We need strong relationships & trust to pull off effective direct actions
BEFORE-care: Laying the Soil for Revolutionary Organizing
“Everything in this world can be robbed and stolen, except one thing; this one thing is the love that emanates from a human being towards a solid commitment to a conviction or cause.” — Ghassan Kanafani
On March 26th, almost 30 students at Vanderbilt University participated in a courageous sit-in outside the chancellor’s office. They demanded their university to stop funding corporations profiting off of the genocide, colonial occupation and apartheid in Palestine. In response, Vanderbilt lashed out, unleashed cops on students, suspended them, evicted them from their housing, and banned them from campus. Students persisted and continued protesting anyways. Vanderbilt’s embarrassing descent accelerated after they arrested a reporter with press credentials outside the building to prevent him from covering the story (why do this if you have nothing to hide). Over the next 22 hours, the university was nothing short of dehumanizing, exceptionally cruel to students, manipulative, dishonest and shameful.
Vanderbilt admin and police circled/ cornered/ harassed/ threatened students, prevented them from using bathrooms (forcing them to “go” in plastic bottles, sweatshirts & bags) and cut-off access to food, water, & medical care. They arrested 4 students by altering facts to fit their false narrative. Then, they pretended to arrest the remaining students, forced them out with their hands behind their backs and then let them go. Students were immediately kicked out of campus, left unhoused, and without access to resources many poor students relied on for survival (like meals on campus).
Despite the cruelty, students retained their steadfast commitment to a free Palestine, stuck together and helped each other thru it with the assistance of community members. After a week of grueling disciplinary hearings, Vanderbilt expelled 3 students, suspended 1 and put the remaining 23 on disciplinary probations for 15 months. Other students on campus launched round the clock protests outside the building where the sit-in took place. They are currently on day 14 of sleeping in tents outside on a lawn that has now seen lots of devotion and conviction to liberation. The collective resilience and bravery of these students is inspiring. Ironically Vanderbilt calls itself a beacon of free speech but the admin are nothing but cowards and tyrants. The students yet again these universities for what they are— exploitative ivory towers that care only about profit. The students are fighting back and appealing the harsh judgments. The movement will live on. It always does.
“You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming”- Pablo Neruda
This level of intense suppression of activism for Palestine is not new. It is part of a growing pattern of severe repression aimed at silencing people speaking out against Israel’s genocide against Palestinians. Universities worldwide are banning protests and criminalizing student activists. Militarized riot police were unleashed on students at Pomona who were also suspended and arrested. Last December, I faced state repression for my organizing for Palestine with potentially serious consequences. From being beaten, tear gassed & kettled by militarized cops to FBI home visits, round-the-clock surveillance, hours in interrogation rooms & immigration hurdles, over the last decade, I have intimately begun to understand repression. I’ve had to help students and community members navigate intense backlash. And I’ve learned some things. I think it’s important to lay the soil & invest time/ energy/ resources into building resilient relationships BEFORE diving into high-risk actions.
What collectivist infrastructure do we need to pull off effective direct actions and weather the storm that will inevitably come after?
Repression is inevitable. Strong relationships increase our collective endurance to navigate it.
Effective activism is always risky and will always be met with backlash & repression. If the state/ institution approves of your activism, it is probably ineffective. Risks cannot be avoided, nor should they be fully avoided. We have to collectively assess, mitigate and navigate risks. Our ability to navigate repression is directly proportional to the strength of our relationships. Communal bonds create collective endurance.
Vanderbilt Chancellor, lovingly nicknamed “Dictator Diermeier”, has spent his entire career fixated on strategies to crush activism and political movements to protect the reputation of oppressive institutions. Private institutions and state actors take the same redundant, remarkably un-innovative, predictable approaches to repression. Intelligence agencies like the FBI utilize overt violence, surveillance & covert strategies like infiltration to sabotage effective movements that threaten the power of the state. COINTELPRO and similar modern programs are a poignant example of the tactics utilized by the state to violently “neutralize” movements against oppression (framed as terrorism). Common threads show that oppressive systems are terrified of one thing— us being in community. The stronger our bonds, the more resilient we are to tactics that states/ institutions use to destroy political movements. Community building not only makes life worth living but it better prepares & equips us for such backlash.
