Strength in struggle. First of all, it removes us from a sense of ourselves as only individuals. It allows us to imagine ourselves as a part of something much larger.

It gestures toward the future at the same time as it allows us to imagine ourselves as the product of the imagination, of the collective imagination, of those who struggled before us.

Oftentimes we think of history in a rather static way. We don’t think of the future as history and we don’t think of the present as history, and that strength through struggle evokes in my mind, the present and future as history as well. It calls upon us to imagine something better, something that will attend to the needs of all of us.

I can’t imagine living my life without being involved in radical struggles but that’s because my community has always been made up of those who are involved in labour struggles, feminist struggles, LGBTQ struggles and I think one can find that sense of longevity precisely by building and being a part of communities of struggle, communities of resisitance.

If we try to imagine a future or futures beyond capitalism, that will entail imagining a world in which the nation state does not constitute the primary mode of organising human beings into a community. We often forget that the nation state is a capitalist product. 

Even though we live in nation states and we are governed by them, that does not have to govern our activism. That does not have to govern our imagination. That is why it is so important to try to be critical of that which is most normal. That which constitutes the very framework for our lives because there in often resides the real barriers to the kind of future that I think we all want.

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