Tuesday June 16. Camilla Power discusses the control of time.
"The ultimate expression of white supremacy is control of time itself — through the Gregorian calendar of man made months and days which subdued cosmological and ecological time. For sure no indigenous people before being colonised by this form of time ever used this calendar. They used Earth-moon-sun systems aligning activity and social life to the cosmos.
The extraordinary feature of the midsummer sun being overshadowed by the dark moon this Sunday could be taken as a cosmic signal for Decolonising time itself.
It comes against the background of the insurrection that has gone around the world propelled by the horror of George Floyd’s murder. He was murdered on the third day of the moon, at a young visible new moon. One way to reset time and Seize the Time would be to create insurrection in his memory every young new moon.
The young moon symbolises new life new hope vision for the future. It chimes with religions all over the world, it chimes with women’s bodies all over the world. It would challenge white supremacy expressed through patriarchal time absolutely.
For insurrection, the rhythm needs to be breathable — a week is too fast, a year too slow, a moon just right. Each community could make the demands it needs to be addressed within that very moon. Statues can come down within one moon easily— reparations for slavery and colonialism takes more moons — but every lunar uprising people check what needs to be done.
The Grenfell community has commemorated its dead every month using the 14th of the Gregorian calendar. That was their sensible decision because it’s a really hard thing to do to challenge the control of time itself. But that is what we need to do, Decolonising time itself."
