cancer.
A continent with amazing and agonizing history.
A continent patchworked with so many cultures and peoples-- from those here since their ancestors crossed the land bridge we now call 'Bering' and worked their way south to inhabit nations and communities from the Pacific to the Atlantic, from the Arctic sea to the Caribbean, to those who brought the cultures of virtually the whole rest of the world with them in the last six centuries.
And the continent has shaped and altered those cultures, in conflict and cooperation with one another, in centuries of excitement and tragedy and adventure.
From the hundreds of indigenous nations still claiming ancestral rights and territories, to the three large nation-states of Mexico, USA, and Canada, we are a wondrous tapestry of invention, culture, art, commerce, trade and travel, innovation and preservation.
This fabulous continent contains some of the world's most precious and diverse natural resources.
And its ability to support life, and contribute to the greater web of life of the whole planet, is threatened by greed, hatred, and ignorance.
I believe that only working together --all of us North Americans, the First Peoples who have been here longest, and all the citizens of the three nations who want our grandchildren to thrive on this continent-- can we reverse that threat.
And it's clear we can't rely on leaders and governments to bring us together. Even as some try to bring us together, at any given time a significant proportion of those leaders and governments see their interests advanced by keeping us apart, and promoting more greed, hatred, and ignorance.
So we, the peoples of North America-- First Peoples, Mexicans, Americans, and Canadians-- we MUST find ways of connecting, working together, learning about each other. We must exchange ideas and wisdom, hopes and fears. We must overcome our anxieties about those who are different from ourselves in the languages we speak, the foods we eat, the spiritual communities we share, the morphology of our bodies, faces, skin and hair.
We must build bridges. We must find common concerns, common delights, common ground upon which to meet and connect with one another.
And we must do this in spite of, and in defiance of, those who would keep us apart, isolate us for their own purposes, using fear and avarice.
idealistically,
Bright
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