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4.1 Building Transnational Solidarity Networks of Resistance
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In this first episode of season 4, Hamidreza Vasheghanifarahani speaks with Azadeh Sobout and Rindala about how transnational solidarity networks can strengthen efforts towards social change. While both Azadeh and Rindala focus their discussion on Syria and the 2011 Revolution, the conversation explores broader approaches and challenges to political organising and revolutionary politics that can be applied globally.
Hamidreza Vasheghanifarahani an Iranian researcher, activist and an Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity. Currently, he works at the LSE International Inequalities Institute as a researcher. He has worked with and for civil society organisations and communities as a researcher, project manager and trainer, with a focus on civil society and community mobilisation, children’s rights, and disability.
Azadeh Sobout is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast. She is an Iranian activist, writer, and educator rooted in refugee justice, indigenous solidarity, Palestinian liberation, anti-racist, feminist, anti-imperialist, and anti-capitalist movements for over a decade.
Rindala is a Syrian member of the People’s Want transnational network and a co-founder of the cooperative space Darna in Montreuil, France.
To learn more about the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity: https://afsee.atlanticfellows.lse.ac.uk/
The Peoples Want: https://thepeopleswant.org/en/about_us
Hamidreza Vasheghanifarahani: https://afsee.atlanticfellows.lse.ac.uk/fellows/2022/hamidreza-vasheghanifarahani
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Transcript
Introduction to Season 4 and Social Change Focus
00:00:04
Speaker
Welcome to Season 4 of Instant Coffee. I'm Nadine Almanasfi and this season we're very excited to be collaborating with our colleagues at the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity, based at the LSE International Inequalities Institute.
00:00:17
Speaker
This season's focus is a question. What does it take to affect meaningful social change in the Middle East? We thought what better way of exploring this question than by speaking with Atlantic Fellows past and present who are from the Middle East. These activists and practitioners from the region have come to the LSE to dedicate a year to academic research, thinking through how they can find sustainable strategies for social change.
00:00:39
Speaker
The episodes that follow explore questions such as how to build transnational networks of solidarity across the Middle East, what it takes to keep education going during the recent war on Gaza, and much more. All episodes have been co-curated with Atlantic Fellows past and present based on their spheres of activism and thinking.
00:00:56
Speaker
They have invited friends, colleagues and guests to highlight the challenges facing their communities, the work being done and future thinking.
Hamid's Insights on Civil Society and Children's Rights
00:01:03
Speaker
Based at the LSE International Inequalities Institute, the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity is a fellowship programme for mid-career social change leaders who are working to tackle inequality.
00:01:14
Speaker
So, with the introduction out of the way, we begin episode one with Hamid Reza Vashighani Farahani. Hamid is with me now and Hamid, before we play the episode, it would be great if you could introduce yourself briefly.
00:01:27
Speaker
ah Hello Nadine. Yes, I'm a researcher and activist. I have worked with communities and civil society groups in Iran for about 15 years in areas such as children's rights, civil society mobilisation, service providing and community mobilisation.
00:01:42
Speaker
Currently I'm working as a researcher in an AFC funded project at the London School of Economies. Thank you, Hamid. And the conversation that you had with your two guests, Azadeh and Rindala, it explored why and how to build transnational solidarity networks of resistance.
00:01:58
Speaker
Can you tell us more about why you chose this topic? Yes, this topic actually is related to the other part of my activism because I also engage with different civil society groups and have worked in other areas as well. but The usual way that change is imagined is through a sort of state-centric lens. many Many believe that we need to negotiate with the governments, persuade politicians.
00:02:24
Speaker
past law and draft policies. But if we look at the history, it shows us that these things, if we we reach the winning points, could be still very fragile. And many progressive policies and measures are quite vulnerable to reversals if we only rely on the formal politics.
00:02:47
Speaker
And states have also proven that whenever they got the chance, they fall back into their reactionary practices. Because of this, many argue that change also needs to be built from
Solidarity in the Syrian Revolution
00:02:59
Speaker
the below.
00:02:59
Speaker
Also, it cannot stop at the national borders, because we know that these national borders are constructed through the history, through the walls, and through negotiations of the elites, and not necessarily the people. If we look at the different injustices, that we face and many others face in their communities and countries. We will see that, okay, there are very contextual specificities, but at the same time, these injustices have many commonalities in their manifestations and in their roots and structures. So this this makes it like quite necessary for us to look at resistance and resilience. as things that are interconnected between nations and between the people across the nations and also the need for constructing networks of solidarity in which activists and ordinary people could find each other, share their knowledge and offer support and act together.
