Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine and the Foundations of a Movement

Angela Davis dwells on the importance of intersectionality (“of movements, not just identities”). Although this book was written in 2015 when the context was of the Ferguson unrest following the shooting of Michael Brown, and of the 2014 Gaza War, it is especially relevant today, in the aftermath of the BLM protests following the murder of George Floyd, and the latest Israeli aggression following the Sheikh Jarrah war eviction attempt. She encourages us to “understand the intersections and interconnections between the two movements” and how a global, unified struggle is what we need right now. She also stresses upon the need to resist individualism in movements and rather identify them as collective works of struggle, as individualism tends to lead to the erasure of the role of the masses in the struggles by focusing on singular individuals (like MLK, Mandela, Gandhi etc) which is detrimental for future struggles for the same causes.

A few quotes from the book :

“Progressive struggles - whether they are focused on racism, repression, poverty or other issues - are doomed to fail if they do not also attempt to develop a consciousness of the insidious promotion of capitalist individualism”

“The important issues in the Palestinian struggle for freedom and self-determination are minimised and rendered invisible by those who try to equate Palestinian resistance to Israeli apartheid with terrorism”

“You have to develop organising strategies so that people identify with the particular issue as their issue”

“The prison serves as an institution that consolidates the state’s inability and refusal to address the most pressing social problems of this era”

“The end of slavery per se was not going to solve the myriad problems created by the institution of slavery”

“It is in collectivities is that we find reservoirs of hope and optimism”

“His profound individuality resided precisely in his critical refusal to embrace the individualism that is such a central ideological component of neoliberalism”

“It shows us that the process of trying to assimilate into an existing category in many ways runs counter to efforts to reduce radical or revolutionary results. And it shows us that we not only should not try to assimilate transwomen into a category that remains the same, but that the category itself has to change so it does not simply reflect normative ideas of who counts as women and who doesn’t”

“We will have to be willing to stand up and say no with our combined spirits our collective intellect and our many bodies”