“We have no idea what we’re doing, but we know we have to do something, and anything is better than nothing”
My new friend Élyse shared that at the recent Working Towards Palestinian Liberation panel discussion and agreed to let me share the rest of her speech here. If you also find this inspiring you can connect with her group at https://www.instagram.com/singforhumanity/.
Thanks to Élyse LeBlanc for the first ever to guest post here, and a chi-miigwech to Taylor Orpin for coming alongside Élyse and helping to craft these powerful words. Enjoy.
Hi, my name is Élyse and I’m a member of Sing for Humanity. We’re still defining what we are, to be honest, but I guess you could call us a singing activist collective. You may know us from the “subversive Christmas caroling” for Palestine that we did in malls over the holidays. Considering we started organizing about five minutes ago, it’s really surreal to be here on a panel full of such incredible organizers who have inspired us so much and paved the way for us to do what we do. Thank you, Canada for a free Palestine, for inviting us here today. To Ramsey and CPAM for being the heartbeat of this movement, and to all the other speakers for sharing your knowledge and insights, and generally being awesome. And to all of YOU for being here and being awesome.
We’re a brand new group that is still very much finding our footing and figuring out what we’re all about, including where we fit into this and other justice movements. It feels strange to call ourselves organizers. We still feel like we have no idea what we’re doing. But that’s ok. Our mantra, right up to this moment speaking at this panel, has been, “we have no idea what we’re doing, but we know we have to do something, and anything is better than nothing.” This was echoed recently by a great content creator, @jupiterbaal, who said, "When it comes to activism, even the worst of you is better than the people who are silent. Your activism doesn't have to be perfect, your activism just has to be. … Embrace the imperfections in your activism as you embrace the imperfections in yourself."
There has certainly been a lot of imperfection to embrace, and we’re still working on that, but radical acceptance is becoming easier. Part of “Palestine Freeing Us” looks like vastly accelerated growth as a result of being swiftly propelled leagues out of our respective comfort zones by the urgency and direness of the cause pulling our hearts forward to lead rather than our egos. This all happened so fast. When we posted on Instagram after seeing a group called @ceasefirecarols doing actions in the US, and said “hey, who wants to do this here?”, it didn’t feel like a real possibility. But in less than a week we were singing “Jingle Bombs” in the Polo Park food court with 30 other people. Which is a testament to the passion and enthusiasm of this amazing community.
And it really is that easy. You can totally disrupt effectively just by putting out a call, gathering a few people, starting a group chat, and going for it. You can even do it as an individual. Whether that’s throwing a shoe at the dishonorable Prime Minister (which we don’t actually recommend, despite the understandable temptation), or writing “Free Palestine” in the grime of a city bus (noted, appreciated, and recommended, if you can do it safely, of course). But it’s inaccurate to say that that’s all it was in our case.
We didn’t pop up out of nowhere, even though it may look like it. We’re a mushroom. We sprang up organically from a long-established network of solidarity and justice work infrastructure in this city. “Liberation mycelium”, if you will. By going to as many rallies and other actions as possible before forming, we became familiar with groups and individuals already Doing the Work, and learned from them. We successfully pulled off our mall actions in large part by observing how Queers for Palestine handle planning and recruiting for an action without alerting anybody that they don’t want finding out about it. Thank you!
By posting about Palestine non-stop, we became Instagram friends with “proper activists”, which led to hearing about an “activist social” which warmly invited “all past, current, and future organizers”, and we thought, that’s technically us. We’d like to be organizers someday, in theory. So we went. There, representatives of all the groups in attendance gave an elevator pitch about their work. Because of this, we met Erica, an organizer with Big Gay Wall. These are the fearless folks in hi-vis vests keeping us safe at every rally, standing between us, and angry drivers and Zionists. That night, one of us signed up to volunteer. This connection would turn out to be instrumental (pun entirely intended) in getting us singing.
It also helped that we have a friend involved with activist groups who was able to connect us with two veteran organizers (you probably know one such person too if you’re here tonight, or chances are, just because you live in Winnipeg). Because you see, initially, we weren’t going to do this ourselves. We just wanted to pitch the idea to an existing group, and maybe help out. But it turns out, unsurprisingly, Winnipeg organizers are incredibly busy, often working with numerous groups, and while they were thrilled to offer whatever help they could, and were extremely generous, they didn’t have the capacity at the time to take the lead. So if it was going to happen, we’d have to be the ones to do it. That’s when we put out the Instagram call, and that’s how we ended up here tonight.
All of these connections, especially Big Gay Wall, because safety is such a major concern, and something we felt way out of our depth tackling ourselves, made organizing accessible to people like us — non-organizers. We saw a niche in the movement that aligned with our particular gifts and that we felt called to fill, and we had people interested in Doing the Thing, but lacked a lot of the other skills required to successfully organize an action. With support from experienced folks willing to share their knowledge and resources, we felt empowered to go for it. With major doubts of course, but all the while driven by the horrors unfolding, and telling ourselves, who cares if it’s a massive failure, at least we tried. And we’ll definitely learn something. And be better next time. Because we aren’t going away. There’s no going back.
So, why Sing for Humanity? Our name speaks to the urgent need to re-humanize ourselves and each other as the antidote to the dehumanization that oppressive power structures generate and rely on. Singing affirms our humanity, and is something we can use to help us return to, and cling to it, in this moment of utter brutality and inhumanity. We understand song and music as a universal language which can be used to call people in to reconnect with their humanity. To invite them to refuse the temptation to sever themselves from it in order to avoid feeling the pain and suffering of others. To encourage us to lean into our humanity, in all its grace and horror, and embrace all the emotions and responsibilities to our fellow humans that come with it, allowing it to move us to action against injustice and towards radical hope and love.
