27 November 2024 – Forwarded from the Merrimack 4 Support Team
FREE THEM ALL! A message from Paige Belanger of the Merrimack 4.
The following is a message delivered to us through networks connected to the Merrimack 4 who are currently serving their jail sentence for taking direct action against Elbit, a manufacturer of genocide, in Merrimack, New Hampshire.
This message comes from inside the states dungeons, from one of the brave women apart of a long revolutionary tradition of fighting against empire, Paige Belanger.
‘Thank you everybody for so many words of support and solidarity. It’s so incredible to feel so much love surrounding us — it’s so palpable even within these concrete walls. What feels even better is knowing that the struggle continues, that you all are still escalating against the forces of fascism and imperialism, that pressure is still mounting against humanity’s oppressors.
We’ve received so many letters of encouragement, with kind words, news from outside, poems, memes… I’m so appreciative of all this support. At the same time, the tone of these notes usually is one of deep sympathy, emphasizing our sacrifice and suffering. The truth is, especially in comparison to the suffering the oppressors inflict on countless people here at home and all over the world, the suffering we are complicit in through our own inaction, 60 days in jail is no sacrifice at all. To have not stood up in the face of such evil would have been an indefinitely worse punishment.
To fight the enemy the world faces today, we will all have to keep sacrificing so much more.
Jail is essentially a dehumanizing experience. From being locked in a cage for days on end, to having to fight for basic necessities like underwear, socks, pillows, to having restricted and heavily monitored contact with family and friends, to being physically handled patted down, cuffed, and chained, it is all designed to always remind you that you are an inmate, a criminal, instead of a person. Yet no matter how the state tries to dehumanize us in its dungeon, I know that by fighting alongside the people, I have won back my humanity with such power and vigor that no one will ever be able to take it away, through any means.
In ten, twenty, fifty years’ time, I know how I will answer the question, “What did you do during the genocide?” And for that alone, I have made no sacrifice at all. I also know that I will have a similar answer when asked about any further injustice, although I hope to avoid further jail sentences that would silence me and remove me from struggling alongside humankind. You all will have to answer this question too, and that is a thing of true beauty. We have all remembered who we are, what it is to be human, what it takes to create the world we want to live in, a world for all its people. For humanity’s sake, we must all keep escalating, and, inevitably, we will win’.