Resistance is Fertile

Photo by Roxanne Desgagnes on Unsplash

The Turkish poet Nâzım Hikmet once wrote:

It's this way:

being captured is beside the point

the point is not to surrender.

It’s worth reflecting on these words as humanity contends with an existential crisis. We are encountering a climate and ecological emergency on a scale hitherto unknown. Levels of poverty and inequality are soaring. Our public services are collapsing around us. And a hard-right Government promises to make all these problems considerably worse.

Much attention is currently, and rightly, focused on tackling the coronavirus pandemic. But crises reveal the strengths and weaknesses of underlying systems. Covid-19 is no different. And it’s brought into sharp relief the failings of a Tory Government racked by incompetence, ideologically incapable of taking a strategic approach to the crisis, stumbling from one problem to the next. A government determined to use the crisis to continue the Tory project.

Our collective priority is to respond to the pandemic itself, innovating and adapting as we go. Fighting all the while for solutions based on public health and social justice, rather than corporate profit. But we can’t lose sight of the deeper issues generated by global heating.

An impressive array of business, labour movement and environmental organisations are urging the Government to seize the opportunity to turn the Covid-19 crisis into a defining moment in the fight against climate change and loss of biodiversity. Based on delivering a Green New Deal that accelerates a just transition to a cleaner, net-zero emissions economy, strengthens the country’s resilience to the impacts of climate change and prioritises the least well-off.

But, penetrating beyond the rhetoric, the noises coming out of Government are contradictory, lack clarity and demonstrate a profound reluctance to grasp the scale of the challenge. It’s abundantly clear that they hope to return to business as usual as soon as they can.

As the political theorist Fredric Jameson said, “It is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism.”

Put simply, we face extinction. The cause? An economic system that is inherently unsustainable because exploitation of nature (as well as labour) is wired into its DNA. Based on the remorseless consumption of resources on a finite planet, capitalism will eat itself. And destroy human civilisation in the process.

This is a profoundly unsettling recognition. And psychologists now talk about a significant rise in what had been dubbed “eco-anxiety”.  

So, what do we do? Nâzım Hikmet offers us a clue. We must challenge the prevailing argument that “there is no alternative” to the current system. We must understand that neoliberalism is a bankrupt ideology. That expecting the system to solve the economic and societal problems that it has created is a fool’s errand.

This means recognising that we are not powerless. Understanding that we have agency. And that the political fightback can take many forms. Not just in Parliament, but also in workplaces and communities.  

But I don’t want to talk about the political struggle here. You probably know all this stuff already.

Art is a weapon

I think what’s just as interesting is the space for resistance offered by art and culture. Often overlooked, it’s a key site of political and social struggle. The dominant class uses its control of the traditional media, education and popular culture to exert hegemony over what counts as knowledge in our society. Over our beliefs and values.

We can see this in the operation of the corporate-driven popular culture that started to emerge in the early 20th century, producing bland, uniform cultural products that encourage passive, docile consumption of their anodyne pleasures; foster an individualised, competitive view of life; and discourage independent or critical thinking.

This process has been turbo-charged by the development of social media, which threatens to commodify our very thoughts and emotions.

And while this power is not always visible, it is tremendously important in the manufacture of consent and conferral of legitimacy on capitalism and its current neoliberal manifestation.

The avant-garde of the early 20th century offered a revolutionary way to look at the world. The cultural rebellions of the 1950s, 60s and 70s restored some of this energy and provided new avenues for challenging the status quo and opposing racism, sexism and consumerism. Unfortunately, capitalism is a past master at subverting, defanging and commodifying those movements that threaten its dominance.

But history never stands still. It’s always in flux. The ancient Greek philosophers knew this. As Heraclitus put it: “The only thing that is constant is change.” And this remains true today.  

Which brings us back to agency.

The sterility of post-modernist interpretations of society – cynically located in a relativist, unknowable subjectivity – has been revealed for the intellectual dead-end that it always was.

