Battle story

The battlefield is the hearts of the people

By Pierre Chopinaud

(Previously…)

After joy replaced fear in the hearts of these women, Alisa and Mirela asked them if they were ready to fight together for the lives of their children. They replied: “We are.” We had created the “Mom’ Collective.”

“Faith is the intangible element that connects people to form a radical political organization.”

Mirela, Alisa, Lucile and Emmanuelle formed what we call a “leadership team”: it is the small, highly structured group of people who will be the locomotive of the train that sets off, who will lead and train the others. Each had their role: Mirela and Alisa used their newfound power to gather and encourage, through words, the other women to take action; Emmanuelle and Lucile contributed all the knowledge they already had mastered (writing, fundraising, etc.), and I, the organizer, helped them to think, design, implement, and evaluate each step of the battle plan and the plan for building the organization. We spent at least two hours together twice a month and each time it was two hours of joy. From the beginning, we felt that a great force was blowing at our backs: for some it was faith in God, for others the thirst for justice: we were right and we had faith in what we were going to accomplish.

Faith is the intangible element that connects people who come together to form a radical political organization. It is also the element that gives each person the courage to take the risk of taking action. Faith, that is, confidence: in oneself, in “us,” in what we are going to accomplish. It often falls to an “organizer” to be like a prime mover, the one who will ignite faith, give confidence (in themselves, in each other) to the members of the leadership team who in turn will give confidence to each member of the organization. This confidence is what Pastor Martin Luther King (who is to “radical political organizing” what Bruce Lee is to Kung Fu) called “love.” It is this “love” that indicates, according to him, the meaning of the action, and the high probability of its success: because the change it calls for is in the order of true justice.

“If we needed faith in justice, we did not have time to wait for the end of time.”

To return to the “Collective of Mothers,” and more specifically to the leading team; the task before Alisa, Mirela, Emmanuelle, and Lucile was to write their battle plan, to devise their strategy. It was a bit like writing the script for the adventure they were going to lead the members of the organization into. They had to imagine the successive scenes—that is, the tactics—following a movement that would build to a crescendo. They had to write the film in which the women of the collective would be the heroines. And above all, they had to find a name and face for the person who would play the role of the villain: it’s always the same drama that plays out in radical political organizing: for every David there must be a Goliath. Not because it’s a matter of imitating a fiction, but because at the heart of all the stories that have been told since the dawn of time, there is the drama of injustice, and the power relations, the struggle, through which its resolution passes.

The first question the members of the leadership team asked themselves in designing their strategy was: what change do we want? The change the mothers of the collective needed was immense, as vast as an ocean, so immense that to accomplish it, a revolution was needed… or the coming of the messiah. But if they needed faith in justice, their children didn’t have time to wait for the end of time. They needed to accomplish real change now. This immanence is a necessary condition for radical political organizing: we must transform reality here and now so that the coming together of people creates power through love. And conversely: power is needed to create radical change in reality.

“How can we escape despair when we see the gap between the world as it should be and the world as it actually is?”

They had already put faces to this ocean: the faces of their children. The change they needed was for the lives of their children to have the same value as the lives of the children of powerful people. But faced with this ocean, what could be done? How could they escape the feeling of helplessness that exhausts the “weak” and discourages them when they realize the gap between the ideal and the harsh reality that crushes them, between the world as it should be (the lives of all children are equal) and the world as it really is (the life of a poor child is worthless to the powerful)? To prevent Mirela, Alisa, Lucile, and Emmanuelle from drowning in the despair caused by the immensity of the ocean, they had to start by isolating a small inland sea: for them, this sea was school! And in this small sea: a small island that they were going to be able to conquer, because there is a shore that can be seen on the horizon and that can be reached by a navigable route. This small island is what is called in the “radical political organization” a strategic objective. And this small island in the small inland sea that was the school, it was the discriminatory refusals of school registration in the department of Seine-Saint-Denis.

Now that they had their little island in sight, the second question Alisa, Mirela, Lucile, and Emmanuelle asked themselves was: What is our path, our waterway? Where will we go to reach our goal? After hours of looking through the telescope, the path appeared: the collective of mothers would pay the powerful the cost of a refusal so high financially and politically that it would dissuade them from disrespecting the lives of their children in the future.

