Global health and development are in a crisis. A crisis of silence.

We spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to say things.

We spend a lot of time trying to figure out how not to say things.

We shy away from talking about the things that makes us feel uncomfortable.

Let’s talk about innovation, how new technology can rid the world’s problems, how new markets will inevitably lead to equity.

Let’s only talk about things that seem uncontroversial to those in power.

Most often the “uncomfortable things” are the most important issues — the legacies of structural racism, sexism, and classism that have forced people into poverty and ill health. We like to think that we can make systemic change without confronting the very barriers that have created systems of oppression.

We try to pretend that health, justice, or even “change” can be separated from the world of politics.

We tell a story of change of that doesn’t involve any struggle.

But that narrative is false.

Health is completely inseparable from politics.

To say “health is a human right” is to also say “the barriers of power and privilege — of race, class, gender, and sexuality — that keep people from living full, healthy lives are unjust.”

To say “health is a human right” is to also say “we must directly address the very structures that keep this right from being realized.”

To say “health is a human right” is to also say “we have a responsibility to not perpetuate our own power and privilege in enabling others to be engines of their own health.”

To say “health is a human right” is to also say “we are anti-oppression.”

Here at Article 25, we believe in a right to health movement led by all of us, which is no small feat. We have to redefine the boundaries of inclusion — remove conditions on who can and cannot be a part of this movement, and instead cultivate a culture of anti-oppression. The very nature of social movements requires us to stare down the “uncomfortable truths” that we try to turn a blind eye to. The moments we embrace silence instead of our voice.

Social movements are the addition of all these silent moments, the sum threatening to topple the status quo. It’s this threat of unraveling all that we “know,” and entering the imagined “unknown,” that forges new possibilities of saying, doing, thinking, and feeling. That’s where true innovation and creativity lie.

The danger of silence is even more prominent when it comes to storytelling. Global health is full of success stories, testimonies, and tales of progress.

We try to walk fine lines between achieving our own goal — whether it’s raising money or increasing the likes on our Facebook page — and capturing the lives at stake. But within that process, any authentic voice is lost. The person who is in the story is obscured by everyone else’s intentions, and the “everyone else” is usually people coming from power and privilege.

In writing others’ stories, we edit out the uncomfortable statements and potentially “provocative” beliefs. We remove phrases that are “politically incorrect” to avoid making anyone feel uneasy. We ignore blatant differences and structures of power — of race, class, gender, and sexuality — in order to create a common “us.” We only tell the stories of people coming together, against all odds, instead of people breaking apart, with all the odds, because addressing the odds might threaten our very own power and privilege.

But if we return to our core responsibility — to the very people we aim to enable — the lack of voice implies a silence that threatens an essential part of being. As Mohammed, an Article 25 organizer in Egypt, holds,“Without dignity, we are not human.”

Amidst the process of telling others’ stories, we lose the voice of the person in the story. Their voice loses its texture, its timbre, its humanness, and is drowned into silence.

And the silence of the oppressed is just as dangerous as the voice of the oppressor.