Joy as a form of resistance

Let me talk to you about joy.

It is not happiness. That is the first and most important distinction. Happiness is a visitor. It comes when the circumstances are right, and it leaves when they turn. Joy is something else. Joy is a presence. It does not depend on what is happening. It depends on what is rooted. And that is why joy is the most dangerous emotion in the world.

The coloniser understood this instinctively. He did not fear the African’s anger. Anger can be suppressed. He did not fear the African’s sadness. Sadness can be ignored. He feared the African’s joy. Because joy says: You have taken my land, but you have not taken my soul. You have taken my labour, but you have not taken my song. You have broken my body, but you have not broken my spirit. Joy is the evidence that the coloniser failed. And the coloniser cannot abide that evidence.

This is why the drum was banned. This is why the dance was outlawed. This is why the ceremony was suppressed. Not because these things were dangerous in themselves. A drum cannot breach a fortress. A dance cannot defeat an army. But they were dangerous to the coloniser’s psychology. They were dangerous to the coloniser’s sense of victory. The coloniser needed the African to be miserable. He needed the African to perform suffering. Because the suffering of the colonised was the proof that the coloniser was powerful. The joy of the colonised was the proof that he was not.

And so joy became a form of resistance. The African who laughed in the face of oppression was not naive. She was sovereign. She was declaring, with every bright sound, that her soul was not for sale, her spirit was not for conquering, her joy was not for confiscating. The oppressor could take everything else. The joy remained. And the joy was enough.

The ancestors understood joy differently than we do. We have been taught that joy is a luxury — something you experience after the work is done, after the bills are paid, after the struggle is over. The ancestors knew better. They knew that joy is not a reward for surviving. Joy is the thing that makes survival possible. The festival before the harvest. The song before the battle. The dance in the middle of the drought. These were not acts of denial. These were acts of power. They said: We will not wait to be happy until the conditions are perfect. We will choose joy now, in the middle of the storm, because joy is the anchor that holds us steady while the storm rages.

This is the sovereign joy. Not the joy of the privileged, who have never known suffering. But the joy of the tested, who have known suffering and refused to be defined by it. This joy is not soft. It is not passive. It is not a feeling. It is a stance. It is the way you stand in the world when everything has been taken and you discover that you are still here, still breathing, still capable of laughter. This joy cannot be bought. It cannot be sold. It cannot be stolen. It is the deepest possession of the human soul.

So I ask you today: When was the last time you felt joy — real joy, not entertainment, not distraction, not the fleeting pleasure of consumption? When did you last laugh from your belly, not because something was funny, but because something deep inside you was alive?

And the second question: What would it take to choose joy today — not as a denial of your struggles, but as a defiance of them? The song. The dance. The call to a friend. The libation poured with gratitude. The moment of presence in the middle of the storm. The quiet, sovereign decision to be joyful despite everything.

Joy is not the opposite of sorrow. It is the companion of the brave. The coloniser could not understand this. He thought joy was weakness. He thought laughter was surrender. He was wrong. Joy is the most powerful thing a people can possess — because it is the one thing no oppressor can take without the consent of the oppressed. The ancestors knew this. The sovereign remembers it. The drum still sounds. The dance still moves. The joy remains. And as long as the joy remains, the victory is not complete.

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I. Ras Gad Shangox owned and operated a Taxi in Toronto for 28 years before 2016 when he sold his plate and became licensed as a delivery truck driver. His series “Pocket Wisdom for Sovereign Minds” was born of his curiousity about the relationship between individual words and their impact on human consciousness and behaviour. Shangox’ writing is founded upon his original ideas and then polished with AI.