October 1st, 2024: Callings and roles for collective liberation
For an hour and a half, we discussed a post by The Slow Factory that defined twenty “roles” in liberation movements and separated them into “creative” and “pragmatic” categories. We discussed our interpretations of the roles, their interconnections, the roles we personally associate with, and what these roles might look like in different liberation movements. An overarching theme in our discussions was the dynamic between ideologically-grounded movements and pragmatic outcomes. Can ideologically unstable movements lead to long-term success in liberation movements?
Introduction to the post:
A: We were talking, last circle, about how can have disruptive and non disruptive protests, like rallies and encampments or educational, more quieter forms of protest. These were two frameworks for liberation. But this post creates more detailed roles for liberation. We can read through them and see if we can add anything to these roles, see if these roles make sense for each liberation movement… and if we can link it to ourselves. Can we see ourselves in these roles? Any initial thoughts?
B: There are a lot of “A”s.
C: Do the colors mean anything?
A: I don’t think so… I think they’re just stylistic.
D: I think that the colors are meant to represent the two sides… You can have luminary versus scientific, you have strategists as well as artists and designers… so the colours might represent similar ideas that are developed into a more creative or pragmatic approach.
Discussion on roles:
“Analyst: applies critical and systemic thinking, maps methods to understand issues.
Problem Solver: engineers tangible solutions to real life problems.”
A: I can see that “analyst” and “problem solver” can be amalgamated into one.
D: I would argue no, because I can see myself as an analyst more than a problem solver. I think the problem solver actually does the work, while an analyst develops a framework for doing so. It’s the action of creating the plans versus thinking of methodology and frameworks. I’m more interested as to why problem solver is on the “creative” side while analyst is on the “pragmatic” side.
“Architect: plans and designs new structures for collective liberation.”
A: I think that the “architect” is more on the pragmatic side. But I think that the analyst goes a step before - understanding the issue - while an architect puts the issues into a specific ideology.
D: I think the problem solver is dealing more with the process of liberation and the logistics that bring about the liberation… I think that’s the difference between the architect and problem solver.
A: What about the architect versus analyst? I guess that the analyst needs to draw conclusions and lay the groundwork before the architect can solidify the ideology.
D: I am an analyst so I think that distinction makes the most sense to me. An analyst reads the literature and the practices and disseminates it for everyone. I’m not designing things [for this group] but I’m sharing about what I’ve read and bringing it to the table. We’re all doing that, but that’s the category I would group myself into.
A: I think it actually helps that you see the problem solver as one who solves logistical issues; this unites the problem solver’s role with others. You can’t “engineer tangible solutions to real-life problems” if you don’t deeply consider what the issues are. So you need to be an analyst as well as an architect to be a problem solver.
D: As an analyst, I would say that’s two completely different things because an analyst cannot engineer solutions.
A: But can someone truly come up with a tangible, meaningful, long-lasting solution without an analytical background?
D: No. And I think the point of this is that you need all of these people. We need pragmatic people and we need people who are creative. They don’t have to be the same person.
A: Actually, that brings me back to how you’d said before that it surprises you that the problem-solvers are on the “creative” side of the list. I do think that much creative problem-solving is needed when you deal with administrative tasks - like sitting in at meetings, dealing with people, doing bureaucratic stuff. I think it requires creativity to have and maintain stamina in those situations and to talk to people to make things happen. A lot of social skills and people smarts is required.
“Trouble maker: isn’t afraid to ruffle some feathers.
Communicator: tells stories and touches the souls of millions of people.”
B: I’m a trouble maker for sure. I think that my nature is causing chaos and that’s what I like to do best. I like to be kind of creepy in what I say and make people somewhat uncomfortable, but it gets the point across.
C: I like to communicate things and get in touch with people. It makes understanding their point of view and my own much easier, so I would be a “communicator”.
A: What medium of communication do you find the most intuitive?
C: I have trouble talking to people in person, so it’s much easier for me to express things online. I feel like it’s easier for me to get my points across that way.
A: My brother is similar I think. He doesn’t really like crowds so he’s wary around the rally scenes, but he constantly picks out people in his life and gets them to talk about Palestine and many social issues. He has a lot of patience and stamina for that, and puts it to good use when dealing with these conversations. He probably doesn’t see himself as a communicator but a lot of his work could be seen that way.
C: So far, I haven’t had these conversations.
B: I had some pretty interesting things happen at the rally. During the rally there were a bunch of cars that were part of our parade, and I basically got them to honk at the same time like I was a band director.
A: How would you define chaos, when you said you like causing trouble?
B: I like making big noises and I like making people uncomfortable. So if you don’t talk to me that much you wouldn’t know that I make really obscene and dirty jokes 24/7. But it’s my way of coping with the world.
