I was about to head out on a Western Canada tour with the Sirens of Song, which I was really looking forward to. I was not happy to be put in the position of having to leave the tour. It was a real lesson in the power of money: Business interests over moral integrity. A week before hitting the road I was informed that a certain organization would be sponsoring the tour. I could not even sleep at night in the quest to gather information on them. What I was finding out made it impossible for me to go. By being on the tour I would have, by default, been associated with this organization. If one is to support any type of organization with ones heart and soul, ones music, their activity needs to be considered top to bottom, inside out. And even though I communicated my position, the choice of the presenter was to keep the money from the problematic evangelical aid organization and ditch one of the four faces of the tour. It was not fair to me or any of the artists to have to make that choice. The public has been told it's for personal reasons that I'm not there. I don't see it as personal. It's certainly a protest. It's about awareness. And it is political.
I urge everyone to think deeply before succumbing to manipulative advertising that tries to offer simplistic solutions to problems that have no easy answer. I urge everyone to look at the fine print and understand the implications of the ideology behind the organization. I urge everyone to support local, grassroots organizations, where people within communities are at the helm of transformation. People in your community need your help to overcome the residue of centuries of injustice and environmental degradation. Do give, do act, but act with knowledge.
We want peace in the world. We want justice. We know that there is enough to go around. Finding the answers requires engagement. It requires research. It requires work. The issues are complex and we need to try to understand them from all perspectives. The dominant perspectives have the money and the persuasive power. We have to listen a little harder, dig a little deeper to hear the other perspectives, the ones that are going to offer the most promising, most egalitarian solutions.