00:04:00
Speaker
And without spoiling too much of the episode, from this conversation that you had, the audience will hear that both guests explore their academic and activist work in relation to the Syrian revolution in 2011.
00:04:13
Speaker
Azadeh's focus is more on artist collectives, how they built solidarity within the Middle East, specifically between Lebanon and Syria, while Rindala looks at the work of the diaspora as a Syrian in exile.
00:04:24
Speaker
Did you want to use Syria as a focal point for this episode, or was there another reason you chose both of these guests? What do you think each guest brings to the conversation? Actually, I did not have the intention to focus on Syria. It just happened. But it it is it is very interesting because we know that when the Syrian revolution started, several international powers and states intervened to suppress and also try to to make changes in the dynamics of the Syrian revolution. And it is very interesting that both Azadeh's work and Rindala's work shows us that people and activists also internationally try to engage to support the Syrian revolution and build transnational solidarity for the Syrian people.
00:05:11
Speaker
In fact, I thought that Rindala and the experience of the Syrian continent and the people want could illustrate how people can build step by step upon their own power and bridge between different groups in different spaces and different countries.
00:05:27
Speaker
and try to connect various issues and also act
Art and Resistance in Transnational Spaces
00:05:31
Speaker
accordingly. Azadeh's work also similarly shows how artists could learn from their own communities and highlight the resistance and active resilience of their own community and how their artistic practices can build spaces for thinking and acting transnationally and beyond the borders for change and also maintaining social and communal ties that are crucial for change because we know sometimes arts and many of social practices could not make the change instantly but they built and maintained the potential and possibilities of the change and this is this is ah quite important particularly in in the hard time because maybe in hard times that people could not make the change in in short term but the social ties should be maintained if you want to see the change in the future.
00:06:25
Speaker
I also wanted to say that this episode was recorded in May 2025, long before the protests and subsequent crackdown began in Iran and the escalation by the Syrian transitional government in Rojava, the Kurdish territory in North and East Syria.
00:06:41
Speaker
As this conversation I had with Rindala and Azadeh discusses solidarity with people's rights and demands for freedom and equality, I wanted to state my solidarity with those in Iran and Rojava.
00:06:55
Speaker
Well, with this in mind, let's listen back to the conversation. So let's start the discussion by introducing Azadeh and Reyn Dal. Could you tell us a little bit about your Vogue's and academic or activist interest and who are you?
00:07:10
Speaker
Thank you, Hamid and Nadine, for the invitation. I'm delighted to be here today and speaking to you. As for the conversation, i would like to reflect a little bit on my work on art and resistance in transnational spaces. In the years following the Syrian revolution in 2011, transnational artist collectives reimagined activism, art and politics through the shared experience of communities. And ah while traveling to Lebanon to do my doctoral research, I started noticing a surge in a spontaneous and organized forms of artistic expression in Beirut. So that became a the emergence of my interest in looking at these art-led collectives that had formed in the years following the Syrian revolution to find out how they exhibit the capacity for solidarity with war-affected communities. And it is in that capacity that I am speaking here today.
00:08:08
Speaker
Okay, I guess it's my turn. Hey everyone, thank you so much for the invitation. So my name is Rindala. I'm Syrian exile based in France for the past 10 years or so.
00:08:22
Speaker
I'm glad to partake in this discussion, especially with Azadeh, whose work seems to be you know also coming from there. I am involved in ah two collective dynamics of of self-organization. One is called the Darna, which is a new social center, a material base of self-organizations for exile. So basically, it's a militant space focused on the questions of transnational politics, transnational solidarity in the Parisian suburbs, and is run by a collective of people who come from different backgrounds and nationalities, so from Syria, from Lebanon, Iran, Sudan, etc.
00:09:05
Speaker
It's the result basically of six years of works and practices of something that was called the Syrian Cantina. So it's like a popular kitchen that was created by Syrian exiled in France, and that just recently is being transformed, metamorphosized into a more of a collective project in which Syria um and the s Syrian revolutions and Syrian exiles still have like an important presence, but it's yeah opening up to other diasporas. So that's one project i'm I'm involved in. The other collective dynamic and transnational dynamic I'm involved in is called The People's Want.
