As activists we talk about the struggle against the status quo, a status quo that does not align with our values or our vision for the world. The struggle is the struggle for a world of peace and justice for all.
But what about the struggle among us? That struggle infuses the work we do, our meetings, our events, our words, and our very choices. And we don’t speak of it, don’t address it, we might even try struggling to align our community with our values and our vision of the world. Why? Perhaps we are so permeated by the culture that even in our struggle against the status quo we also embody it. We want a different world, but we don’t necessarily know how to do it. We envision another world, but we have all been educated by the same system. Many of us do not come equipped with an alternate set of skills for real community building and transformation—the crucial missing piece in our unity and effectiveness.
For example:
Have you ever felt like you were at a meeting where the ideas were dominated by one or two people?
Have you ever felt overworked in your volunteer (or paid) activism until you finally had to stop?
Have you ever felt as though the work you are doing went unappreciated?
Have you ever felt like the work you were doing was the grunt work, and the “glamorous” work was given to others?
Have you felt uncomfortable with the tactics of other activists but didn’t have a means to effectively express it?
Have you found yourself expressing your dislikes of people or ideas to everyone but those people?
Have you found yourself in meetings that consistently started late or ran over with no consideration for your time?
Have you found yourself in meetings where you didn’t feel comfortable sharing your ideas for fear of ridicule, etc.?
Have you found yourself in meetings where criticism (of one another, not the outside systems) reigned?
Have you known (or been yourself) a new, enthusiastic activist who went to a few events/meetings and then disappeared?
Have you known (or been yourself) a new, enthusiastic activist who felt obligated to take on more work than you could do?
Do you find that you don’t support the events of activists you don’t personally like?
Do you find a lack of elders in the movement? A lack of youth? Do you wonder why?
Do you know (or are you yourself) a person who criticizes the work of other activists behind their backs?
Do you feel better than other activists? Do you feel worse than other activists?
Case Studies
Joe goes to his first anti-war rally. He is surrounded by people like himself for the first time. He puts his name on an email list and he is invited to a meeting. He is very excited and he has all sorts of ideas, ideas that he has been thinking about for years. He arrives eager and enthusiastic. At the meeting, there are three people doing most of the talking. When he finally gets up the courage to share one of his ideas, someone immediately dismisses it as cliché. He doesn’t return to the meetings, nor does he go to any other events.
Lisa has been working at an organization for a long time, doing the behind-the-scenes work. But whenever there is an event, a rally, or something, she feels excluded, her concerns and opinions unimportant or “not radical” enough. She eventually quits from burnout.
Marie works 60 hours a week or more trying to run an organization. Her health is suffering. Her family is suffering. None of the members of the organization notice, and she feels ostracized when she finally quits.
Bob has spent a lot of time and energy working with an organization. It means a lot to him, and he has helped organize lots of events. At some of these events, people have come with more aggressive tactics that he thinks will alienate potential allies. He doesn’t know how to address the differences between them in a way that would support everyone, so he concedes, feeling like his organization was taken away.
Jane is the kind of activist you love—always able and willing to do all sorts of work. She likes to come to a meeting and get things done, as her time is already overextended. She gets frustrated when people want to talk theory, politics, grandiose scenarios. After faithfully attending many meetings where she felt nothing got done except a lot of talk, she stops coming to meetings and does things solo.
Chris has been an organizer for a long time. He has organized dozens of events and rallies, and he wants people to take a more strategic stance, do something that will have more then a theatrical effect. He wants to talk about long-term strategies and tactics. He is always voted down by people who want to have another rally. He feels this is ineffective, and he eventually stops coming to meetings and rallies.
Laura considers herself a radical activist. She likes to stir things up, not play nice. When she goes to a rally she wants to burn flags, shock people. She feels that the situations require more aggressive methods. She feels silenced at rallies when she tries to express her anger, and she feels betrayed by those in the movement.
