Engaging Disagreement | Sharan Burrow & Alnoor Ladha
02/14/23 • 58 min
The challenge of activism today must include winning over those with whom we disagree, for example, those who have not yet embraced the agendas of climate and economic justice. In a country like the US where about 40% of people have been misled by the falsehoods of right-wing media, democracy is under great threat if activists for justice are not able to win over a significant number of those who support antidemocratic ideas. This episode explores the questions of why this is so difficult and what strategies we may employ to build much-needed bridges of dialogue, engagement, and possibly conversion. Can we build narratives and messages that help people break out of ideological silos? How do we win over people who occupy positions vastly different from those promoting economic, gender, and climate justice?
Our guests:
Sharan Burrow is the general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and a former president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. Sharan is a passionate advocate and campaigner for social justice, women’s rights, the environment, and labour law reforms, and has led union negotiations on major economic reforms and labour rights campaigns in her home country of Australia and globally.
She has also served as a member of the Governing Body of the International Labour Organisation and is represented on a number of international commissions concerning climate action, industrial transition, and economic reform.
Follow Sharan’s work:
- The International Trade Union Confederation website: https://www.ituc-csi.org
- Twitter: @SharanBurrow
Alnoor Ladha is a political strategist, writer, and activist. Alnoor’s work focuses on the intersection of political organising, storytelling, and technology. He was the co-founder and Executive Director of The Rules, a global network of activists, coders, researchers, writers, and others focused on changing the rules that create inequality, poverty, and climate change. The Rules started in 2012 as a time-bound project and an experiment in anarchist organisational design, exploring new ways of how to work, play, and make trouble together.
He is a co-founder of Tierra Valiente, an alternative community and healing centre in the jungle of northern Costa Rica. He is a board member of Culture Hack Labs and The Emergence Network.
Follow Alnoor’s work:
- Culture Hack Labs website: https://www.culturehack.io
- Twitter: @alnoorladha
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Learn more about Power, People & Planet on the website:
https://powerpeopleplanet.org
To watch full episodes of the podcast follow Kumi's YouTube channel
Follow Kumi on social media:
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Power, People and Planet is produced in association with the Green Economy Coalition, the world’s largest movement for a green and fair economy:
https://greeneconomycoalition.org
Additional support for the podcast was provided by the Robert Bosch Stiftung:
https://www.bosch-stiftung.de/en
The challenge of activism today must include winning over those with whom we disagree, for example, those who have not yet embraced the agendas of climate and economic justice. In a country like the US where about 40% of people have been misled by the falsehoods of right-wing media, democracy is under great threat if activists for justice are not able to win over a significant number of those who support antidemocratic ideas. This episode explores the questions of why this is so difficult and what strategies we may employ to build much-needed bridges of dialogue, engagement, and possibly conversion. Can we build narratives and messages that help people break out of ideological silos? How do we win over people who occupy positions vastly different from those promoting economic, gender, and climate justice?
Our guests:
Sharan Burrow is the general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and a former president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. Sharan is a passionate advocate and campaigner for social justice, women’s rights, the environment, and labour law reforms, and has led union negotiations on major economic reforms and labour rights campaigns in her home country of Australia and globally.
She has also served as a member of the Governing Body of the International Labour Organisation and is represented on a number of international commissions concerning climate action, industrial transition, and economic reform.
Follow Sharan’s work:
- The International Trade Union Confederation website: https://www.ituc-csi.org
- Twitter: @SharanBurrow
Alnoor Ladha is a political strategist, writer, and activist. Alnoor’s work focuses on the intersection of political organising, storytelling, and technology. He was the co-founder and Executive Director of The Rules, a global network of activists, coders, researchers, writers, and others focused on changing the rules that create inequality, poverty, and climate change. The Rules started in 2012 as a time-bound project and an experiment in anarchist organisational design, exploring new ways of how to work, play, and make trouble together.
He is a co-founder of Tierra Valiente, an alternative community and healing centre in the jungle of northern Costa Rica. He is a board member of Culture Hack Labs and The Emergence Network.
