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1. one of the things i have learned in community building is that communities are not monolithic.  now this may seem to be an obvious point.  but one of the principles of my community work has been that we must follow the leadership of the oppressed marginalized excluded.

and in theory.  on paper.  on screen.  that looks really ethical.

in practice.  on the ground.  off line.  these clear lines get much messier.

in practice.  i have found in community organizing that there are always multiple and conflicting opinions, proposed strategies, alliances, etc.  in any community.  actually i find that if i cant name at least 4 or 5 differing opinions with in the community i am working with in solidarity, then i have not built the necessary quantity or quality of relationships.

furthermore.  i am always as an organizer and solidarity activist required to choose what kind of relationships i am going to build with which people.  that is one of the most fundamental questions in community organizing.  as organizers and activists we are constantly required to make decisions involving who among the various the various families, villages, political parties, generations we are going to support and to what capacity we are going to support them in any given situation.

often i have had to make these choices on the spot. with little to no background information.  feeling a little lost in the swirling demands emotions running high.  and i can say that even hind sight is rarely 20/20.

this is the part of community organizing that they dont tell you about in the brochure.  that dont remind of the biological theory that says that there is more diversity with in a given population than there is among different populations.

in other words i will find more diversity of beliefs, practices, and opinions with in a given community than i will find in comparing different communities.

i say it is a theory. but in my life and work it has acted more like an iron-clad law.

so when we say we are solidarity with an oppressed and marginalized community…what do we mean?  with whom do we mean?

2. when i was younger and first doing more focused solidarity community building, i would often throw up my hands after coming back from a meeting.  how will we ever get together,and be successful, resist imperialism, if there are 8 different opinions on the fundamental questions like: who we are?  and what we want?  i should just sit back and let the community figure it out.

and sitting back worked for a while.  but sooner or later (and usually sooner, usually the moment i stepped through the door and was deciding where i was going to sit down) i had to start making some decisions.  ethical principles come in conflict with one another.

3. and im not talking about us sitting discussing abstract theories on social justice.  community organizing is usually about life and death issues.  accountability and accessibility are life and death issues.  if we werent talking about life and death issues then we could take the time to make all the conflicting opinions, ideas, etc.  play themselves.  we would have the time to *really* figure it out.  but we dont have that time.  we organize for the sake of our and our communities’ and the communities’ in which we are in solidarity with–for their survival.

(honestly i am surprised when folks tell me that i am being too abstract when it comes down to life and death issues.  i can go back and listen to myself and *hear* how my language may sound abstract.  but in dealing with life and death issues abstraction is a necessary skill for decision making.  at least it is for me.  a survival skill.)

4.community organizing/building/co-creating is a messy process.  messy primarily because it involves human beings.  i have a two year old.  trust me.  i know how messy human beings can be.

co-creating radical resistance liberatory communities.  communities that are accountable to all.  inside and outside of the community is even messier.  yes.  it is necessary for the sake of *our* survival.  but in the same way that respecting the autononomy of my two year old daughter means that my living room looks like a tornado just ran through it. creating radical communities means often that there is blood in the water.

but my daughter’s confidence and skills in being able to say to -no- to me, hopefully means that she will also feel empowered to say to those who want to abuse and deny her humanity as she grows older -no- as well.

5. and yet i dont want it to seem as if we do not need to take as much time as we need to be grounded and healthy.  i do not want us to fall into the modern day glorification of workaholism.  simultaneously we do not have time to waste because it is our and our loved ones survival on the line.  and we cannot afford to *not* take care of ourselves.  our self-defined health is also necessary for our  and our loved ones survival.

messy but necessary.

************the picture by the way is of the red sea in may 2009.  in the background is palestine.