How Studying Abroad in Australia Taught Me About Collective Struggle

During a period of heightened racial uprisings in the segregated 1960s, Martin Luther King Jr. asserted in one of his most revered writings, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

In other words, the struggle for freedom is communal.

Local critics questioned the legality of the Civil Rights demonstrations in Alabama, classifying King, who was born in Georgia, and his coalition as outsiders. As a response, King wrote “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” He explained his organizational ties to Alabama and the need to recognize humanity’s collective struggle.

“I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all states,” said King. “I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham.”

King astutely explains collective struggle: what it is and why it’s important. His proposition, that injustice unites, helped me understand the shared struggle I witnessed when I studied abroad in Australia last summer.

In the onslaught of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration, repealed healthcare benefits, deployment of troops to various major cities, the mayhem at home unending. Just before my flight to Melbourne, Trump deployed troops to Washington D.C., a decision that has been widely critiqued as baseless and unresourceful. Moreover, Australia’s ostensibly happy and relaxed culture made it difficult for me to presume traveling there as anything less than a break from the chaos.

But there are risks to perceiving a country through excessively broad generalizations. Even riskier is to perceive these communities as separate from our own.

When MLK Jr. wrote about collective injustice, he was acutely familiar with how individualism and separatist ideals halt progress. It’s the fabric of American identity, and when used as a tool as it so often is, prevents communities from mobilizing in pursuit of freedom. It abdicates responsibility to the individuals experiencing injustice to find their own way out, liable for their struggles, instead of the facilitators of oppression.

Mere hours after I landed in Melbourne, I noticed the streets told a story. “ACAB,” which stands for All Cops Are Bastards, was tagged on multiple walls across the Central Business District. Moments before I saw the slogan, a Fire Rescue Victoria truck sped by with “No pay rise in 5 years” written on the side of the vehicle.

The following day, my cohort and I took a roadtrip along Melbourne’s Great Ocean Road, a 150-mile stretch of scenic views and coastal sights. On the bus ride back, I received a security alert to stay out of urban areas because of mass pro-Palestine protests. As we drove through the city, I hoped to catch a glimpse but the streets were quiet and empty. Upon research I found out that over 300,000 people protested nationwide, calling out the Australian government for selling weapons components to Israel.

Back home, Senator Maria Cantwell (WA) had just voted against a bill blocking the sale of over $600 million in weaponry to Israel. Organizations, including Seattle Against War and Students United for Palestinian Equality and Return, later held a march protesting the complicity of the American government with the siege on Gaza.

I was shocked at the parallels. The discontent with government pay, overarching police bureaucracy, and foreign policy was ultimately clear. It was in this moment when I began to draw on the similarities of injustice.

The advocacy in Melbourne reflected people’s broader contentions with government policy and exposed me to the systemic inequities both countries face. I was empowered by the dedication to justice, but also understood these acts of resistance are a natural common occurrence, not a modern-day phenomenon.

In an interview with Rebecca Thorpe, a political science professor at the University of Washington, about social justice and human rights, she shared that her time abroad in Australia overlapped with the U.S invasion of Iraq in the early 2000s.

“There were tons of protests out on the street, which was also striking to me, considering this was a U.S policy that people all the way around the world were responding to in droves,” said Thorpe.

Thorpe’s experience abroad was against the backdrop of immense injustice, as people all over the world organized to end the U.S led war in the middle east. She was struck by the response but ultimately understood we’re all a lot more interconnected than we realize.

“In some cases, like all the way around the world, it’s rooted in the sense of ‘we are all equal in our shared humanity,’” said Thorpe, “and just a sense of solidarity with other people that are experiencing similar things.”

At Felons, a restaurant in Brisbane, I joined students from the Queensland University of Technology for dinner. I asked one accounting student what his perception of the United States is. He laughed as he said “a wild, wild west,” just missing an “obviously” to complete the sentence. He continued, distraught with the lack of regulation for corporations and the freemarket facade. Thorpe had a similar experience.

“They couldn’t understand, like the rationale for the entrance into the Iraq War, which they thought they saw as devastating to the stability of the Middle East, and certainly harmful to people there,” said Thorpe.

It’s clear: our communities are undeniably fighting the same fights. Our governments are complicit in the same harmful policies. I came to many realizations on this trip, but ultimately discovered something greater. I was indifferent to this collective struggle because I was meant to be, and further introspection unveiled the illusion and shaped a new worldview.

I live in a country where it is noble to be independent and self-reliant. Where the man living on the street and the woman relying on government assistance for groceries are met with the same response: they simply didn’t try hard enough. It is this misconception that exposes the most dangerous aspects of individualism: perceiving the struggles of others as separate from our own and believing the root causes are somehow the product of individual decisions as opposed to systemic oppression.

When I came back to Seattle, I uncovered that individualistic ideologies manifest in many different ways. It took witnessing a collective fight for justice abroad, for me to realize our struggles are inextricably linked.

“I think it’s important not to exceptionalize our own experiences. And we see that in the United States a lot,” said Thorpe, alluding to the concept of American exceptionalism which uniquely positions the United States as an ideologically superior empire compared to other nations. “But I think that that really obscures a lot of the commonalities that we face, both in our struggles and even in our triumphs, with people in other areas of the world.”

Perceiving struggle as an individual experience as opposed to a communal endeavor jeopardized my worldview. The social injustices experienced by Australians are no different from those in the U.S, or anywhere else in the world. When we’re together, we’re capable of fighting a larger empire that believes there is a correct way to organize against inequality. That warps the mind to believe our neighbors are unconcerned with our struggle, that justice will come if we wait.

“There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over,” said King in “Letter,” “and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of injustice where they experience the bleakness of corroding despair.”

The context of King’s piece is important. He wrote “Letter” while experiencing segregation and severe state violence. Though the circumstances have changed, the presence of injustice has never ceased. As the trip concluded, one classmate dreaded returning to the disorder, referencing the current political state of affairs back home. He was echoing my line of thought from before I arrived. But now, at the end of my study abroad experience, I distinctly understood that our collective fight for a free and just world must persist even in the presence of divisive forces. It is a radical and crucial effort.

King captured this sentiment over 60 years ago and it is just as vital today.