Damn radicals! Stuff’n up our status quo

I’ve been thinking a lot about the world radical lately. What does being radical really mean?

Let me put this in some context.

I recently attended the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) Annual Council Meeting in Canberra with approximately 130 colleagues from across the Australian NGO movement.

A highlight of the meeting was the robust discussions on a Human Rights Based Approach (HRBA) to poverty eradication and development which led to frank conversations on power relations and inequality.

I have been reflecting on these discussions and this led me to ActionAid’s values, particularly our commitment to have courage of conviction, which requires us to be:  “creative and radical, without fear of failure, in pursuit of the highest possible impact on the causes of poverty”.

Did you notice the “R” word in there. It’s not a word people like to use to describe themselves in Australia. “Radical” is more often used to describe concepts and constructs that are dangerous and divisive.

The Oxford Dictionary defines a radical as “a person who advocates thorough or complete political or social reform” and I would argue that there has never been a time in global history where we are crying out for radical thought as much as we are now.

I would proudly describe my ActionAid colleagues as radical and we have an obligation to the world’s poor to seek creative and radical solutions. With over one billion people going hungry every day and 75 million children not being able to attend school, how can we not be pressing for creative and radical solutions? Clearly, the old approaches have comprehensively failed one sixth of humanity.

This week ActionAiders in Australia discussed how we must stick to our demands for radical change and completely refuse to accept the status quo.

We discussed how we must how we must continue to engage in “yes…but” conversations when we are facing those who want to maintain the status quo.

Finally we must always remember that here in Australia we are not engaged in fighting poverty to be popular, we are fighting to have our positions adopted by those in power to make policy changes that address this global catastrophe that we are now living through.

This catastrophe demands radical solutions and we are proud to be creative and radical!

But what does radical mean to you? Who are the radicals you respect? And who are the radicals you despise? Most importantly, what can we learn from this?