On Solidarity and Symbolism
and knowing one's theory of change
Hello, gentle readers. I write to you from a warm train cabin heading south along the east coast of the British Isles, away from a wet and snowy Edinburgh towards a brisk and bright London (at least, that’s what I’m hoping for).
I’ve taken tens of trains across the UK this year, become quite the railway aficionado. I have learnt to wrangle a coast-side seat for the last 100 mile stretch on the LNER train to Edinburgh (views before and after Berwick-upon-Tweed are gorgeous), and know that if one can avoid a CrossCountry service one should (the journey from Bristol to Leeds was one of the hottest, slowest and most resembling the metaphor sardines-in-a-tin-can I’ve ever experienced).
I’ve experienced the full gamut of delays, cancellations, reversals and upgrades. I’ve witnessed (and been part of) the animalistic rush towards the gates at Euston and Kings Cross, racing for a seat when four-train-loads of passengers are attempting to board a single service. A friend called 2024 my ‘Dora the Explorer’ year, and she’s not wrong. I am beginning to properly explore the UK. I can even point out Southport on a map, and not just because that’s where the anti-Muslim/anti-migrant riots of this summer began1.
I love a long train ride. In some ways, traveling on a train reminds me of when I’m on a plane: like time doesn’t quite exist, like I’m in some liminal, non-real space. But there’s also something about the momentum, the visible forward movement that feels profound. There’s no getting off between stations. Once the doors have slid shut, the decision is made. All you can do is wait for the next stop.
I was in Edinburgh on Saturday as part of the Radical Book Fair organised by the incredible Lighthouse bookshop, where I had the pleasure of being in conversation with poet and political activist lisa luxx.
lisa and I have been in conversation before, and I feel honoured to continue to be in dialogue with them as our activisms and politics evolve. Today, she is part of Palestine Action, a group dedicated using direct-action tactics to shut down and disrupt multinational arms dealers, including arms manufacturers and traders in the UK.
Palestine Action is effective at achieving their stated aims, and this is something I admire. They have a clear theory of change: that by disrupting a corporation’s actual business model; shutting down sites, making their production unreliable, a factory inoperable, etc, they meaningfully reduce the literal number of weapons available to the Israeli army, and thus have a tangible impact on the lives of Palestinian people on the ground.
This is not the work of symbolic victory, or statement making, or pandering. This is understanding the systems of oppression at work and interrupting the infrastructure that allows them to continue.
lisa’s life has not been made easy because of this work. Indeed, they have felt the full force of the state mobilised against them, but they continue. I am doing what my British passport allows me, even encourages me to do, she argues, and she’s not wrong. Her actions seem to ask me: what is the value in having privilege if you don’t flex it? What is the point of one’s power if not to use it towards justice?
And yet. While lisa may be one of my most front line friends, she has never demanded of me - as a friend, fellow political actor - to do as she does. Not once. Not once have I sensed judgment, or felt that she expects anything of me other than what I do. She is on the front line, and if I wanted to join her there I know she would welcome me with open arms, but it has never been an expectation. This, I find amazing. It would be natural - at the very least understandable - if she was to say to me, yallah c’mon. Why haven’t you joined me yet? What you doing? How are you putting your words into action?
Instead, our conversations speak of formation. They speak of solidarity, of spectrum, of tala7um, an Arabic word implying we not only share bodies, but we are ‘one meat’, one being, of each other. Our discourse is of finding one’s place in the movement and doing it to the best of our abilities in the moment we are in.
I don’t know if lisa intends to move with grace, but I think she does. Her words and actions are strident, urgent, in many ways uncompromising, but not exclusionary. They are imbued with grace and burn with a compassion I see only in those grounded, rooted, connected bil-la7m. It is a stridency that is not preoccupied by purity or performance but concerned with the essentials. What do people need? What will make the difference?
In some ways, lisa’s work reminded me of the philosophy behind another group I work with, although on the surface you might consider them poles apart.
On Friday, I was on a panel to celebrate 10 years of Fearless Futures, an organisation that helps workplaces fight inequality. Yes, we’re talking the world of ‘Diversity, Equity and Inclusion’. Now, I know you might be wondering: Yassmin, how can you possibly connect political activism and direct action to workplace DEI? Bear with me ;)
At the event, Fearless Futures launched a White Paper titled ‘DEI Disrupted: The Blueprint for DEI worth doing.’ In it, they review and critique the entire sector, arguing that it can be reactive, muddled and non-strategic, often focused on diversity and maybe inclusion but without the equity - without an understanding of the systems of oppression that underpin the injustice in the first place.
What any effective DEI program needs, they argue, is a theory of change, hopefully with equity as its anchor.
In this, I see the connective tissue. Justice work must be grounded in and informed by values and principles and an understanding of how the world works in order to make it better. It is not always the case that ‘doing something’ is better than ‘doing nothing’. Sometimes, the ‘something’ distracts us, makes us think we are being effective when we are not.
So, how do we know if we are being effective? lisa might say you have to be always speaking to those most directly affected, those on the ground. That is certainly one way. Another might be, as Fearless Futures would suggest, is to understand the system of oppression you’re up against, in order to interrupt the cycle. Diagnose, then treat.
Here, I bring us back to one of my favourite European philosophers, Walter Benjamin. In ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ he writes:
“Fascism attempts to organize the newly proletarianized masses without affecting the property structure which the masses strive to eliminate. Fascism sees its salvation in giving these masses not their right, but instead a chance to express themselves. The masses have a right to change property relations; Fascism seeks to give them an expression while preserving property. The logical result of Fascism is the introduction of aesthetics into political life.”
I refer to this idea in the opening essay of ‘Talking About a Revolution’, where I reiterate the point: “fascistic governments maintain power and control by allowing the public to express themselves aesthetically, keeping them far from the work of material reform”.
What does this mean for us? It means that we must be aware of when we are being drawn to the symbolic and aesthetic instead of the material and the systemic. Are we being swayed by canapes away from structural change? Are we being distracted by public statements and flashy campaigns while the underlying logic - harmful and oppressive - remains the same? What do the people need? How is this effective?
We might not all be able to participate in political activism through direct action. Indeed, it wouldn’t necessarily work if we all were - who would organise the legal defense, feed the hungry, care for our mental health, patch up the wounded? Who would raise the funds, tell the stories, educate the newcomers, bury the dead? It may sound glib, but we live in formation. We live in ecosystems, whether as political actors or as employees in organisations, or simply free agents, trying to do our best. The question is not ‘what is the best thing to do’, but what is the most effective thing to do for you.
What is your theory of change? How do you play a role and how do you make it count? Is it messaging your one friend who is impacted by an injustice once a day, never expecting a reply but always letting them know you are there? Is it turning up with a meal at the council meeting for the family that hasn’t able to turn on their heating for an entire month this winter? Is it always bringing a joke, a smile, a listening ear? Is it a lift at the police station? Is it a poem that, as lisa would say, is as pratical and necessary as rice?
Movement building is a practice.
There is no perfection in this work.
Only the practice.
Forward, together. Inshallah.
People have been describing the riots as ‘race riots’ but I think that’s not accurate - these were specifically anti-migrant, and anti-Muslim/Islamophobic, which is racialised, but also informed and undergirded by a distinct system of oppression...
Love the analogy of the ecosystem, and us all having different ways to be effective within it! ❤️
Forward together 🙏