“We need systemic change and only by dramatizing that with street protests which people can see, with the banners and placards and the slogans and the rest of it do you hold up that mirror and say ‘Look, have a look at it, your system is broken.’ Something has gone seriously wrong. That is an essential step towards change.’ ‘Without non-violent civil disobedience nothing changes, that is one of the lessons of history. But it is not enough, you’ve also got to build a new system on the back of that. And that’s where the enormous effort of thinking, discussion and debate and argument all comes in. It is not going to happen within in the mainstream media. It’s not going to happen by and large within institutional life. And it’s going to happen on the margins.” As Monbiot reminds us.

“A Society is like an amoeba. It moves from the margins not from the centre. It’s in the margins where change happens. It’s at the margins where new ideas are fermented. It’s at the margins where what will one day become the mainstream is incubated and hatched.”

A Rising People-Powered Movement is Transforming the World

A worldwide people-powered movement of movements is rising, and history teaches us that an organized and mobilized populace is what has always caused transformational change. A broad spectrum of people, many of whom have never before been socially or politically active, are ready to get involved. Once joined together, it is suggested that we might actually make up a sizable majority.

Many people are ready to be meaningfully activated to protect the rights of their families, neighbours and communities. Yet, two things stand in our way: First, those who are not already in activist or progressive spaces struggle to find meaningful, ongoing engagement beyond the digital petition, one-off protest or symbol of solidarity. Second, we are fragmented by issue, identity or geographical focus, so our collective power is diluted and unseen. 

Some of IEM’s programs will provide some of those necessary pathways to engagement and change.