Our collective provides people’s movements with the tools and resources needed for true liberatory change. Our work is broader and further reaching than it ever has been before, and we need your support!

by James Jordan

The victory of the popular movements in Colombia that brought President Gustavo Petro and Vice President Francia Marquez is an example that real power lies not in the vote or the hands of leaders but the streets and the countryside. This election would never have happened had it not been for the people’s sustained, disciplined, heartfelt struggle. It has rarely been so clear to me that the full force and power of that adage, “If the people lead, the leaders will follow.” I encourage us to learn from this example. Other examples, such as in Honduras or Nicaragua, show us that, in truth, we, too, can wage long-term, militant campaigns that wield our collective power that demand our collective power. But only when we take it.

“Solidarity is working to change — to smash — US imperialism and Capitalism. That is why our work is never just about Nicaragua. It is also about Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, and on and on. Nicaraguan poet Roberto Vargas once told me, ‘Venezuela solidarity is Nicaragua solidarity because if Venezuela goes down, we all go down.'” Chuck said a while ago.

I’ll say this much—AFGJ has been kicking ass. We are an organization that goes where many dare not go. We abide by the maxim of that sage people’s prophet, “The philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.” When you make your tax-deductible contribution to the Alliance for Global Justice, you are providing fuel to one of the engines carrying us all forward to the better world of which we dream.

Click here to support our work today!

Of course, nothing about reality is ever just one way one day and another the next. Things are fluid and mixed together. We have many projects and campaigns nowhere near an “endpoint.” There’s the Lucy Parsons Popular Human Rights School, the campaigns for the freedom of Prisoners of Empire, Alex Saab and Simón Trinidad, the Women in Nicaragua: Power & Protagonism virtual class series, and Nicanotes, to name a few. We are an organization of both beautiful endings and new beginnings.

I’ve been a part of AFGJ for fifteen years now -not nearly as long as Chuck or other comrades- but I have enough time invested that I can say without exaggeration that the collective has just reached a culmination point, and a new AFGJ is being born. Welcome, my friends, to the new AFGJ. None of this would have been possible without your time, resources, and monetary contributions. Thank you for your leadership! I hope we are following what you want from us!

We are not just innovators. We try to assess where the main popular struggles are, whether or not they are areas we have traditionally worked in, and we try to support those. During the 2020 uprisings, our report, coordinated by Natalia Schuurman, provided up-to-date information on the arrests made and became one of the best reports on what happened in the streets during that time. Did you know that there are still ten people jailed for participating in the Black Lives Matter uprisings in 2020 and 2014 (in Ferguson)? We reported this and more on our latest update on US political prisoners released last month. 

The events of 2020 largely precipitated our proposal for the Human Rights School, which Natalia is co-coordinating with Camille Landry. You have probably read the Human Rights Stuff e-zine that Camille has been publishing, which keeps people abreast of the latest human rights abuses in the US. So, yes, we believe in being where the action is, part of the waves of popular struggle. Absolutely.

My favorite thing about AFGJ is that when we commit to a struggle, we see our work through to the best of our ability. We are not there for a day. We are there for years, for decades. We know that every job is valuable, and every stage is a significant development. When the streets are filled with supporters, AFGJ is there. And when supporters walk away, and there’s only a handful left, AFGJ is part of that handful. From the beginning to the end, we are there. When you give or volunteer time for the Alliance for Global Justice, you support innovation and long-term commitment.

 

When we started our Colombia work, it was a part of our labor focus. We reached out to FENSUAGRO, the confederation of agricultural workers’ unions -one of the most persecuted unions in the world- at a time in which the Solidarity Center -then funded and controlled by the US State Department- worked to prohibit solidarity with FENSUAGRO. AFGJ took that struggle on and made significant inroads in building bridges of worker-to-worker solidarity where none existed. Today we are at it again as we develop a relationship with the Living Memory Union (Sindicato Memoria Viva), a union of security guards made up of ex-guerrillas and signers of the Peace Accord of 2016. We believe they are symbolic not only of labor struggles but the struggles to keep those accords and that peace viable.

We just led international missions of accompaniment during both rounds of the presidential election in Colombia. Despite the organization giving credentials to our observers rescinded the permits of those of us going into the north of Cauca because the levels of political violence are so high, we went anyway. For both rounds of the Colombia presidential election, we organized marathon live streams that reached thousands of viewers. One of our viewers was Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, who, after the first round of the Colombian presidential vote, reached out to us with a solidarity statement to the people of Colombia that we published on our YouTube channel.

To respond to the Biden administration’s miserable failure to host the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, our co-worker William Camacaro led the organization of an alternative summit in Tijuana that brought people together from across the Americas. This was a conference where all workers were welcome. The weekend was shared by delegates across the Americas, with significant representation from Biden’s excluded Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua.

Our work is broader and further reaching than it ever has been before, and we need your solidarity! Click here to support!

We have joined several other labor activists and organizations to create the Labor Education Project on AFL-CIO International Operations (LEPAIO). This coalition breathes new life into the ongoing struggle to change how US labor conducts its foreign relations and, specifically, to demand that the Solidarity Center open its books and end its dependency on the 95% funding it receives from the federal government.

In April, along with LEPAIO, we organized a forum in Washington, DC, on the anniversary of the 2002 coup attempt against the elected government of Venezuela. The conference was genuinely historic and brought together speakers who provided detailed information on the sad history of the AFL-CIO, covering agents of the Empire around the world. We also attended Labor Notes in Chicago, the country’s largest gathering of Left unionists. I especially want to mention the leadership of Maya Hernández, the participation of AFGJ staff members Natalia Schuurman and Evelyn Medina, and AFGJ board member Vicki Cervantes and our brother John Ocampo for their contributions to our Worker to Worker Solidarity work.

I am proud of what our AFGJ staff, board, volunteers, and supporters are accomplishing. Interpret history? We do a little of that, too. But we mean to change it. I swear I see a New World coming! Beyond all the pain and struggle, I see “a better world in birth.” Help us out here, please, with your time, your feedback, and with your tax-deductible contributions. Our dreams of a better future? We’re in it for the long haul. We can do this!

In Solidarity,

James Jordan

Alliance for Global Justice National Co-coordinator