Singing In Dark Times: Remembering Ann Manning
By Carolyn Raffensperger
In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will be singing.
About the dark times.
– Bertolt Brecht, The Svenborg Poems
We are in dark times. I bring you news of singing.
On March 3, 2022, our associate director, Ann Callie Manning, died from an aggressive cancer. I met Ann at the first Women’s Congress for Future Generations in 2012. The ideas about the rights of future generations we were advancing at the Congress struck a deep bell-like chord in Ann, and she took up the cause and convened the next two Congresses in Minnesota. She was a “lifelong leader of causes that sought to dismantle systemic injustices, she was a loved mentor to many in the Twin Cities and beyond.”
This is what she said about herself: “Passionate about the future sustainability of the planet, and the interconnectedness of environmental and economic principles that will preserve and enhance the planet for future generations. Committed to economic justice, eradicating US poverty in our lifetimes, with a focus on policy development and implementing workable solutions.” Those of us who worked with Ann can testify that she was true to her ideals.
Two weeks before Ann died, I had the great gift of spending five days with her as her caretaker. One afternoon we listened attentively to a playlist of music that we both loved. Many of the songs were by Sara Thomsen, a marvelous musician who had led the musical response at the last Women’s Congress with her song O Grandmother.
Oh, grandmother, are you listening?
Oh, grandmother, are you listening?
Oh, grandmother, I’m calling you
Oh, grandmother, I’m calling you
Oh, the night is so long, the night is so dark!
Will you sing me a song? Will you kindle a spark?
How did you find your way
through the dark of the night
To the light of the new day?
How did you find your way
through the dark of the night
To the light of the day?
Of all the things Ann taught us, what stands out most for me is her message that if we stand together for justice, we are more likely to vanquish injustice. We are in this together.
Ann died during extraordinary world turmoil: a pandemic, climate change, and a new war. So much is interconnected. And so much is interconnected through the egregious extraction, processing, and use of fossil fuels.
Soon after the Russians invaded Ukraine, Carmi Orenstein said that she saw her work with SEHN as anti-war work. In that spirit, SEHN joined hundreds of other organizations to “call on world governments to reject and ban the importation of Russian oil and gas, and to rapidly phase out all fossil fuels in the name of peace.”
The letter contains this powerful call:
The regime of Vladimir Putin is the clear and sole aggressor in this illegal war, and bears full responsibility for the atrocities committed by its war machine.
It is equally clear that this war machine has been funded, fed, and fuelled by the coal, oil and gas industries that are driving both the invasion that threatens Ukraine and the climate crisis that threatens humanity’s future.
And the world’s fossil fuel addiction, in turn, is funding Putin’s warmongering — putting not only Ukraine but Europe itself at risk.
Putin has deliberately weaponized fossil gas to increase his existing energy dominance over the European Union and to threaten European nations that would come to Ukraine’s aid. This needs to stop!
The world’s fossil fuel addiction is also a weapon against life on Earth. A warning about one manifestation of this addiction, the recent scientists’ letter calling for a Plastics Treaty, said this:
Irreversible, compounding and planetary-scale exposure of our environment, ecosystems and organisms, including humans, to plastics and associated toxic monomers, oligomers, additives, catalysts, polymerisation aids and non-intentionally added substances is occurring. While knowledge gaps remain, there is clear and unequivocal evidence that the pollution caused by plastics throughout their lifecycles is negatively impacting all levels of biological organisation, from the genetic and epigenetic, cellular and subcellular, through to organismal, population and ecosystem levels, contributing to biodiversity loss and adding to climate change. There is also evidence that the safe operating space for the ‘chemical pollution and novel entities’ planetary boundary (including plastic pollution) is already exceeded.
SEHN board member Rebecca Altman co-authored with Tridibesh Dey an Atlantic article on the global plastics treaty. They said, “[e]arly this month, however, following 10 days of late-night negotiations in Nairobi, Kenya, the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) passed a resolution mandating the creation of a multilateral treaty to address plastic pollution.”
They end their essay with these words:
Less than three years from now, we will find out whether the international community is up to the task the UNEA has set out. The influx of plastics and associated pollutants into the planetary system, say the scientists Linn Persson, Bethanie Almroth, and their colleagues, now diminishes the planet’s capacity to support life…. But if the treaty responds boldly to its mandate—if its negotiators heed history and hear the wisdom of those most intimately affected—it could offer a new vision for plastics’ place in society and the economy, and by extension, it could well alter the future of humanity and the planet.
Ann Manning is now one of our ancestors. She did not live long enough to see the outcome of either the war on Ukraine or whether we will have an effective plastics treaty. Nor will she see an end to fossil fuels. But she taught us well: Stand together. Work for justice. Be kind.
She is, in all likelihood, singing us the Grandmother’s refrain in Sara Thomsen’s song, the answer to the granddaughter’s plea for light and for help.
Oh, granddaughter, I am listening
Oh, granddaughter, I am listening
Oh, granddaughter, I’m calling you
Oh, granddaughter, I’m calling you
When the night is so long, the night is so dark
I will sing you a song, may it kindle a spark
And you will find your way
through the dark of the night
To the light of the new day
And you will find your way
through the dark of the night
To the light of the day
Ann, we miss you. Terribly. Your very being was a song. The spark you kindled lights our way.