Changemaker Meeting | December
On December 10th at 13:30 GMT our Changemaker community gathered once more and held a community discussion around the topic, Movement Building. What does it mean to be part of a social movement? What does it look like to be a climate activist? We were honoured to be joined by Ayisha Siddiqa from Polluters Out and Fossil Free University, who shared with us her own journey as a storyteller and activist, guided by her life experiences. Following a conversation and Q&A, we closed on an ecosomatics practice led by Kalpana Arias from Nowadays on Earth. Scroll down to watch recordings from the meeting, and to read more about our topic, our guests, and a list of learning resources.
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Movement Building with Ayisha Siddiqa from Polluters Out
Meet Ayisha
Ayisha Siddiqa is a 21-year-old Pakistani Climate justice advocate living in Coney Island, NY, a coastal area highly prone to hurricanes and floods. She is a co-founder of Polluters Out and the Executive Director of Student Affairs at Fossil Free University. On Sept 20th, 2019 she helped mobilize and lead over 300,000 students onto the streets of Manhattan demanding their governments take climate action. Her advocacy focuses on climate justice and racial justice for BIPOC.
What’s Polluters Out?
Polluters Out is an inspiring example of the power of movement. Founded following COP25, Polluters Out saw the failure of COP25 as a symptom of a much greater and prolonged issue in which the fossil fuel industry controls every aspect of our society: from indigenous lands to governments; banks to universities; and even our climate negotiations. When they launched on January 24, 2020, they began with only 150 members from around the world, with countless scientists helping them to form their policy and demands. They are now a global, growing movement.
“Polluters Out has a very tangible task. It is not only measurable; it is achievable. It has been done before. The World Health Organization set a precedent when they kicked out Big Tobacco. That allowed the U.S., the U.K., and other wealthy nations to put taxes and warning labels on tobacco. It changed the course of what we thought. […[ Fossil fuels are the leading cause of the climate crisis—the leading cause. Since we created Polluters Out, we’ve formed chapters all over the world. We’re a coalition.” - Ayisha for Atmos
“Polluters Out is not your average youth led mobilisation, it is a coalition of the entire climate movement and grassroots organizations from around the world.”
Find out more about their work and ways to support them here.
Ecosomatics Meditative Practice with Kalpana Arias
Meet Kalpana
Kalpana Arias is a climate activist, creative strategist, ecosomatics educator and the founder of Nowadays on Earth - a platform exploring how experiential technology influences regenerative practices in order to rediscover our connection to nature in the digital age. She has also worked with inspiring movements and organisations such as Force of Nature and Nature is a Human Right.
Kalpana advocates for our earth-body and connectedness to the natural world as a response to our climate crisis. Through an indigineous led approach she educates others who are experiencing social injustices of green space deprivation how to connect to the body as a portal to nature and develop the soma’s inner technology to lead the regeneration of the natural world.
What is Ecosomatics Practice?
Under the belief that “self love is earth love is community love” ecosomatics combines rituals, movement, psychology, and healing arts with ecological consciousness.
“How can we connect to nature in the digital age? Go outside & explore your surroundings; connect with your community, find local gardening groups or even join guerrilla gardening communities; and finally, connect to your body.
Why your body? Because when we develop a relationship to our bodies we are connecting to nature and the planet.
With over 95% of people’ stating that their well-being improves by being in nature, learning to contact nature through the soma (inner body) is a revolutionary experience for people with limited access to green spaces.
This is where ecosomatics comes in… Using the framework of ecosomatics you’re able to develop the soma and it’s senses to experience your body as nature.”
Follow Kalpana here and keep up with Nowadays on Earth here.
What do we mean when we talk about Movement Building?
Movements are about values, strategy, and direct action. The word “movement” means “to create action,” to go from one place to another, and so, sustaining a movement is about sustaining action.
Traditionally, power is seen as flowing from the top downwards. Whether in politics, monarchies, or even business, typically those on top have power. In that view of society everyone below has to follow orders or face consequences: such as being fired, facing political retribution, or being placed in jail. But that is not the only type of power. Power also flows up.
The collective power of people gathering, united around a vision for change, is immeasurable. The impact is tangibly imprinted into the fabric of our society, from the civil rights and suffrage movements to Pride, Black Lives Matter and March For Our Lives.