Collectivist “before care”: The soil we need to lay
In the west, there is more momentum and interest in one off mass actions or events that allow people to plug “into” and “out” of resistance. Direct action is glamorized but people are less willing to put in the energy to lay and till the soil. We need resilient relational infrastructure to pull off effective actions.
When I lived in Chile for a year, it was mind blowing to see the type of collectivist organizing infrastructure that enabled seamless coordination of mass national strikes overnight. It was a familiar form of intuitive connection and cohesion. Showing up for each other is what collectivist communities do. Organizing is a part of being in community and existing together as though survival is a collective burden, not an individual one. When you share a culture, engage in rituals together, feed each other, drink tea on porches together, and gaze at the children running down the street at sundown, it isn’t a huge leap to tackle problems together. Of course, neoliberal capitalism/ settler colonialism has a grasp on people in Chile, just like it does elsewhere. But in the US, I do see more lonely people severed from community and land— the two things that create culture.
The more collectivist we are, the more capacity and power we have to topple systems. Here’s some realizations about “before-care” that direct actions need:
Effective organizing requires us to build & sustain strong relationships
We need deep, emotional, vulnerable relationships. We need to know, understand and trust each other to some degree… not perfectly or completely or with everyone, but we need a village. A community safety net allows each of us to take more risks. Being enmeshed in a local network that sustains daily life gives us something worth fighting for. We need to ground and anchor into the collective. The more fertile the soil we are rooted in, the more transformative our actions can be.
“Upon This Land There Is That Which Deserves Life” — Mahmoud Darwish
The severe lack of default, baseline collectivist infrastructure in the west makes it hard for many people to “intuitively” build reciprocal relationships. People are often not used to thinking of themselves as part of a collective. We need to practice building relationships that are shaped by a shared commitment to caring for each other & the land. When we’re isolated, the state has more control over us. Every aspect of capitalist life is aimed at exhausting & insulating people from their own kin. Do you know and trust people in your local community net? Do you spend time cooking, eating & navigating daily life together? Do you have rituals that allow you to share time & space consistently?
Emotional intimacy and trust building is crucial part of revolutionary movements
It’s common for people to organize with each other for many years without really KNOWING each other. In moments of heightened public awareness about longstanding injustice, it is common for strangers to come together to “do something”. Scores of new organizing collectives sprouted up in June 2020 and October 2023. Many of them aren’t here today. Those who survived had to navigate painful collective growth. In the west, people tend to disproportionately obsess over productivity, even in political movements, and fixate on logistics, technicalities, theory & strategy without prioritizing community care as much.
It is important for us to intentionally set time aside on a regular basis to learn about each others pasts, childhoods, fears, hopes, insecurities, fight/ flight/ freeze responses, coping mechanisms, joys, anchors, passions, niche skills, and areas needing growth. The more we organize, the more susceptible we are to burnout. If we haven’t questioned the individualistic status quo that the empire has us socialized & entrenched in, we are prone to excessive, ego-driven conflict. We need collective endurance & steadfast resolve to work thru difficult things in community (in reciprocal relationships). If we build trust, practice being more collectivist & forge emotional bonds, we are able to better withstand the inevitable falling outs, messiness & collapses that come with community organizing. We are also more creative, resourceful, innovative & bold in our strategy.
Have you cried, laughed, & hurt together? Have you held each other in pain & in hope? Have you cared for each other in small ways that prepare you for bigger storms? Have you shared resources before such that the act of giving is normalized? Have people sat down and had intentional conversations on what can be done for you all to get to know each other better? How can trust be built? How can you devise shared commitments to sticking together knowing that you cannot prepare for everything? How can each of you grow by anchoring into the collective?
Practice taking direct actions in small, relatively low risk ways in day-to-day life before diving into high-risk actions
Direct action is an effective mechanism of change. Instead of begging oppressive systems for crumbs and asking their henchmen (politicians, people in authority) to “do something”, we can build the collective capacity to do something ourselves. Capitalist/ colonial systems will never give us effective channels to truly change, weaken and dismantle themselves (like voting & electoral politics). Direct action is the only logical conclusion you arrive at if you keep asking “how do we build a better world?”
