Tara Ehrcke of Victoria, BC, was initially politicized as part of the global justice movement in the 1990s. As that movement faded after 9/11, she was peripherally involved in anti-war organizing, but put more of her energies into local political work. In the early 2000s, she became a teacher, and for a decade and a half her main grassroots focus was political activity in her union, the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation (BCTF). For many years, she was also a member of the International Socialists.
In 2018, Ehrcke read that year’s report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations body responsible for assessing the science related to the climate crisis. She says, “I was kind of blown away by that, and shifted a lot of my energy to climate politics.”
She adds, “I’m also now pretty involved in Palestine support. I’m Jewish myself, so that’s something that’s kind of been there in the background, but the war in Gaza really brought it to the foreground.”
These days, she is a member of Independent Jewish Voices, and she also works with Labour for Palestine. She is involved in Climate Justice Victoria, and is a member of the BC Federation of Labour committee that deals with climate justice and the BCTF’s environmental justice action group.
“I guess threading through this whole period of time was a real belief in the power of union organization and worker power to affect change,” she says. “And so when I do get involved in other social movements, I try to often be a bridge between those movements and the labour movement as much as possible.”
The Media Co-op: What are a couple of important things that you’ve learned over the years from struggles that you are not directly involved in, and why are those things important?
Tara Ehrcke: I guess some of the most significant uprisings that have taken place in the last 20, 25 years have been outside of Canada. So I look to uprisings around the world, like the Arab Spring — anti-government uprisings that swept numerous Arab countries starting in 2010 and 2011 — for example.
I’ve just lately been spending a lot of time thinking about political organization. I was a member for many years of the International Socialists. So I do come from a Trotskyist, Marxist theoretical background — although unfortunately I don’t believe that we currently have any Marxist organizations that are realistically connected enough to social movements in order to be what they claim to be. At the same time, I am also somewhat critical about what I see as far too little structure and too much horizontalism in most social movement organizing today. I do see union organizing as kind of a bridge between those two worlds, because a lot of people who are in social movements might also be in unions and so develop some familiarity with both structures and democratic processes through work in their unions, or through that experience. And the union movement also needs to be paying attention to the arguments and debates going on in the social movements.
I will say I’m a bit dismayed at the lack of class politics generally, from a theoretical point of view, even within union spaces right now. I think that’s a real weakness in terms of where we’re at in our ability to put forward struggles that can be successful and sustainable, and that don’t get overwhelmed by the fact that we don’t have spaces and structures and democratic systems in place to actually have meaningful debates about the way forward.
TMC: When you look at the Arab Spring and some of those other big uprisings that you alluded to that took place outside of the Canadian context, what are some of the key things that you’ve learned that feel like they’re relevant to grassroots work in the Canadian context?
TE: I just finished reading Vincent Bevins‘ book, If We Burn. It looks at I think 10 different uprisings in the last decade. The lessons are actually mostly negative — you know, what not to do. The idea of occupying space and getting as many people as you can in that occupation, it’s not proven to be effective, and in some cases can even create a counter reaction. Bevins shows this at work in Brazil, for example. Even the colour revolutions — the revolutions that took place in eastern Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union — in my view did not embrace a realistic theory of change. At least not if you want to change what is structurally wrong. You might replace one leader with another, but it’s insufficient to transform society. So I think there’s almost some magical thinking or lack of thinking about the question: once we’ve mobilized enough power, what does that then mean — what are the next steps in terms of transformation in society? I think that’s missing in most of our movements.
What’s interesting about those global examples is just how much power they did harness — which I think, a lot of times working here in Canada, is frustrating. We just feel like we’re not able to win over the numbers or the institutions to have the power to be effective. But when you look out at movements that actually have garnered that level of power that still fail, I think there are a lot of lessons in terms of what that means, in relation to the theory of change that people are using, and the type of organization. And just honestly, the level of political discourse in terms of really having an understanding of what kind of structural change we need and how that could realistically come about.
TMC: What are a couple of other sources related to struggles that you aren’t involved in that you have found to be particularly useful or important?
TE: I watch Democracy Now! every day, which is actually a really good source. They will touch on many movements and struggles from around the world. I always did watch a bit of Al Jazeera, but since the war in Gaza I’ve actually started watching much more regularly, and I find it very helpful, especially as it does not have so much of a North American-centric or Eurocentric viewpoint. I read some socialist media, such as the International Socialist Journal and Jacobin. I’m on social media a little bit, although I would say that that tends to narrow down to the topics that I’m most engaged in. That’s how the algorithms work. I don’t think it’s actually a great source of expanding your viewpoint into areas of struggle that you’re not super engaged in or involved in.