D: I want your perspective because not everyone resonates with your type of anarchist chaos - there has to be something grounding you and keeping you sane. There are times and places where you can be chaotic, but what grounds you and what are your parameters for indicating what you can or cannot do?
B: I don’t follow any social rules. I just say shit… people like me, or they don’t. It doesn’t matter.
A: What was a time when you would say you were at your most chaotic and fully embodied the trouble maker role?
B: It usually happens at the rally. I would either have the microphone or I would be doing a car orchestra… Mercedes horns are shit.
A: So what is your underlying ideology for the chaos in terms of how it contributes to liberation?
B: Well, the world is shit. And we can’t have everything. But we can be free with our words. Words are free and we can’t let fear of a few words push us into silence… Why are we holding it all in when the world is pounding down on us?
A: So is your getting the microphone and having cars synchronously honking an analogy for regaining control?
D: Like your own autonomy?
B: Pretty much.
“Visionary: receives downloads from the Universe to guide people.”
A: I like the “visionary” role. It sounds spiritual. I like that it’s there. It reminds me perhaps of religious leaders who would address the encampments and unite people in a faith-based manner.
C: I like how it’s written. To me, the visionary could be people who are able to extract meaningful insights from their experiences, and convey them to people in a way that builds unity and greater understanding between people. Like, people who are “enlightened” and share that enlightenment.
A: Has anyone gotten any “downloads from the Universe” lately?
B: I feel like I got a Trojan virus downloaded from the Universe. I feel like life is good lately and I’m worried that it’ll come crashing down hard.
“Healer: heals intergenerational wounds and provides a path forward.”
A: I like the “healer” one here… “heals intergenerational trauma”. There was an article I read about Truth and Reconciliation day by an Indigenous writer who finds the day traumatizing and unhelpful, a day that doesn’t really provide any path forward.
D: I went to the NDTR stuff on campus. I saw lots of my professors on campus who were non-indigenous. The day does not allow space for healing. But at the same time it is a huge opportunity for communication between indigenous people and allies… it is a tool for funding and creating good work. We have to do the decolonizing - but as a day that has so far been little commercialized, I think it is ultimately good. There are problems, but I think that we should make it a healing space… it’s a day on the calendar where the entire community can come together and heal together in their own space and time.
A: This writer talked about how the healing wasn’t occurring, that the day wasn’t about healing, but about educating those who weren’t indigenous… It was getting the “truth” without the “reconciliation”.
D: There were healing events that were there to help… like the events at Western Fair that were catered towards indigenous people and teaching people about the indigenous culture. There aren’t enough “healers”, but I have not met many so I don’t know what they look like.
A: When we were teaching tatreez at the encampments, especially when I taught Palestinians, I think that was healing work. Tatreez is supposed to be communal, intergenerational, and a way to heal and bond together.
D: I would not have expected that to be a healing experience.
C: For me, a healer is like a therapist and someone you can talk to or go to… like you should know the person and be able to open up to them.
D: My pragmatic mind thinks about people who are able to perform CPR or physically heal… I think that people like myself should strive to be like that… I have a lot of theory but now we need to actually plan action and be successful for liberation. I’m so incapable of that and I don’t know why. I can’t think of ways to organize people.
A: I think I need to work on the problem-solving because whenever things become more administrative, I get drained. I’m not bad at dealing with people, but my stamina just goes down so quickly that I don’t think I’m ultimately very useful. It’s interesting to me that the “abolitionist” and “advocate” role are defined very ideologically.
“Abolitionist: favours the end of forced labour and carceral punishment.
Advocate: holds a cause or series of causes to heart and carries them to justice.
Luminary: inspires people to rise beyond their expectations.”
D: I see the abolitionist as more radical in that type of resistance space. There are issues that are very connected that some people do not support as well.
A: I think “luminary” is important… setting the bar higher and higher for what we can do and achieve.
D: That’s definitely you, and you have flares of some of the other roles.
“Researcher: carries out academic, scientific, or investigative research.
Scientist: has expert knowledge of one or more of the natural or physical sciences.”
A: I’m surprised that they put researcher and scientists as different categories because I would argue that they would be the same. Researchers encompass scientists.
D: I could differentiate the two as scientist is a little more broad. I think it’s also hard for us to see the liberation of Palestine with scientists and researchers - while climate change has environmental scientists and researchers who write summaries and publish findings.
A: There are also scholars of international law, sociologists, historians, who do research work relevant to Palestinian liberation. And other forms of liberation. Do you think all of these roles apply to all movements, or do some liberation movements need more or less of some of these roles?
D: It ebbs and flows. All movements need these. For example, when I think of artists, all the YouTubers I watch who talk about different theories - that could be anything from climate change, feminism, abolition - in which case the difference would be between action and liberation. Do we need certain people more? Do different things require different people?
A: I would not put researcher on the pragmatic side. You cannot do research without creativity.
