“I’m still powerful. I’m outspoken. I’m unruly. I’m rebellious,” said Chi Pinaysewak, an Anishinaabeg ikwe or woman. As a leader of the Land Back Movement — an Indigenous-led movement toward land ownership and self-governance — and a residential school survivor, her conviction reflects the willpower of many others who dedicate their lives to a greater cause.
For the past few months, universities all over the world, including U of T, have witnessed a wave of student activists giving up their security, risking their futures, and even facing police brutality for the safety of the people in Gaza. From resistance against colonization and labour union strikes to feminist and queer rights, the twenty-first century has seen movements pushing for change all around the world.
For those of us who watch protest movements from the sidelines, it might be difficult to fathom what might drive someone to take such measures. Therein lies the crux of the question that has been brewing in me for some time now: what motivates someone to become an activist?
I figured asking an activist might be the best way to find an answer. This is how I came to interview six people engaged in different forms of activism across different movements.
A preamble: who is an activist?
When I first approached the people in these interviews, not all of them were comfortable with calling themselves activists. Perhaps because proclaiming oneself as such can come off as “self-important,” as recent U of T graduate Aviral (Avi) Dhamija put it. Dhamija was one of the organizers and media liaisons for UofT Occupy for Palestine’s (O4P) solidarity encampment for Palestine at King’s College Circle. They were also part of the group of students that met with President Meric Gertler in early April, following the student occupation of Simcoe Hall.
Dan Storyev, who I met during my undergraduate studies at Johns Hopkins University, is an English managing editor of OVD-Info — an independent media group monitoring human rights in Russia. In our interview, he defined an activist as “a political actor who is deeply committed to a certain cause, [who is] willing to participate in politics beyond voting.”
I have therefore decided to stick with the title of “activist” to encompass the various forms of participation among those involved in social, political, or environmental movements as protestors, academics, artists, or social media news sharers. As broad as the definition might be, this definition doesn’t confine activism to any particular means or morality. Everyone interviewed expressed this sentiment.
The spark: what piqued your interest in activism?
For Chi Pinaysewak Ka iKwe Pimoset Muzugamay (meaning “Big Thunderbird Woman Who Walked All the Way,”) activism is integral to her very existence: “I started to become an activist while I was in my mother’s stomach. To become an activist [is] to fight for my right to live as a First Nations ikwe (woman) on First Nations’ land that [was] gifted to [us].”
Chi Pinaysewak’s mother was pregnant with her at a residential school at the age of 12. Chi herself lived six years in a residential school: an experience that profoundly shaped her experience. “I should have been one of those little kids in those 215 massive holes,” she said, referring to the number of unmarked graves of Indigenous children found in Kamloops, British Columbia. “But I survived… probably to tell my story.”
“That’s why there’s a lot of us still living, because we’re those walking bundles of hope. I’m still powerful. I’m outspoken. I’m unruly. I’m rebellious… My living as an Anishinaabeg ikwe is a protest, is activism.”
Storyev’s entry into activism happened when he was a child, living with his mother in the Russian countryside. His village had been impacted by a series of wildfires, and Stroyev saw the power of organized activism when his mother gathered the local population to call the local governors. “Because my first act of political organizing was driving to the local forester, trying to pressure the local government to do something about [the fires] so people don’t have to burn in their houses. This tangibility connects with my activism throughout the years,” he said.
Dhamija, on the other hand, started as “a passive consumer of protests.” Before moving to Canada to study at U of T, Dhamija said that they had a fairly “left critique” of what was happening in India. In 2021, there were enormous farmer protests in the country against new agricultural laws which threatened the business of farmers and food affordability. “I was a little baby boy then, 17 years old, but it was quite interesting to see how hundreds of thousands of people can be galvanized by a single cause.” Their interest turned into education, which then led them to action.
“You go from critique, [from] theory, [from] reading groups, to just realizing that eventually, you need to do the thing.”
The fuel: what radicalized you to engage in acts of activism?
Many of the activists I interviewed describe the experience of being compelled to become active participants in political and social change. This experience is described as a “radicalization.”
“Radicalization is a slow process. Political awakening, it’s a slow process,” said Dhamija, whose development as an activist was a steady metamorphosis. On the other hand, climate and anti-war activist Arshak Makichyan can identify a pivotal moment in his journey. Born in Armenia, Makichyan emigrated to Russia in 1995 and was a violinist in the Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory until 2018. He recalls, “I was playing music. Then I read about [Greta] Thunberg’s strike for climate [change], and I found out about the climate crisis.”
Inspired by Thunberg’s Fridays for Future youth strike movement, Makichyan organized Russia’s Fridays for Future movement in 2020. In a country where protesting can result in a prison sentence, Makichyan picketed alone every Friday for two years, urging the Russian government to address climate change, and inspiring climate activists across the country. He now resides in Berlin after his exile from Russia due to activism.
