Fionna Smyth, was Interim Head of Agile Campaigns and Education at OXFAM, leading the Red Line for Gaza campaign coalition. Fionna is now Interim Director Policy, Campaigns, Programmes at War on Want.
Red Lines for Gaza Coalition is a UK-wide mobilisation campaign of international development charities, faith-based organisations, campaigning organisations and grassroots groups under one shared banner and galvanising collective action as a response to the atrocities in Gaza. The aim is to mobilise public concern about repeated breaches of international law.
Fionna was interviewed by Katie Roberts, Interim Chief Executive at SMK.
KR: Can you tell us a bit about the Red Line for Gaza Coalition and your role in it?
FS: There’s actually been a lot of red lines for Gaza created all over Europe and Oxfam had been involved. It started in Holland and Belgium and in fact there were 250,000 people on the streets in Holland only this weekend, which is really something.
There have been people who work on Gaza and work in Palestine all of the time such as the Palestine platform doing fantastic work and mostly policy and advocacy work. Then there’s the activist groups like Palestinian Solidarity Campaign that also do an incredibly important job who have been tirelessly organising demos for the last two years mobilising hundreds of thousands of people. Yet there still seemed to a be a gap, and a difficulty for people to get involved if they weren’t already part of the networks. At the same time, we were approached by War Child UK who had already been planning an online campaign, so it made sense to bring the two together.
We identified that there were a lot of people watching the TV and witnessing children losing limbs, whole families are being eradicated and that it was looking like genocide and ethnic cleansing was happening. And yet they didn’t necessarily have the language to describe it, but also, they might not be people that who would go on a national demonstration, but they would want to do something that feels comfortable to them or within their local community.
So, we tried to think about what we could do that would create a safe space for people to come out to take action both online and offline. And a way for organisations to become more than a sum of their parts and pull their efforts together. Working in our sector can sometimes feel a bit like herding cats! It took real strategic patience and time and a few false starts to get people on board, to get everybody uniting underneath this strong but flexible brand. We were able to pull in groups that weren’t part of the existing groups, working closely with organisations like Medicine Sans Frontiers, the Quakers, Islamic Relief, Christian Aid and Na’amod and Health Workers 4 Palestinians. I also reached out to some of the climate groups that I work with, like Mother’s Manifesto, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and community groups like Fair Game.
KR: Can you say more about recognising that people needed a safe space to take action.
FS: There are a lot of people that do feel very comfortable in that space and who are doing amazing work. And I don’t like this idea of good protester/ bad protester, but I think it’s just accepting that for some people even doing anything is actually quite a big step for them to take and also because this is such a highly contested space. The Red Line for Gaza brand created a common ground that different organisations could get behind.
Also, all of the NGOs have got slightly different mandates and slightly different ideas around messaging. So, for some people they were able to come out and say ‘genocide’ early on. For others, they’re still not there. So, we made a decision that the brand was flexible, which meant that people could use their own messaging. It wasn’t a case of if you signed up, you had to use specific language, and people could sign onto individual actions
And importantly, a lot of it’s about getting behind things that people do already and giving them the confidence to be able to take a slightly more political act as well.
KR: One of the things that you did that I really liked that helped bring in those different groups is you had red lines for different groups – which meant that people could really engage with something that they felt personally passionate about.
FS: Yes. We did agree there’s about 5 red lines that everybody can agree on. It’s a crossing a red line to target children. It’s a red line to attack civilians. It’s a red line to use starvation as a weapon of war, targeting Medics is a Redline. You know, all the things that we knew were happening, but that all our organisations could agree on, were the initial ones that we could go out with.
KR: How did you keep the coalition together?
FS: We started by having in person actions outside Parliament. We did it from the launch of the campaign until Parliamentary recess, for example we worked with War Child and Choose Love on targeting children, and we worked with Christian Aid on hunger because they’d been fasting for Gaza for weeks as one of their campaign actions. MSF/ Doctors beyond Borders worked with the BMA to focus on health workers. So, it was about amplifying the work they were already doing, not trying to take that space.
Also, for now Redline will continue because it isn’t owned by one group but is very much shared.
