To build solidarity with Palestine, Canada’s labour movement must look to the past

 

Dedicated organizers convinced Canadian unions to oppose apartheid. Their work provides critical lessons for activists today

The South African anti-apartheid movement of the 1970s and 80s serves as a significant source of inspiration for Palestine solidarity activists today. The reasons for this are hardly surprising; the movement was widely successful in pushing for sanctions and divestment at multiple levels of government, in business and across civil society. Less attention, however, is paid to exactly how this movement was so successful, what strategies and tactics it employed, and how these might be adapted by labour activists organizing around Palestine today.

It is worth remembering that opposition to South African apartheid was not a given for Canada’s labour movement. It took dedicated organizing amidst polarizing Cold War attitudes to get union leadership on side. Solidarity, after all, is not something that pre-exists, or can easily be assumed based on abstract principles—it has to be built through the messiness of social and political struggle.

The Canadian anti-apartheid movement provides a wealth of examples for understanding solidarity as a theory and practice shaped by both the global reach of capitalism and structures that opposed it. But there is another reason for re-examining this history. Today, certain segments of Canada’s ruling elite, from university presidents to Bay Street executives, have an unearned reputation as friends of Mandela. Such revisionism overlooks how powerful people were either indifferent to or complicit in the endurance of apartheid.  (more...)

To build solidarity with Palestine, Canada’s labour movement must look to the past