In the story of Billy Elliot¹, the miner’s son who takes an interest in classical ballet and – despite his fathers initial resistance – ends up successfully auditioning for the Royal Ballet School², there’s a scene where Billy almost gives up on his auditioning plan because of the family’s lack of funds. For a moment, Billy’s father considers breaking the miners’ strike, but then a much bigger solution emerges: All miners join forces and give whatever little money they have in order to finance Billy’s audition. In this magical moment, solidarity – the miners’ credo from the first act – and individuality – Billy’s dream of becoming a classical ballet dancer – merge into one.

Solidarity is a child of 19th century Europe³. With the crumbling of transcendental authorities and the rise of freedom and equality as guiding stars for living together came the insight that some kind of social glue would be needed to make the ideals of enlightenment work in practice. The French Revoluion called this glue “fraternité”, the bond of brotherhood, and solidarity followed suit. For a long time, solidarity was a rally cry of the left and of the unions, often employed in the context of labor disputes – and well beyond as when the Polish Solidarność fought for the end of the communist regimes in the late 1980s⁴.

Today, solidarity is having a hard time. Most of us struggle to name the community to which they would pledge their solidarity: Why show solidarity with my neighbours when the lady on the second floor keeps pracitising the drums around midnight? Why stand with my co-workers when there’s the team from social media marketing that gets all the money and never delivers on time? Why be an ally to my compatriots when a solid fifth of them openly voices support for a non-democratic party⁵? In addition, the temporal dimension of solidarity is a challenge: Why do something for other members of my community when there is no certainty about future paybacks? Most of us lean towards a service mentality: We expect others – inside and outside our communities – to do things for us. And we immediately complain when we don’t get what we want, preferably on social media with as much noise and reach as possible.

Speaking of social media: Solidarity is not helped by the fact that both suffering and helping have become public pursuits. Today, the miners giving money for Billy’s audition would immediately face a series of increasingly hostile questions: Why support Billy, but not Michael? Why support boys but not girls? Why British boys, but not Brazilian or Bhutanese? Why heterosexuals, but not homo-, bi- or metasexuals? Why ballet, but not boxing or baseball? Why someone’s dream of dancing, but not another one’s bare subsistance? Because, they might answer, he’s one of us, and that’s why we care.

Solidarity is the essence of community care. It is rooted in the community’s confidence and courage to solve its own problems from within, without blaming others, without asking for external help, and without netting one person’s present need against other persons’ past or future needs. Solidarity reminds us of the old-fashioned idea that we bond in order to give to our kin. It’s the opposite of: What’s in it for me? When we practice solidarity, each of us is in it for all of us.

In this spirit, here’s my second wish for 2024: Solidarity forever!

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1. This is the second of six posts in a micro-series on wishes for the year that is about to start. The posts are neither scientific nor fictional, so anything written here could be completely wrong or absolutely real. The photos illustrating the posts are taken at the coast of the Baltic Sea, in or near the small village of Ahrenshoop where I happen to spend a short winter vacation. They have nothing whatsoever to do with the content of the posts. ↩︎
2. The movie “Billy Elliot” by Stephen Daldry was released in 2000, followed by a musical that premiered in 2004. ↩︎
3. For some history, read “Solidarity in Europe” by Steinar Stjernø (2005), or, for some further thinking, Heinz Bude, “Solidarität” (2019). ↩︎
4. Picking up on this spirit, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (2000) has a chapter titled “Solidarity” which deals mostly with workers’ rights and social security, but also includes environmental protection and consumers rights. Another research topic to follow up on… ↩︎
5. Following the numbers from the most recent “Politbarometer” (Dec 15th, 2023) here: https://www.forschungsgruppe.de/Aktuelles/Politbarometer/ [retrieved Dec 30th, 2023]. ↩︎