The awakening: peoples who do not surrender and resist

How to confront colonialism through life, words, the body, and death

Colonialism, old and new, has always had one mission: to convince the colonized that they have no strength to rise up.

But there is something empires never understand: Peoples only appear to be asleep. They are never defeated.

There always comes a moment when hearts awaken, even if history has tried to bury them.

That awakening is not a sudden event. It is a silent process that accumulates over centuries of pain, humiliation, memory, anger, and love.

And from that awakening, resistance is born.

Resistance is not just struggle: it is identity, dignity, community, and above all, the certainty that a people is worth more than the power that oppresses them.

How do people awaken?

People awaken when they realize that their history has been stolen, their land exploited, their bodies violated, and their future mortgaged.

They awaken when they understand that colonialism did not end, but rather changed its skin.

They awaken through memory

No one forgets forever. Every grandparent who recounts an injustice, every mother who speaks of her lost child, every community that remembers its past… is a spark of awakening.

They awaken for dignity

Dignity is the part of the soul that does not accept chains, even when the body is tired.

They wake up in pain

Wounds do not heal if they are not named. Naming the colonial damage is the first act of freedom.

They awaken for love

To the land, to the ancestors, to the culture, to the children.

Love is a revolutionary engine more powerful than hate.

How do you resist colonialism?

Resistance is not just guerrilla warfare or protest. It is much broader, more human, more everyday.

It resists by taking care of the land

Indigenous peoples defending their forests are confronting the world's most powerful multinationals with something that world does not understand: spirit and territory.

He resists by teaching the truth

Every teacher who questions the Eurocentric curriculum is an educational warrior.

He resists by writing

From Fanon to Angela Davis, from Eduardo Galeano to Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, the word was a weapon against the empire.

Resists organizing communities

Peasant cooperatives, solidarity economies, Afrocentric movements… are everyday trenches.

It resists by existing

For a colonized people, to exist with their language, their skin, their faith, their dance, their rhythm, their laughter is a victory.

Those who have denounced colonialism: the voices that power tried to silence

The history of resistance is also the history of those who spoke out and paid with their lives.

Here are some of the bravest voices from the Global South—and how they were silenced:

Thomas Sankara (Burkina Faso)

He denounced the debt, the looting, and French imperialism.

He was assassinated in 1987 in a coup supported from abroad.

His dream was simple: “a dignified country”.

Patrice Lumumba (Congo)

He liberated the Congo from Belgium and denounced mining neocolonialism.

He was kidnapped, tortured and murdered in 1961 with the support of the CIA and Belgium.

His body was dissolved in acid to erase the evidence.

Berta Cáceres (Honduras)

He defended sacred rivers against transnational hydroelectric companies.

Murdered in 2016; evidence points to links with corporate and political interests.

Marielle Franco (Brazil)

Afro-Brazilian councilwoman, feminist and defender of rights in the favelas.

Murdered in 2018; the crime remains surrounded by political and paramilitary power structures.

Ken Saro-Wiwa (Nigeria)

He denounced Shell for the destruction of Ogoni territory.

Executed in 1995 by the Nigerian dictatorship supported by oil interests.

Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira (Brazil)

Murdered in 2022 for denouncing the environmental mafia in the Amazon.

Samir Flores (Mexico)

Nahuatl defender murdered for opposing energy megaprojects.

Chico Mendes (Brazil)

Martyr of the Amazonian struggle, murdered in 1988 for defending the forests.

These names are just a line in a vast universe of struggles. There are thousands more, unknown, anonymous, invisible, dead without headlines, buried without justice.

They all have something in common: They died defending life against death organized by capital and neocolonialism.

Activists killed in the Global South: the statistic of horror

According to Global Witness, more than 1,700 environmental activists have been killed in the last decade, mostly in:

• Latin America (mainly Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, Honduras),

• Africa (Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa),

• Asia (Philippines, India).

  
  

These murders are not accidents.

They are decisions.

They are warnings.

They are tools of capital to maintain the plunder.

The causes behind the murders include:

• Mining,

• Oil,

• Agribusiness,

• Hydroelectric plants,

• Illegal logging,

• Drug trafficking,

• Territorial disputes,

• Tourism and energy projects.

  
  

Each murdered activist is a territory left without a voice.

Every territory that is left without a voice is a foreign company that advances.

What keeps the resistance alive?

Despite the pain, death, and silence, there is something that empires could never kill:

The memory

Colonialism kills bodies, but not memories. And a people with memory is a dangerous people.

Spirituality

The connection to the earth keeps the spirit standing even in the face of terror.

Women

Women of the Global South are the backbone of every resistance movement. They are the ones who sustain, organize, awaken, nurture, and protect.

Youth

They are the new warriors of truth, children of history, grandchildren of dignity that returns.

The need to live with dignity

Nobody wants to die under duress. Freedom is not a utopia: it is an instinct.

Conclusion:

“Empires kill, but peoples are reborn. Because resistance is not learned: it is inherited.”

Colonialism has weapons, money, laws, companies, treaties, and propaganda.

But the people have something that no power has been able to destroy:

His spirit, his memory, his hunger for justice.

As long as there is a woman protecting a river,

A young man who shouts the truth,

A farmer who sows his seeds,

A teacher who teaches hidden history,

A community that does not abandon its land,

Colonialism will never sleep soundly.

The resistance of the Global South is not a chapter of the past:

It is the heart of the present.

It is the pulse that beats beneath every injustice.

It is the eternal reminder that human dignity does not surrender.

---

Glossary:

Eurocentric — An adjective describing a worldview that positions Europe and its culture as the only valid model of progress and civilization, marginalizing the history and knowledge of other peoples. Example: The text criticizes the “Eurocentric curriculum” taught in schools as absolute truth.

Favela — An informal urban settlement in Brazil, characterized by high population density and a lack of basic services, which has historically been a focus of cultural and political resistance. Context: The place where Marielle Franco developed her activism in defense of human rights.

Global Witness — An international non-governmental organization (NGO) that investigates and exposes the links between natural resource exploitation, armed conflict, poverty, and corruption. Use in text: Primary source of statistics on the killings of land defenders.

Nahuatl — The most numerous indigenous people in Mexico and their language (descendant of the Aztecs), whose communities maintain a strong resistance against energy megaprojects in their territories.

Ogoni — An indigenous people of the Niger Delta (Nigeria) who have suffered massive environmental devastation due to oil extraction by multinational corporations such as Shell. Context: The cause for which writer Ken Saro-Wiwa fought and was executed.

Global South — A geopolitical term that groups together developing countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia, defined not only by their location, but by sharing a history of colonialism and economic inequality compared to the "Global North".