“It will be a matter of forging the weapons, the sword, with which the mothers will begin to make the powerful pay the price of their children’s dignity.”

This path is what we call a theory of change. It’s the great movement of the drama that will be experienced and played out during the campaign of actions.

Now it remained to imagine the scenes that would make this movement concrete, the tactics through which the strategy would be realized.

Thanks to the action of another collective created, developed and organized by Conatus, (the #EcolePourTous collective) discriminatory refusals of school registration had become illegal several months ago.  So, for this adventure, we had the law on our side.

The lead team decided that Alisa and Mirela would have to convince the other women in the collective to engage in a “testing” campaign. It would involve going to the counters of town halls that practice covert discrimination in school registration, to find the evidence that would allow them to be convicted. It would be a matter of forging the weapons, the sword, with which the mothers would begin to make the powerful pay the price for their children’s dignity. Not only would they demand that the justice system condemn the mayors to pay in money, but they would also expose their misdeeds as widely as possible to shame them. Who can publicly assume the methodical and intentional practice of preventing a poor, racialized child from accessing school? Stigmatization would now be the price to pay for those who fail to recognize in their actions the equal value of the lives of all children.

“Our Goliath had no face or name… He was neither Godzilla nor the Joker, no one had heard of him yet, so we had to make him a character.”

Since the tactics included legal and public actions, the leadership team needed to bring journalists and lawyers on board. It turns out that one of the spokespeople for the #EcolePourTous collective that had made school enrollment refusals illegal had since become a lawyer. She was Anina Ciuciu. And she herself had been a victim of this discrimination as a child. Alisa and Mirela couldn’t have found a better ally. She was one of them. She valued the dignity of these children as much as her own. In turn, Anina brought with her one of her colleagues, Anna Stoeffeneller, in whom she had great confidence, as well as Lionel Crusoé, who had recently convicted a mayor in a similar situation in Essonne. It was Lucile who was given the challenge of reporting the story to the general public and, above all, shedding light on the villains’ infamous misdeeds. They dreamed of a great battle, so the audience had to be strong: a major newspaper was needed, and their ally was a journalist from Mediapart, Faiza Zerouala. Lucile revealed elements of the plan to her. Her values ​​were consistent with theirs: the lives of all children are equal. Their victory would be hers. She was in the boat.

ela

Was everything ready for action? Everything? No! The villain of the story was missing. Our Goliath had neither a face nor a name. There were candidates for the role: most of the mayors of the 93. But if there are too many characters in a story, we no longer understand the drama. In a strategic campaign, there only needs to be one villain. It’s a target. It must be unique and fixed. If it is multiple and moving, you have a good chance of missing it. It was the needs of the legal proceedings that helped decide: the target would not be all the mayors, nor the minister, it would be in the middle, at the right height: it would be the head of the academy. There you go, the villain would be him. The problem was that it was neither Godzilla nor the Joker, no one had yet heard of him, so it would be necessary to make him a character. Mirela, Alisa, Emmanuelle, and Lucie printed a photo of him, investigated his career, and guessed his values: they had cast their own character. The casting was complete: the group of mothers was about to begin combat training and take on the challenge…

(More in the next episode….)

Battle story

The battlefield is the hearts of the people

By Pierre Chopinaud

(Previously…)

When the Askola team told us about the injustice that was overwhelming the parents and children they were accompanying on their way to school, we said: let’s drop morality, let’s drop the rules of the administration: we will try to forge together “the sword”, that is to say the strength and power that we need to give back their dignity to these children…

“Alisa and Mirela would be the two rotating forces that through their movement would draw other women into action”

We saw right away that one of Askola’s strengths was the people who were part of the team. Among the employees, there were Mirela and Alisa, two young women, mothers themselves, who had had, in the past, the misfortune of living for a long time in shanty towns or on the streets, with their children, and who had found in themselves and around them, the power to emancipate themselves. Thus, they had in the past experienced themselves the injustice encountered by the mothers and children that they now accompanied as school mediators.

If they were willing, Alisa and Mirela would be the two pillars on which we would base our new organization, or more precisely: the two rotating forces that through their movement would draw other women who resemble them, but who are intimidated and paralyzed by powerlessness, into action. We would have to train Mirela and Alisa to leadership.

