A sense of belonging

When we believe in each other, we are more likely to take risks and to invest ourselves in possibility, even when our own hopes are not fully formed. In this way, our relationships and the work of relationship building can change our sense of what’s possible.

— Let This Radicalize You, Kelly Hayes & Mariame Kaba

For most of my life I tended to avoid people as much as possible. Since I don’t remember my parents regularly having friends over for a meal or a coffee, I’ve always considered my behaviour a trait I share with the rest of my family.

Before activism and before Ribellione Animale (RA from now on) in particular, I was set on my parents’ footsteps. In retrospect, the way I chose to live without many people around could be related to specific episodes from my teen days during which, among so-called friends, I experienced an insurmountable distance. Did I discard meaningful relationships because I was afraid to face that distance again? It’s hard to tell.

On the other hand, it’s easy to notice how comfortable I am any time I am involved with fellow activists. Why is this happening? How much does it have to do with me? I still don’t open up easily with other people, so there must be something else at play here.

I found the answer I was looking for in the beautiful Let This Radicalize You by Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba. In short, I’ve never felt to belong.

A strong organizing community is more than a labor force for social justice. It is an ecosystem of care, learning, relationship building, and action.

— Let This Radicalize You, Kelly Hayes & Mariame Kaba

Not only isn’t activism as a group act sustainable without an organising community, but every single person involved has to experience what Hayes and Kaba describe as the sense of belonging.

I see this belonging as a sweet combination of multiple facets. That is, when I sense belonging the path to my self-determination is much clearer, I know in my heart we believe in each other, and I am empowered by relationships of mutual aid to the point that “it becomes less important whether or not I am unafraid”, as Audre Lorde wrote in The Cancer Journals.¹

The extent of this feeling of belonging becomes even more relevant when I compare my current involvement with RA to my previous experience with Anonymous for the Voiceless (AV from now on). If I may stretch a bit two categories offered by Hayes and Kaba, AV was mostly about connectivity whereas RA is all about political communion. Put otherwise, AV cared more about coordinating activists for the next cube of truth via text messages, while RA practices and encourages care for each other first and foremost.

This kind of solidarity is not a given, nor has it to be taken for granted just because we share some ideas and core values. Instead, it’s a process we go through every day, and it’s a demanding one. We have to show up for one another, we must be there in order for each and everyone of us to keep hoping in the possibility we are building together.

Together, we rise to deprive the monster of its simple story, and replace it with our own.

— Let This Radicalize You, Kelly Hayes & Mariame Kaba

I’m not an organiser and yet I feel like Hayes and Kaba have prepared me with the basic resources to become one eventually. Through many voices who have known firsthand what it takes for any struggle to exist, Let This Radicalize You tells stories of resistance and pressure campaigns. Every word we read is an act of courage in itself.

Unfortunately, not all the battles are won in this book. The systemic oppression we have to deal with is too powerful and resilient to be broken once and for all. Nonetheless, the fact that everybody Hayes and Kaba discuss with refuses to give up should be enough for any activist reading these pages to do the same.

Whenever we look around us we see what’s at stake. It may feel like it’s too much, so we shut our eyes. Let This Radicalize You teaches us to keep our eyes open, instead, and to search for hope rather than despair. The truth is we can’t afford despair, not now. Yet this doesn’t mean that we can’t build alternatives towards hope.

My preferred way to understand hope is to consider it, ultimately, as nothing more than the possibility of change. And change is what we are.