Solidarity between catastrophic singularity and disastrous individualism
There is a mainstream impulse to look at deeply political and social issues like environment, war, racism, and so forth as isolated catastrophes limited in time and space, which require urgent responses. A catastrophe here carries the connotation of a sudden, unexpected, and singular event detached from the broader social, economic, and political structures that yield these catastrophes and shape the lives of marginalised communities.
Here, it is crucial to note the difference between singularity and particularity. Catastrophes can be particular to a certain context, but they are not singular and definitely not detached and isolated events. Decontextualising cases of injustices as isolated singularities can yield impulsive solidarity that is largely centred around self-gratification and chronic saviourism. For example, treating ingrained abuses in the clothing industry as isolated singular events, or momentary scandals tied to a specific brand, as opposed to what they are: a structural problem across the entire supply chain. Furthermore, recent years have shown us how these forms of solidarity can be selective, discriminatory, and at times violently racist. The European response to white refugees from Ukraine as opposed to Black and Brown non-European refugees is a case in point.
Fighting this transient and rushed reaction that tends to override strategic long-term thinking and a self-critical approach is crucial. Importantly because it is at these moments in history when those in power implement destructive long-term policies, and pass them with the least opposition possible under the pretext of urgency. As neoliberal thinker Milton Friedman stated, “only a crisis, actual or perceived, produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function. To develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable” (Friedman, 1982). As could be seen during and after Hurricane Katrina in the United States (2010) and the earthquake in Haiti (2010), the grave problem with Friedman’s argument is that “real change” and “alternatives” are the very opportunity through which - as Naomi Klein argues - “think tanks and land developers started talking about ‘clean sheets’ and exciting opportunities, it was clear that this was now the preferred method of advancing corporate goals: using moments of collective trauma to engage in radical social and economic engineering. Most people who survive a devastating disaster want the opposite of a clean slate: they want to salvage whatever they can and begin repairing what was not destroyed; they want to reaffirm their relatedness to the places that formed them” (Klein, 2007).
It is hard to talk about responding to catastrophes, especially from an outlook of singularity, without mentioning charity. Uruguayan thinker and author Eduardo Galeano makes a stark distinction between solidarity and saviourism or charity, "unlike solidarity, which is horizontal and takes place between equals, charity is top-down, humiliating those who receive it and never challenging the implicit power relations. In the best of cases, there will be justice someday, high in heaven. Here on earth, charity does not disturb injustice. It only seeks to disguise it” (Galeano, 1998). Furthermore, saviourism/charity is not interested in justice, nor in changing conditions of exploitation, for it is dependent on the continuity of suffering in order for it to exist. Suffering needs to continue to exist for the saviour, the charitable, to feel good about themselves, to feel civilised, humanitarian, and superior. In the words of Brazilian philosopher and educationist Paolo Freire, "[i]n order to have the continued opportunity to express their ‘generosity,’ the oppressors must perpetuate injustice as well. An unjust social order is the permanent fount of this ‘generosity,’ which is nourished by death, despair, and poverty.” (Freire, 1968). Freire argues that “true generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity.”
Blurring the lines between charity and solidarity can be detrimental for the community and a waste of much-needed resources. Nowadays, we can see this reflected in the current frameworks of relief, so-called development, volunteering and aid; which more often than not re-establish colonial tropes, saviourism, and reinforce superiority. Stigmatising communities as people(s) prone to disasters, as opposed to people(s) who have been dispossessed and continue to be.
Though solidarity can and should manifest in response to emergencies, it can’t be restricted to momentary impulses that follow hyped news cycles, which die out as fast as they start. It is crucial for solidarity to challenge the politics of singularity and short attention spans; and to move on a structural level: building infrastructure while working to dismantle apparatuses of oppression.