“In the state of subalternity, powerlessness is such that it deprives one of the time required to strive to regain one’s dignity.”

It was therefore a stroke of luck to have Mirela and Alisa in the initial team. Because their presence allowed us to immediately overcome a first major obstacle that we encounter in this type of situation. In the state of subalternity that people who live in shanty towns in France find themselves in, the helplessness is such that it deprives them of the time required to try to regain their dignity. All the time available is completely absorbed by the imperative of material and biological survival. The state of emancipation that Alisa and Mirela had achieved thanks to their employment situation gave them the time, and therefore the power, to act to encourage other women to take action. It was also essential that the call to action come to them from people who shared or had shared their condition.

In addition, for us to start building an organization together, Mirela and Alisa’s employers, who were none other than the second part of the team, Emmanuelle and Lucile, had to decide that part of the employees’ time previously devoted to the school mediation service would now be dedicated to political action. Among these four women there was great confidence, and great power to play with their relationships, their identities, and their stories. It was this confidence, this power, this game that allowed such a force to be unleashed from this small initial group.

““This is the whole meaning of “radical non-mixity” which is a tactic delimited in time and space of organization”

The first thing we did together was to organize discussion groups. Since Mirela and Alisa had agreed to be the pillars around which a larger number of people would gather, their first task was to invite other women whose children they usually enroll in school: “I would like to meet up, but this time not as a school mediator, but as a mother who cares about my children’s lives. I invite you to have a coffee with other women to discuss our experiences as mothers.”

Why only women? Why not men? First, because Mirela and Alisa are women. Second, because the goal of this tactic—the discussion group—is to connect the people who participate in it through heart and mind so that they form, through words, a community of experience, values, and emotion. But after reflection we made the hypothesis that the presence of one or more men – like the presence of any person who did not share the same condition – could be an obstacle to this operation of relating hearts. This is the whole meaning of “radical non-mixity” which is a tactic delimited in time and space of organization

One of Askola’s work tools: it is the school truck; a small truck in the dumpster is transformed into a classroom. They have two. That day to organize the discussion groups, Mirela Alisa Lucile and Emmanuelle transformed the school trucks into small living rooms. Because of the radical non-mixity of the operation decided collectively, Lucile and Emmanuelle, who are usually the hierarchical superiors of the other two, considered that their role that day would be to be at the service of others: they decorated the living room, held the door, looked after the children, served coffee, and picked flowers.

“At the heart of these mothers’ stories were their children and their right not to suffer the suffering that had been theirs.”

Mirela and Alisa each welcomed four young women one afternoon in a van-salon. They each first told their story, following a framework that we had prepared together: what was the experience they had as a little girl in their country of birth, since even there – in Romania – they belong to a minority – Roma -, what reason, what drama, what hope led them to emigrate; what they suffered when they arrived in France, the experience of exile, of the unknown, of poverty, and finally the reason for their effort to use the means of school to offer their children a better life than theirs, and especially the difficulties they encountered. At the heart of these mothers’ life stories were their young children and the right they have not to suffer the suffering that had been theirs, but especially the anger they have in the face of all those who want to deprive them of this simple happiness. In addition to holding the door, serving coffee and cakes that day, Emmanuelle and Lucile had the days before had Alisa and Mirela rehearse, like actresses, their stories that together we had written down. The goal of the tactic was to touch the women’s hearts with emotion in order to encourage them to take action together. After they had each opened their hearts to each other in the 2 small vans, they were all connected together by emotion and formed a community of value and experience, a community of suffering and humiliation, but above all a community of love for their children.

“These ten women were ready together to take action because it was about the value they give to what is most precious in the world: the dignity of their children”

Mirela and Alisa had mastered the tactic, exercising leadership, leading through their movement, their power to speak, others around them and with them: these ten women were ready together to take action because it was about the value they give to what is most precious in the world; the dignity of their children.

So after, through the power of speech, courage, solidarity, joy, had replaced fear, isolation, and sadness in the hearts of each of them; Alisa and Mirela asked them if they were ready to fight together against the discriminatory refusals of school registration of which the mayors of the department were guilty. They said: “we are” and they chose their name. We had created the “collective of mothers – school for our children”. And since it was International Women’s Day, to end the day, Emmanuelle and Lucile came to offer bouquets of roses to each of us.