D: I disagree because even though the analyst is on the pragmatic side, there is the material world that needs to be navigated. Creativity is always involved in research and you need to be able to be creative in all kinds of ideas, but the ultimate concern of the researcher is more about pragmatic skills.
A: I would probably classify everything here as creative. But I see the distinctions here as emphasizing the practical skills required in the work rather than the nature of the work.
D: Yes. An artist doesn't study the paint, for example.
On ideologically grounded versus ideologically unstable revolutions:
D: I think Emma Goldman said that “if I can’t dance in your revolution, then it’s not my revolution”. It’s saying that if there’s an absence of music and dance in that revolution, then it’s not worth it. We saw at the encampments that there was a lot of joy and peace and that by celebrating some of the good - even if it’s just individual - that’s a good thing to do. We share that joy with others.
A: I struggle a lot with this concept of joy. It’s not guilt. But I feel like if I have a lot of joy, to the point of becoming self-centred, then I’m not engaging with the movement. When I feel joy, I need to have an awareness that this joy is a part of what I want to see in this liberated world. It frames why liberation matters.
D: Yeah. It’s like “I feel this good, others should feel this good, and how can I share this in the liberated world?”
A: Otherwise, we get “trapped” in our own selves, in our own self-centred joy, and it doesn’t mean anything for liberation work. But I think that’s my answer to a lot of things when I think of things that are meaningful and not meaningful in liberation movements. I want to know the ideology behind an action. What is the ideology and is it one that I can get behind? If I hear what sounds like a watered down, poorly thought through reason behind an action, then I will think it’s not liberation, it’s just goofing off that masquerades as liberation work.
D: I think there are people in all of these movements that are flaky. But when you’re actually there in the movement, you’re actually there occupying space regardless of how effective it is. Personally, I think that brings people together and we can connect people to liberation struggles. I think that’s an idea of what is successful - building those social connections. And those connections can come from any kind of movement, despite how ideologically unstable it is.
A: I think that the more a movement tends to be ideologically unstable, the less it tends to meaningfully progress.
D: There is no movement in London that is so shaky that it falls apart.
A: That’s a good point to bring up. I think more about ideological instability in my own life. For example, I have a tough time with the people who ascribed to the “existence is resistance” narrative in the encampments. Some people in the encampment met that bar - they just took up space at the encampments - and wouldn’t go beyond that ideologically. I think that is ideologically shaky. I think that’s poorly thought through and ultimately ineffective for furthering the movement. But if a Palestinian were potentially to ascribe to that same narrative - with their extensive personal ties to the movement - it would be far different than if it is said by someone without that history. There are differences in levels of ideology and action.
D: I also think that’s a burden you’re putting on your own shoulders. As much as we want to radicalize people and get them to help the movement, that also alludes to a personal issue with each individual and whether they’re resisting to the extent we wish they are. I don’t know how to feel about that. It’s something more personal rather than systemic, so I find that doesn’t matter so much as much as the struggle itself.
A: I would argue that it’s part of the struggle. The forest is made of individual trees. You could have a movement that is very well-defined and has goals and missions, but that does not mean that the people who are part of the movement are doing anything other than just verbally saying that they’re part of the movement. Two people can do the exact same action and my perception of the action would be different based on the different ideologies behind them. That’s the saving grace for me. Again, if a Palestinian says “existence is resistance” then I would absolutely accept it and would not consider it flaky. But if a person says “existence is resistance” because they, for example, saw it in a social media post and didn’t think beyond that about what it means in the context of their privilege and status in society, then it would be flaky, in my opinion. They wouldn’t understand the gravity of colonialism and what “existence is resistance” means. It falls into the performative “black square” situation. Basically, I think it is less about the action and more about the intent. It’s the same thing with the “joy is resistance” narrative. Does someone say that because they truly view the joy they engage in as a piece of the ideal world that they want for everyone? Or does someone say that because they want to goof off and use the word “resistance” while they do it? I also have a personal bias here… because I hate hypocrites, and maybe for that reason, the intent and ideology behind an action is important for me.
D: What was confusing me was that I thought more of true, physical action - in which case the ideological difference doesn’t really matter. We’re ultimately doing the same action - except for the leaders of the encampments, who are doing more. It’s still a concern and we still need people to dig through theories and understand the risks with protesting and dealing with authority and security. That’s very much important. But in terms of action that is way less important.
