35 progressive activists and organisations present the “20 Theses for Liberation” with a project.
“20 Theses for Liberation”: This is a place for all who strive for the wellbeing of people & planet to come together around a unifying & dynamic organizing strategy towards mutual aims & collective action.
The idea of a movement of movements is not new. The concept remains popular, logical, and inspiring yet remains just that—a concept. Near universal woes such as inequality, climate change, and fascist stirrings could pressure diverse movements into a holistic progressive bloc, and in some cases, there has already been progress towards such convergence. There is a rising desire and will for coming together, but in practice, cohesion and even solidarity remain largely elusive.
What is missing is often identified as strategic organizing, while at the same time our anti-authoritarian and pluralist values rightly cause us to shy away from rigid blueprints and vertical chains of command. However, this dilemma presents a false choice. We must get organized, but we don’t need to abandon diversity and self-determination in order to come together around vision and strategy if we build our values into shared vision. Perhaps further effort towards conceiving, sharing, and utilizing a broad but unifying vision and strategy could provide much needed structure for a movement of movements to grow and thrive. And why now? Because there currently seems to be more hunger than in a long time for unity even as there is also considerable doubt about attaining it.
Below, we propose some basic insights, claims, and commitments that all seekers of new societal relations might choose to further develop and refine. The 20 theses are not ours per se, but come from many movements over years, decades, and even centuries.
Of course, none of the organizational or individual signers agree with every word of what follows. Rather, we all feel that in sum the 20 theses provide an excellent basis for debate and elaboration that can, over time, inform not just agreed opposition to existing injustices, but collective pursuit of a better world.
Here are the twenty proposed theses we together submit for consideration, debate, and refinement.
Co-Hosts & Co-Authors: ZNetwork, DiEM25, Academy of Democratic Modernity, MetaCPC, RealUtopia, Michael Albert, Renata Ávila, Ramzy Baroud, Medea Benjamin, Peter Bohmer, Fintan Bradshaw, Jeremy Brecher, Urška Breznik, Noam Chomsky, Savvina Chowdhury, Devriş Çimen, Mark Evans, Andrej Grubačić, Jason Hickel, Kathy Kelly, Arash Kolahi, Bridget Meehan, Sotiris Mitralexis, Jason Myles, Cynthia Peters, John Pilger, Matic Primc, Don Rojas, Stephen Shalom, Alexandria Shaner, Norman Solomon, Cooper Sperling, Yanis Varoufakis, Brett Wilkins, Greg Wilpert.
“20 Theses for Liberation” would like to make a contribution to this.
“20 Theses for Liberation” and more can be found at 4Liberation.org.
* Photo: “Labor Solidarity has no Borders.” This mural by Mike Alewitz was painted in Los Angles in 1992 to advocate for immigrant worker’s rights. The green monster- “the green monster of capitalism” was also seen in a 1985 mural for Hormel strikers painted by the same artist.