In an unjust pandemic world, social movements are essential services. But the question of how to transform a system under pressure is a delicate one. The scale of the need, the poverty, the lack of housing, the immune-compromised, the children and elders push us towards the state. Like social movements over the last few hundred years, movements demand more benefits, more space, and more resources. Such demands may paradoxically strengthen a system that helped to create racial, class and other inequalities. Without our usual repertoire, how can we ensure that the most vulnerable are included, while continuing our efforts to nurture the seeds of a more just, fruitful world?
Only a month ago, visible and vibrant protests filled the streets and the news. In Canada, indigenous communities and allies blocked roads and railways in support of the hereditary chiefs of Wet’suwet’en, reaffirming their sovereignty and challenging the legality of a natural gas pipeline across their territories. The legitimacy of the settler state and its extractivist economy was called into question. These movements held space, and reaffirmed connection to the land in ways that imagined a society beyond the state. Internationally, pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, Chile, and Turkey filled the streets, went on strike and clashed with police. In India, women held hands in widespread protests challenging the right wing citizenship laws that targeted and excluded Muslims.
As news of the virus spread, activists were faced with a difficult question. Should we cancel our plans? If we did, were we stepping back? But those veterans, particularly those connected to homeless, undocumented, prisoner and immune compromised populations argued that social solidarity required both physical distancing and mutual aid. We shifted. At one meeting planning a prison abolitionist conference, anti-racist activists explained it was unethical for movements building another world to ask people to travel and physically converge at this time. That doing so would be most likely to harm indigenous and Black communities, particularly prisoners or recently released folks. So, we turned away from the streets, and towards one another, arguing those who are most vulnerable, must be at the centre. The cancellations flooded in. Following the lead of the World Health Organization, the local, provincial and federal governments announced closings, cancellations and shutdowns.