I find that being in union spaces, I interact with people who are engaged in other areas of struggle. My environmental justice committee in the BCTF actually is part of a larger committee which involves people who are working in the disability justice movement and the racial justice movement, and so on. So that’s a good way to actually connect with people who are doing that kind of work. I participate in some gatherings. I’m actually on my way to Socialism 2024 next week, which I would highly recommend — super interesting groups of activists from all over the United States and Canada involved in all kinds of different social movement struggles, and a really good kind of combination of theory and practice. [Editor: The Socialism 2024 conference took place between August 30 and September 1, 2024.]
I also attended the Labor Notes Conference in April of this year, which is a meeting-up place for rank-and-file trade union activists. And that was a pretty incredible experience. I’d never gone before, although I’m familiar with Labor Notes as a media source and an organization. It was sold out. There were 4000 people there. It was pretty incredible to connect with people who are doing all kinds of labour organizing, and to get a sense of the vibrancy of that organizing, particularly in the United States and in places like the South in the States, where we’re not going to read about it in the mainstream media. So, connecting and meeting with people who are doing that work just really made me see the depth and extent that’s going on there.
I also really am enjoying all the terrific podcasts out there now, especially The Dig, and On The Nose, which is made by Jewish Currents magazine.
TMC: What are a couple of key things about struggles that you are involved in, or about your approach to activism and organizing, that you would like other people to know more about?
TE: Having begun as an organizer in a revolutionary socialist organization, I really appreciate starting with a political framework and analyzing exactly what you’re trying to do. Lots of folks today are familiar with the work of Jane MacAlevey, and she always talks about needing a “credible plan to win.” I really think that having a theory of change is necessary, it’s our credible plan to win, and that we need to be actually debating our theories of change and actually assessing the work that we do on a regular basis to inform what we do next.
I think that people are often so focused on the immediate questions, like how can we get people to show up, and then they de-prioritize the assessment and longer term focus. And then when people do show up, we’re not prepared with a credible plan to keep them engaged for the long term. And so there’s a burst of activity followed by really losing people from that activity, and then having no organizational structure to carry through into the long term.
I also think that we need spaces to debate about politics. And we need a culture to debate about politics, in a way that’s open and inclusive but that also allows for meaningful differences to come to the surface. I guess I find a lot of those discussions are not in open spaces that allow people to really engage and come to collective decisions, and so there’s a lack of clarity in what we’re doing. That’s impeding our ability to be effective. And that, just in the long run, leads people to drop out. Because I think that if you don’t have a credible plan, and you’re not actually winning some of what you set out to do, you’re going to lose people and your movement gets smaller.
TMC: For readers who may not be familiar with the term, explain what you mean by the phrase “theory of change,” and maybe touch on what that would look like in, say, the climate spaces or the Palestine solidarity spaces that you’re involved in.
TE: On its surface, it’s exactly what it sounds like. So, a theory of how change is going to happen.
In very, very broad strokes, during the first half of the 20th century, the theory of change that dominated thought on the left was different variants of Marxism. That theory of change comes from a historical materialist view of how change happens generally in the world. It sees class struggle as the primary motor of change. It views solidarity amongst the working class as the basis for organizing and the mass strike as the best way to leverage power. Of course, there are debates between social democrats and revolutionaries regarding mechanisms for taking power and what that could look like. But although those debates are out there, they were explicit and took organizational form as well. Different political parties expressed these different theories.
I think the latter half of the 20th century saw anti-colonial struggles come to the forefront — in which the theory of change was more oriented around armed struggle versus other forms of resistance. And the goal, typically, was seizing state power in existing nation-state formations, which is not only a different strategy, but also a different goal than a revolutionary Marxist one, in which you’re actually looking at capitalism — the economic and social relations between people and the way power is organized structurally. And then additionally, in the second half of the 20th century, there was a lot of emphasis, particularly in the West, on nonviolent direct action in movements like the civil rights movement. And so, again, that theory of change looked at ways of making significant social change, but always within the structures of existing capitalist relations.
In my lifetime there’s been significant recognition of capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, as root causes of the climate crisis and of the settler colonial regime in Israel/Palestine and so on. And yet there’s this disconnect, because the dominant theories of change that are adopted are not theories of change which address those deep structural issues. And there’s not really even much of a conversation about that.