“Social movements have been central to the end of empires and dictatorships, central to the extension of legal equality across barriers of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, and disability, and central to the development of collective welfare provision and economic rights — and social movements remain central to the many unfinished battles in this area.” — Laurence Cox
Within the topic Movement Building, we explore direct action and other manifestations of resistance, reformation, and revolution. We look at how Social Movements fail when they are not inclusive, and the complexities of non-violence in an institutionally violent system. And together we learn how we can build and join social movements, how to harness our visions for a better future, how to overcome setbacks, and why every individual matters on the route to collective and systemic change.
You can read more about Movement Building over on our Topics page here.
Recommended Resources
Watch:
— Henry David Thoreau and Civil Disobedience
What is civil disobedience? One historical origin of civil disobedience can be found in the writing of Henry David Thoreau. In 1849, Thoreau published an essay titled Civil Disobedience, which recommends that, when a leader is taking a wrong turn, good citizens have a duty to protest.
— Kumi Naidoo: The world needs more civil disobedience, not less
Kumi Naidoo is a human rights and environmental activist. He was International Executive Director of Greenpeace International and Secretary General of Amnesty International and has been Global Ambassador for Africans Rising for Justice, Peace & Dignity since June 2020. In this video Naidoo explains why, in this fundamentally unjust world, we need more people who are willing to disrupt the status quo and have the courage and the stamina to stay with the cause until justice is achieved.
— What protest news coverage does - and doesn't - show you
In the past couple of years in particular, protests, marches, and riots have been rife - particularly when you look to the media coverage. But what does a protest actually look like? This video highlights the disparity between what we see on the news, and what it actually means to engage in an act of protest. “If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” - Malcolm X
— Extinction Rebellion UK: Non-Violent Direct Action
Non-violent direct action has been a pivotal part of many social movements and the justice that they have enabled. But what is non-violent direct action (NVDA)? Find out more about NVDA from Extinction Rebellion UK.
— The success of nonviolent civil resistance: Erica Chenoweth at TEDxBoulder
Between 1900-2006, campaigns of nonviolent civil resistance were twice as successful as violent campaigns. Here, Erica talks about her research on the historical record of civil resistance in the 20th century and discusses the promise of unarmed struggle in the 21st century. In addition to explaining why nonviolent resistance has been so effective, she also shares some lessons learned about why it sometimes fails.
Read:
— Nonviolence and Social Change (Martin Luther King Jr)
“There is nothing wrong with a traffic law which says you have to stop for a red light. But when a fire is raging, the fire truck goes right through that red light, and normal traffic had better get out of its way. Or, when a man is bleeding to death, the ambulance goes through those red lights at top speed […] Disinherited people all over the world are bleeding to death from deep social and economic wounds. Massive civil disobedience is a strategy for social change which is at least as forceful as an ambulance with its siren on full.”
In 1967, Martin Luther King Jr delivered a lecture calling on the “dispossessed of this nation” to revolt in nonviolent struggle. You can read it in full here.
— Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements (Adrienne Marie Brown)
Whenever we envision a world without war, prisons, or capitalism, we are producing speculative fiction. Organisers and activists envision, and try to create, such worlds all the time. In Octavia’s Brood, Walidah Imarisha and adrienne maree brown have brought 20 such visions together in the first anthology of short stories to explore the connections between radical speculative fiction and movements for social change. You can access an online version here.
— Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement (Angela Y. Davis)
In these newly collected essays, interviews, and speeches, world-renowned activist and scholar Angela Y. Davis illuminates the connections between struggles against state violence and oppression throughout history and around the world. You can find out more about the veteran civil rights campaigner on growing up in segregated America, the opportunity of the Black Lives Matter movement and what inspires her to keep fighting in this article here.
Discover:
— Movement Generation
Movement Generation Justice & Ecology Project inspires and engages in transformative action towards the liberation and restoration of land, labor, and culture. They are rooted in vibrant social movements led by low-income communities and communities of color committed to a Just Transition away from profit and pollution and towards healthy, resilient and life-affirming local economies. Read from their resources here.
— Grassroots Global Justice Alliance
The Grassroots Global Justice Alliance (GGJ) is committed to engaging in grassroots movement building to strengthen collective alignment and power. Whilst they remain rooted in the critical organisaing happening at the local level, given the scope of the challenges we face, they also see a clear need for coherence and unity among forces at the antional and international scales. You can find out more about their work here.
— Extinction Rebellion
Extinction Rebellion is a decentralised, international and politically non-partisan movement using non-violent direct action and civil disobedience to persuade governments to act justly on the Climate and Ecological Emergency. Find out more on their website here.