Introduction to Session Three Homework

DAVID DEAN | Political Educator & Writer

An Introduction to Session Three Homework

Our primary focus for our third session together will involve taking the solidarity-based analysis and strategy central to this training series as a whole and tying it to the issue of Palestine—namely, illustrating how Palestinian liberation is directly tied to all of our well-being, no matter who we are, and how this insight can inform our organizing in this moment.

The homework for this session begins with a group of resources meant to clarify how the settler-colonization of Palestine was and continues to be a vehicle for the American and broader western billionaire class to cement its control over oil, trade routes, and geopolitics in the region of the world commonly known as the "Middle East" (at the expense of Palestinians first and foremost, but also of Jews inside and outside of Israel and the rest of the global 99%). This insight, I hope, can begin to unveil for participants new ways of building broader, more powerful solidarity-based movements. This section begins with an essay of mine, which I'll expand upon in a presentation during our time together, as well as two short resources that elaborate on these themes.

The next section focuses on distinct threats to Palestine and the Palestine solidarity movement in the United States coming from the Trump Administration. These resources are also meant to uplift the reality of how our fates are intertwined across lines of difference and how the suppression of Palestine solidarity activism is fundamentally a threat to all progressive organizing. We also give focus here to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement, an effort that, while strategically suppressed and stigmatized, continues to be an essential part of international solidarity with Palestine as it was in the long struggle against apartheid in South Africa.

While these first homework sections are Palestine-specific, the closing section of these study materials is meant to return us to our individual journeys of finding a meaningful, sustainable place for ourselves in the work of social change. These resources include a short, helpful article outlining the process of joining an organization, a pair of resources that I made for course participants to help you reflect on your involvement in independent political organizations and labor activism (two key flanks of the solidarity-based movement we need to build), and a final optional article offering inspiration about the promise of organized community members and workforces in this political moment.

This closing content is meant to help illustrate the types of organizing formations our society needs and help you begin to reflect on the topic of getting involved in those formations for the long haul (themes we will build on in session four).

I hope these study materials are meaningful to you!

David

P.S. If the prospect of long-term political involvement feels overwhelming, I urge you to remember Daniel Hunter's reminder that no person can do everything (and that, in fact, authoritarians are often fueled when frozen, overwhelmed people feel personally responsible for putting out every one of the fires surrounding them).

I also want to turn you toward Naomi Klein's words (linked here at the appropriate video timestamp) about the theme of "rest" when being part of a movement:

[When] being in a movement – that that feeling of overwhelm that we have and also that feeling of fatigue which comes from the reality of this grinding culture layered on top of the pandemic and all the other things that people are carrying – in a movement we can prioritize, we can strategize, not everybody has to do everything. And also, we can tag out. Taking a rest if you need a rest when you’re part of a movement doesn’t mean giving up because there are other people who are moving when you need to rest, [people] who are able to hold you. Being tired is understandable and that is why you should join a movement, not why you shouldn’t.

We can only do this together. When we become members of political organizations, we can do what our hearts feel called to do within these organizations, only take on what we are able to amidst our other responsibilities in life, and rest when needed. In reality, being in political community over the long-haul with other caring individuals can be the path toward greater mental health. The combination of camaraderie, mutual support, and sustainable action may be exactly the nourishment we will need to maintain our own internal sense of wholeness and well-being in the difficult times ahead.