Green Shoots: Solidarity is an act of love

I don’t know how many of you readers of Green Shoots attend conferences and workshops. They are usually accompanied by a detailed programme outlining the sessions and the "expert" speakers, with every minute of the day planned to the last detail.

Too often, these speakers have to be told their time is running out because they inevitably want to say more things, blissfully unaware that half the audience has checked out and stopped listening, and the other half are almost finished writing that overdue report. Or they’re playing Candy Crush. 

Imagine, therefore, arriving at a two-day conference of 100 people to be told that there is no agenda.

The participants, instead, will spend the first couple of hours of their time together discussing and agreeing about what topics they will cover.

The facilitator used a flexible facilitation technique called Open Space Technology. It was developed by Harrison Owen to help large and diverse groups to collectively create an agenda that would enable deep engagement on an issue or issues.

The meeting this week focused on solidarity, and the community organisers and activists in the room were invited to reflect on what this might look like for them and their communities.

It was fascinating. It reminded me of my reflections some time ago in this column on the need to think about how we have conversations.

This process encouraged deep listening to fellow participants – there were no prepared inputs or presentations by speakers. We were listening to the lived experience of people who work with their communities in pursuit of social justice – they were the experts in the room.

In listening to others, we were forced to reflect on our own realities and experiences, and to probe where our own work and actions were actually failing to advance the vision of a just co-existence.

In our critique of how our societies are being ruined by greed, exploitation, climate destruction and patriarchy, we were forced to ask ourselves what role we were playing in breaking those systems of power over others.

We did not have the luxury of criticising from the touchlines – we had to look at how we were complicit in perpetuating these unequal relations of power, and how this awareness could help craft instead relationships of solidarity with those who need it.

The experience moved from our minds, where we eloquently shared intellectual critiques of unjust systems, to a sharing of how we have either expressed solidarity with others or received solidarity in our own struggles.

One person told us how they started a book club that has grown into a regular space for connection and reflection with its ever-growing membership.

A young woman has conversations with the boys' basketball team she coaches about menstruation, a simple act that transforms gender relations.

One woman styles hair on the side and uses that money to support kids in their schooling. There are groups that shared about how they protested until they got the local government to be accountable for something. And there was the woman who hugs the homeless men her voluntary organisation works with – an act of solidarity, she says, with people who don’t get love from the community.

These conversations were generated by the people themselves, and helped us all explore what practical solidarity can look like even as we maintained a critical eye on our work and practice. It reaffirmed our shared commitment to working towards a reality where we have respect for our dignity and that of others, where we fight for the safety and security of all people, and where our acts of solidarity help safeguard each other as we pursue a better life for ourselves and those around us. 

The participants came from countries throughout the region, and I will reflect next week on the conversations we had on how we could build practical solidarity with those who are resisting injustice in Swaziland and Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe, and other countries.

For now, I am left contemplating the notion that solidarity is about so much more than simply charity, that it is a radical expression of love for those who are in distress. 

Green-Thompson runs an organisation that supports social justice action.