00:09:40
Speaker
And yet again, that's like another baby of the Syrian cantina. The People's Want is a transnational ah network that started a couple of years ago in ah in an informal fashion. as a result of the 2019 wave of uprisings around the world. So if you remember, there was uprising in Hong Kong, Chile, Algeria, Iraq, so on.
Emergence of Transnational Politics and Alliances
00:10:01
Speaker
At that point, we decided to do a gathering that brings together exiles or activists from those countries and ah throughout the years, This has developed into a network, an activist network, that has just published a manifesto. It's kind of the political vision of the network that is called Revolutions of Our Times, an internationalist manifesto, and that is being formalized and is and is starting to get um open to like formal membership in order to become more and more operational. So that's kind of the other transnational dynamic I'm involved in.
00:10:35
Speaker
Okay, thank you. In in your opinion, what necessiates building of such networks, what makes it necessary to build transnational solidarity networks and which possibilities such network would open up for the struggle for the rights of the people.
00:10:56
Speaker
Well, the borders of many modern nation states in West Asia are ah drawn by European, reflected European priorities. And European imperialists drew the borders of the Middle East in the ways that really didn't make sense and which were disruptive to local communities. Even if we look at the term Middle East, it's defined by geopolitical strategists who reside outside of the so-called Middle East.
00:11:23
Speaker
So the term is a again in accordance with contemporary British and Eurocentric geopolitical calculations. The term of is a void of any geographical, linguistic and cultural validity.
00:11:39
Speaker
And in this context is when transnational activist networks, particularly who have arosen in the aftermath of the Syrian revolution, have been able to create spaces for collective understanding of sovereignty, opening up practices of resisting, particularly the case of artists, what I found quite fascinating is how artists in the area are resisting instrumentalization and co-optation of their art, and how they are also resisting NGOization of peace and NGOization of art, which is again, coming from the same framework of a very Eurocentric understanding of what collectivity and artivism means. One example to tell you how communities in Lebanon, particularly the art-led collectives, are ah resist this instrumentalization and co-optation is a for the last 18 months since the genocide in Palestine has started, a lot of ah artists have been sharing their experience ah that ah they have been rejecting
00:12:48
Speaker
to take part in art programs, which is funded, for example, by Germany. Like the Götter Institute in Beirut was always a popular funding organization for many Lebanese ah artists. But artists are no more willing to use that fund to to create arts. Because when you speak to them, they say, We don't accept funding from a country who is supporting the genocide of our people. It shows how the agency of these art-led collectives
Resisting Co-optation and Developing Mutual Aid
00:13:21
Speaker
are bringing a new wave of resistance so that they no more look into international funding as a way to sustain their activities. But actually, they are creating a collective of mutual aid. This is something I've been hearing a lot nowadays from our comrades in Beirut. that they are trying to work, for example, in different ah projects, sustaining each other, trying to think through solidarity economy lenses rather than being reliant on international fundings.
00:13:54
Speaker
In our case, the need for ah more transnational organizing emerged basically from the lack of support that we had in relation to the Syrian revolution. Some of us lived that more and more in exile. A lot of the members who created the the Syrian Cantina ah were based in Europe, in France. And yeah, we realized that the Syrian revolution, especially in leftist circles, either neglected, there was some sort of indifference. At best, there was an incomprehension. And then at worst, there was just some sort of like denial. um to the validity or legit legitimacy of the uprising, you know drawing it as, I don't know, something that would be in contradiction to the Palestinian cause, something that would be a Western plot, something that would fragilise the national sovereignty of Syria and and hence kind of allow Western and imperialist intervention, etc. et cetera So there was need emerged from you know just saying, okay...