Singing as a form of, or incorporated into protests, is incredibly disarming. On a purely practical level, it’s really hard to get mad at a group of people singing beautiful songs, and it looks really bad when you try to stop them. It poses a PR and legitimacy challenge for security and police. So it allows us to get away with a lot more than some other forms of more aggressive protest — which are definitely needed and effective in other ways, but I think all of us here would agree that we need to be throwing everything we’ve got into the gears of the Death Machine, preferably all at once.
It is also disarming in a more profound sense. Art has always been a powerful form of resistance, and an important piece of the revolution. It speaks to us where intellect may fall short, and builds bridges from human heart to human heart. Music can pierce some of people’s defensive walls, whether that be a hostile worldview, or the protective armor of numbness, allowing us to reach people we might otherwise not. Used as part of an action, singing maximizes disruption while minimizing risk to the protestors, and humanizing everyone involved.
Even in situations where the protest is not tolerated, singing makes for an incredibly powerful statement. I’m sure a lot of you have seen videos of the recent sit-in held on Capitol Hill in the US by Mennonite Action. They sang the whole time — for a ceasefire, to let Gaza live, for us to remember our humanity. Even as they were all arrested, one by one, they never stopped singing. It moved me to tears and I defy anyone to watch and hear those voices united in collective refusal to abandon their fellow humans and their own humanity and not be shook.
Singing together also helps us feel connected to one another and build community. At all of our mall actions, we had no idea how many people were going to show up. The first time, we were half-expecting it to be just the six of us. When we started singing and dozens of voices joined in, followed by familiar faces emerging from the crowd… faces that we recognized from protests, yet for the most part had never spoken to… exchanging meaningful glances and smiles that conveyed so much (largely “I can’t believe this working!” but also, “this is so cool!”), it hit us how important and needed this sort of action is. This was confirmed afterwards when we all started mingling and chatting. In an instant, we went from relative strangers, fairly isolated despite being united in our shared passion for a Free Palestine, to comrades who feel comfortable talking to each other. The walls were broken down for us too. Lasting friendships have been made.
Finally, singing is a form of joyful resistance. We believe it’s incredibly important to be able to find joy, laughter, and light within the deepest darkness, in part because it helps us resist that darkness, and keep fighting. Denying ourselves the full range of human emotion is also a form of dehumanization, therefore, leaning into joyful resistance is a life-affirming, defiant act of re-humanization. We have witnessed this in Gaza as journalists sit in tents amidst the atrocities of genocide, sharing what little food they have with one another, singing joyfully. As hospital staff in utterly heartbreaking circumstances gather and sing, “we will remain, until the pain fades away. We will remain, and the melody will be sweet,” their voices carrying the message of their steadfast resistance, their love of life, to the four corners of the world. And we see this here at home, through Indigenous kin holding Round Dances at Portage & Main, with their drums and traditional songs, raising their voices in unison for their survival and for justice long owed.
Chanting together at a protest is a similarly powerful binding and humanizing experience, but to us, seems as though it is more about making our message heard, whereas singing is about making our message felt. It’s the difference between speaking to people’s minds vs speaking to their hearts. And both are needed.
So what’s next for us? We chose the name “Sing for Humanity” (rather than something specific to Palestine), in part because we knew that this was the start of something bigger. All of us feel called to bring more song, music, and joyful resistance into the Palestine Solidarity movement, and eventually into other movements. We imagine Sing for Humanity growing into a fixture of our activist community, offering open support to all groups fighting for justice and liberation. We are committed to using our voices to continue opening hearts to Palestine’s struggle for liberation, but as we find our footing, we long to raise our voices for collective freedom, liberation, and justice for all, including the Original People of the land we call home, who to this day, continue their struggle against the colonial empire that is so-called Canada. We understand the interconnectedness of collective liberation. Palestinian solidarity is Indigenous solidarity, is freedom and justice for all.
Our hope in sharing our origin story and why we feel called to do this, is that it shows you that we all have something to contribute to this movement — we all have unique gifts, and they are all needed in the resistance. You are needed, even if it doesn’t feel like it, even if you don’t know exactly where you fit in yet. You don’t have to start your own group either. Joining an existing group is just as valuable, especially if you consider that the more capacity each organization has, the better they are able to help baby organizations like ours take flight. Many are welcoming new members, including us! If you’d like to get involved, or hear about upcoming actions that we can’t share publicly connect with us at https://www.instagram.com/singforhumanity/. There is so much work to be done, and there’s a place for everyone. There are so many different kinds of opportunities to get involved that might feel right for you if you let go of the idea that you need to be any sort of way to be an organizer. Come as you are, and go where your heart is calling you.
We also hope that a take away from this is that you can absolutely have an impact alone, and that no effort in the fight for collective liberation is ever in vain. But we are more powerful together. With the support of a strong activist community full of weird, messy, beautiful humans complimenting each other’s unique gifts, our impact is multiplied, and future organizers have a nourishing substrate from which to grow into fantastic mushrooms (btw, this mushroom analogy scales up, but that’ll be for another talk). So nurturing a strong, diverse, and well-connected grassroots organizing network — through events just like this one — is crucial for the health, effectiveness, and sustainability of the Palestinian Solidarity movement and beyond.
Sing for Humanity’s short life has been a hot mess at times. And it very likely will be again in the future. But that won’t stop us. We firmly believe that a mess in pursuit of collective liberation is a beautiful and worthy one, and very human, which is kind of the whole point. As we continue to find our form and our role in this great uprising, in the re-humanization of the world as Palestine frees us, we’ll keep singing from our own imperfect humanity to, and for, everyone else’s, and we invite you to join us. Thank you!
