The profound solidarity of Paulo Freire

Abstract

In this paper, Antonia Darder refers to her first face to face meeting with Paulo Freire while attending a conference as a graduate student. She describes Freire as someone who conveyed a deep sense of love, hope and dignity to the people he encountered on his path, in ways that opened them up and made them feel loved and appreciated. In this discussion, Freire’s love is understood not as romantic or sentimental, but rather as politicizing and humanising; a love imbued with a profound sense of solidarity with others and a commitment to revolutionary struggle. She notes Freire's continuing relevance in a world characterized by the great economic disparities of capitalism, including dire inequalities of health care and life opportunities in these pandemic times. This points to a colonizing, neoliberal world that throws into sharp relief its deadly and discriminatory nature where everything is left to the vagaries of the marketplace and any semblance of public safeguards are systematically. undone. Darder notes that even in the midst of such struggle, Freire’s pedagogy conveys an abiding sense of hope and faith for grassroots democratic struggles. As examples, recent movements in Chile and India are cited as collective efforts that inspire hope and possibility. In so doing, she foregrounds Freire's faith in progressive social movements as significant to the large political project for economic democracy and educational justice.