Because, in a nut-shell, we’re in the trickiest line of work there is, and what we need by our sides are friends – not colleagues.
I never liked the term “professional” – even less so when I moved to social justice work. What does it mean when an activist is “professional”? Does it mean she answers her emails on time? Standardizes her communication? Sends “official” responses to people? Is diplomatic with those who tick her off? Conforms to ways of social engagement?
What does it mean when we come, as activists from different organizations to work together? And why in the world have we failed so miserably to do so in Lebanon? I hate the word “network” almost as must as I hate the word “NGO.” They are both loaded with nasty power dynamics. Sometimes I catch myself thinking: this organization will have to respond to our request because of so-and-so a factor. Leverage, waste, favors, funding, all those crappy things we don’t want to deal with as feminists. But the past two weeks I learned something very important. What tips the scale is not how many organizations you know or work with. It’s the quality of activist friends you have.
As feminists in particular, we need a lot more than funders and networks and partners and supporters. We need friends. And not in the “become a friend of this NGO” sense of the word, but real friendship. We need to work with people we can talk to about our lives, about our pains. We need people we can genuinely share our successes with. We need people who will say “let’s talk about this big project over beer at our favorite pub – I’m buying.”
Indeed, I have discovered lately that I can’t possibly work on feminist initiatives with people who aren’t my friends. I can’t depend on organizations where I don’t have any friends. The support they give you is important. They have your back and you have theirs. You can focus on the real problems, rather than on internal struggles. You know they will be honest and trustworthy and are not secretly out to cause you more harm than good. Come to think of it, I don’t have many good friends in my life anymore who aren’t activists. That’s a good thing.
So lesson of the day is: one must, if she wants to succeed as a feminist, invest in good friends, both inside and outside the team. It pays back when you need them the most. We don’t have to all work together in the same organization. Some of us are radical feminists, some of us are environmentalists, some of us are academics, some of us are researchers, some of us are filmmakers. We do different things but we get each other. We know how hard it gets. And we know we can count on each other.
Last week I needed a big favor and I turned to two organizations to help me. One of them is directly concerned with my project (supposedly) and instead of helping, they pissed me off. The second does very different work than mine, but the minute I sent them an email saying: “I dunno, I’m thinking of this, what do you think?” I got instant replies from almost everyone saying: “Whatever you need, I’m here for you, here’s how I can help.” It completely boosted my morale, just like the Army of the Dead comes to Aragorn’s rescue in LOTR. What was the key distinction between the two organizations? The second group are good friends of mine. Of course they will help.
True my friend! So true !
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, I completely agree with you. I founded years ago a feminist NGO in Armenia with 2 other feminist friends and I feel that the most important actions we do depends on the effort and initiatives of the friends and volunteers who really believe in the work we are doing together for changing things in our society important to all of us. NGO work sometimes makes you forget why you existed in the beginning and you get lost in all the bureaucracy and paperwork. So you have to remind yourself constantly the purpose of your existence and actions. And to do that is to be constantly surrounded by friends, believers and volunteers who are there solely to serve the interests you all believe in, in our case is “women’s rights and empowerment”