00:14:56
Speaker
Can we reframe the the conversation on that? And can we actually communicate? Like, how can we communicate with other comrades, with other activists, with other political um scenes that that do not come from the the Syrian context or from the regional context? Because when we're speaking about those leftist scenes, it was mostly leftist scenes in Europe, in the West, and their comprehension of the region and of the Syrian revolution. Yeah, it was very much shaped by Western-centric point of view that would see the situation, like the Arab Spring or the revolution in Syria, really from the interests and the paradigms and the coordinates of like French politics or US politics or British politics, right? So first of all, we needed to say, okay, How can we reframe and de-center that vision in order ah for us to just communicate what actually happened, right? So that was kind of the first need towards transnational politics. We we didn't think of transnational politics before that. It was not like a thing, you know. We learned internationalism while doing it because... It was not like an ideological conviction that we had, but yeah, something that emerged in practice. And so the second step was to say, OK, actually, you know, in order to to gain solidarity, to build alliances with other communities in exile, not only we need to, like, reframe the conversation or the narrative about the Syrian revolution, but also actually, no, what are the causes that animates people? We weren't only in touch or in contact with like French-based struggles, but also lot of other exiles. So from the Sudanese diaspora, ah from the Kurdish diaspora, from the Iranian diaspora um in France. And so we said, okay, what is happening? to those other exiled communities. Maybe alliances and shared struggle can come from that. So that was the other step when we said, okay, actually, maybe not only we need to speak about the Syrian revolution, but we need to start hearing what other people are going through.
00:16:56
Speaker
How are they doing their struggles in exile? What are their learning? Some of those communities have been there before us for like so so many years, like you know the Kurdish or the Iranian circle. They have so like a heritage, right, of like political organizing and exile. So we started going and meeting and inviting different communities to share a space of thinking, of exchange, but also a strategic elaboration, right, to see how can we go towards transnational politics. And why was that necessary? It was not only to gain allies for the Syrian revolution, or maybe to start just building networks and contacts and write like basic solidarity like practices, but for ah the future, maybe of of the next Syrian uprising, but it was also because we felt a lack. there was There was something missing, right? And this is what we saw with with different people and comrades and activists coming out of the Arab Spring, for
Strategic Alliances and Material Solidarity
00:17:46
Speaker
example. We we felt that, you know, we had similar practices, similar tactics, similar slogans. um There was a lot of resonance, right, between actually not even among, I don't know, the different uprisings in the Middle East, but also slowly we started seeing that also with Chile, actually. I don't know. We had comrades in Chile and comrades in Lebanon who were like imitating tactics on the front lines, borrowing. Right. And so we saw that there was a lot of resonance between our uprisings and our struggles. Right.
00:18:15
Speaker
but that there was not a space that links and brings together those different struggles. Throughout the past few years, there was a lot of events and organizations and encounters. And, you know, we have organized some of those encounters, but, you know, most of the time it would like end there. And this is kind of when the peoples want to intervene. We said, okay, we are in communication. We are in contact.
00:18:37
Speaker
Our struggles do resonate, but how to go on, right? How to go forward, how to learn from the mistakes that we have made society. in those uprising, what were the limits, what were the lacks, and how to how to prepare for the next for the next wave, how to prepare ourselves collectively in order for us to be ready when there will be a future explosions, anger, enrage, etc.
00:19:02
Speaker
Thank you. so You already touched what I'm going to ask, but how these networks and these collective actions could facilitate the process of change in the favour of people?
00:19:18
Speaker
Because usually the humanitarian sector, they say that, okay, people have like very basic needs, but what you are talking about, is it is something like theoretical or it is something critical and it doesn't address needs of the people and and the things that really need to be changed in a very, very basic meaning.
00:19:41
Speaker
I think there is always like, I mean, especially when we're speaking about, i don't know, humanitarian aid, about like big international organizations that have like a lot of means, a lot of resources, of course, a lot of like political and diplomatic facilitation and access, right? to I mean, we we have done here just the criticism that they have very well spoken about all the colonial, neo-colonial framework and and discourse that that they try and kind of impose, ah right, the means and the ways of change on certain regions. The the question is like, after we have done the criticism, it's like, so what do we do, right? And and and this is kind of a question that we've been grappling with a lot in the People's Want Network, is to say that actually, you know, and in order to change ah things in the world and have an impact, actually, discourse is not enough, right? Like we can reframe conversations, we can reframe narrative, but yes, there is a limit to that. And and what we need actually is the material changing of conditions, right? Let's take the example of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine. You know, it must be like one...
00:20:51
Speaker
space, one territory that has been divided by colonial powers. And and today, actually, sometimes we live some of the geopolitical contradictions of that
Art as a Tool for Education and Justice
00:21:00
Speaker
colonial division. Some people in Lebanon today, for example, would have a not very ah positive or supportive stand ah for the Syrian people or the Syrian revolution because, you know, ah they're undergoing ah Israeli war and bombing and aggression. And there is this thing where like, okay, you know, but today we have to actually be behind Hezbollah, which is a militia group in Lebanon that participated, for example, in the repression of the Lebanese revolution and of the of the Syrian revolution. But today in ah in a state of like emergency, in a state of war, and Israeli aggression, yeah, we have we see, like for example, ah certain ah Lebanese groups or comrades or discourses saying, like okay, you know but today we actually need to stand behind Isballah, even if we don't like their ideology.