Direct action can look like indigenous and/or land-based communities occupying spaces to defend the land against destructive corporate exploitation & extraction. It can also look like the Black Panthers food distribution programs where people addressed poverty and inequity by building capacity within their community and pooling resources to provide nourishing daily breakfast to the most marginalized. They were labeled by the FBI as “the greatest threat to national security” because they decreased their dependence on the state by feeding and clothing each other. That community care infrastructure weakened the state’s power over them. If we can care for each other, we can function more autonomously and take bolder risks. Laying this infrastructure may not be “glamorous” but it makes it harder for the state to intimidate & crush us.
Collectively coming together to address problems in community in ANY small way is direct action. We need to improve community coordination and our extent of interdependence, one step at a time.
How can people practice relying on on each other in day-to-day life? Do people come together to make decisions that are intentionally in the best interests of the collective? Have people practiced sharing resources in a manner that makes life more livable for the collective? Have people pooled resources to provide survival necessities to the most marginalized in your local context? Do people try to communicate with transparency, honesty and clarity even when it is uncomfortable?
Practice navigating low-stakes hurdles and day-to-day issues together first
How has your community leaned into conflict thus far? Conflict is inevitable but in the absence of reciprocal relationships, it can be repetitive, exhausting and a major barrier to collective growth. Reciprocal relationships proactively address disagreements knowing it can make us better, kinder, and more generous. Have you practiced moving thru low-stakes conflicts as soon as they emerge? Have you devised shared commitments and contingency plans during moments of cohesion & clarity that can shape how conflict is addressed in the most stressful, “pressure cooker” moments?
Have you supported each other thru day-to-day hurdles and crises? Have you adapted to unpredictable spontaneously emerging stressors together? When navigating crises together, we learn more about each other and can craft long-term care plans that take into account our trauma responses while being critical of our unhealthy patterns. We all have our own bs that needs work and it helps to lay it all out off-the-bat so you can complement each other. When you notice problems (like lack of communication) within group dynamics early on, lean into them and identify the root cause or patterns so that it can be addressed right away. Unaddressed problems compound in magnitude and breed resentment.
Build community care networks that make it possible for people to join mass actions and strikes
There have been many global calls to action like the upcoming wave on April 15 (A15) which is a call for a global, coordinated, multicity economic blockade to disrupt the flow of capital. A15 is an effort that hopes to catalyze a general shift away from symbolic protests to direct actions that weaken the genocidal occupation’s infrastructure. Over the last 6 months, there have been plenty of calls for global strikes asking people to not go to school or work and not spend money. People need collectivist infrastructure to ground into to even have the capacity to respond to these actions. In the west, this is often lacking.
The most consistent contact some have with other humans is within their nuclear families which are also isolated, insulated units competing against each other. It is not culturally “normal” for people to live in multigenerational households or cohabitate with a group of people that are not strictly biologically related. Individualism is not a foundation that revolutions can be built on. This means people who depend on wage labor (for rent or to feed their families) are practically unable to participate in many strikes or mass actions. Some may have privilege and still avoid participating simply because they seek to conform to these systems. But many people just lack access to resources to be able to miss out even on a days worth in wages— poor folks, laborers, people in the hood, undocumented migrants, the most marginalized. They are the heart of any revolution, but rarely centered in leftist movements. Movements are increasingly disconnected from and inaccessible to the very communities we claim to fight for.
We need more people to start thinking of the practical, nitty gritty, detailed steps to how we’re going to dismantle systems and be free rather than being stuck in the theoretical or symbolic realm. What sort of collectivist infrastructure do we need to take more risky actions that target the power centers of these empires? How do we build that infrastructure? What is an honest assessment of where we’re at versus where we need to be and can we think thru the details of every stepping stone on this path in between? How do we need to change our interactions, the way we communicate, and the frequency/ quality of time we spend together?
What would it logistically look like for us to pool excess resources and give them to those who have the least? Can we pool savings on a weekly basis to cook nourishing food and distribute it to unhoused people in an inner city block? Details. Can we have conversations on consolidating & sharing our resources so we have more to give away? What kind of support network do we need to build such that wage workers can strike without fear of being unable to pay rent? We need a movement that is actually accessible to the working class, the poor, the hood. If people are working multiple jobs and struggling to make ends meet, how exactly should they take time to show up for mass actions? How can people risk arrest if they have many people who are dependent on them for survival but no plan B?
