A-Infos (en) Bruxel, UCL - Social organization against genocide: Palestine and established social movements (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Here we translate an article from our sister organization Black Rose / 
Rosa Negra in the United States with which we share not only the 
libertarian communist political project but also the "specificist" 
practice described in the introduction. ---- In this article, several 
members of Black Rose/Rosa Negra share their thoughts on their efforts 
to integrate the struggle for Palestinian liberation into their 
long-term organizing activities. Throughout the article, emphasis is 
placed on the distinction between temporary mobilization and an 
orientation towards sustainable organization in everyday places - our 
workplaces, our schools and our neighborhoods.

Introduction
More than 100 days after Israel's genocidal assault on the Palestinian 
people and the most powerful peace mobilization in over a decade, many 
of us who took to the streets are asking ourselves: question: What will 
it take to really stop the American war machine?

Reflecting on the 2003 protests against the invasion of Iraq, it is 
clear that more is needed than a march from point A to point B, and even 
more than scattered actions such as the occupation of highways, 
politicians' offices or minor acts of vandalism. Going out into the 
streets, pouring your energy into action, going so far as to risk 
arrest, disrupting the normal course of things, and then feeling 
exhausted and defeated is a cycle common to the anti-war movement and to 
all struggles. .

Many of us within Black Rose/Rosa Negra (BRRN) joined the organization 
because we were tired of the cyclical nature of activism . We were 
mobilizing on issues just so as not to get past the starting point once 
the mobilization was over, but with low morale and reduced resources. We 
wanted to find ways to gather and maintain momentum, preserve the memory 
of struggles, meet the needs of movement participants, and create 
leverage to win fights in the here and now - all in the aim of pushing 
towards a revolutionary rupture. This is one of the reasons why BRRN 
prioritizes building movements rooted where we live, work and study, and 
therefore seeks to move away from a focus on single-issue campaigns and 
sub-regions. activist cultures.

It is true that the fact that we are still in the early stages of 
rebuilding combative social movements may make mobilization around 
emergency situations such as the genocide in Palestine slower. Part of 
the reason for this is that we organize with heterogeneous groups of 
people and try, for example, to lead our co-workers into action, rather 
than mobilizing other radicals or activists. . We believe this approach 
will ultimately be more effective because we are building a sustainable 
organization in living spaces with a daily struggle that can respond 
quickly to future struggles. We seek to do the organizing work of 
bringing new people into social movements and the political work of 
bringing them into organized anarchism, so that there are more prepared 
activists. are in the future. We know that organized, rather than simply 
mobilized, political struggle is far more effective in challenging 
imperialism in moments of crisis.

Our approach often goes unnoticed. First, it prioritizes action in 
broader social movement spaces as equal participants, rather than 
emphasizing ensuring that our brand as an organization politics is 
visible on every call for mobilization or on every protest sign. 
Although we also organize and participate in large marches and other 
actions, believing that this is a necessary component of any struggle, 
it is not the main part of what we focus on. Due to the aforementioned 
lack of visibility and the importance we place on this model of 
organizing for power building, we want to highlight some of the less 
visible work our members are engaged in as part of the solidarity with 
Palestine.

It is not about showing how to do things "the right way", but about 
showing how, in a variety of different contexts, we can all do the basic 
work - often very modest but necessary - of building the foundations of 
movements so that we end up with more comrades, power and solidarity 
than we started with. At the end of many Palestine solidarity marches, 
speakers call to get out and continue organizing because marches alone 
cannot stop Israel's genocidal attack - this is objectively true, but it 
is often unclear what this might look like, particularly for grassroots 
activists outside the professionalized bureaucratic systems of NGOs and 
unions. So what might the next steps look like? Here are some examples 
of what the members of Black Rose / Rosa Negra have managed to do.

The organization of a neighborhood in Boston

Members of the East Boston Tenant Committee for Palestine pose for a 
photo after a screening and discussion.

Tony has lived in the East Boston neighborhood for 20 years, while 
Roxana has lived and worked there for 6 years - both are BRRN members. 
Their many years of organizing in the neighborhood have allowed them to 
build bonds and relationships of trust. When the war on Gaza began, they 
were able to leverage these relationships to expand their reach and 
bring together large numbers of their neighbors to attend a group march 
in support of Gaza. Palestine. After brainstorming this initial effort 
with a number of participants, the group chose to formalize their effort 
by creating the neighborhood organization East Boston for Palestine. 
Since then, the group has organized discussions and film screenings in 
the neighborhood, bringing together immigrant families from different 
backgrounds to discover and discuss the connections between their 
struggles against imperialism. This organization helped create a 
supportive anti-imperialist community in the neighborhood and laid the 
foundation for organizing around other issues in the place they call home.

Currently, the Palestinian struggle is enjoying a huge wave of support. 
For some, it is a political issue that they discover through activism. 
For others, the connection with Palestine is rooted in belonging to 
Muslim or Arab communities, or in the direct experience of the violence 
of colonialism and imperialism, which they resisted. In order to impose 
a cost on the imperialist machinery, we must find ways to bring together 
groups of seemingly diverse people, create lasting organizing, and 
develop more strategic forms of resistance.