Singularity beyond the catastrophe
This misconstrued belief around the singularity of catastrophes renders living under injustices in times of so-called normalcy as acceptable, not requiring urgent intervention. It also renders the daily struggles due to, say, structural racism, as “personal problems.” What this produces is an individualisation of suffering and also of self-care, and leaves one prey to the parameters of neoliberal markets of healing. Systems of individualised and decontextualised trauma and its aftercare, which make of healing a privilege to those who can afford it and a source of stress for many who have to take the means from other needs in their life like rent and food. The mindset of singularity takes away from the collective processes of healing and self/collective care which centre addressing systematic injustices. For example, instead of healing through a collective process of transformative justice, one is made to understand that justice - as a cornerstone for healing - can only be attained and understood under the culture of vindictiveness perpetuated by the established legal and judiciary systems. Instead of a holistic and intersectional approach, entrenched in the ability to tap into collective support structures as a form of personal resilience, healing is depoliticised and rendered a singular and individual trauma chronically dependent on a capitalist and extractivist commercialisation of Indigenous knowledge (Yoga, Ayahuasca, herbal medicine, healing ceremonies, et cetera).
Our response to catastrophes, just like healing trauma, requires a holistic and political approach to self-care that is rooted in our communities and collectives away from the commodification of neoliberal markets. “For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change” (Lorde, 1984). Building solidarity infrastructures, entrenched in opposing hierarchy and centralisation of power, is crucial. This requires addressing the ways in which we have internalised the oppressive systems around us and dismantling those structures, first within ourselves and in our day-to-day relations. This might require at times venturing into uncomfortable and tense territories of debate and interaction, which contradict the marketed neoliberal product of “personal wellness,” and “personal comfort at all times and at all cost.”
The structures and process that we use, shape us the way we shape them. Solidarity infrastructures must uphold collective care and mutual support, and must favour the construction of different modes of existing and relating to one another living in deeply racist, misogynistic, and transmisic, capitalist and neoliberal societies. In efforts to shape the culture of organising, it is pivotal for networks to fight the heavily-advertised product of transient saviourism, and affirm a commitment to building networks of resistance and mutual support that have reciprocity, interconnectedness and interdependence at their hearts. Understanding and shaping solidarity in those terms, and away from the framework of individualism and competition in the performativity of radicalness, is a step towards the much-needed dismantling of these notions of powers and dominance.
Switching the viewpoint from momentary response to investing in infrastructures allow for more agility and effectiveness to address the pressing issue at hand, and to respond to future catastrophes, and everything in between, before and after. Through building these networks and infrastructures, even when a certain goal is not achieved for whatever reason, the infrastructure is there to reflect, to adapt, to change tactics and to evolve, in order to pursue proactive action. This is why, no matter the urgency, response to catastrophes cannot be dissociated or isolated from meticulous strategic planning and wider political vision on which tools and forms to use and how these impact us and our culture of political organising.
Building solidarity infrastructures is a process of healing, and similarly, it cannot be approached from the prism of isolated singularity that shies away from confronting the roots of the problem. Solidarity, just like healing, will have turbulent moments, and painful and itching wounds that require time and care to heal. And just like healing, solidarity can find warmth in the collective, in the support of the community, in the “you will never walk alone,” the shared lived experiences, the memories that write history, the manifestations of existence and co-existence, with and not at the expense of each other. With and for one another, as accomplices, equal ones.
Literature:
Friedman, Milton. ed. 2002. “1982 Preface.” In Capitalism and Freedom (pp. xiv). University of Chicago Press.
Klein, Naomi. 2007. "Blank Is Beautiful: Three Decades of Erasing and Remaking the World." In The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (9-10). New York: Picador.
Galeano, Eduardo. ed. 2001. In Upside Down: A Primer for the Looking-Glass World (312). Translated by Mark Fried. New York: Picador
Freire, Paolo. Ed. 2000. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed (44) Translated by Myra Bergman Ramos. 30th Anniversary Edition. New York: Continuum.
Lorde, Audre. 1984. In The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House (112). In Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Berkeley, CA: Crossing Press.
