Although the writers who responded to my Justice for Workers' (J4W) article in New Socialist (August-September 2002) seem to have taken what I wrote in a shockingly personalized way based on various assumptions that are not supported by my article itself, I still think there is a good opportunity here to broaden out the discussion by addressing some of the issues that have come up.

I want to frame what I'm going to say around a phrase I got from David Gilbert, a long-time political prisoner in the U.S. What we need -I'm saying what we all need- is a big dose of "revolutionary humility". And I'll be the first to step forward with that in this debate.

What I mean by that is a number of things. The writers of the response and I both seem to agree that we are in rough political times. The consolidation of the right in the Canadian state has its own particular suffocating forms different from other Western countries. For just one example, multiculturalism policy and practice, officially launched by the state in 1971 largely in response to anti-racist struggles of communities of colour, has been effective at institutionalizing, silencing, marginalizing and "social-servicizing" anti-racist demands. The impact this has had on local organizing efforts is tremendous: activists must often build relationships in and around community-based organizations that have different degrees of self-definitions of fighting poverty and racism but are institutionally not really about political organizing but about delivering (albeit much needed) services. So, in this environment we flounder. It's often one step forwards, two steps back. Work with the political front-line worker who has some connections, pull an event together, try to connect with a few people, then figure out how to build a meaningful campaign in the middle of a stifling atmosphere that is beating people down one-on-one in EI sessions, at Ontario Works interviews, at "Customer Service"-type English skills workshops, and the like. It's hard to build real political relationships with people in this environment, especially when it's those of us who are higher-waged, working class whites going out to do this work. We've got anti-racist intentions at times but our politics and practice are really wanting and we generally have no dialogue amongst ourselves about this.

What I was trying to do in my article was pitch another political orientation to organizing that we don't usually see anymore. I was only given 600 words to do this so some of the formulations that have been identified as caricatures were simply meant to be shorthand. While I thought it was clear in my piece, I was talking about our collective failing on the left, particularly from my position on the far left. While the writers may take issue with me positioning myself on the far left, fact is that's how I see myself so that's where my criticism is coming from: inside of it, as part of it. I have been an activist since the mid 80s and so take responsibility for my involvement in many of what I call "organizing-formula" style projects. This responsibility -on the best days- takes the form of political self-evaluation without defensiveness. This is part of a notion of "revolutionary humility" - and it's sure in short supply on the left. In that regard, I take strong exception to being accused of denouncing radicals or seeing other activists as automatons.

Revolutionary humility requires us to put the critical back into the phrase "critical support". I have spent some time at, and leafleting for, the Pope Squat and I've been at the hotel-workers' picket line that the writers refer to. I have been there because I politically support these efforts. To get at the "critical" part though, here's what kinds of questions I ask myself while I'm supporting such activism: what kind of efforts are being made to develop longer term relationships with the hotel workers that go beyond the "much needed moral support"? For example, have joint meetings of OCF and the workers been sought to look at long-term joint workplace and community-based campaigns that would support the ongoing leadership of the mainly women of colour workers? Are the activists learning from the hotel workers about the specific legal and political context within which they are struggling (that is, their union bureaucracy, grievance and bargaining protocols, and other labour law) to see if there are openings to strategize with the workers on how to militantly navigate this reality? Many OCF members I've talked to on the line did not know much about the workers' situation beyond the basic demands found on the placards, so that is why I legitimately ask these kinds of questions.

This is not to say that we at J4W have it all figured out. On the contrary: if we all are having the debates full out the way we ought to, if we're all alarmed at how white much of the activist scene often is and if we're all working to change that, then all the power to us. These are some of the things I think J4W is trying to do.

Now back to my humility. My piece was trying to say this: from our experience, the left's generally formulaic organizing strategy does not work. So, what we are trying to do is carry out a political strategy that is open to the use of various tactics depending on the level of struggle people are at when we meet them. This can range from survival to some form of collective resistance, but the reality of low-waged, non-unionized workers at this time is usually closer to the former. The strategy involves being up front that raising the minimum wage is a long-term campaign that needs to be fought on many fronts, developing many different kinds of allies, in order to win. It involves setting down roots in neighbourhoods across the city -and, ultimately, the province- and building the campaign around what workers are dealing with in their daily lives and how they are prepared to fight it. It also means thinking through with people how to transform petition-signing or information tables into tools for collectivizing action and making it more confrontational. It means doing hard thinking about corporate campaign possibilities that involve the workers' own initiative, and so thinking through how to connect with and build relationships with those workers in the first place. I will be the first to say our success at this to date is minimal at best. But we are there for the long haul and so we keep reviewing what we're doing, having disagreements, throwing away what doesn't work and trying to figure out other ways to make connections, other ways to set roots.

Our left movements are often most significant simply because they continue to exist and because of our commitment to them. Isolated victories - for example, from direct action casework - are critical to individuals' lives and are indispensable. To suggest though that this work to date has been broadly successful in terms of movement-building is just not correct. We can think both things at the same time. We can be supportive, vocalize thoughtful criticism and build trusting political relationships on the left. We are going to have to collectively learn to do this if we really hope to win in the long run.

Sheila Wilmot is an activist with Justice For Workers which is campaigning to raise the minimum wage in Ontario and an editorial associate of New Socialist.