Bernárd J Lynch

THE DANCE

During the darkest days of the AIDS pandemic, we buried our friends in the morning, we marched in protest at the injustice in the afternoon . . . And if we were free and had the energy we danced in the night . . . (We were so very young) . . . It was the Dance we were fighting for . . . It didn’t look like we were ‘going to win’ then, and ‘we did’ . . . It doesn’t feel like we are ‘going to win’ now but we could  . . . Keep fighting . . . Keep on Dancing . . . Never give up Hope . . . Dance against the darkness . . .

Nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.

It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have. Without facts there is no Truth. Without Truth there is no Trust. Without Trust there is no Freedom. Without Freedom democracy dies. The goal now as I see it is to make us feel powerless in the face of war and injustice all around us.

There may not be as much humanity in the world as one would like to see. But there is some. There's more than one would think . . . If you break faith with what you know, that's a betrayal of many, many, many, many people. I may know six people, but that's enough. Love and justice have never been a popular movement . . . The world is held together, really it is held together, by the love and the passion of very few people . . . Join the Dance.