Solidarity, from my perspective

Solidarity is a public tool and the common effort against any form of unfairness and social injustice.

Being public is a key, since the power of publicity brings vitality to solidarity, influencing and putting pressure on decision makers to change their standpoint. Publicity makes solidarity initiatives effective, drawing the attention of the public opinion to a definite unfairness. It means solidarity is not just a spirit of intangible togetherness and a silent agreement with a potential goal, but a common conception converted to an apparent and visible social action of individuals agreeing with and firmly believing in a goal of a community stepping up against injustice.

People taking part in the action of solidarity do not necessarily have to belong to the specific community fighting against unfairness. The source of solidarity is a spirit and a convincement that connect individuals to the struggle of that community, even without physical and/or personal touch with it. People all around the world can show support and can endorse a movement, using social media. People do not even have to physically be in the focus of the movements to come up with solidarity, to show sympathy with it and to take part in raising and drawing the attention, helping the movement thrive by using the tools of solidarity. Social media has extremely extended the feasibility of solidarity, providing it an international range. Pundits can endorse and can give publicity to movements, social media and the forms of mass communication can all generate more publicity to a struggle, boosting the pressure on decision makers. Social media gives huge perspectives to solidarity, since it can inform and involve even more people feeling sympathy with a struggle.

Social media does not only increase publicity but can also function as the cradle of solidarity tendencies. When people step up for their interests, cope with injustice and solidarity wins, social media is a great tool to present positive tendencies that can inspire people being in the same situation and suffering from the same unfairness to follow the already proven examples. When the teachers’ union strike won in West Virginia last year and teachers’ solidarity fought out salary raises for the employees, social media provided a huge publicity to it, starting a tendency, the wave of education workers' strikes in the USA. Teachers all across the country began to organize themselves, formed labor unions and carved out salary raises from Oklahoma, Arizona, Colorado to Los Angeles. Solidarity is not only a common effort to fight out something but also an inspiring example that helps people having fears to step up and cope with the same problems and unfairness in their own communities.

People being physically in the focus of the actions neither have to suffer from the injustice itself as an individual to show solidarity. The sincere sympathy and fellow-feeling can make people join a struggle, even when they are not (directly) affected. Stepping up for something we firmly believe in, helping other people who suffer from unfairness that we would be up against if we were the ones directly affected, this makes solidarity extremely powerful, since this feeling involves the individuals of the local community who are not necessarily directly affected, uniting and firing up the community against injustice. This increases the ability of the community to enforce the interests of the suffering ones against those who generate the unfairness. This approach and fellow-feeling are the pillars of solidarity, making mass movements possible locally.

But solidarity does not exist without stepping up openly and practically. Taking action is another inevitable pillar of solidarity. Talking and complaining merely without stepping up and confronting unfairness do not meet the criteria of solidarity. Solidarity is about common effort, taking specific actions against injustice.

People personally suffering from injustice have to take the first step. If they do not do it, there will not be anything that others could make a common cause with. Solidarity is the opposite of servility. When people suffering from injustice do not want to cope with injustice but surrender, endure or do not want to confront by any consideration (they want to join the oppressors, they expect for a future promotion, they fear of the retaliation, they are neutral and uninterested etc), then no solidarity is going to happen. Solidarity needs enthusiasm and a firm belief against injustice, only this attitude can make people step up shoulder to shoulder. People at my workplace do a lots of (unpaid) overtime, they cannot maintain the balance between their job and their private life and they earn way less than the value and the profit they create. Still, when I advise them to step up, to form a union to limit our overtimes, to carve out our fair share of the profit we generate via bonuses, to make the employer pay the overtime, the vast majority is not willing to act in spite of the theoretic accordance. Most of them do not want to confront their leaders, they fear of their career paths they daydream about, or they are simply shy, timid and weak-spirited.

Solidarity always starts with the action of those who suffer directly. Solidarity is a mentality manifesting itself as a common effort and tool to accomplish social achievements for the entire community and all the individuals get their share. This is the argument for individuals to raise their voice instead of being neutral. When people directly affected step up for their common interests instead of being passive, unaffected people in the same community can join as well, putting enormous pressure on the focal point of the unfairness. Using social media efficiently can involve sympathizers all around the world, providing examples for others and making the culture of people standing together a worldwide tendency.