Out of Silence and Into Silence

Often in the arena of justice and politics we interpret silence as oppression and marginalization. Undoubtedly, silence is often exactly that, a cue to the overt or implicit domination of a person or group of people in such a way that they do not even have the potential to contribute in a meaningful way to the society that they live in. I wonder, though, can silence ever represent something productive? I do not mean that the oppression or marginalization of a person or people could ever be productive, but rather, I wonder whether there could be other species of silence. Sometimes I think that for many people, including myself, spoken words act like a mirror, they remind me that I am alive and recognized by something other than my conscious self. Thus, in the anxiety of existence, we find ourselves chattering, so desperate to hold on to ourselves in this world. Perhaps what is necessary, though, is to be alert to the silence of the oppressed, who are all around us, and learn to make their silence our own. Thus by choosing to still our anxious tongues, we create a space for another to speak. What I imagine here is not the impersonal, faceless interactions of us and the masses, but rather the real encounters we have with other people throughout our day. This silence that we adopt is not the silence of oppression, merely the reversal of roles, but rather the silence that expresses itself as community. It is a silence that is bound up with words, each giving the other meaning, allowing a dialog to take shape.