The enormity of the climate issue struck him, leading him to realize that changing his habits was simply not enough. “I found out that it’s a huge thing… [which] they didn’t tell us about in school. It was kind of radicalization for me.” He recalled that, “Politics, in general, in Russia were terrible. I started to do climate activism… And every week, I was getting more radical because I was feeling like a part of civil society that was repressed.”
Makichyan felt an inescapable sense of doom about what was happening in his country and on a global scale. “I think it was a moral question for me,” he said, “if I [were to remain] silent… then it would be impossible for me to consider myself an honest and good person.”
Storyev’s commitment to activism started in college. “For those who are radicalized in college, it’s a very natural process, because you’re independent, getting away from your parents where you didn’t really feel like you had some capacity for action.” This realization of independence, he thinks, is what pushes college students into becoming political activists.
“Because that’s what independence is all about, right? It’s [a] capacity for independent action.”
For Fatima Hassan, a South-African human rights lawyer and social justice activist in Canada, radicalization began earlier than Storyev’s and Makichyan’s. “The thing about growing up in apartheid South Africa is that a high school became a place for political education. You can’t escape it. Your teachers were political, your friends were political.”
From Hassan’s politicization in high school to her law school degree, her involvement in social justice work was inevitable. She has since founded the Health Justice Initiative in Canada: a public health and law initiative that promotes racial and gender equity in access to healthcare. In 2022, she won the Calgary Peace Prize for her work on HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 vaccine inequity. “When you grow up in an unjust society, every act of injustice becomes magnified and that’s what forces you to go down that path.”
The fire: how do you stay hopeful?
Taking a stance against powerful forces comes with a price. For Morningstar, that price was unimaginable.
Morningstar shared that her daughter is under provincial care right now due to her involvement with the Land Back Movement in 2020. “When you’re fighting for the land you love, sometimes you lose things in that fire.”
To deal with such loss and still persevere, Morningstar finds hope in spirituality. She explained that, “one of the first teachings I ever received was that in the spiritual world, the Creator shows us the life we’re about to live. We make a conscious decision to come down here after seeing everything… [and then] we sign that contract.”
Her mother told her that, when Morningstar was born, she cried for the first three months of her life. “They say the reason why those babies cry like that is because they’re grieving the life that they just saw and what they’re about to experience.”
Morningstar understands that her faith not only lies in her hopefulness, but also her grief. “I know that my daughter [is] alive.”
For others, the disappointment that comes with activism lies in the arduousness of the journey, which is often long and full of pitfalls. “Burnout is a very real thing,” said Storyev. To navigate this rut, he advises that activists practise self-compassion and care by staying attuned to their wellbeing and making sure they eat well. “These are all important things,” Stroyev said. “You can’t really do good work without them.”
Moreover, Storyev emphasizes the importance of remembering the significance of your work and continuing it for long. To him, part of self-care means long-term planning. “I think, especially in young people, there is this martyrdom idea, like you have to be super serious, but you need to think long-term. Just try to actually enjoy what you’re doing so that you can do it for longer.”
“I think sometimes we get a little self serious,” said Dhamija. “When you look at the history of the modern world, it’s mostly just defeats, right? Defeatism is something you can share with the community who actually galvanized you to act. And when you share that, it feels less defeatist.”
Makichyan believes that the state of the world is going to get “much worse.” This is why he believes that activism “isn’t about hope, it’s about survival.” His duty to strive for a more liveable world is what sustains his cause: “A lot of people are going to die, a lot of countries will be in huge crises… [due to] the climate crisis, but I believe in activism and I believe in truth. [I believe] that if you are trying to do your best, you don’t really need to be some kind of hero to change something. You just need to do something, and then other people will join you.”
Chi Pinaysewak’s resilience is an extension of her very being. “I’m still here. And I’m living. And I have four little warriors that I’ve birthed, that have been traumatized as well, but still have golden hearts and still care for other people. That’s why I have hope. And because people from across the sea are coming together with First Nations people, we’re acknowledging each other and sharing stories, sharing ceremony, sharing our dances. Together.”
Reflections: so, what makes someone an activist?
There seems to be as many paths to becoming an activist as there are ways of being one, but two requirements appear to be essential: compassion and knowledge. For some, the fight for justice comes from experiencing injustice. For others, the need to fight for a cause comes from learning about it. In both cases, conviction toward a cause comes from a place of compassion. This compassion may extend to the injustice of a particular community, or injustice at large. Knowledge, too, is instrumental for activism, because the more people learn about an issue, the harder it becomes to ignore it.
While activists might often seem pessimistic about the state of the world, they are actually fuelled by the relentless optimism that, even though they are but a drop in the ocean, their ripples will make a difference. There is no other option, because cynicism never changed the world.
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