on social justice
two days ago i went on a work trip to a lettuce farm. it was arranged by the salad bar i’ve been working at with the purpose of us understanding better, and thus selling better, the journey of our produce: from the land to our biodegradable bowls.
a few minutes in, as the white australian men who manage the farm gave us a tour, the racialised dynamics of the place starkly stood out. in the factory, i watched asian aunties tirelessly pack up broccoli, whilst in the fields a group of black men speedily chopped up lettuce after lettuce. we found out the latter were workers from the pacific islands of vanuatu here on a six-month seasonal worker visa, residing in three houses nearby. “we take good care of them,” proudly said the manager, “although they do love a drink” he proceeded to say cackling; i cringed but cowardly stayed quiet.
from a quick research, i can assume they’re here on the palm scheme: a government operation that links up australian businesses with workers from the pacific islands. it appears that employees have the same workplace rights and protections that australian workers do and their working and living conditions are actively monitored. albeit, i don’t really trust the australian government to not operate on racist exploitation and the men’s affinity to alcohol doesn’t exactly communicate wellness.
my naive intentions of a cute-day-out ended up in a spiral of personal interrogation, not only for my pathetic silence at that moment but also for the wider moral values behind my career.
a lot of my work has revolved around racial justice, from writing pieces for poc-run publications, to operating a redistributive hardship fund for queer people of colour, to organising healing and/or joyful community spaces. ashamedly, i don’t think these racialised workers, or people with similar identities or conditions to them, people who face the brunt of living in a racist world at an incomparably harsher scale than i do, have ever even come close to being the target of my supposedly “radical” work.
i say this not due to an astrological proneness to self-deprecation, but because self-interrogation has never felt more urgent.
i say this because we all need to get fucking for real.
over the last three weeks, i have been watching one of the worst human massacres i have witnessed in my adult life take place. i have been watching 75 years of israeli occupation erupt in a heart wrenching level of violence towards palestinians. i have been frozen with grief and guilt. i have been asking myself ‘how did we get here?’ knowing full well my (our) complicity in getting here. i have been sitting with regret at the overpriced starbucks coffees and jarringly sweet m&s tinnies i’ve purchased. i have been regretting the fleeting and minimal solidarity i’ve shown to palestinian freedom over the years. i have also been watching the world react with unsettling apathy, proceeding with their zooms and events and tiktok trends.
that apathy has come from the diversity and inclusion consultants who have been buying houses after making bank from corporations with their powerpoint presentations about unconscious bias. that apathy has come from most of the collectives of british east and southeast asian cultural workers that formed after 2020, following the stop asian hate movement. that apathy has come from the white trans people who unapologetically call out transphobia in their personal fundraisers for gender affirming treatments, but keep on staying awfully quiet when it comes to racial justice. that apathy has come from the curators that are applauded for selling out shows platforming revolutionary artists of colour. the same curators who have never had a conversation with the migrant cleaners that work in their same institutions.
the list goes on.
the same way these attacks are inhumane, going on “business as usual” is inhumane. the disposability of lives is something we should never become accustomed to. and whilst the “people at the top” are to be blamed for, there’s still more of us than there are of them.
a lot of current social justice work, especially the visible and “successful” one, asks of us to do the bare minimum. it asks us to be palatable and non-threatening. it asks us to send a tenner to someone who’s skilled enough in copywriting to trigger our compassion. it asks us to care about lineup diversity more than the living conditions of migrant workers. it asks us to sign a petition for an issue that directly affects us. it allows a few of us to climb up whatever ladder and leave the rest behind.
i think palestinian liberation encourages us to be more ambitious in our efforts for a more just world. it asks us not to give up at what may appear like an insurmountable challenge but to do everything in our power to take that challenge on. it asks us to keep pressuring (both digitally and in-person) our governments, who provide israeli forces with the means to carry on their attacks, to call for a ceasefire. it asks us to boycott companies whose products may provide us with temporary gratification. it asks us to be disruptive and to show solidarity not out of guilt but out of anger.
‘we are not special. be prepared.’ are the words that samiha olwan’s mother-in-law in gaza told her over the phone to encourage her to make peace with the possibility of her death. she shared these words with us at a rally in naarm last week and i haven’t been able to stop thinking about them. not only do i find the idea of preempting someone’s death heartbreaking, but it’s made me think how, in some ways, what’s happening in palestine is, sadly, not “special”.
that rally was done in collaboration with warriors of the aboriginal resistance, who reminded us how “australia” has its own history, and present, of ethnic cleansing, where the majority of the original owners of this land were wiped out, a fact that doesn’t seem to bother most.
i have also grown up watching news about burmese people, in cities and villages, from muslim minorities, to buddhist monks, being oppressed by violent military forces and for people’s empathy to extend only to the degree where all they cared about was if my family was okay.
i am reminded by historians that what we’re witnessing in palestine has happened in the past again, and again, and again: in rwanda, bosnia and many other places. and it’s happening now not just in palestine, but also in sudan, and the congo.
whilst the above tweet may seem dramatic, i can’t help but think it stands true.
we are going through an emotionally-charged pivotal political time where we have an unparalleled access to the injustice that’s taking place. we have direct access to palestinians’ plight encouraging us to take a stance. to keep caring. if this doesn’t ignite us with empathy and revolutionary spirit, i don’t know what will.
v quick note to say i’ve renamed my substack spiralling as i think that’s ultimately what this is going to be