On the other hand, I have also observed that it is the people with the least who tend to be the most generous. They tend to be more collectivist, embedded in communal networks and more interdependent than someone relatively privileged. My community back home that doesn’t care to read a word of leftist political theory knows the most about revolutionary praxis. My grandma simply knows how community care works because it is within her cultural and religious practices. She’s in community but could she participate in “political movements”? I don’t think there’s a space for her in western “organizing spaces” or for people from the hood as my homie frequently and rightfully points to. I think there’s a lot we could learn from the people who always get left behind or at best at the fringes of our movements.
So should people not partake in direct action if they feel unprepared? Well, it depends on how you define direct action. Risk assessment is important. Pooling resources to feed the most marginalized in your community without begging politicians and tackling food scarcity is direct action. People in the west (in fairly privileged positions) are often terrified to pushback against systems in any form. They convince themselves that they are unprepared when they may simply be uncomfortable with change. For example, it truly isn’t that “risky” to speak up for Palestine if you have a stable job, a higher education degree, privileged identities, financial support networks and other forms of resources you can always dip into. People with far less take far more risks sometimes simply because it is the right thing to do.
But should people jump into risky direct actions without already having a deep level of trust in community and without resilient relationships? No, but the direct action you can throw yourself into is community building and reassess downstream when you have collective capacity, not just individual. People are energetic and enthusiastic to join direct actions but if you are new to organizing, it will take time to learn & grow in community. It will take energy & effort to understand each other. The more we prioritize laying this soil, the more transformative our organizing can be. Relationships are everything.
چشم نم جانِ شوریدہ کافی نہیں
تہمتِ عشق پوشیدہ کافی نہيں
آج بازار میں پابجولاں چلو
دست افشاں چلو مست و رقصاں چلو
خاک برسر چلو خوں بداماں چلو
راہ تکتا ہے سب شہرِ جاناں چلو
حاکمِ شہر بھی مجمعِ عام بھی
تیرِ الزام بھی سنگِ د شنام بھی
صبحِ ناشاد بھی روزِ ناکام بھی
ان کا دمساز اپنے سوا کون ہے
شہرِ جاناں میں اب با صفا کون ہے
دستِ قاتل کے شایاں رہا کون ہے
رخت دل باندھ لو دل فگارو چلو
پھر ہمِیں قتل ہو آئیں یارو چلو
The tearful eyes, the distressed soul are not enough
The accusation of hidden love is not enough
Today, let us walk through the bazaar in shackles
Spreading joy, as if we are intoxicated and dancing
With ashes on head, blood on our chests
Walk, as the whole beloved city turns out to watch
Walk past the city’s ruler, the bystanders
Past the arrows of accusation, the stones of abuse
Past the morning of sorrow, the defeated day
Today, let us walk through the bazaar in shackles
Who is their friend except me
Who in this beloved city is still untainted
Who now is worthy of the executioner’s hand
Get ready for the heart’s journey, let us go, heartbroken ones
Let us offer ourselves, once again, for execution.
— Faiz Ahmad Faiz
Translating Urdu poetry to English is an impossible task so you might need to use your imagination. The poem is about resisting in any way you can. Tears and a distressed soul are symbols of enduring in silence while walking in a bazaar in shackles, dancing with blood on our chests is a symbol of defiance. It ends with a call to action that asks us to make sacrifices and give ourselves to the fight because it is simply too painful to do nothing & hide. But it is a journey we must go on together. There are no heroes in a revolution, just collectivist communities committed to loving each other & the land.
"It is not culturally “normal” for people to live in multigenerational households or cohabitate with a group of people that are not strictly biologically related." I'll add that many, if not most, cities have zoning ordinances that limit non-related adults from cohabiting. I'm guessing those laws exist to target and undermine migrant and other collectivist communities that know how to rely on each other for basic needs like shelter and food (it's not about fire safety - it is the "non-related" part that is criminalized, not occupancy numbers).
Such a good read. Thank you for this.