By participating in the creation of an independent pro-Palestinian 
organization, Boston BRRN members were able to avoid many of the 
political limitations placed on struggles by nonprofits, unions, or the 
Democratic Party. By focusing on a limited territory like a 
neighborhood, we are able to develop relationships rooted in a site of 
daily life, instead of trying to develop scattered activist cliques 
united around little more than ideology or a particular question. This 
allows us to collectively make sense of the present moment. We establish 
links of political and social solidarity as part of a process that 
builds a common vision of the world. It also creates a means of action 
accessible to many people who feel the need to stand in solidarity, but 
who may be new to the movement, or who feel marginalized by 
"professional activism."

"East Boston for Palestine" can be found on Instagram: @ebxpal

Organizing healthcare workers in Oakland

SEIU 1021 members march for Palestine in Oakland.

Morgan is an Oakland nurse who began organizing with BRRN when she 
helped organize a "Healthcare Workers for Black Lives" protest in 2020. 
Three years later, the connections made at era have become essential to 
organizing efforts today, as health workers mobilize in support of 
Palestine. Workers at every major health care facility in the Bay Area 
mobilized and began to forge closer ties with each other through a 
combination of existing political connections, a national petition that 
relationship between signatories, visibility during marches, word of 
mouth and group discussions on Signal and WhatsApp which continue to grow.

It is in this context that Morgan sought to integrate organization 
around the Palestinian question into his hospital. The group first met 
with a small core of like-minded hospital employees and coalesced around 
a plan to hold a daily outreach table in the courtyard of the hospital. 
hospital, to connect with colleagues and educate them about the 
liberation of Palestine. The arrival of other participants allowed him 
to organize an online training session on the Palestinian experience and 
brain trauma with a local Palestinian doctor, to co-organize an internal 
gathering of around fifty colleagues and, more later, to organize a 
public rally for Palestine in front of the hospital.

Currently, the campaign has taken a longer-term view, with Morgan and 
colleagues pushing for the hospital to divest from its engagements with 
militarist and  B D S -targeted companies, establish a sister hospital 
relationship with a Palestinian hospital , and protects staff from any 
reprisals for speaking out about Palestine. This organizing work was 
greatly facilitated by Morgan's history as a rank-and-file union 
activist at the hospital, and helped extend her political connections at 
the hospital beyond her union and across different departments and 
professions. Morgan believes the relationships she made during this 
process, many at the hospital where she plans to work for the rest of 
her career, have provided a foundation from which future fights can be 
built. led.

As a member of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), 
Morgan's union involvement created even more opportunities for 
organizing outside of his own workplace. The local chapter to which she 
belongs is very large and covers a large part of Northern California. 
Within the local, members first organized a ceasefire declaration, then 
an even stronger resolution that demanded 1) an immediate and permanent 
ceasefire, 2) an end to all aid military to Israel and 3) the end of the 
occupation of Palestine.

Morgan and other SEIU members are building relationships that will move 
this organization beyond simple paper resolutions, with the hope that 
these actions will result in lasting inter-industry organizing 
structures. On a national level, Morgan participated in the "Purple Up 
for Palestine" campaign to call on the entire SEIU to demand a 
ceasefire. The campaign successfully pressured the SEIU union president 
to issue a statement calling for a ceasefire. This effort also provided 
a new opportunity to directly connect with other workers outside of 
formal and often bureaucratized union structures.

More healthcare workers organize in the San Francisco Bay Area

Healthcare workers from several hospitals after a protest in San Francisco.

Across the bay, Grant, a longtime BRRN member, recently started working 
at an academic medical center. Unlike Morgan, Grant's hospital is 
largely non-union. Since there is virtually no structure connecting 
workers together and no history of activism at the hospital, 
pro-Palestinian workers were starting from scratch. Fortunately, a few 
people were able to connect thanks to a national petition from health 
workers for Palestine. From these initial contacts, Grant and other 
hospital workers were able to develop an informal network of several 
dozen supporters, with pockets of organization in a few departments of 
the hospital and in the school of medicine attached to it. They were 
able to expand their support base by organizing two events at the 
hospital, in which more than a hundred of their colleagues participated.

In a previously disorganized and seemingly "apolitical" environment, 
Palestine solidarity organizing, which Grant helped advance, created 
lasting connections between organizers and workers across the country. 
'hospital. Without this system-wide effort, many of these colleagues 
would never have met, much less acted together in the workplace. These 
efforts demonstrated to workers that their workplace is a site of 
political struggle, inspired new activists to get involved, and provided 
support for Palestinian hospital workers who are suffering. most 
directly from the ongoing genocide.

