Critical Times / The Earth Trembles

Abstract

How long does a tremor last? It’s not a moment but a movement, we could say, in the words of Black Lives Matter. On March 8, we felt the earth tremble beneath our feet. During the preceding days, we acted with the certainty that what we did, or what we left undone, was decisive: we organized assemblies, went to small meetings here and there, had conversations, wrote, listened, fought with one another, conspired, and fantasized. We even dreamed at night about what had yet to be done to prepare for the days to come. Comrades in various places throughout the world did similar things at the same time. We were connected by words, signs, and intuitions, and also by gestures that we didn’t even know had been residing in us. We were magnetized by a strange, shared sense of fury and complicity, of power and urgency. But above all we were blown away by the surprise of the event’s vast and effective organization.