00:21:49
Speaker
And so this is what I mean when when I say that geopolitical divisions and contradictions arises as a result right of the of colonial interventions historically and still today in the region. And so, for example, our question in relation to change is that Here, it seems that the the reason that sometimes we are faced or we're obliged to choose a side with counter-revolutionary forces is really a material need. We don't necessarily always like their ideas, but there seems to be a material necessity to sideline with some counter-revolutionary or authoritarian camps. I mean, you know, we can speak about Iran, the same, you know, like the dilemma when it comes to like, dilemma, quote-unquote dilemma, in relation to like the Palestinian resistance and like Jinjian Azadi and the apparent, again, between two quotation, contradictions, right, supporting the feminist revolution in Iran and the same, and the Palestinian struggle. But so our take on this is to say, then we need to develop means for material material solidarity, like concrete ways to be able to contribute to changing and the material conditions of everyday life. And of course, there is a huge question of scale, right? Like, to what extent can we do that on the same scale as like big international organizations?
00:23:11
Speaker
I would say first by acknowledging the limits in creating change, the limits that this grassroots network have in in a creating change. The art created at grassroots has a limit in creating change and cannot transform until it is moved to a strategic level.
00:23:29
Speaker
And this is where you find artistic collectives have ah started to create coalitions. They have started to integrate their social activism with a political message. They have started to integrating art with education. and There is this ah school in northern Lebanon in a village ah which is providing education to Syrian refugee children.
00:23:54
Speaker
They are combining arts with educational curriculum. They are trying to teach children in ways that are more suitable with their circumstances. They engage art with critical educational need of children and try to be mindful about the need of these children so they don't follow the official schooling curriculum. But at the same time, they try to ensure that its children receive the education they need and receive the cert certificate they need. So if I want to talk about change, I can see that there are limits in creating the change.
00:24:34
Speaker
and But at the same time, I see how artists are creating coalitions, how they are integrating art with development with education. in a way, how they have been successful in decolonizing the education system, because ah they are moving behind a very rigid framework that most of the time education entails in our countries, ah providing spaces for inspiration, for creativity.
00:25:02
Speaker
Another aspect is ah that The art spaces has provided opportunities for initiatives that transcend ethnic division. In a country like Lebanon, where sectarianism and racism is very institutionalized against the migrant and refugee communities, These ah everyday spaces of activism have generated political solidarity across different communities. The work of artists has also created transnational solidarity in supporting the wider causes in the region.
00:25:36
Speaker
the The last international gathering that we had in the People's Want was in Marseille last year. It was supposed to take place in Lebanon, but due to the Israeli war, aggression in Lebanon, obviously that was not possible. And so in Marseille, all of the participants decided that post the festival, we will actually do a transnational campaign in support of our comrades in Lebanon who couldn't come to the gathering, right? And what what happened is that there was like simultaneous, more or less simultaneous events in like... 13 different countries that were organized by local groups, you know, like normal people in social centers, in cinemas, in popular neighborhoods to do two kinds of mutual aid. First of all, political mutual aid. So, for example, there was a demo of 2000 people in Mexico speaking about but Lebanon.
00:26:22
Speaker
ah People did not know before where Lebanon exists on the map. Everyone knew Palestine. But no one knew what what was happening in Lebanon. That was one form of mutual aid that we that we tried to do. and And then another one was material mutual aid. So a lot of those events collected funds, for example, to send to the collectives that we were in contact with for years in Lebanon. So, for example, those funds went into an agroecological farm that is in the Bekaa Valley as well, bazuru nauzulna to a community space and ah that is called Hostel Beirut, that hosts a lot of social movements and popular powers and and self-organized groups in Lebanon. And betaam another social space that again hosts a lot of like amazing organizing work in Lebanon. So for us, of course, the scale is not comparable. It was like, i don't know, around like 8000 euros. But actually, we think that it is really important to keep that and to develop our means. Because then when we come and say, hey, let's try not to take sides, let's try to actually find collective means of liberation for for all of us and not to have to submit ourselves to the emergency that is imposed by states, that is imposed by geopolitical actors, then, you know, we say, okay, maybe we have the means to support a place or two for the next year. It's not on the level of the whole Lebanese population yet.