Kevin doesn’t like the way his organization is going. He decides to leave and start his own organization. Half of the organization follows, and a split splinters the community. Now they are working against one another rather then with one another.
Relational Activism
All of the above examples are not unusual, but all of them were opportunities for growth and community that were completely missed. Each of these situations required a new kind of communication, and a commitment to being relational and supporting community. We are all a part of a movement working for change, but within the movement we are individuals struggling with our own wounds, our own biases, our own issues. Groups are struggling. The movement is struggling. Ultimately we all want the same thing: a world of peace and justice for all people. So, how are we going to get it?
We don’t claim to have all the answers. In fact, in our group, we all have different answers (and our own other activities). But what brought us together as a group was to begin asking the same questions. How activists with very different backgrounds, ideas and comfort levels can work together more efficiently, preventing conflict or immediately addressing it? How can we better focus on our common grounds and goals rather than emphasizing our differences, and yet speak out our truth? We think that building a truly democratic movement, bottom-up, a movement that promotes participation and demands accountability, requires us to learn to relate to others as "same as", or in other words, as emotionally grown-ups.
And here is where Relational Activism comes in. Understanding the dysfunctional aspects of relationships in our culture inherited from thousands of years of patriarchy and other forms of domination (one-up and one-down dynamics, reactive defense mechanisms), and overcoming them by educating ourselves using communication tools (such as expanding our ability to listen and establishing healthy boundaries with ourselves and others), are unavoidable. Other possible definitions for describing this work are "Conscious Activism" or "Mindful Activism" or even "Sustained Activism." And it requires some basic principles.
Relational Principles
1. Full-respect living: the commitment to respect both yourself and others at all times. One may need to be assertive; one may need to “rock the boat”, but none of the ways we do these sinks below the standard of respectful treatment. There is no excuse for abuse – either dishing it out or putting up with it. This is the framework for living a non-violent life.
2. Cultivating compassion: the commitment to, whenever possible, move into compassionate understanding of my own and others’ pain and imperfections.
3. Committing to growth: the commitment to consciously move myself and my relationships in the group through ongoing cycles of Harmony, Disharmony and Repair.
Activist Community
If we see ourselves as part of an activist community—and even the movement as a larger community of people struggling for the same ideals, and possibly the broader population also as part of our community—it is helpful, then, to take a look at the stages of community. Notice the similarity with the stages of Harmony, Disharmony and Repair:
Pseudo Community—this is when everything seems great, when there are no issues, when people find it easy to get along with one another.
Conflict—This is when issues come to the surface. Tensions rise, either overtly or covertly. Factions can form. Things are said, usually not to the right people. One-up dynamics begin to happen. At this stage the community has two choices—split, or transform.
Real Community—in order to reach this stage from the conflict stage the community must consciously decide to transform, to learn to grown together, to address grievances with the purpose of mutual healing and mutual growth. This requires a conscious choice, a paradigm shift. Doing nothing or playing nice does not initiate transformation; neither does accusations or holding grudges. At this point we are asked to grow up, to become more adult in our relationships. To become relational. Relational activists. If that happens, the false community becomes a real community.
Why do this work?
There are many reasons for doing this work. For one, doing this inner work, this community work will make the individual, the community, and ultimately the large community we call the movement more effective. That alone is a good enough reason. But as long as hierarchy, one-upping, and top-down authority are not addressed within our own circles, our view of what is possible is limited. But we can take the brave steps of healing ourselves and our movement, creating a new kind of solidarity based on a radically new set of values. And not just values we give lip-service to, but values we attempt to practice.
Secondly, this vision of a world of peace and justice does not end with us. This is a long-term vision, a lasting vision that will be carried on by our children and their children. It is crucial that we end the cycles of inner-community conflict for the sake of our children. What is not addressed by the parent will be passed to the children. We owe it to our children to not pass the dysfunction. Freeing our children from these burdens will give them more space to carry out their own struggle for a better world.
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