Just this once, let’s start with a historical anecdote. Not for the sake of storytelling, but because it perfectly illustrates something we desperately need right now. Namely, the ability to turn our differences into collective strength rather than wearing ourselves out in pointless bickering. Because honestly, while progressives tear each other apart over details or questions of priority, neofascism is quietly gaining ground. And that’s a luxury we simply can’t afford anymore.

How Subcomandante Marcos turned a smear campaign into collective power

In 1994, in Mexico, the Zapatista uprising erupted in Chiapas as a response to neoliberal policies that directly threatened the survival of indigenous peasant communities. Facing Subcomandante Marcos, who embodied this rebellion, the far-right PRI government tried to discredit him. One of their attempts was spreading rumors about his sexual orientation in a region where homosexuality is seen as an unacceptable weakness, largely due to the pervasive influence of Catholicism. But Marcos didn’t even bother denying it. As his defense, he responded with a text that has become legendary:

“Yes, Marcos is gay. Marcos is gay in San Francisco. Black in South Africa. Asian in Europe. Chicano in San Ysidro. Anarchist in Spain. Palestinian in Israel. Mayan Indian in the streets of San Cristóbal. Jewish in Germany. Roma in Poland. Mohawk in Quebec. Pacifist in Bosnia. A woman alone in the subway at 10 PM. A landless peasant. A gang member in the slums. Unemployed. An unhappy student. And of course, a Zapatista in the mountains.”

In just a few lines, Marcos transformed a pathetic personal attack into a political manifesto. He didn’t reject the label they were trying to pin on him. He fully embraced it and expanded it to encompass all struggles. Now that’s a concept worth adopting, if you haven’t already.

The convergence of struggles is a necessity

What Marcos so aptly reminds us is that progressive struggles aren’t separate. They’re not in competition. On the contrary, they fit together perfectly to form a coherent whole against a system built on oppression.

For instance, feminism fights against patriarchy, which ranks bodies and imposes rigid gender roles. LGBTQ rights combat those same norms that demand we fit into predefined boxes. Anti-racism opposes the differential treatment of human beings based on their origins. Environmentalism rejects extractivism, which exploits the living world as if it were an infinite resource. Veganism refuses the exploitation of animals. Open source challenges capitalist intellectual property that privatizes knowledge. Class struggle denounces the economic exploitation of workers. And the list goes on…

All these movements fight the same enemy, which is nothing other than a way of operating based on domination, exploitation, greed, and hierarchy. In other words, patriarchy and capitalism, two sides of the same coin. That’s why compartmentalizing struggles weakens our collective ability to change anything. And trying to rank them in order of importance? That’s falling right into the trap set by those who benefit from our divisions.

Why do disputes among progressives weaken all struggles?

Yet look at what’s happening today. While neofascism advances everywhere in the United States and Europe, we’re witnessing absurd turf wars among progressives.

For example, environmentalists who downplay LGBTQ issues in the name of “more urgent priorities.” Anti-racist activists who dismiss veganism because “it’s not a real struggle.” Feminists who exclude trans people. Degrowth advocates who bristle at open source activists on the grounds that they use technology to fight their battles. Anti-capitalists who reproduce the worst patterns of traditional politics between different factions… And yet, the only priority should be understanding that you can’t win on one front while losing on all the others.

So let’s be blunt: The progressive sphere can be incredibly violent toward itself. There are too many inflated egos, constant judgments, toxic competition over who can be the most radical or the most irreproachable. And ultimately, this quest for an ideological purity that doesn’t exist, and never will, becomes a major turnoff for more laid-back people who could bring so much to various movements. But instead of welcoming and supporting genuine efforts toward emancipation, we’d rather exclude someone at the first misstep or the first clumsy choice of words. In short, the obsession with being absolutely right about everything, sometimes in an authoritarian way, only tarnishes noble causes.

Historical examples: When the convergence of struggles becomes reality

The convergence of struggles isn’t some theoretical concept pulled from a sociology textbook. It’s a historical reality that has proven its power multiple times. Here are a few examples:

The Black Panthers in the 60s and 70s understood before many others that the anti-racist struggle couldn’t be separated from class struggle, feminism, or LGBTQ rights. They built alliances with movements that seemingly had nothing to do with each other, creating a formidable collective force that terrified the American establishment.

Seattle 1999 made a lasting impression. Labor unions, environmentalists, anarchists, farmers from the Global South, all in the streets together against the WTO. People who should never have spoken to each other according to mainstream logic brought their anger and hopes together. The result was a complete shutdown of the WTO ministerial conference, with negotiations postponed, and ultimately a humiliation for the promoters of neoliberal globalization.

Occupy Wall Street and the Indignados in 2011-2012 brought together precarious workers, students, retirees, and activists of all stripes in public squares around the world. No single agenda, no leader, just a shared anger against a financial system that crushes everyone.

Nuit Debout in France (2016) created something truly rare: A genuine nighttime forum in real life. For weeks, at Place de la République in Paris and in dozens of other French cities, people from all walks of life actually talked to each other. Really talked. Without filters and without hierarchy. Feminists, environmentalists, precarious workers, union members, hackers, artists… all gathered to imagine another possible world together. Many radical progressives criticized this spontaneous movement. Personally, I felt it was a beautiful moment of poetry and sharing. There was something truly enriching about having genuine exchanges with complete strangers under the starry sky. Unfortunately, for various reasons, it all came to an end within two months. It’s a long story to tell, so I’ll probably have the chance to go into detail on this topic in a future article.

In the end, sure, none of these movements led to the grand revolution. None of them overthrew capitalism or patriarchy. But they all left behind something incredibly valuable: Proof that it’s possible to move beyond our differences and build spaces where struggles converge rather than clash. These moments of intense exchange shaped generations of activists and created networks that still exist today. And beyond that, they showed that a different relationship to politics is possible. Far from the circus of political parties and top-down organizations.

Conclusion: Learning to listen and talk to each other again

I often feel like we’ve let social media poison our minds, where the slightest slip of the tongue is used to tear down, hurt, exclude. But nobody’s perfect. We’re all clumsy at one point or another. Yet we share an ideal far greater than all of us combined, which is a better world built on listening and sharing. So once again, as Marcos reminded us thirty years ago: Our differences are a strength, not a battleground for people who want to go in the same direction. This is just my point of view. I’m sharing it, you do with it what you will. The only goal of this reflection is to expand the realm of possibilities. And maybe also to start a real dialogue. So let’s talk, whether here on NovaFuture or somewhere else. It doesn’t matter, what’s essential is just trying to move forward together within our respective struggles.

If you also believe that struggles need to converge, please share this article around you to get the conversation going. And while you’re at it, if you could take a few seconds to buy us a coffee, it would help us cover the site’s costs. Just putting it out there, no obligation. Thanks in advance, and see you soon with some hot topics!