Speak Up and Speak Out

What is it?

It feels like only yesterday that we were celebrating new civil freedoms. Yet, in the past 12 months we’ve seen the reversal of Roe v. Wade, an American “Don’t Say Gay” bill reminiscent of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, a UK crime bill that borders on authoritarian, and many more. Across the world, the rights of women, LGBTQ+ people, and racial and ethnic groups are slowly being rolled back.

If the 2010s were marked by celebrating civil liberties, are the 2020s going to be marked by mourning their loss?

At the same time, we’ve seen people rise up and rally around causes as wide ranging as the murders of George Floyd and Sarah Everard, to a global anti-vaccine movement. Iran is making history with an ongoing series of protests and civil unrest against the killing of Mahsa Amini. Whilst Just Stop Oil is performing a series of actions to draw attention to climate change (amidst serious controversy, I really enjoyed reading Kate Knibbs’ take on this here).

In a time where self-expression and our way of life is under threat, how do we express our unhappiness or displeasure with the way things are? How do we express dissent, and make it meaningful? At a time when the war of woke is in full swing, how do we get people to actually stop, listen and ultimately, take action for a cause?

Why should I care?

Most of the freedoms we enjoy today come from dissent, counterculture, and protest. We’re all familiar with the classic imagery of dissent: MLK addressing the hundreds of thousands of people packed into the National Mall, the first brick thrown at Stonewall, Sacheen Littlefeather declining the Oscar in place of Marlon Brando. When liberties become ingrained in our everyday lives, it’s easy to forget that people fought for them in the past.

Dissent is what drives social change. When working for an organisation that, at its simplest, is trying to do good, what is your role in calling out problems and creating change? Plenty of charitable organisations are built on exactly this principle (Greenpeace, Amnesty, etc).

And yet, charities speaking out for social justice is a surprisingly divisive issue. On one hand, many people believe that charities have a role in society to push for maximum good, because their origin story is literally based on generating social impact. On top of that, more and more consumers crave political involvement from the brands they support, rewarding politically engaged brands with loyalty and money. On the other hand, we’re seeing heavy backlash when charities do speak or act out, with ongoing debate about whether charities should be allowed to lobby MPs, or, in some cases, even do their job without it being politicised and criticised (looking at you, Nigel Farage).

It’s a difficult line to tread, and a difficult problem to solve. Speaking out may not work for everyone. But for those of you who are trying to answer this question within your organisation, we’re going to try and outline some of the new ways we’re speaking out in today’s world.

Cancel Culture

You would have had to be living under a rock for the last four years to avoid heading about ‘cancel culture’ - the phenomenon of publicly calling people, groups, or organisations out for their behaviour or actions, with the goal of forcing an apology, a display of remorse or their cancellation from society. It’s the most basic form of voicing dissent. Cancel culture came into mainstream focus alongside social justice movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, with early targets like Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby being swiftly dealt with. Calling people out, publicly shaming them, inciting public backlash - it’s an effective way of harnessing dissent and making waves.

Now, as a concept, it feels almost inescapable. Cancel culture is everywhere. But over the past months, we’ve begun asking ourselves if it is the most effective way to make people take accountability. Artist ShayShay suggests we should be ‘calling in’ instead of ‘calling out’. After all, calling someone out for being problematic puts them on the defensive, cements opinions and cuts off conversation. Instead, calling in means privately confronting someone and creating a safe space for productive conversation in order to educate someone. At the end of the day, we’re all still learning.

On the flip side, sometimes it pays to call someone out publicly. Take the RNLI and Nigel Farage. When he learned that the RNLI was using their lifeboats to save migrants making the (often dangerous) channel journey, Farage very publicly put them on blast on both Twitter and GB News. In a situation like this, where politics are brought to your doorstep, it’s much harder to call in instead of call out. But the RNLI managed to find a middle ground by responding very simply, with a commitment to continue doing their job: to save people in distress at sea. In this case, staying out of explicit politics and doubling down on their commitment to keep doing their jobs is a form of dissent. And it worked, with record amounts of donations streaming in in support.

Moving From Passive to Direct Action

Showing support can involve anything from being a member to signing petitions to marching in the streets to breaking the law to make a point. Organisations rely on numbers and visibility, so sometimes being a member, showing support or affiliation, or signing a petition can be enough. The bigger the platform, the better. Even if the consequences of being more directly involved with an organisation are too serious for you to consider, you can help by getting the word out to other people who might be willing to take on these consequences.

More direct involvement can look like going on marches, actively campaigning, or performative actions. There’s a million and one ways that organisations call for direct involvement and it’s different for every cause. It could be Just Stop Oil activists throwing tomato soup at Van Gogh’s sunflowers, Extinction Rebellion planting a pink boat in the middle of Oxford Circus, or Enough is Enough supporters burning their energy bills. All of these actions come with different levels of effort and risk, and how involved we’re willing to be is often dependent on the consequences we’re willing or able to accept.

Following the new UK Crime Bill, which cracks down heavily on protesting rights, these consequences are becoming increasingly severe. There’s also the social backlash to consider. Take Just Stop Oil: most people agree with their baseline messaging (climate change = bad), but how many of those people have we seen criticising the organisation’s recent actions? With cancel culture in full force, and an increasing backlash against woke, taking drastic action is difficult to do without social consequences. But it’s worth bearing in mind that most historical social movements that we cherish nowadays received the same backlash in their time.

Putting Life And Liberty On The Line

Right now, in Iran, we’re seeing unprecedented numbers of people putting their life and liberty on the line to push for significant social change. There are marches, riots, women burning hijabs in the streets, Iranian athletes competing with uncovered hair, and heavy clashes with police. When a social movement transcends organisations and movements, and speaks to whole populations, the stakes are raised beyond what we can imagine. For many of us, from the relative comfort of UK society, it’s difficult to imagine the depth and importance of dissent of this scale. We are unlikely to find ourselves dealing with anything similar in our near futures.

So as distanced observers, what is our role in watching this unfold? Are we all global citizens, and if we are, what is our role in taking action at a global scale? With Iran, we’re seeing petitions, hashtags, donations. But what if we take something closer to home, like climate change? Eventually, it will impact us all, but right now it’s primarily the global South that’s suffering. So what is our role in speaking out against this?

As an organisation, do your supporters see themselves as global citizens? And if they do, what are you doing to support them in delivering impact across borders.