The Singing Resistance shares its manifesto
The Singing Resistance of Eugene and Springfield: What’s up Eugene and Springfield and visitors?
We are The Singing Resistance of Eugene and Springfield. So while we get set up, I’ll tell you a tiny bit about us.
We are building a mass movement as singers to protect and care for our communities in the face of rising authoritarianism.
We are grounded in love, nonviolence, and solidarity, and we are The Singing Resistance because we sing.
We sing because song is an antidote to fear. Song helps us connect to each other, and through song we can name and protect what we hold sacred.
We sing not only for the world we want to create, but to create that world here and now.
We sing publicly in the streets and at sites of authoritarian violence. We sing for the sake of solace, strength, solidarity, to voice our dissent, and to refuse cooperation with oppressive and autocratic forces.
We sing because through song we can refuse to obey what authoritarianism wants us to: to get small, to numb out, to freeze, to forget. Instead, we mobilize our communities in public and we will feel and we will tell the truth of the violence and of the resistance.
We have a mailing list that you can sign up for. We have songbooks and information that some of our lovely singers will be passing out.
So we’re going to start with a song that I wrote that uses some of the words from The Singing Resistance Manifesto. Okay, I’m going to start.
We sing not only for the world that we want to create, but to create it here right now.
(So we want you singing along. Here we go. ‘We sing’)
We sing (not only for the world), not only for the world that we want to create, but to create it here right now.
(Let’s do it again)
We sing not only for the world that we want to create, but to create it here right now. (Do it one more time.)
We sing not only for the world that we want to create, but to create it here right now.
(Now we’re going on to the next part, so listen. Coming together:)
Coming together in defense of life where all are loved and cared for.
(Let’s sing the whole thing, ‘Coming together in defense of life,’ here we go.)
Coming together in defense of life, where all are loved and cared for. (Let’s do it again.)
(One more time) Coming together in defense of life where all are loved and cared for.
(‘We sing not only for the world.’ Here we go.)
We sing not only for the world that we want to create, but to create it here right now.
(Now you can sing, sing with us, here we go.)
We sing not only for the world that we want to create, but to create it here right now. (One more time.) We sing not only for the world that we want to create but to create it here right now. (Everyone, I want to hear you singing.) We sing not only for the world that we want to create, but to create it here right now.
(Thanks everyone. All right!)
Presenter: Field recording by Curtis Blankinship for KEPW-WholeCommunity.News.
