If you’re a member of a trade union, social movement, campaigning group or religious congregation, you can link up with overseas equivalents. Your feminist direct-action group can send messages of solidarity to those struggling against the odds in a country with worse conditions for women. Or your local parish could organize a solidarity trip to meet congregants at churches in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
An internationalism that delights in lifestyle cosmopolitanism – travelling to far-flung places or buying ‘exotic’ commodities – means little unless it reckons with the underlying systems that sustain it. When you click ‘buy’ on an Amazon product, you might be setting in motion a process that starts in a sweatshop in Bangladesh, wields a huge carbon footprint and comes to you via a zero-hours contract delivery driver. There’s no way to consume 100-per-cent ethically, but you can be sensitive to the trade-offs and impacts of your purchases. Buy Fair Trade if funds allow. And leave those palm-oil products on the shelf.