Follow Alnoor’s work:
- Culture Hack Labs website: https://www.culturehack.io
- Twitter: @alnoorladha
-----------------------
Learn more about Power, People & Planet on the website:
https://powerpeopleplanet.org
To watch full episodes of the podcast follow Kumi's YouTube channel
Follow Kumi on social media:
-----------------------
Power, People and Planet is produced in association with the Green Economy Coalition, the world’s largest movement for a green and fair economy:
https://greeneconomycoalition.org
Additional support for the podcast was provided by the Robert Bosch Stiftung:
https://www.bosch-stiftung.de/en
Previous Episode
Rethinking Society | George Monbiot
With the crises in front of us so complex, are their solutions to be found at the global or local level? Will our technologies emerge fast enough to avert the greatest threats and, if not, how do we prepare for that unknown future? And how can even the boldest of activist movements hope to have an impact against overwhelming economic and cultural power? In this episode Kumi discusses ways to reimagine and reinvent the ways we live with one of Britain’s leading figures in the fight for a better world.
Our guest:
George Monbiot is a trained zoologist and scientist but is most commonly noted for his journalism, writing and his political and environmental activism, in which he has been engaged for over 30 years. He is a columnist for the Guardian and was awarded the 2022 Orwell Prize for Journalism. His latest book Regenesis: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet explores a new future for food production, one of the most climate-devastating industries humanity currently engages in.
Follow George's work:
- George’s website: https://www.monbiot.com/
- Twitter: @GeorgeMonbiot
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Click here to watch a full video version of this episode.
Learn more about Power, People & Planet on the website:
https://powerpeopleplanet.org
To watch full episodes of the podcast follow Kumi's YouTube channel
Follow Kumi on social media:
-----------------------
Power, People and Planet is produced in association with the Green Economy Coalition, the world’s largest movement for a green and fair economy:
https://greeneconomycoalition.org
Additional support for the podcast was provided by the Robert Bosch Stiftung:
https://www.bosch-stiftung.de/en
Next Episode
Prosecuting Justice | Markus Beeko & Nani Jansen Reventlow
The contribution of the legal community through innovative, strategic litigation and other legal efforts is going to be one of the most critical undertakings in the fight for climate justice. Currently, there are more than 1,400 climate lawsuits underway. These legal battles address the destruction of our ecosystems and the attempts of indigenous people to uphold their rights through a range of different struggles.
Litigation and legal strategy has been a critical part of ensuring the strength of the activist community. Indeed, the legal community has a critical role in defending the shrinking democratic space in multiple countries throughout the world. However, the challenge remains in determining how legal strategies intersect with other mobilising strategies. Another challenge is determining the proportionality of effort that should be afforded to litigation battles, especially given that the wheels of justice turn very slowly in many countries: the climate crisis cannot wait for deliverance from protracted litigation in new areas of environmental law, corporate law and elsewhere.
Our guests:
Markus N. Beeko was appointed Secretary General of the German section of Amnesty International in 2016. He has been active in leadership positions for Amnesty in Germany and the International Secretariat in London since 2004. He is the Chair of Amnesty’s international steering group on "Human Rights in the Digital Age". He chairs the board of trustees of Stiftung Menschenrechte, and he is also Vice Chair of the board of the German Institute for Human Rights.
Follow Markus’s work:
Nani Jansen Reventlow is an internationally recognised human rights lawyer specialised in strategic litigation at the intersection of human rights, social justice, and technology. She is the Founder of Systemic Justice, the first Black-led, majority BPOC organisation in Europe working to radically transform how the law works for communities fighting for racial, social, and economic justice.
Follow Nani’s work:
- Website: https://www.nanijansen.org/
- Twitter: @InterwebzNani
-----------------------
Learn more about Power, People & Planet on the website:
https://powerpeopleplanet.org
To watch full episodes of the podcast follow Kumi's YouTube channel
Follow Kumi on social media:
-----------------------
Power, People and Planet is produced in association with the Green Economy Coalition, the world’s largest movement for a green and fair economy:
https://greeneconomycoalition.org
Additional support for the podcast was provided by the Robert Bosch Stiftung:
https://www.bosch-stiftung.de/en
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