Now we had to take action and for that, design our battle plan….

(More in the next episode….)

BAttle Story

The battlefield is the hearts of the people

By Pierre Chopinaud

The Askola association which helps parents who live in slums and squats in the 93 to enroll their children in school was facing insurmountable blockages from the mayors of the municipalities. Laws, morality, the rector, associations, nothing helps. Because it is not a question of rights but a situation of oppression, that is to say a relationship of power.

In France, in 2025, there are slums, and there are people who have the misfortune of living in them. A widely shared prejudice among activists and social workers is that the people who live there are resigned, apathetic, incapable of defending their dignity.

The Askola organization practices school mediation in Seine-Saint-Denis. Mirela, Lucile, Emmanuelle, Alisa and the others go to the slums to help parents enroll their children in school and help them feel good there.

What father, what mother has not been heartbroken by the suffering of their child whom they have just abandoned for the first time, at the start of the school year, in the middle of twenty-five little strangers and adults of whom they know nothing? So imagine that in the morning you woke him up in a wooden cabin, without water, after spending the night protecting him from rats, that you don’t know the language or any of the common customs and that in the evening it’s the police that you find with him at home who order you to go far away?  

“The path to school, for parents and children who live in a slum, is arduous and perilous.”

The path to school, for parents and children who live in a slum, is arduous and perilous. This is why Mirela, Lucile, Emmanuelle, Alisa and the others are there: they are a bit like the sherpas who help these parents and their children to climb the mountain that is their way to school.

But what if there was only the mountain to climb? The world would still be too beautiful! This is without counting on the powerful people who drop rocks on you from the summit to make the effort even more difficult. And among these people, up on the mountain, is the mayor of the city.

Many mayors of Seine-Saint-Denis prevent children from squats and slums from accessing their city’s schools. For what ? Because they want these slums to disappear; and welcoming these children into schools, into the school community, as the law and the principles of the republic oblige them, is to recognize that they exist, that they have dignity, rights, like all the others. Once you know the children who live there, it is more difficult to destroy their house. You know that you are not only destroying wood and cardboard but also the lives inside. Despite all possible cynicism, it can hurt the heart and the conscience. Especially when you are a socialist, a communist, a rebel, a Catholic, a Muslim, an “anti-racist”… It can be shameful.

“Refusing the child to school is to make him and his family invisible, it is to throw them in the garbage bag of lives that do not count, of deaths that we do not mourn.”  

Refusing the child to school is to make him and his family invisible, it is to throw them in the garbage bag of lives that do not count, of deaths that we do not mourn. It is to put oneself, as an elected official, at the service of the builder who wants to make money by building a large building in place of people’s small cabins, an Amazon warehouse, a cement factory, it is above all to place oneself in the most cynical way at the service of the intense racism of those who have a little more than nothing, whose parents or grandparents who arrived from Brittany, Algeria, Portugal, Mali, lived in their time in these same slums, in order to to flatter their baser feelings, and win the elections.

And believe me, there are no small profits in politics: whatever the color of the skin or the shirt, when the goal is to keep one’s position of power: all means are good: even racism. And when power is at stake, principles, values, laws generally remain on the sidelines.  

“the feeling of helplessness and indignation had swallowed up their rage and their anger.”

Mirela, Emmanuelle, Lucile, Alisa and the others were at the end of their rope : the feeling of helplessness and indignation had swallowed up their rage and anger: how can we live in such an immoral world? Nothing helped: the letters, the arrests, the appeals to the administration… Are we not in the country of human rights? How can a mayor who has the reputation of being an anti-racist activist so despise the lives of these children? This world is without faith or law…

One of the fundamental precepts of radical political organizing is as old as the dawn of time. He says: there is no justice without power. Jesus Christ would not have made any Caesar tremble if he had not come with the “sword” of God.

When the Askola team spoke to us about the situation of injustice which overwhelmed the parents and the children they accompanied on the way to school, we said: drop morality, drop administrative rules: together we will try to forge “the sword”, that is to say the strength and power that we need to restore dignity to these children…

(Continued in the next episode….)