Solidarity as a Force
Karie Liao
Solidarity evokes a strong feeling. It implies a bond, a uniting force that brings people together based on a shared commitment to act. Although action is integral, how we speak about solidarity is important to consider as well.
News of the Russia-Ukraine war appears in headlines daily, saturating social media feeds, and insinuated in casual conversation—the topic of gas prices now rivals the weather. People have been inspired, and rightly so, by the bravery and courage of Ukrainians on the ground. They have been moved to donate, demonstrate, and publicly display blue and yellow support in storefront windows and online profile pictures. Yet how this war is discussed reveals nuances in positionality and differences in understanding what it means to be “in solidarity.”
At the onset of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine this year, the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association released a statement calling all media outlets to be aware of their tendency towards racist language in news coverage of war, describing some countries or people as “uncivilized,” and as such, deemed less worthy of protection over others.1 This bias is the function of white supremacy, underrepresenting social injustices that impact racialized and vulnerable peoples. The mainstream language surrounding this conflict signals the need for a broader discussion about anti-war, anti-imperialist, and anti-settler-colonial pathways forward within both local and global contexts.
Solidarity manifests through political actions that stretch across seemingly disparate but interconnected social injustices in our communities. The complex politics of the Ukrainian and Russian conflict illuminate local issues of racism and discrimination against certain migrants, as well as displacement and unequitable access to government services in the GTHA.
“I’ve been displaced by war and US imperialism. My mother worked as a PSW [personal support worker] for years without status and my brother was held in detention for four years before being deported.” These are the words declared by Nala Ismacil, a Somali-Canadian refugee and member of activist group Not Another Black Life. She continues, “Migrants regardless of our status possess an inherent human dignity that should be respected, and basic human needs that must be met.” Ismacil is one of many individuals who shared their personal stories at the Status For All demonstration organized by the Migrant Rights Network (MRN), a Canada-wide alliance of self-organized migrants including farm workers, care workers, international students, undocumented people, as well as allies dedicated to anti-racism and migrant justice organizing. On March 20, 2022, ahead of the International Day for Elimination of Racial Discrimination, MRN chapters across Ontario including Toronto, Guelph, Niagara, and Ottawa united to demand full and permanent status for all refugees and migrants. While Canada has issued two-year permits to Ukrainian refugees, racialized refugees and asylum seekers from countries in the Global South like Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Somalia among many others have been denied the same privilege. This double standard begs the question: why has Canada’s solidarity with Ukrainians not been extended to other refugees and migrants fleeing violence?
Solidarity is frequently recognized in different forms of protest—marches, sit-ins, and rallies—and it can also take shape as art, music, performance, speech, and poetry. Indeed, artistic practice and anti-war activism have a long, shared history. In the case of Waard Ward, solidarity with refugees and migrants is enacted through floral arrangement. The Toronto-based social practice project engages newcomers to train as florists. Referring to the idea of a diasporic “flower district,” the name waard is a Romanization of the Arabic word for flower. Though fundamentally community-driven, project facilitators include organizer Hanen Nanaa; her father, Syrian florist Abd Al-Mounim; educator Laura Ritacca; curator and educator Patricia Ritacca; and artist Petrina Ng. For the month of September 2021 at the Visual Arts Centre of Clarington, the collective organized a workshop series for Arabic-speaking refugees and newcomers to develop flower-arranging skills and prospective social entrepreneurial futures. The floral arrangements by participants were displayed in Public Space, an evolving installation by artist Nicolas Fleming that adapts with each site-specific project it hosts. Throughout the exhibition run, floral arrangements were re-arranged weekly with locally grown fresh flowers. Each bouquet was uniquely composed of dahlias, ranging from pale pink and tangerine to deep red and dark purple, combined with others such as amaranth, false Queen Anne’s lace, and goldenrod, flowers more commonly considered by gardeners to be aggressive weeds. In her accompanying essay “Do Roses Dream of Freedom?,” artist-scholar Amanda White describes European-style gardens as sites of “colonial expression and expansion” and explores ways resistance might occur in these tamed and manicured spaces.2 In particular, she highlights roses as plants which gardeners commonly rely on grafted rootstock to attain more desirable rose types in their temperate gardens that would otherwise only grow in warmer climates. With grafted rootstock, the shoot of one plant and the root of another are combined and grown as a singular plant. White describes these rootstocks as “invisible plants” performing “invisible labour,” echoing the unacknowledged labour of migrant workers. However, despite being overlooked (and by their virtue), these undesirable hosts tend to outlive the blooms that they are instrumentalized to support, flourishing wildly and defiantly. As inferred by White’s essay, Waard Ward’s floral arrangements attest to the resilience of diasporas across species.
Uprooting and displacement are also a reality for unhoused individuals living in the GTHA. Headquartered in Hamilton, the Disability Justice Network of Ontario (DJNO) recognize through their work that a significant amount of people experiencing homelessness in their community have a visible or invisible disability.3 Last fall, the organization worked closely with the Hamilton Encampment Support Network (HESN) to develop accessibility policies in shelters, which were released as part of a broader statement of policy requests to the City of Hamilton. Requests included, among others, adopting accessibility policies around harm reduction; ending the ableist labeling of disability- and mental health-related symptoms as “disruptive”; ensuring that the City is in compliance with Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act; and immediately securing accessible temporary housing options specifically for people with disabilities. A few weeks after the release of this statement, several supporters of HESN including Sarah Jama (co-founder of the DJNO) were arrested by Hamilton police for resisting eviction of residents at Beasley Park, following the encampment clearing at JC Beemer Park. Through community organizing by way of legal defense donations and petitions, the charges against the housing advocates were dropped in March. Despite this win, residents evicted last fall remain unhoused as there are still no permanent housing solutions. This lack is further compounded by the provincial Assistive Devices Program (ADP) that is chronically underfunded and understaffed.4 In a grassroots response, the DJNO recently launched the Assistive Devices Library Catalogue, an inventory of equipment—glucose monitors, wheelchairs, walkers, canes, crutches, ankle braces, and boots—available for loan to anyone for the period of time that they need. The idea for the library was conceived in 2019 when DJNO launched a petition to improve the ADP, an appeal that continues to be ignored by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.
The popular conception of solidarity is that it relies on the bonding of individuals. And yet, in consideration of all these instances of collective action, having similar experiences is not essential. Quite the opposite: solidarity forged across differences is exponentially more powerful and yields the greatest bonds.