Culture is a form of resistance

As cultural movements ebb and flow, people learn (and relearn) that radical poetry, theatre, music and other forms of culture can help us understand issues around democracy (or its absence), poverty and inequality, and the destruction of life on Earth.

They can give voice to the voiceless, promote community engagement and develop deeper levels of political consciousness. And be used to understand and challenge existing power structures and create the space for radical change.

Art and culture are not the preserve of the elite. The enjoyment and appreciation of culture is not an act of often private and largely passive consumption. Nor is it simply a blunt instrument in the political struggle for a fairer world.

Instead, it plays an important role in the fight for an enriched and democratic society which belongs to us all. It becomes a mechanism for resistance to and change of the dominant culture in all its manifestations.

Challenging the appropriation of cultural activities by corporate capitalism starts from this understanding.

The arts can take us into imagined worlds and enable us to understand how others live.

Listening to avant-garde jazz, punk or hip-hop; watching the experimental theatre of Bertolt Brecht or Samuel Beckett; reading utopian or feminist literature; appreciating the art of the Dada, Cubist or Bauhaus movements can provide pleasure as well as help people deal with the alienation they encounter in their everyday lives.

Culture can bring us together in shared, collaborative activities which are enjoyable on their own terms.

It can also take us on a journey of liberation. Encouraging us to think critically, provide a broader canvas on which to understand historic, social and political issues, and inspire radical change in the real world.

But I get it. Seriously. The experience of political defeat can curdle into a sense of disempowerment, despondency and disillusionment. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the scale of the challenge.

This is where we might take a lesson from Chumbawamba: “I get knocked down, but I get up again/You are never gonna keep me down”.

This is exemplified by the response of many progressive musicians, writers and artists to the lockdown. They’ve found creative ways to make their voices heard. Challenge official narratives. And offer a space for hope.  

If these hours be dark…

Small acts of resistance keep us alive. They develop confidence. And they lead to other acts. Saying no to injustice. Sticking to our beliefs. Challenging ignorance and bigotry. And recognising that nobody in history has ever won their freedom by appealing to the good nature of the people oppressing them.

The power of the imagination – and the freedom to conceive of a better world – is what unites us with others. And keeps hope alive.

I think Brecht got it right in his poem, “In Praise of Dialectics”:

Today, injustice goes with a certain stride,

The oppressors move in for ten thousand years.

Force sounds certain: it will stay the way it is.

No voice resounds except the voice of the rulers

And on the markets, exploitation says it out loud:

I am only just beginning.

But of the oppressed, many now say:

What we want will never happen

Whoever is still alive must never say ‘never’!

Certainty is never certain.

It will not stay the way it is.

When the rulers have already spoken

Then the ruled will start to speak.

Who dares say ‘never’?

Who’s to blame if oppression remains? We are.

Who can break its thrall? We can.

Whoever has been beaten down must rise to his feet!

Whoever is lost must fight back!

Whoever has recognised his condition – how can anyone stop him?

Because the vanquished of today will be tomorrow’s victors

And never will become: already today!

Written in 1931, as Germany was descending into fascism, Brecht was telling us that he refused to accept his powerlessness. He understood that the future exists in the present. And that we, too, can wish that ‘never’ becomes ‘already today’.

The nature of the multiple crises we face today stem from the nature of capitalism. But it remains open to us to reject a world based on planetary extinction, endless war and extreme inequality. A world where hundreds of millions of people live in extreme poverty while obscene rewards go to those at the very top.

The stakes are high. The battle for a sustainable, fairer world has never been more important. Thinking creatively about how to achieve this can sustain us through the dark times. Culture can help us deal with feelings of powerlessness.

Raymond Williams, the writer and critic, nailed it when he said: “To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing.” It is our capacity to imagine change that points the way to a better future.

The Borg told us that “Resistance is futile.” On the contrary. Resistance is fertile. It is essential. Our collective future depends on it.