Solidarity: 1. How urgency gets in the way of effective action
Hi again. I’ve been taking an unscheduled break from this project and these emails due to *waves hands* LIFE, but it feels like time to begin again. I don’t think I’ll be writing to you weekly — maybe once a month, with a Connection Lab email in between.
My topic for the next few emails is going to be solidarity, what it is, how we do it, and how vital it is to creating the change we want to see in the world. These will mostly be emails that I initially sent a few years ago, with some editing.
I hope they resonate.
in love and solidarity
Elinor
"The times are urgent. Let us slow down." Bayo Akomolafe
The need for change, at all levels, in all places, feels incredibly urgent. Change is needed, and it’s needed right now. The effect of that urgency, though, is a tendency to leap forward into action in the world, to offer help, in any way we can, without much of a pause to reflect.
While it’s an understandable and generous desire, it can also be deeply counter-productive, because, being so swift, it is often based not on what is needed, but on our assumptions and social conditioning about what is needed.
First is the assumption that I or you, as concerned individuals, know what is needed by the world, or by specific people in need. This is one of the most common errors made by 'helpful' people; that what we perceive as being the problem actually is the problem. It is why charitable and government projects and programmes to help 'those in need' fail, so often and so spectacularly: they perceive a problem, view it as urgent, and go into action to solve it, to alleviate need, without stopping to ask the beneficiaries of their aid whether the help offered is in fact helpful, or even if the problem it is directed at solving is the one that is most urgent in their lives.
The very urgency of the desire to help hinders the ability to actually help, because stopping to ask what is needed, and what might actually help, requires slowing down.
Really paying attention to another human being, listening, and understanding, takes time.
The second assumption is that I am the right or best person to take charge, and to take, or direct, action. When I was studying the Anthropology of Development in the early 1990s, we were taught about an example of this assumption, called 'expat experts'.
'Expat experts' were (and sadly still are) usually white people from coloniser countries, employed by governments and aid agencies, to parachute into developing (i.e. ex-colonised) nations and tell them what they were doing 'wrong' and how to do things 'right'. And of course the 'right' way was almost always the one that fell into line with the economic theories and political interests of wealthy nations. This attitude has a long history in philanthropy, and not just in international development:
Georgian Lady Bountifuls handing out charity, but only to the grateful (and therefore deserving) poor.
Victorian capitalist families like the Cadburys, who were so concerned for their workers that they created whole model villages to house them, but only if the workers followed strict moral rules, laid down by... the Cadburys.
Present-day Christian evangelical 'charity workers', who provide food and shelter for the homeless, but only if they're willing to be preached at and converted.
Abled people who decide to 'help' a visibly disabled person by seizing hold of a wheelchair and pushing, or grabbing a blind person's arm to direct them.
Whether directed by 'correct' theory, by the power of wealth, class, colonialism/white supremacy, abledness or any other privilege, or by religious fervour, the result is the same: certainty of one's right to take over.
Those of us who are not wealthy, not upper or middle class, not white, not abled, or not zealously religious can still fall prey to this tendency. And this is a massive problem, because the thing that is required in order to ask what is needed, what might help, and who the best person is to take on which tasks, is humility.
Not the humility of 'I know nothing' or 'I can't do that' – which is just as much of a problem as the hubris of taking charge – but the humility of knowing oneself to be just one knowledgeable and skilled and capable person among many.
"If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together." Aboriginal activists group, Queensland, 1970s
These two assumptions are underlain by a third: the belief that I and the collective, I and the world, are separate. In my spiritual traditions, the human being is viewed as being made up of (at least) four parts: the physical body, the instinctive or animal self, the self-conscious or human self, and the inspired or divine self. These latter three, together, make up the human soul.
We become our most effective when all three aspects of the soul are aligned, grounded in the present, and centered in the physical body and its place within its more-than-human environment. When I am aligned, grounded and centered, I am part of everything. My body is part of the living ecosystem; my animal self is enmeshed in the energy field of Life; my divine self is everything.
My human self? Well, my human self is the most separate aspect of me. It is how I know that I am I, not simply an indistinguishable part of the mass of atoms and subatomic particles that makes up the universe. Individuation, developing a sense of self that is separate from one's parents, one's partner, or one's community, is (within Western cultures at least) an important stage in human development, and one which we may need to revisit at different points in our lives.
However, when it comes to taking action to address need, we need to tread the line between the separateness of individuality and the connectedness of community.
We need to know ourselves as individuals in order to have a strong sense of what specific skills, knowledge, and capacities we bring to the table. We need to know the self as individual in order to take on particular tasks, and to be responsible and accountable for their completion.
But we also need to know ourselves as more than individual in order to be effective. We need to know ourselves as part of the collective – of our ecosystem, of our community, or of humanity – if we are to avoid falling into assuming that we are the ones who know what is needed (or who know nothing), and should take charge (or can do nothing).
We do best not by doing to others, but by acting together, for our collective benefit and liberation.
What might that look like in practice? That will be different for each one of us, depending on our circumstances. Some of us need to develop our sense of connection and interdependence more; others of us need to work on our sense of self and individuality. (Many of us, myself included, need to work on both concurrently!)
But almost all of us will learn best by doing. So I invite you to pick one issue that feels urgent and important to you, and to start by slowing down, and paying attention, both to others affected by the issue, and to yourself, reflecting on what you find, ideally with others, and then deciding together what to do.
I hope this letter struck a chord with you. If you’d like to share and discuss your reflections with others here, I’ll be starting the Connection Lab very soon, where you can do just that! Just click on the “Sign up for a premium subscription” link below.