Our sessions today—which concerned abortion rights, disability rights, and the situation of queer people in Poland—made me think most about lines. Whether we admit it or not, we are all always drawing lines, at an interpersonal level and at the level of our activism. We set ourselves apart, stabilize and energize our psyches by drawing personal lines of identity: am I gay or straight, white or black, male or female, Polish or Ukrainian? This process of identity-formation is often vital to our sense of ourselves in the world, and especially to our inspiration as activists. More troublingly, though, we also draw lines around others, often before we hear them speak, before we even know their name. So identity brings us together with others like us, and allows us to forge the solidarity needed to craft social movements. But identity also divides, forces us to emphasize the “other-ness” of others, even and especially others who might become our allies in the fight for social change—others who might even become our friends.
LGBTQ+ community and the HIA allies at the Warsaw Pride
Of course, the lines by which we mark and divide ourselves are imperfect and unstable to begin with. Binaries (like the ones I suggested above) always collapse in on themselves; singular, sharp divisions fail; lines we thought were crisp turn out to be infinitely blurry. As Yeats told us long, long ago: the center does not hold. The contemporary progressive discourse has attempted, in part, to address this problem with the notion of “intersectionality,” though even the most robust application of intersectional theory fails to fully account for the nuance and paradox and richness of human identity. Moreover, intersectionality applies specifically to the overlaps between multiple facets of identity, not to the complexities already inherent in a supposedly singular identity category.
My point in all of this is that after discussing three prominent social and political (because today, whether we like it or not, the social is always also the political) identities (female, disabled, queer), I was left with a sense that our lines are failing us. We heard from our panelists on abortion, regarding the Black Protest in Poland, that the movement proved how much easier it is to mobilize large masses in a reactionary movement against something (or someone) else, than to generate social energy behind an affirmative cause. We will enthusiastically speak out against, but seldom for. We might well ask: is it possible to form a new discourse of sociopolitical identity that reaches beyond the need for the metaphysical “other?” Might our movements become epistemologically self-sufficient and inclusive, in the most robust and perhaps radical senses of those terms?
There is a tension here between the common purpose that we all (human rights defenders, activists, liberals) ought to embrace, on the one hand, and our insistence on clinging to markers of division and difference as effective means of political change, on the other. I would gently suggest that we have swung too far toward the latter impulse. This swing has led to a politics dependent on division, which breeds resentment and competition within, and elicits dismissal from without.
I’d close with one more line: the line of perceived difference that often pre-empts genuine conversation with the “other.” Karolina Wieckiewicz, the abortion rights activist on our first panel, openly claimed that “we are tired of talking to opponents, because it doesn’t work.” Echoing a lack of faith in discursive possibility, Zuzanna Radzik, our other panelist and a Catholic feminist activist, said she felt that there was “no atmosphere for real discussion” because “everyone is always jumping on each other” in debate.
Zuzanna Radzik (Tygodnik Powszechny), Karolina Więckiewicz (Aborcyjny Dream Team on Tour), Ola Hołyńska (HIA Polska)
These two women had perhaps irreconcilably different views on abortion: Radzik unabashedly said that she believes something special happens at the moment of conception, and that this “something” ought to seriously inform the way we approach the topic in policy. Wieckiewicz generally disagreed, prioritizing a woman’s right to an abortion, no questions asked (the famous message of one of her recent campaigns was “abortion is okay”). Going into the discussion, I was worried that these considerable, fundamental differences would prevent the conversation from being productive—if anything that could be called conversation happened at all.
To my surprise and delight, it did, in a heated and robust but respectful way. The panelists (and our moderator, Ola Hołyńska) became aware of the philosophical line dividing them, and leaned into it. Instead of retreating, instead of refusing to push toward the manifestly uncomfortable, they hashed things out at the discursive border between them. Did either of them change the other’s mind? Probably not. But they did provide us, their listeners, with ample and sophisticated food for thought, new perspective and context which helped us to reflect more critically on the issue. And either way, they proved that lines may always divide us, but that we shouldn’t be afraid to push up against them, to jump as high as we can to try to see what’s on the other side of our boundaries and divisions.
Johnny Cash sang it first, though in a different context: “I walk the line.” As activists and believers in the capacity of this world to change for the better, we walk our own lines, sometimes too closely, and perhaps more often with too much fear and uncertainty. We might all benefit from a reassessment of the kinds of lines we prioritize in our discourses—to say nothing of those we embrace in our hearts and minds.
Warsaw, 20.06.2018
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Kenny Martin is a recent graduate of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, where he majored in English and music, and minored in history, chemistry, and Spanish. At SMU, Kenny was a member of the Ballroom Dance Team (his favorite dance is the foxtrot) and Editor-in-Chief of Hilltopics, SMU’s premier arts and opinion magazine. As a pianist, he was a regular performer on the Meadows School of the Arts stage, and a passionate advocate for new music. Recently, Kenny worked as a writer with the criminal justice initiative Buried Alive, which advocates for individuals sentenced to life without parole for first-time drug offenses. He hopes to use his musical and literary talents to advocate for mutual understanding, with a special interest in LGBTQ+ advocacy. In his spare time, Kenny can be found fishing, obsessing over Spanish art (especially Velázquez), or drinking good wine with better friends.
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