A: Yes, that addresses the pragmatic aspect that I did not mention. Like, Alan Shephard wouldn’t care who at the encampments were ideologically grounded and who weren’t - the mere existence of the encampments were enough for the administration to go into an uproar. But I think I would argue that ideologically grounded movements would get you further than large numbers in a movement. For example, suppose you had a situation where we could clone people. And we need a rally in London that has a million people. So we clone people till we have a million. And these clones are empty - devoid of thought and reason, just bodies. The pragmatic output of that million-person rally would be that we have a large rally that will get media attention and that will cause trouble and people will pay attention. But there’s no ideological grounding because all the rally-goers are empty clones. We could argue that the pragmatic effect is there regardless. But I would argue that, long-term, it would not be as effective as people who go to rallies and know why they’re there, and where the movement must go. To me, movements that are not ideologically grounded - movements where the people within are not ideologically grounded - are inherently stagnant.
D: To me, that’s a legitimate concern. Yeah, there can be a million radicals who are ideologically grounded and understand the context rather than people who care about the struggle and do not understand the ideology. We prefer one over the other. But thinking about the liberation movement that exists right now, ideological grounding is far less of a concern because numbers are very very important for the pragmatic effect. And with the encampment and defunding genocide, it should be very temporary. It can go long-term but it’s not as long as the decades-long fight against climate change. If we get a whole bunch of people who are not ideologically rigorous, that’s fine as long as the pragmatic side is taken care of because that drives the change we want to see.
A: I think that’s the difference we see between an act of resistance and liberation. An act of resistance is temporary - liberation is a longer fight. I would say: who cares about an act of resistance if no one cares about liberation? But if we have enough resistance acts, I guess it gives more of a premise for fighting for liberation on a larger scale? I still think that a non-ideologically grounded movement will be more stagnant than an ideologically grounded one.
D: I was worried about conflating the two - liberation and acts of resistance. But the actions and ideology are two separate things.
A: Is it too idealistic to want to have many people who are ideologically grounded?
D: I think that this is good because the individual thinks about themselves and their ideas.
A: I think that it’s really just about having a thought process of why you’re in the movement.
D: True, but then you’re also judging based off of your own criteria and I think that this is a good framework because for me, the analyst, I understand intersectionality and decolonial resistance. But that’s going to be different from the ideological framework from what the visionary has. I think that it’s very important to judge the rigidity on the individual.
A: I didn’t mean to imply that some ideologies are better than others. I meant that there should be an ideology versus no ideology.
D: It’s ultimately about: how do we engage with the other person to see whether or not they’re rigorous?
A: It would be a personal judgement.
C: For everything that we have learned so far, it ultimately depends on each person. For me, as a “communicator”, it makes things a lot easier to explain my own thing as well. Different types of people have different types of thinking as well.
A: I think that the key thing is to have an insight versus no insight. And I think it’s something that should be emphasized - to have an awareness of why you’re in the movement. I was talking with someone about how to sustain the momentum around Palestine on campus. What I was thinking was that we had so many rallies, so much that maybe it shouldn’t be considered an “action” anymore - it should just be considered a norm. And so we thereby raise the bar for “action” even higher. What if we saw attending a rally as the new performative black square? What I mean is: yes, a rally is something, but we can raise the bar higher.
C: Yeah, we need people to know what the rally is about. People can see a rally and not know what it’s about. If you go and you don’t know what it’s about, then maybe you should search it up when you get home.
A: There was a rally last year that I wasn’t going to go to. I was going to stay home and write an article instead, because I don’t go to rallies if I’m not in the right headspace to really absorb the space, listen to the speakers, and feel that I am thinking, raising my bar, and bound to the movement. That made sense to me. But some people would say that’s not a good decision because the rallies need numbers.
D: So what do you think of the Palestine-Lebanon rally that happened?
A: I wasn’t there, but I got footage and I’ll write about it. I think it was crucial that it happened because there was a lot of people who were grieving and needed the space to grieve. I don’t see rallies only as a place for social change - it’s also a place to grieve and feel safe wearing a keffiyeh. I’m glad it happened. I did notice just now that I emphasized ideology, not numbers. I know the numbers were good, but that’s not the first thing I thought of.
D: Just seeing it happen while not going - seeing it through CTV or social media - seeing hundreds of people… is just crazy compared to before at our rallies. I didn’t even know the atmosphere or energy but it was crazy.
A: I didn’t visually experience the numbers. But I listened to the speeches and they were really good… they were incredible, heart-wrenching, impactful, well spoken. Those are the things that I think about when rallies occur. It makes me feel like my heart is the same as everyone else’s in that space.
D: A good speaker can really change the rally.
C: A speaker is like a really good teacher… Like one of my professors is teaching econ and his voice is so damn dead while my English professor is so alive and although the course is hard, he gets us to understand and feel comfortable… I don’t feel comfortable in the econ class and I think more about when the class will end while I want my English class to be longer.
D: The speeches have to be clear… a good speaker will get you to know when to clap and when to boo… crowd work is essential.
A: A key takeaway for me is that temporary things - resistance actions without ideology - are not anti progressive, just less progressive. I did associate resistance actions without ideology with running in circles. But I see that they can lead to pragmatic outcomes too.
