Collective Liberation

(Adapted Verbatim) “What took place can only be described as a miracle,” wrote Archbishop Desmond Tutu. In South Africa’s first democratic election, people of every race—Black, white, Indian, and colored; rich and poor, educated and unschooled—stood together in long lines and discovered their shared humanity. Entering the voting booth, Black South Africans laid down the weight of humiliation and emerged with restored dignity and freedom. White South Africans entered, burdened by guilt and privilege, but emerged released, realizing at last that true freedom is indivisible—that none could be free until all were free.

The movement birthed the phrase ubuntu — “I am because we are.” It was a recognition that humanity is always bound together, always collective. Desmond Tutu emphasized it often: that the liberation of the oppressed was also liberation for the oppressor, because no one can be fully human while holding others in chains.

Tutu continued in his book saying, “Yes, our first election turned out to be a deeply transformative event, a mountaintop experience. We had won a spectacular victory policy over injustice, oppression, and evil. There we were–people who as a matter of public policy were deliberately tearing one another apart, declaring that human fellowship, togetherness, friendship, laughter, joy, caring, that these were impossible for us as one nation, and now here we were becoming, from all the different tribes and languages, diverse cultures, and faiths, so utterly improbably, we were becoming one nation. Now who could ever believe that that was possible?”

Liberation is the movement from bondage into freedom—personal, social, and political—toward the fullness of life intended for humanity. Collective liberation is: a vision that knows we are entangled and inseparable. A justice that is more than inclusion, tolerance, or representation. Collective liberation does not add on to the status quo. It is not just “being nice to each other.” It is a paradigm shift.

Holistic liberation is not just for individuals, but also for society; not just for souls, but for bodies as well; and not just for humans, but for the whole of creation.

“I am because we are. Je suis car tu es.” This is not just a slogan. It is a declaration. It disputes the myth that one group’s flourishing must come at the expense of another’s. And it says:

● Liberation is access to quality education and schooling for all children

● Liberation is Palestinians living free without fear of occupation, war, or genocide

● Liberation is people with disabilities navigating a world designed with them at the center, not at the margins

● Liberation is queer people feeling safe in all spaces

● Liberation is access to safe housing, clean water, and the earth itself healed

It is as small as someone having access to clean water, and as vast as whole nations refusing war.

A few years ago, millions of farmers in India rose up in one of the largest protest movements in modern history. New agricultural laws threatened their livelihoods, giving more power to corporations while leaving small farmers vulnerable. For over a year, farmers camped on highways outside Delhi. They fed one another, built community kitchens, offered medical clinics, and even opened schools for children who lived in the protest camps. Muslim farmers broke Ramadan fasts alongside Sikh and Hindu neighbors. Women, often silenced in political spaces, became central leaders. Eventually, the government repealed the laws.

Collective liberation is material, political, and deeply human. It was not only about farm laws. It was about dignity. It was about saying: we will not be free until all of us are free. What happens in Delhi connects to what happens in Paris, Detroit, or Dublin. The world saw a glimpse of what solidarity looks like: people caring for one another across religion, gender, and caste; people insisting that no one’s flourishing could be secured while others were exploited.

But let’s be honest: this work is hard. It costs something. It requires repair. It requires that those of us who hold privilege—be it whiteness, wealth, gender, citizenship, ability—let go of the illusion of innocence and move into solidarity. It is not suffering for suffering’s sake, but it does demand truth-telling. It does demand redistribution. It does demand risk.

But, it is not all grief. Collective liberation sings. It dances. It delights in good food, in laughter, in hugs, in music, in the small everyday freedoms that remind us that joy is also resistance. This is long-haul work that will take generations to work toward. And so we need nourishment. We need to stay connected to the source of why it is that we do the work of liberation. We need to practice savoring the glimpses of justice peeking through the heaviness of the world—when someone gets the medical care they need, when a wall comes down, when a new law is passed that protects rather than punishes. Those are sacraments of liberation. They are tastes of a new way of being together, and we are invited to be a part of it.

Beloved, this vision will not be handed down from the thrones of power. It will be born from the ground up. From the edges. From us. And each of us has a role—particular, specific, relational. But all are called. All are needed. All are bound up in this future.

Ubuntu — “I am because we are.” A recognition that humanity is always bound together. So let us labor together. Let us repair where we must repair. Let us rejoice where glimpses already shine. Let us hold fast to the truth: there is no pride, no freedom, no dignity for some of us without liberation for all of us.

Come along for the ride.