00:27:41
Speaker
But it's not it's not nothing. It's actually really important that we give the means to ourselves, the material needs to ourselves to say, actually what we do, you know, revolutionary politics, it's not just discourse. It's also material means to help collectives sustain themselves for years. And you know what? To also participate on their own way to change the discourse in Lebanon, you know In order to do that, those and collectives need to exist. Those collectives need not to be in survival mode, right? In order for us to do politics, in order for our our comrades in Lebanon to do politics. Well, they can't be only in survival mode and in responding to emergencies. Hence, really, the the importance of of material needs. And in the People's Want, as at the moment, we are trying to develop different tools and mechanisms, not only for fundraising, but also for practical material solidarity. That means...
00:28:31
Speaker
people that can circulate actually from a place to another because, I don't know, there needs to be harvesting through the the Israeli bombardment and there needs to be much, much, more many more people to actually ah work the land ah because for for for three months it was not possible. That's one example. But anyway, it can be exchanges in terms of like practices of security. It can be exchanges in terms of a whole diversity of topics. But yes, for us, even if the scale seems very frightening and and if even if we think that, oh, we we might not be able to compete with the resources and the means with like the great evil powers, well, we still need to do it because this is what will give our our discourse towards collective liberation a truth, right? material concretization.
Empowering Transformations through Art and Collaboration
00:29:18
Speaker
I would like to take from what Rindala said about revolutionary politics is not just about discourse, but I find it quite fascinating when you discuss with the Syrian artists and art collectives about their understanding of revolution.
00:29:35
Speaker
They often explain to you that they see arts as part of the wider revolution discourse. And they explain to you that the role of artists as revolutionary is one disrupting the status quo and claiming transformation through acts of reimagining, remaking, resisting, and critiquing.
00:29:56
Speaker
In this sense, being revolutionary is part of a wider coalition and network of people who are meaning-making and creating the space for a change in inter-community dynamics.
00:30:13
Speaker
I would like you to give you an example. After the blast of Beirut in 2020, you saw a surge of community groups from Palestinians, Armenians, Syrians, Lebanese, deeply engaged in collaborative work for providing assistance for reconstruction of spaces, for ah supporting the everyday needs of people. You found that like ah spaces, for example, in Carantino, this was one of the very interesting examples. ah
00:30:47
Speaker
Carantino was just 600 meters away from the place ah of the blast. So, It was one of the areas that was mostly impacted, and the entire neighborhood was already a vulnerable neighborhood, mostly inhabited by the migrants and refugees and the Lebanon's poorest and working-class communities. After the blast, the the artists from different backgrounds, they went to the neighborhood. They started supporting students' ah education, children's playground. They created playground for children. And this was one of the areas that received less aid from non-governmental agencies than others. This is also very important because in the hierarchy of humanitarianism, you often have areas that receive less aid because that wasn't completely Lebanese neighborhood. It was mostly inhabited by internally displaced Lebanese, but also by other ah migrants and refugee groups. So through this project, the artists, they collected their stories,
00:31:55
Speaker
of the neighborhood. And they call this the Living of Al-Qarantina. It was an initiative ah which ah also archived the oral history of the area from the Lebanese Civil War to Beirut Port Explosion through principles of witnessing and historiography. By explaining this, I just want to tell you how artists have been at the very core of justice strategies, grassroots justice claims that are taking place in its spaces. which goes beyond the a very act of reconstruction or physical rebuilding. It actually stresses the agency of local people to change their society and explores how the role of revolution is transforming social relations. So I would take again from that that revolutionary politics is about a space and about relationships that organize and reshape that togetherness, that social relations.
Reflections on Liberation and Future Goals
00:32:53
Speaker
It's also important for those who try to build and construct and facilitate establishment of such networks and such actions is to learn from the past experiences and ah you rindala mentioned it and also you also mentioned that some good examples and some strategies to overcome some of the limitations or things that are imposed by the Western narratives and also ah any kind of action there are gaps, there are failures and people try but they fail, they try again and they succeed, they go one step forward and I think that it would be very crucial to to to communicate such lessons to other people who might be interested in building such networks or facilitating such processes.