As BRRN activists and health care workers in the Bay, Grant and Morgan 
have also participated together in the regional organizing that is 
taking place among hundreds of health care workers. Recently, this 
culminated in action by health workers who closed the offices of 
L3Harris, a military industry company whose bombs were dropped on 
hospitals in Gaza. With members of this expanding network, Grant and 
Morgan are putting down roots in hospitals and clinics across the Bay 
Area, where healthcare workers are now ready to unite in unprecedented ways.

Student Organizing in the San Francisco Bay Area

Student march for the boycott of HP on January 26, where the students 
were joined by some of the health workers from Grant hospital .

As a first-year college student and member of BRRN, Dioretsa organized 
around Palestinian liberation on her campus. Unlike other examples cited 
in this article, Dioretsa University had an existing structure for 
Palestine activism, including an active section of Students for Justice 
in Palestine and various student groups oriented to the left. These 
groups were able to respond quickly and launch a series of large 
rallies, teachings, and sit-in protests that became a visible hub of 
solidarity with Palestine. With the current moment proving to be a 
radicalizing experience for many, it has been important to provide 
easily accessible spaces like the sit-in where new people can come, 
connect, and learn. The sit-in, as a center of organizing, also brought 
together a core of active students who will likely be central to 
left-wing organizing in the future.

At the start of the winter term, students launched a divestment campaign 
targeting the university's ties to Hewlett-Packard (HP) . HP is targeted 
because of its commercial contracts providing IT services to the Israeli 
apartheid regime and its close ties to the university. Student 
organizers also seek to forge and maintain a mass alliance on campus 
beyond the issue of Palestine through this campaign. Dioretsa's role as 
coalition coordinator for the divestment campaign makes her a link 
between various student organizations and Palestine solidarity groups in 
the Bay Area and across the country.

Bringing groups like the campus student-worker solidarity group (of 
which Dioretsa is also a member) into the divestment campaign coalition 
requires a lot of political work to show these groups that the fight 
against U.S. imperialism and colonialism concerns them too. Rather than 
focusing on bringing together Palestinian activists already engaged in 
the struggle for Palestinian liberation, Dioretsa and her fellow 
organizers recognize that the campaign will only be successful if it 
goes beyond the 'active club' model of action by building a base across 
all different sectors of the university. This includes different groups 
of undergraduate students, as well as law students, professors, campus 
service workers, medical students, industry workers health, laboratory 
workers. In a word: everyone.

An example of  B D S  workplace organization in the South West
Joe works remotely for an environmental consulting company located in 
the southwest United States. This company handles the issuance of 
permits for development projects in the United States and abroad. After 
October 7, he learned that one of the projects he was working on was for 
an Israeli company headquartered about 30 kilometers from the Jabalia 
refugee camp . Another mission was given to a transnational energy 
company on the boycott list for offshore gas extraction on the Gaza 
coast. Joe reached out to some of his close colleagues to open a 
discussion about the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions ( B D S ) 
campaign. Joe let them know that he would refuse to work on these two 
projects and that he would also refuse to work on any other projects 
involving companies complicit in the genocide in Palestine.

Although his colleagues are understanding and they themselves have 
reservations about some of the work that has been asked of them, they 
are not yet ready, like him, to refuse to work. Without collective 
commitment, Joe's individual action was not enough to stop these 
projects, but he was able to discuss with his colleagues the role their 
work may play in advancing or slowing colonialism of settlement, 
environmental justice and global solidarity. It can be very difficult to 
convince our colleagues to take courageous steps like this, but it is 
important that we are there to serve as courageous examples and patient 
explanations. With continued effort, workers in sectors like this have 
enormous power to disrupt the colonial economy.

Conclusion

BRRN members participating in a blockade of the Port of Oakland

With this article we hope to illustrate how, by speaking and acting with 
the people with whom we work, live and study, we can build a solid 
foundation for the anti-imperialist struggle. Although the examples 
presented here are modest, they are powerful because of the deep and 
enduring organizing ties that provide the necessary foundation for 
strong collective action. We seek to unite these local efforts into 
broader social movements where workers can democratically exercise the 
power needed to take down imperialism.

To propel these efforts in potentially revolutionary directions, we 
believe it is important to continue to: organize in sites rooted in 
everyday life; develop open and democratic decision-making mechanisms 
that exercise bottom-up control; analyze and choose effective targets 
that are materially linked to the Israeli war and occupation; and launch 
campaigns that have a real and direct impact on these targets (as 
distinct from the largely symbolic actions that many hopeful radicals 
have felt frustrated by participating in these actions).

The task at hand - stopping US efforts to finance and provide the means 
for genocide of the Palestinian people - will not be easy to win, which 
is why we must commit to the long term. By focusing our efforts on 
grassroots movement organizing, we will avoid the cyclical exhaustion of 
militant protests by creating lasting internationalist and 
anti-imperialist power from the ground up.

https://bxl.communisteslibertaires.org/2024/02/02/lorganisation-sociale-contre-le-genocide-la-palestine-et-les-mouvements-sociaux-implantes/
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