When reading Florence Ashley’s “Gender/Fucking”, a book of essays largely about navigating the world as an openly promiscuous transfeminine person in a society that both fetishizes and reviles you, I never expected I would come across a term that wholly encapsulated my philosophy and the work I’ve been doing in this community.
Yet, in the last chapter, Ashley opines on the concept of palliative activism and how we can maintain compassion after losing hope that the revolution may one day come.
Palliative activism is an idea that recognizes the importance of revolutionary thought and goals throughout history but posits that, given the solidification of power and capital, the idea of the revolution and the revolution has become a commodified identity one puts on rather than an ideology upon which one makes radical change.
It resets the goals of activism and radical action: from being used as building blocks to some far-off mythologized revolution, to improving the material conditions of those around. Fighting for change at a smaller scale to make the lives of the marginalized and downtrodden more livable and enjoyable.
A palliative activist may believe that ideas like the revolution can blind us to the little victories we have, as they have become abstracted and turned into a stepping stone on the path to something greater—causing us to always feel the need to do more.
But the truth is sometimes all you have is a band-aid, and while you may think to yourself that the band-aid is not enough—do you refuse to use the band-aid on because of that? No, of course not. You wash the wound and put the band-aid on; you do what you can with what you have available.
Through my work with FightBack! KW at the 100Vic encampment, palliative activism has been a guiding principle. While we are a group of radicals and revolutionaries with differing ideas of what a just state may look like, we still come together every day to make the lives of the residents a little better and to reduce the amount of violence enacted upon them by the state.
We know that handing out harm reduction supplies, coordinating donation deliveries and monitoring police presence is not glamorous or going to build to a revolution, but it makes the community at 100Vic a little safer and the people there less hungry and a little warmer.
We have made deep personal connections with residents. We hurt when they hurt, we smile when they smile, and we attempt to empower them in everything we do.
We also engage at the municipal, regional, provincial and federal level, but we realize that many of those efforts are ultimately in vain and will result in minimal change—if any.
Even so, through our mutual aid and direct-action approach we have seen changes at 100Vic that we could not have predicted and did not intend to create.
Most encampments have a mayoral system, a resident who essentially acts like a sheriff and settles disputes and keeps the order. Residents at 100Vic have consciously moved away from this model, instead creating an open committee of people able to take on different aspects of this role at different times.
Residents have begun attending City and Regional Council meetings, have developed systems in which food can be shared evenly, and altogether have created a community in which they are able to keep each other safe and accountable.
This is the true power of palliative activism, of seeking to soothe the pains of those downtrodden and forgotten. When you have no expectations, when you do the work because it fills you and the people you help with a sense of community and safety, the work begins to self-replicate.
Perhaps the old saying is true and hurt people hurt people—but healing people heal people.
The revolution may not be coming, the time for that may have passed and it may be too late to dismantle the forces of capital and fascism before they doom us all. But that does not mean we throw our hands up. It does not mean we must turn cold and hardened to the suffering of our fellow man.
Instead, we must double down and devote ourselves further to creating spaces in which all are safe, in which we can lick our wounds and take solace in caring for each other. It is too easy to give in, to give up, and that gets us nowhere.
Palliative activism gives us a framework for a truly restorative approach to mutual aid and direct action in which we can accept the limits of our power and still do the work we must with compassion and empathy.
Get involved, bring some food or clothes to the encampment, host community cooking, check in on your neighbour, join a community garden—find what fills your heart and share it with the world, and you may be surprised what results spring forth.
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