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The case of the transnational strike reveals the important role of the media for building momentum. Social media provides a powerful tool, facilitating connections at the communicative level between actors that experience difficulties in coordinating their struggles. One might say that the same digital technologies that are used to exploit workers are then used to organise the struggle against exploitation. Nevertheless, it is true that the strategic construction of a feeling of shared belonging, of identifying as part of a growing movement, is a crucial aid for civil society organisations. | The case of the transnational strike reveals the important role of the media for building momentum. Social media provides a powerful tool, facilitating connections at the communicative level between actors that experience difficulties in coordinating their struggles. One might say that the same digital technologies that are used to exploit workers are then used to organise the struggle against exploitation. Nevertheless, it is true that the strategic construction of a feeling of shared belonging, of identifying as part of a growing movement, is a crucial aid for civil society organisations. | ||
Revision as of 18:47, 18 July 2018
TransSOL is an EU-funded research project dedicated to describing and analysing solidarity initiatives in Europe.
The TransSOL Project, and in particular the transnational civil society organisation European Alternatives, researched
the goals, platforms, organisation, effectiveness and challenges
faced by three networks that have been able to facilitate solidarity across European nations.
Best Practices
For the experience of Krytyka Polityczna, there are general lessons to be drawn regarding the internal organisation of civil society organisation.
First of all, translation should be seen as a vital political tool. As Krytyka Polityczna demonstrates, polyglot communication can facilitate much more than just the sharing of neutral information in new contexts. If framed effectively, translated materials actively build cultural spaces, and forms of cultural cooperation.
Secondly, the use of digital and social media as well as other pan-European infrastructures can enable communities to develop both in concentrated moments (such as real life events) and prolonged communication (online groups). The two, however, need to be held together. Democracy 4.0 is a good example, in which several real life meetings were organised to reflect upon the digital tools themselves. The lessons learnt resulted in precisely those tools being used to create further actions in streets, squares and other public spaces as well as for reinventing AGORA. Digital technologies, we might conclude, only bring solidarity when they facilitate new political meeting points.
Further, regional specificity can act as a spring-board for larger scale solidarities. One of the reasons that Krytyka Polityczna’s pan-European initiatives have been so successful is that they were conceived in gradual terms. They began with an emphasis on the Visegrad region and developed into something larger in scale. Even in processes of transnational communication, then, national and local experiences continue to be grounding forces.
In addition, our cases show that specific long-term partnerships yield the most fruitful results. The case of the Ukrainian partnership demonstrates how years of prolonged communication and community building are essential to building effective transnational structures. When the dual national institution was founded in 2010 the participants were not aware of the various turning points that would come in the following years and how mutually beneficial the structure would prove to be. With this community already in place when shots started, however, they were ready to respond to unexpected challenges of the conflict with a sustainable institution that was resilient to the unfolding events.
Finally, it is important to point out that solidarity is already being facilitated by the EU itself. Leaving aside criticisms of specific institutions, Krytyka Polityczna’s activities are a good example of how the EU remains a space with certain novel privileges for organisations working to build forms of solidarity beyond national and class based communities. That such an innovative form of cultural activism has taken root in Poland, against precisely such nationalist and oligarchic forms of opposition, is testament the democratic value of this already existing transnational political space. Freedom of movement and speech are today under assault from all sides, but the forms of solidarity pioneered by civil society actors across the EU demonstrate how much groundwork has already been made in defending and redefining these terms for the future.The case of the transnational strike reveals the important role of the media for building momentum. Social media provides a powerful tool, facilitating connections at the communicative level between actors that experience difficulties in coordinating their struggles. One might say that the same digital technologies that are used to exploit workers are then used to organise the struggle against exploitation. Nevertheless, it is true that the strategic construction of a feeling of shared belonging, of identifying as part of a growing movement, is a crucial aid for civil society organisations.
Furthermore, effective local collectives engaged in labour struggles seem to be substantially based on pre-existing activist networks with politicised activists inside workers’ collectives acting as brokers in the transnational sphere.
In general, the construction of concrete mechanisms of coordination of struggles between different countries is yet to come. Most activists are primarily focused on building their local struggle, accumulating strength, recruiting riders, and so on. Overcoming many of their challenges, however, would require a rethinking of EU funding mechanisms and legislative agendas. On the one hand, the resources to be dedicated to transnational connections are rather limited and, on the other hand, it is rather difficult to build a common transnational agenda when legislative contexts are different from each other. Workers and activists deeply feel the need to broaden the scope of their struggle as to reach the same transnational level on which companies are placed. In the same vein, researchers point out how bringing the struggle to the transnational level may be much more fruitful than waiting for an intervention by policy-makers.
What becomes clear through analysing the Cities of Solidarity is that there must be a structural reform of the European and national regulatory framework, which foresees a modification of the current international Conventions on the right of asylum and a more supportive migration policy, sharing responsibilities and burdens on a transnational level. The European Commission and European Council should give political and financial recognition of the role of cities, and local authorities should have of the broadest political and financial autonomy in migration matters granted to single national governments. The construction of stable and developed transnational networks between cities is necessary, which provides for the strengthening of exchanges of good practices and models of reception and social inclusion, the possibility of negotiating with one voice in front of the European institutions and national governments and the possibility of developing autonomous city-to-city policies, bypassing the direct control of the nation-state.
