Editor’s note: Below is a statement posted to Facebook from Joshua Rubin, founder of Witness at the Border, the organizing group for the Journey for Justice. Or el Peregrinaje por la Justicia. Beginning on December 2, people from all over the country will caravan from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific, to as Joshua Rubin writes, “see the truth behind the border wall of lies, to look into the eyes of our sisters and brothers on the other side. What people witness on the journey will be publicized.” The Tribuno del Pueblo and People’s Tribune, sister publications, are proud to be partnering and participating with the Journey for Justice.
In only a matter of hours now, we will begin to arrive in Brownsville, Texas, making our way from every part of the country, to begin the Journey for Justice, from the Gulf of Mexico to the great Pacific. For some of us, it will be a reunion. For all of us, it will be a time to give our bodies over to our hearts and eyes. We have long been constrained by a world slowed by the pandemic, watching great waves of reaction and fear fortify the conviction that any recognition of the right of humans to pick up and move in this shared world is somehow a threat.
Those of us who have seen the faces of the people that come to our southern border know that the fear that drives this belief is unfounded. We know because our hearts believe our eyes, not the voices of reaction and, frankly, cynical misdirection that cry to us about wolves at our door. There are wolves, all right, but they are the ones driving people from their homes to seek asylum, and they are the ones behind us that smugly wink to one another as they howl of chaos at the border.
It is the border itself that breeds chaos. It relabels pilgrims as invaders. It builds a wall so high that even those within sight of that armed zone, with walls growing ever higher, can’t glimpse the faces that would tell our hearts the truth. The Journey for Justice is a chance to rise up and see the truth behind the border wall of lies, to look into the eyes of our sisters and brothers on the other side. To see what we are doing to ourselves by following this false path.
Help us. For those who can, join us. For those who hear what we witness, bear witness.
Go to https://witnessattheborder.org/ for more information. The itinerary is on the website.
Joshua Rubin is founder of Witness at the Border.
