How can we build revolutionary solidarity that effectively unites workers and oppressed groups across divisions created by state, religion, and education, without falling into the trap of reinforcing those divisions or reproducing the very structures we seek to dismantle?
Solidarity is not a slogan; it is the muscle memory forged when people meet their needs together while disobeying the scripts of authority. Start by mapping the concrete intersections where state violence bites everyone: housing, food, surveillance. Launch cooperative infrastructures—rent-strike committees fed by worker-run kitchens, debt jubilees pairing students with pensioners, mutual-aid strike funds powered by gig-economy micro-levies. Each shared risk rewires identity, shifting the story from demographic labels to comradeship in action.
Swap top-down lectures for inquiry circles where participants dissect their own workplaces, churches, and schools, exposing the mechanics of domination. When people uncover patterns themselves, they resist sectarian branding. Rotate leadership through affinity clusters so no clique ossifies. Measure progress by sovereignty transferred to the base: who now controls time, money, and land? If the answer is a recallable committee, you are outpacing state mimicry.
Finally, ritualise joy. Festivals of refusal—block parties after successful blockades—plant the emotional memory that liberation feels better than domination and therefore spreads.
Which division in your community could be dissolved first through a shared act of risk and celebration?
How can we create intentional spaces within our organizing that challenge and deconstruct the internalized divisions—such as class, race, or religion—that often hinder authentic solidarity, ensuring these spaces foster mutual vulnerability and shared risk rather than reproducing existing hierarchies?
Begin by refusing the comfort of abstraction. Invite people into “dangerous proximity,” situations where personal stakes collide: a rent-defence sleep-in, a door-to-door canvass for undocumented neighbours, a workplace mapping session that exposes wage gaps on a whiteboard everyone can see. Vulnerability arises when secrets surface in a setting pledged to collective protection. Frame these gatherings as laboratories, not seminars: every session culminates in a shared action that tests what was learned, so reflection and risk remain inseparable.
Design the space so authority constantly circulates. Start with a “power audit” where participants chart who speaks first, who cleans up, who handles money; then rotate those roles at the next meeting. Use stacked facilitation—queue of speakers keeps charismatic voices from dominating—and implement a “red card” veto any participant can flash if jargon or privilege re-enters. Pair conflict mediation teams with decompression rituals—drumming, silent walks—to transmute tension into deeper cohesion rather than polite avoidance.
Finally, treat narrative as infrastructure: collect oral histories of struggle told across generations and faiths, archive them in a portable zine or encrypted drive. Shared story becomes the membrane that holds difference without hierarchy.
When will you schedule your first power audit, and what collective risk will immediately follow it?
What specific practices can we embed into our spaces to continuously surface and challenge our own unspoken assumptions about class, race, and religion—transforming vulnerability into collective strength—and how will we evaluate whether these practices genuinely reshape our internal hierarchies?
Turn meetings into living laboratories of self-interrogation. Open with a five-minute “assumption audit”: everyone names one belief about class, race or religion learned in childhood that still shadows their politics. Pair this with rotating facilitation and treasury duties so money, mouthpiece and minute-taking never congeal in the same hands for more than one cycle. Host monthly story circles where participants recount a formative struggle; listen for patterns of who is cast as agent or victim, then remix roles in the next direct action to reverse the narrative.
Embed a visible dashboard on the wall: tally speaking time by social position, track how resources flow, record who drafts public statements. Every quarter convene a blind caucus where identity groups meet separately, list lingering hierarchies, then reconvene to present demands the whole collective must enact within thirty days. Judge success not by sincerity but by redistribution: did decision-power, budget and risk migrate toward previously marginalised members? Supplement the dashboard with anonymous surveys that ask one question only: “Do you feel more sovereign here than last season?”
If the data contradicts the vibe, shut down business for a week and fix the imbalance before resuming campaigns. Which metric will you put on the wall first, and who gets to erase it when the hierarchy has genuinely shifted?
How can we design ongoing reflection practices that not only surface unspoken assumptions but also create a shared commitment to dismantling internal hierarchies—ensuring that vulnerability leads to tangible shifts in power—and what concrete indicators will reveal that these practices are transforming our internal dynamics rather than just fostering temporary openness?
Treat reflection as a strategic technology, not a wellness break. Begin each month with an Assumption Autopsy: a closed-eyes minute where everyone summons the last stereotype that flashed across their mind, then speaks it aloud into a circle that guarantees non-retaliation. Immediately pair that confession with a concrete shift of authority: the person naming the bias steps back from a power-laden role and nominates someone historically sidelined to fill it for the next action cycle. Vulnerability therefore writes a new organisational chart in real time.
Mid-cycle, convene Shadow Budget workshops where each committee redraws how money, labor and media attention should flow if the collective were truly horizontal. Present both current and ideal maps side-by-side on butcher paper so the gap cannot hide behind rhetoric. Vote on at least one structural amendment that will erase part of the discrepancy before the next Autopsy.
Gauge impact by three hard indicators: the percentage of strategic decisions originating from previously marginalised members, the proportion of funds they allocate, and their retention rate after conflict. If those numbers climb quarter after quarter while meeting length shrinks, hierarchy is melting, not mutating.
Which role are you willing to surrender at the next Assumption Autopsy, and who will you empower to occupy it?