Reading Rudy’s ‘Against the “Colonizer’s Burden”: Climate Justice Means Anti-Colonial and Anti-Capitalist Struggle’ in Indigenous Action’s analysis of climate activism has sparked deep reflection within our team about our own strategic approach, the tensions we hold, and the questions we’re still grappling with as we refrontload Tomorrow Movement.
Here are some of the reflections that the Tomorrow Movement staff team had when reflecting on the article together…
Capitalism as Starting Point, Not Side Issue
The analysis that capitalism is the root of climate breakdown – not a contributing factor but the foundational issue – pushes us to examine whether we’re addressing symptoms or causes. The reminder that First Nations communities have been “sounding the alarm since before Columbus” highlights how late most white-led climate movements arrived to this fight.
What can we learn from movements that have been resisting extractive systems for centuries? How do we avoid the pattern of white climate activists jumping on “since the IPCC reports” while ignoring the deeper analysis that’s always been available from frontline communities?
This raises fundamental questions about our theory of change. If capitalism is the root cause, can reforms within capitalist systems ever be transformative? Or are we always ultimately propping up the systems causing harm?
The Urgency Trap
One of the most challenging tensions this analysis raises is around urgency itself. Climate breakdown is genuinely urgent – every day of delay means more suffering. But urgency culture can be weaponised by white supremacy culture to justify cutting corners on relationship-building, excluding voices, or burning out organizers.
How do we distinguish between legitimate urgency and toxic urgency culture? The key seems to be what we’re urgent about. Are we urgent about the right things – like building deep relationships and confronting root causes – or are we urgent about metrics and timelines that don’t actually measure progress toward justice?
This forces us to examine our own priorities. When we focus on electoral cycles or policy deadlines, are we operating from genuine urgency about the crisis, or from urgency culture that prioritises visibility over transformation?
Should we reframe what’s urgent for us? Maybe community connection and deep relationship-building are more urgent than we’ve acknowledged. Maybe taking time for political education and strategy evaluation is more urgent than the next campaign.
The Reform Question
The critique of reformist activism sits at the heart of our strategic tensions. Most of our social movement ecosystem is reformist – working within systems designed to prevent the transformation we claim to want. The “ratchet effect” means even victories often get rolled back while underlying systems continue operating.
Is there such a thing as transformative reform, or is this a contradiction in terms? When we advocate for policies like the Climate Jobs Guarantee, are we building stepping stones toward system change, or are we legitimising colonial systems by making them slightly more sustainable?
The challenge is that we’re trying to make change within a system designed for us to fail. How do we measure success and set ourselves up for progress under these conditions? What does it mean to be strategic when the game itself is rigged?
The Diversity We’re Missing
The analysis highlights how much of our movement ecosystem lacks strategic diversity – too many organisations doing similar reformist work, not enough experimenting with different approaches to change.
What would it look like to be more intentional about our niche? Is it possible to build a movement for everybody, or can we be clearer about who we’re organising with and what unique strategic role we’re playing in a broader ecosystem of change?
This connects to questions about how we take people on a journey. If we’re trying to bring lots of new people into progressive movements, how do we do deep political education alongside accessible entry points? How do we avoid the pattern where people get involved in reform work but never develop analysis that leads to more transformative action?
Strategy Evaluation and Learning
Perhaps most importantly, this analysis pushes us to be more honest about strategic evaluation. Are we engaging in “delusional optimism” about our progress? Are we highlighting victories while avoiding difficult conversations about what’s actually working?
Our current strategy phases were built around electoral timelines – 2022, 2025 elections. But what if those timelines are preventing us from the deeper work of relationship-building and power-building that transformation actually requires?
We need more detailed strategy that we can return to regularly. Strategy evaluation and ongoing learning take time, and we need to prioritize that time even when it feels like there’s urgency to act immediately.
Holding Strategic Disagreement
One thing this analysis makes clear is that there isn’t a simple answer to these tensions. Different perspectives offer different approaches. Different strategic traditions emphasize different pathways to change.
How do we hold strategic disagreement while still building coherent strategy that centers justice? How do we learn from multiple perspectives without getting paralysed by complexity?
Maybe the question isn’t resolving these contradictions but learning to hold them productively. Maybe the work is building strategy that can hold multiple approaches—inside and outside tracks, reform and transformation, relationship and confrontation.
The Long View
What strikes us most about this analysis is the emphasis on the long view. The reminder that Indigenous communities have been in this fight for centuries. The recognition that transformation happens on timescales longer than electoral cycles or funding periods.
This challenges us to think differently about relationship-building and frontloading. If we’re building for transformation rather than reform, what does that mean for how we invest our time? What does it mean for how we measure progress?
How do we create new systems rather than just critique existing ones? What are the models for this work? How do we avoid becoming just another NGO despite our best intentions?
Questions for Our Movement
Reading this analysis leaves us with more questions than answers, and maybe that’s the point. Some of the questions we’re sitting with:
- How do we acknowledge that many of our current solutions are reformist while still pursuing them strategically?
- What would it look like to prioritise community connection and deep learning over campaign timelines?
- How do we hold the tension between building accessible entry points and developing transformative analysis?
- What unique strategic role should Tomorrow Movement play in a broader ecosystem of change?
- How do we measure success when we’re working within systems designed for us to fail?
These aren’t easy questions, and we don’t think there are simple answers. But engaging with them honestly feels essential if we want to build strategy that matches the scale of the crisis we’re facing.
The work ahead requires both humility about how much we still need to learn and commitment to the long-term relationship-building that transformation requires. It requires being willing to sit with contradiction and complexity rather than rushing toward easy answers.
Most of all, it requires recognising that this is a much longer fight than any of our current timelines acknowledge – and organising accordingly.