Leadership in Crisis - Part 4

My thoughts on how to become our own leaders

Photo by Miguel Bruna on Unsplash

In Part 3, I laid out 8 relatively easy ways that we can take personal responsibility and become our own leaders. The last 5 strategies may not be for everyone, but they may give you some ideas.

9. Weaponize your wallet.

Money talks, and we can unleash our buying power by boycotting companies that pollute, produce harmful products, exploit workers, and participate, directly or indirectly, in war. You’ve probably heard about the BDS (boycott, divest and sanction) movement in conjunction with the pro-Palestinian student protests, one of whose major aims is to get academic institutions to divest from companies invested in or associated with Israel. Around the world but particularly in the Middle East, the BDS movement has gained momentum, Farah Awadalla writes in a December 27 article, by “encouraging individuals to use their purchasing power as an effective tool for change.”

A variety of tools are available to help consumers identify companies with business ties to Israel such as most notably Macdonald’s, Starbucks and Air B&B:

• CJPME’s BDS Hub is an extensive source of information and lists of products, companies, cultural and academic events linked to Israel;

• Boycott Israel sticky notes that you can surreptitiously attach to products on the store shelf;

• download the No Thanks app that scans barcodes. (This app, I’ve found, is limited in its availability. I wonder why!)

It’s not easy, I’ll be the first to admit, to boycott American companies, especially in Canada where the consumer market is saturated with products from the US, but one can make a start.

10. Resist

Non-violent resistance and civil disobedience are powerful strategies that bring to mind great spiritual leaders Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King. Jr.; non-conformists H.D. Thoreau and Oscar Wilde; mass movements such as the suffragettes, labour unionists, feminists, civil rights activists, anti-Viet Nam war protestors and, most recently, the pro-Palestinian student protests.

Not for everyone, public political resistance comes with the risk of getting arrested, assaulted, blacklisted, expelled, fired, or, at the very worst, imprisoned. Withholding taxes, if in fact it is even possible to protest how your tax dollars are being squandered on military aid and war, can land you in jail as happened famously to Thoreau who refused for six years to pay the poll tax as a statement against slavery and the American-Mexican war.

One courageous example of how people can resist through lawfare is the class-action lawsuit filed in December 2024 by 500 northern California taxpayers against two congressional representatives who voted to authorize $26.38 billion in military aid to Israel, thereby allegedly violating the U.S. Constitution, the Genocide Convention and several US laws. How far this unprecedented case will go remains to be seen, but as one of the complainants is quoted as saying:

We see it quite clearly that there are legal and constitutional limits on what U.S. tax dollars can be used for, and our congressmen have broken the law. Our eyes are wide open about the federal courts. It’s an uphill climb, but we have to act. We are responsible to act.

For more details about the case, read Marjorie Cohn's article here.

Then there are the men who burned their draft cards and the women who burned their bras in the late Sixties and early Seventies, and those people who have gone on hunger strikes or self-immolated, as Aaron Bushnell did in February 2024. Such extreme acts of resistance require the very rarest courage, conviction and self-sacrifice.

At the heart of resistance is a rebellious mindset that everyone can adopt, one one that:

• does not believe everything we are told

• asks inconvenient and difficult questions

• digs deeper in the search for truth

• talks back, stands up to authority, and doesn’t let anyone push us around

• sticks to our guns and our principles

• uses the power of outrage (I can see Peter Finch/Howard Beale in the movie Network, shouting into the TV camera: “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”)

• comes up with a better, stronger, more logical and fact-based argument

• wears pins, buttons or symbolic items of clothing

• never gives up or gives in!

11. Say no!

Saying “NO” is the ultimate form of resistance. Here is the list I published in Lessons to Be Learned from Amsterdam:

• No to outright lies!

• No to propaganda!

• No to media-fuelled hysteria!

• No to exceptionalism!

• No to lawlessness!

• No to intimidation!

• No to false accusations of antisemitism!

• No to Western hypocrisy!

• No to political corruption!

• No to moral depravity!

• No to racial violence!

• No to genocide!

• No to war!

• No, no, no!

10. Care!

There are no more fertile conditions for bad leadership to root and flourish in than public apathy and indifference. When people do not care, leaders can get away with murder. And they will and do, literally. We see the evidence every day!

Though it is in our nature to hate, kill, destroy and harm, it is also in our nature to care not only about ourselves and our loved ones, but also to care about others. Because we are all connected, we are all one, and our greatest power resides in our hearts. Take it from the great spiritual teacher, Krishnamurti:

This is really a very important and urgent question: whether man, you, can bring about this change in yourself—not say. ‘If I change, will it have any value? Won’t it be just a drop in a vast lake and have no effect at all? What is the point of my changing?’ That is the wrong question, if one may point out. It is wrong because you are the rest of mankind. You are the world, you are not separate from the world. You are not American, Russian, Hindu or Muslim. You are apart from these labels and words, you are the rest of mankind because our consciousness, your reactions, are similar to others. You may speak a different language, have different customs, that is superficial culture—all cultures apparently are superficial—but your consciousness, your reactions, your faith, your beliefs, your ideologies, your fears, anxieties, loneliness, sorrow and pleasure, are similar to the rest of mankind. If you change it will affect the whole of mankind.

One of our greatest strengths is our ability to imagine. It is our imagination that enables us to put ourselves in the place of those people who are less fortunate, and whose circumstances are fraught with extreme challenges and dangers. When activated, our imagination has the power to light a fire in our hearts.

13. Make change permanent

Anything we change—our habits, our attitudes, our preferences, our consumption patterns, our ideas, our desires—we must change permanently. Otherwise, we end up like the person who, after going on a crash diet and losing fifty pounds, returns to eating all the wrong kinds of food. Lasting change takes self-discipline, determination, dedication and perseverance. But in the long run, we have far more to gain than we have to lose.

Conclusion

Taking personal responsibility as citizens does not in any way absolve our leaders of the responsibility that is ultimately theirs to live up to. But it is up to us to hold them to account and to make it known when they fail. It is up to us not to give our permission.

We can, I suppose, see the election of Donald Trump as a blessing in disguise. Because if we’re not happy with him or any leader for that matter, and if we dread what he or they will or won’t do (and Trump has made a pretty damn good start!), then we have to stand up and, when necessary, stand in the way.

If we become better, more just, compassionate and responsible citizens, the chances of better, more just, compassionate and responsible leaders might just improve. We may not be able to work miracles or make huge waves, but we can act, individually or collectively, like stones that, when thrown into the water, send out ripples.

For your reference, here are Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3

Feel free to add your ideas and strategies to the comments. The more tools we share, the better!

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