Our Voices, Words of Law
Ria Valdez “Law is associated with literature from its inception as a finalized attempt to structure reality through language.”-Kieran Dolin
When we talk about justice, or social justice for that matter, we do not think of literature first. We might have thought of the law, courts, trials, the scales of justice. But not poems, one-act plays, short stories, and essays. Perhaps people think that law and literature are too different from each other, or that justice can only be portrayed when it is shown or told in relation to the law.
When the news shows another teenage boy has been killed as he was mistaken as a drug addict by the police; or when videos of an old man who was shot on broad daylight circulate social media platforms, what can we do? We express our rage, our dismay, our dissent through different forms of expression—language utilized to demand for accountability.
This is not new to us as we have had a long history of protest literature. From the horrors of Martial Law in the time of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr., to the war on drugs in the administration of Duterte, writers have used their voices to show the grim realities experienced by ordinary Filipinos at that time. Literature has not only become our tool to reflect the horrors and hardships created by fascist administrations, but it has ultimately become a weapon for the call of change and justice. This issue of Katitikan is a weaponry: each piece is a tool that utilizes language to clamor for social justice. Read More