do we as organizers, as activists, as thinkers, as trade unionists, are we putting both

economic demands and political demands? Are we putting both of them at the center of our analysis?

And are we doing the work to connect them in as organic a way as possible? What do I mean by that? I think there's a very good

example in terms of Palestine. The boycott divestment and sanctions campaign in 2005, 170

Palestinian civil society organizations, including trade unions, students unions, political parties,

women's organizations, agricultural organizations, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera,

make a call to the civil society organizations of the world to express their support for Palestinian liberation

by demanding that all organizations, institutions, and government that are guilty of supporting of or profiting

from the oppression and dispossession of Palestinians should be boycotted, divested and sanctioned.

Now, on the one hand, that's just a just quote unquote, a question of solidarity, right?

Is that as long as the Palestinians are oppressed,

we should punish those who participate and profit from it.

But I actually think there's a more fundamental question also,

and I think this goes to the heart of solidarity, right?

That people always say solidarity is not charity.

It's about understanding that your liberation is tied to mind.

But what does that actually mean? And I think

what the BDS movement does is that it gives us a direct tool to make a much more fundamental

argument about the democratization of our lives. You know, is that I think a central argument of

the left, of the socialist left is to say abstract political democracy is meaningless without a much more fundamental democracy

in our everyday life, in the economic sphere, etc. BDS is a tool for that. It's to say that

we demand the right to be democratically involved in making decisions of what are local

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