It’s interesting. There was some thought on the Marxist left that after the fall of the Soviet Union there would be freedom to actually discuss critically what happened in Russia. What was the nature of the Soviet regimes? Why did all the experiments of socialism in one country ultimately fail? But I don’t think that’s actually what took place. Instead, Marxism just disappeared, essentially, from mainstream left discourse. And that was combined with a retreat of class politics generally in the West, because of the grand defeat of labour in the neoliberal period. I think that’s starting to shift now, because there’s a big resurgence of labour organizing, particularly in the U.S., and I think that opens the space to talk about class politics more generally.
But I’m always taken aback when I’m in spaces where class is an ‘ism’ that fits with the other ‘isms’ — classism and racism and sexism and so on. I try to have discussions with people about the basic idea that exploitation is a different phenomenon than oppression, and that it’s really critical to understand the linking of the two. When we’re having discussions about fighting the far right, I think we have to understand that the divisions created through oppression are actually a tool of scapegoating to maintain a system of exploitation. And so that set of relationships means we have to understand those two different forms of injustice as fundamentally different from each other, and as having this relationship with each other. Scapegoating and divisions are used to enable exploitation. Often, that’s new to people. To many folks, poverty, inequality, is viewed as just one other form of oppression. So there’s not a theoretical basis of how the structures of capitalism and imperialism are functioning, and that makes it difficult to plan strategically.
TMC: What are a couple of sources related to struggles that you’re involved in, or to your approach to activism and organizing, that you would want other people to read, or watch, or listen to, or learn from?
TE: I just think that you can’t understand the world without Marxism, and an understanding of historical materialism and of class struggle. I mean, honestly, The Communist Manifesto is really good. It was a pamphlet — meant for mass consumption. It’s a helpful starting point. There are several good recent books that will provide more user-friendly introductions to Marxist theory, such as Hadas Thier’s A People’s Guide to Capitalism.
I think it’s really important to know about and understand the Russian Revolution and also the critiques of the Soviet Union. China Miéville has a good and very readable book, October: The Story of the Russian Revolution. We also need to know what went wrong, and why the Soviet Union, and now China, Cuba, and so on, are not socialist economies. In other words, the theory of state capitalism. Tony Cliff is the primary writer on that theory.
I think The State and Revolution and Imperialism, both books by Lenin, are pretty critical for understanding the role of the state and state power, and the relationship between capitalism and imperialism, which is often omitted or glossed over in discussions of settler colonialism.
The Mass Strike by Rosa Luxemburg is important to understand where does power come from and how do workers use that power. I think it’s important, as well, to read Frantz Fanon and the anti-colonialists. But I think you have to juxtapose the anti-colonial theorists with the Marxists to get a sense of what these often competing visions entailed and to allow us to make assessments of the limitations of nationalism.
I’ve mentioned a bunch of books that are really old, I’ve realized. But maybe that’s because I feel like people are reading a lot of, you know, Audre Lorde, Rashid Khalidi, and more modern writers and thinkers. And those are also excellent and necessary things to read. But I’m mentioning the books and ideas that I think are actually missing from many activists’ background understanding.
In terms of climate activism, I’ve just finished reading Fossil Capital by Andreas Malm, which would be hard to read if you don’t have a bit of understanding of Marxist economics to start with. But it is really crucial as a grounding for understanding the climate crisis and its relationship to exploitation and expansion of capital.
In terms of Palestine, I would recommend Adam Hanieh, who writes about the importance of the oil economy in the Middle East and how that played into the history of the 20th century. So, to get a picture of, for example, why did the United States view Israel as such an important ally in that part of the world, you have to understand about the nationalist movements and rising working-class power in the region, and how the threats of nationalizing the oil industry interfered with the aims of British and US imperialism.
I also recommend Sara Roy, who has written quite a bit on the political economy of Gaza and Palestine. It’s actually a really important question to look at what forms of struggle are actually even possible for the people there, and what does that mean for the rest of us, in terms of what’s necessary for a global movement for justice in Palestine.
Ultimately I hope we collectively develop a vision where we see all these struggles as interconnected, and that we focus our energies not only on the immediate injustices but also on the larger structures. We have big planetary issues that are going to be very, very deeply in play in the next 10 or 20 years, and how we engage as a movement will be critical to achieving a genuinely just world for us all.
Talking Radical: Resources is a collaboration betweenThe Media Co-op and theTalking Radical project. In these interviews, activists and organizers from across so-called Canada connect you with ideas and with tools for learning related to struggles for justice and collective liberation. They talk about how they have learned, and about ways that you can learn.
Scott Neigh is a writer, media producer, and activist based in Hamilton, Ontario, and the author oftwo books examining Canadian history through the stories of activists.
