This is a series highlighting community organizers and change makers across so called Canada. Often community grassroots leaders are unacknowledged and their theoretical expertise undermined— this is a way to give thanks to their knowledge. 

This interview was conducted in Jan 2023

Zena Salem : What can you tell me about your journey as an organizer from the start, all up to this point?

Gachi Issa: I started organizing when I was 17, in reaction to anti-Black racism and islamophobia in my school. This experience has formed me, my politics, and the way I think about collective organizing and work. Through this, we formed a collective called Hamilton Students For Justice and years later, successfully organized to terminate the police liaison program in the Hamilton Wentworth Public District School Board. Later, I organized with Defund HPS and through this co-founded the Hamilton Encampment Support Network. I currently work in supporting community members going through legal processes and am reckoning with the terrors and violence of all legal systems and with all forms of punishment.

 

ZS: What is the most prominent point in your career? How did it shape who you are now?

GI: The most significant moment of my time as a community organizer is the moment, we terminated the police liaison program. We blocked the main road in Hamilton, right in front of city hall, Had speakers, music, poetry, and chants. We affirmed that we would not leave until the public board voted to terminate the program. A lot of the work we put into this took years, many town halls and tireless grunt work in speaking with youth and understanding the stories of so many students targeted by police and policing. At one point, it began to rain heavily, and instead of retreating, we put on raincoats and danced in the rain. Later that night, trustees, through weeks of public pressure campaigns, successfully terminated the police liaison program. The joy and care of this moment, the laughter and the tears taught me that this work is joyful in part because liberation work can be liberating.

 

ZS: Looking back at your path so far, what surprises you most?

GI: What surprises me most is how much my understanding of my values and principles as an organizer has shifted. I still have the foundations of abolition as a principled driving force in all my actions, but what has surprised me is learning that there is a real struggle between how we practice abolition vs how we fight for it externally. The work is both internal and external — abolition is a way of life, and something worth practicing, thinking about, and wrestling with. It is the only way forward.

 

ZS: What are some points you wish you knew or learned prior to getting into community organizing?

GI: I wish that I understood that I am never essential to the work. As much as it is helpful to categorize myself as an ‘organizer’ it is not who I am, in my essence. I am a daughter, a sister and a friend who is called to this work because I see it as my duty, as my obligation as someone who is living in this world. Whether I am present or not, this work must continue. If I had learned this sooner, I would have invested in relationships on the ground, expanded outside of the nice of other ‘community organizers.’ Instead of investing in community organizations or electoral politics, I would have built community with people, sat with them, cultivated relationships and used this to inform the larger and more forward-facing community work. 

 

ZS: Leadership wise, how has your experience so far changed how you present and navigate community work as a leader? (Leadership style shifts before and after)

GI: I have had years of experience leading as an organizer. It was fantastic and helped me develop a specific skill set as an organizer– it has taught me to think tactically and strategically, evaluate risks, take risks. These days, I am shifting my style of leadership to something more organic and on the ground. I am more invested in organizing in a wholesome way– I am interested in thinking about all the unseen community work that is necessary and often un-thanked or appreciated. I am thinking of things like fundraising, or supporting people through legal systems, sitting with families who are facing imminent evictions. I am learning so much more about the world around me. This is not to say that I don’t believe in disruption anymore– i love disruption and think it’s a necessary and beautiful thing. What I am saying is that disruption without sincere community knowledge is futile and often out of touch. Now, I am beginning to include my ability to care, listen and sit with people as a leadership skill in itself.

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Zena Salem is a breaking news reporter, working out of the Star’s radio room in Toronto.