Solidarity: The Past and Future of a World-Changing Idea

Anger, mistrust, even a sense of despair: many citizens around the world struggle to overcome these feelings amid growing polarization, rising inequality and deep ideological conflicts.

Yet previous generations have faced similar challenges, from struggles for equal rights and universal suffrage in the west to anti-colonial movements demanding national liberation in the postcolonial south, at critical turning points in history.

What enabled them to meet these moments was the cultivation and practice of solidarity: forging common interests and bonds of mutuality across genuine differences.

Can we come together to address the crises that face us today? What will it take to construct the solidarities we need? And what happens, given the risk of a climate calamity, if we cannot?

The renown activist intellectual Astra Taylor examines these questions in conversation with Sanjay Ruparelia.