00:33:51
Speaker
the lesson learned it's is it's not it's not going to sound very original i'm going to say but actually for us it was very very important to note that it was really um this capacity to just like last in time if i can say it as such because look global politics today is really just like shock right one lesson that we that we need to to kind of keep is how do we circumvent right those those like emergency moments Because on one hand, I mean, we see that we need to intervene right here, right now, because it's it's people's life, right? It's like really, i mean, it true emergencies in a lot of those cases, but sometimes there is also like a discourse, right, of emergency.
00:34:28
Speaker
There are so many struggles. There are so many emergencies. We don't know how to choose. We don't know how to orient ourselves. And we lose energy, right? Like during that, we lose energy. we We lose sometimes resources and our impact is like not felt. And and so that discourages us. And, you know, again, it becomes a cycle.
00:34:44
Speaker
in which we see like struggles kind of like dying out instead of like just lasting in time. What we learn from the Kurdish and the Palestinian struggle is the is the importance of organization, right? of like how do we How do we structure movements in order for them to last? So I think that's one thing. Another lesson, is which was related to this notion of scale, right? And to discrepancy that we have with, I don't know, colonial powers, authoritarian regimes in our countries, or some of the like the neoliberal institutions, right?
00:35:13
Speaker
In order for our strategies to work, we don't always actually need to be at the same scale. Because being at the same scale, that also means transforming actually the means of our own organization, right? It's really learning from like revolutionary politics from the 20th And from the kind of like top-down ways of organizing that was very prevalent and and we have to say also successful in many cases throughout like the 20th century. Like, I don't know whether it is liberation struggles or whether it is like mass labor movement organizations, a lot of like the communist mass movements and organizations were in a lot of cases organized like
00:35:52
Speaker
top bottom and not bottom up. Or at some point, you know, they you have like a ah shift. You dip into kind of the right, the opposite of of what you do. That's another lesson that we really need to like take into account is that ah maybe we need to find other means to like fill those gaps that is not reproducing the means of organization and and the means of doing politics that we combat to go back to what Azadi was saying. I think it's it's a very important and we really like For us, it's something that we really cannot like let go of, is yeah is the articulation between the material conditions, but also social relations. Because, you know, of course, we can say in order to compete with whether it's neoliberal institutions or authoritarian regime or or colonial powers, we just need to do the same thing, but with our content, right? that never works. i mean, we saw that really rarely works. There is something, I mean, that is that is crucial about collective liberation that is related to the social transformation, that is related to the social, to the transformations of relations, of care, of anti-authoritarian politics, not only, you know, on the levels of of state or like democracy, but also in the levels of how do we organize, how do we relate to each other?
00:37:03
Speaker
And so I think that's really the second that we take is that we need to find our own ways. We need to be inventive in the ways that we can accumulate forces and build our power in a way that is different, in a way that that already actually achieves collective liberation right here and night and right now. You know, like we can't distinguish between the means and the end. And I think that's something that more than ever we need to to maintain and to keep and to keep into account because, you know, the reactionary fascist wave, you know, that we are living through today everywhere, really everywhere in the world that manifests itself through genocide in Palestine, through actually like ecological disasters in other way, in order for the imperial capitalist system to just like survive. So, you know,
00:37:48
Speaker
gets more aggressive in destroying like ah means of means of living. what What seems for us is important is is precisely to say we need to survive this emergency. We're going to need to survive this tornado that that they're imposing on us. But we we can't lose ourselves, right? We can't lose ourselves while doing that. We need to keep track of why, right? Why we are resisting. What is it that we need? And try as much as possible, which is not easy at all, right?
00:38:13
Speaker
to keep changing of material conditions, but but also like social relations. And yeah, and I think something that is that we learn from the mistakes of the past, but it's also something that we are going to need to reinvent concrete means and forms of organizations to actually exercise it and do it. It's not it's an open question.
00:38:33
Speaker
I like to end with this sentence by saying that it takes courage and perseverance not to despair. in the face of continued genocide, the manmade famine, destruction, war, but we keep our compass strong towards a liberated future.
00:38:52
Speaker
And as Rindala said, because we have no choice but to fight for our people. Thank you for listening to Instant Coffee, a podcast brought to you by the LSE Middle East Centre. To learn more about the work of Rindala, Azadeh, Hamid and the Atlantic Fellows, follow the links in the podcast description.
00:39:09
Speaker
Join us next week to hear from AFSI Fellow Manar Izrayi. We spoke to Manar in the summer of 2025 to discuss how educators in Gaza are continuing to teach despite war and hunger.