What is solidarity (not the organization)?

is this a joke?

Anyway incase it isn't, the dictionary offers this.

you do realise your asking a question on par with "Anyone got a definition for benefit?"

I mean we can give a very wide definition of benefit, and the only way it can be further refined is when placed into a context and given a perspective to be viewed from.

Hi

I know we don't get on, revol68, but I feel your pain comrade, I really do.

Love

LR

This sounds kind of cheesy, but I think its summed up in the phrase "an injury to one is an injury to all". or otherwise, "united we stand, divided we fall". Human beings are pretty helpless, pathetic creatures as individuals, and we are inevitably dependent on each others cooperation to survive. Mutual aid is in my self-interest -- that is, I see that it is to my advantage to reach agreements with others based on mutual respect and social equality; for if I dominate someone, this means that the conditions exist which allow domination, and so in all probability I too will be dominated in turn. Aside from this, there is no reason why other people will treat me with fairness, equality and respect if i don't return the favour.

We can see this in unionism. If workers co-operate, they can get what they want. If they compete with each other, blackleg and so on, they fail to get what they want. We can also see it in the political situation. The reason 500 men in whitehall and a few thousand policemen can control us is because people are atomised and disorganised: if we were to cooperate together as equals, we would all benefit, because we could use our superior numbers to stop letting bosses and governments push us around. Just look at the poll tax campaigns. Collective action is neccessary to resist those who would enslave and exploit us, and this co-operation must be reciprocal and non-hierarchical in order to avoid us setting up a new group of oppressors through the very organs we use to fight oppression.

So to summarise, solidarity could mean that we choose, out of enlightened self interest, to cooperate with others as equals to satisfy our common needs, interests and problems, rather than competing, seeking to dominate and exploit, because we know that this second path will just end up with most of us being dominated and exploited.

Does anything in that long winded waffle adequately answer your question?

P.S. There's a really good bit about this in that Anarchist FAQ thing: see http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secA2.html#seca26

Haringey is the borough, Harringay is an area within it.

Lem, solidarity is, as has been explained, very simple. It is mutual support. It is making seperate indiciduals into a solid entity along class lines.

A worker may have differences with her/his colleagues, but they are all oppressed in the same way and should fight back as one.

Solidarity is also a sociological term used by Durkheim among others, which might be what you are looking at if our definitions don't help? Can't tell you much about that though, so you'd have to look it up.

hmm I thought you were into Heidegger, and had no time for Platonic forms? Surely trying to define solidarity in terms of some essence that exists prior to an actual context and event is in contradiction to this? As is Stirners bullshit about Free Association of Ego's as it is based on the premise of an essential self prior to social relations.

What sort of solidarity? Class solidarity based on material interests? National/ethnonational solidarity, religious solidarity or other solidarities based on 'imagined communities'?

Do ye not need to sort out which yer actually talkin about?

ta

you're there.

lem do you put these discussions into your footnotes?

Hi Lem,

On the question of solidarity, I wonder if this helps...

This is from a text that launched a discussion within the ICC on the question of Confidence and Solidarity five years ago. The quote itself is from point three of part 1 if you want to jump straight to it, but you may find the whole text of interest as it goes into the whole question in much more detail and places it in a militant and historical framework, which I think is what Revol was concerned about.

http://en.internationalism.org/ir/111_OT_ConfSol_pt1
http://en.internationalism.org/ir/112_OT_ConfSol_pt02

B.

On a similar note can I add, remember to breathe.

Surely it's a given that solidarity is different in different contexts.

Hi lem, um, basically the successful forging of solidarity is always positive for those who create it. Be that workers in struggle, nationalists, ethnic groups, religious cults etc.

The forging of solidarity makes the groups stronger and can help them achieve their aims, hence 'solidarity is strength'. Solidarity does not simply come into existence it has to be brought into existence on the basis of common interests, whether those interests have a real material basis or are largely 'imagined'/manufactured by a political interest.

While I said it is always positive from the point of view of those mobilising it the response to differing solidarities from a class struggle perspective will see many types of solidarity as reactionary. This would include bosses/employers federations (which are based on class interest albeit class interests opposed to our own), solidarity mobilised on a nationalist and/or racist basis, religious solidarity particularly when mobilised in defence of or to promote fundamentalist aims.

Hope that helps;

boul

Sam I agree with you that "an injury to one is an injury to all".

In fact, at the risk of being too simplistic, i'd say one way to differentiate revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries is that revolutionaries use 'solidarity' to mean 'making an injury to one an injury to all' while counter-revolutionaries use it to mean moralistic pity/charity.

On that note I also particularly agree with this:

Sorry lem, I was a bit rude, but you do have a habit of asking a very vague question and then when people ask you to define it so that they can answer it you then say something equally vague and follow it with "iyswim".

Solidarity is the force that should make consensus decision-making unnecessary. Under all but the most extreme circumstances the practice of solidarity should make us loyal enough to our companions that we will see past our minor quibbles or reservations and maintain our support for the group.

I know that's not a definition of solidarity but it is a good example of how it might/should be practiced.