Stand Up!

But standing up alone isn't enough. 

My dear friend, the ballet teacher, would always add sternly: "Head straight, shoulders back, tighten up the rear, and chest out." These well-meaning instructions didn't make standing up any easier, but you certainly looked better and more confident doing it. Assuming that wasn't already your natural state.

Standing up has always mattered. 

After all, Homo Sapiens wants to engage with the world, challenge the body, provide for the family, and pursue hobbies. 
Sure, some things can be managed lying down — but that's not what we're talking about here.

There have always been times and places where standing up presents a real challenge. 
For those dealing with physical limitations or carrying the weight of mental health struggles, simply getting up can feel like an enormous burden.

But there's another version of standing up — one that can be dangerous, even deadly. 
And this version is more relevant today than ever. 
It happens when the global community finds itself facing one or more authoritarian systems. 
When insecure people brutalize themselves into dictators, when fascists once again show themselves openly and act accordingly — standing up becomes an essential act of peaceful resistance.

Remember the bully at school or in the neighbourhood? 
Those types who enforce their power with their fists, who snatch lunch from smaller hands, who puff out their chests demanding submission. 
These systems share one great weakness: they cannot handle resistance. 
Especially when that resistance grows too large to ignore.

When the morning dawns and people protest against the darkness of fascism, the day takes on an excellent structure of hope. Protests against violence, against dictators, against autocracy and injustice are courageous acts of resistance. 

And protest is a remarkable tool for defending seemingly small things — human rights, women's rights, peace, freedom, and justice in general. 

The inventors of democracy — wait, that was the Greeks, wasn't it? — thought a few fundamentally important things through.
Standing up for or against something is no walk in the park. 
A protest march, yes — but the consequences imposed by the other side are often drastic, even deadly. 
Yet over time, the wall of injustice can be torn down. 
No, this is not a theoretical idea. History shows us this, again and again, with remarkable clarity.

As the darker side of human history currently enjoys a troubling renaissance, peaceful resistance must rise to meet it with equal determination. 

Peaceful protest is a universal human right.