KR: Did you have anything specific for people to sign up to, to be part of the coalition?
FS: So War Child, have a website and a weekly online action and they created a sort of frequently asked questions which sits on their website, and which is more about the values of the coalition than anything else. The first meeting we had in person we shared extensive notes afterwards about what was agreed at that meeting. For me that was the contracting moment, giving people space to codesign it together, agree on some principles such as how to use the brand and to disagree as well because there were people who wanted to be much stronger.
KR: It feels in a way this one of the gifts of this coalition is that it is quite loose. It’s focused, but it’s loose?
FS: Yes. We had a loose brand that others could pick up. And we do. It’s focused on doing things together, that we are stronger united than apart. I think because we haven’t sent too many things others than the social posts round to be word smithed and for everybody to agree everything and the rest of it. I think that’s actually what’s made it work. Those regular meetings, they’re still running, every Thursday to encourage one another, share what others in the coalition are doing and to maintain momentum.
KR: My assumption is that it’s really key that you’ve got a community that is meeting and sharing on a regular basis. There’s informal accountability there, there’s sharing of ideas.
FS: Yeah, it’s the fact that everybody feels that we’ve got their back and we’ll help them out. There is also the partner chat, it’s very active, to organise stuff share what we are doing things and people put pictures in. We also have subgroups which each organisation can join or lead and play to their strengths.
KR: What was tough? What were the challenges?
FS: With size, finance and resource comes power, and we have jealously guarded the coalition as a shared space. And for me, every organisation, no matter how small, should have an equal voice in a coalition as well. I was really trying to facilitate that. Also, when you work in coalition it takes a lot of time because every time somebody emails you and says they want to get involved, there’s at least three or four emails back whenever you’re trying to explain things, and then you’ve got to have the meeting with them.
Manging those different expectations and different needs in the coalition, I think actually is the key.
KR: Who were the unexpected allies? Were there any surprises for you? For example, I think some people would be surprised to see climate-based organisations you mentioned right at the beginning.
FS: This has been a big debate within the climate movement for the last two years about whether you can genuinely believe in climate justice if you don’t believe in justice for Palestinians. And I think it’s about really seeing climate through that justice lens. I wrote an article last year on the ecological impacts of Gaza.
For example, the emissions from the war already a year ago last December were the equivalent of the emissions of 132 different nations. I think building solidarity across movements is incredibly important and is going to become increasingly important with the rise of populism. And I think this is a great, great example of where solidarity has been built across movements. And I think that that’s why there’s a moral imperative for many people in the climate movement to want to get involved.
It was also great to involve some of the professional organisations/ unions such as the BMA when focusing on medics, and the NUT around journalists, legal organisations when focusing on international law which broadened our reach.
KR: Can you pull out your key learnings from this experience?
FS:
- Keep it loose
- Try and allow others to lead
- Learn how to let things go
- Don’t ask too much of people who are time poor.
And importantly, it’s about trying to keep that big picture, but I do think Red Line has enabled us to have conversations with different politicians where we may not have been able to have those conversations. Christian Aid, Oxfam and War on Want hosted an event at Labour Party Conference as part of the Redline coalition, to identify the tangible steps the UK Government could take to deliver justice and accountability for Palestinians. This was supported by a projection of a poem by Michael Rosen on the famous Liverpool Liver Building along with and messages from the UK public as well as an ad van stating that “Inaction Wasn’t Working”. I think what we’ve done is we’ve given permissions to some of the less usual suspects to get involved.
KS: What I’d love to end with is how people can continue to support if they’re not already involved?
FS: Well today’s announcement of the ceasefire is obviously welcomed for the respite it will give the people of Gaza, and that hostages will finally be released, but there is still much work to be done to ensure justice and accountability for the people of Palestine. While the ceasefire may have stopped the genocide in Gaza, the oppression of the Palestinians and settlement expansion in the West Bank and Jerusalem continues.
We will be regrouping this month as a coalition to decide on next steps. If you want to join the coalition go to the Red Line for Gaza website, and reach out to me FSmyth@waronwant.org. There is also a toolkit people can access here.
* Image credit: Credit Andy Aichison/ Oxfam