Beyond the COP: Thiago Ávila on Struggle, Solidarity and System Change
COP events are full of paradoxes. While trying to solve global crises requires huge, resource-intensive diplomatic machinery, the people most affected by the decisions taken at COP, are the least represented in the decisionmaking processes. At COP30 in Belém, it was clear that the real COP was not only held in negotiation rooms. The presence and participation of human rights defenders, mostly in parallel events, showed that the ideas to tackle wicked problems can be found at every corner.
Koen Vanderschelden had the opportunity to sit down with Brazilian socio-environmentalist and internationalist Thiago Ávila. Ávila has spent more than two decades fighting interconnected struggles – from climate justice to anti-imperialism – and reflects here on the contradictions of the COP, the impacts of neoliberalism, and what it means to rebuild collective imagination and global solidarity.
KV: Most of our readers know you from the Global Sumud Flotilla, which recently sailed toward Gaza. But you’ve been active in transformative struggles for much longer. Could you briefly explain your trajectory up til now?
TA: I’m a 39 years old socio-environmentalist and internationalist from Brasília, in the heart of the Brazilian savannah. About 21 years ago, I discovered what I consider my purpose: to be useful to the great cause of humanity, to fight against exploitation, oppression, and the destruction of nature — all of which are generated by the same system: capitalism in its liberal economic model and in its imperialist phase of dominating the world.
From that realization, I sought to build connections: with neighboring countries in Latin America, with Palestine, with Indigenous peoples in both urban and rural areas, with forest communities, and with anyone committed to transforming the world. It’s a hard journey. I live in a country that constantly ranks at the top among those that kill the most environmentalists, like me, with extremely violent police forces and strong Zionist influence. Many friends have been lost along the way. So the struggles we face are difficult, but we continue fighting just the same.
But over the years this network has grown. Today I am part of the international coordination of the Global Sumud Flotilla, and for several years I’ve also taken part in previous attempts to break the blockade through the Freedom Flotilla Coalition. The Palestinian struggle has become a central part of a global uprising, and that has fundamentally shaped our work.
KV: We’re here at COP30. You’ve attended several COPs before. What are your first reflections on this one and on its impact?
TA: The COP is an event full of contradictions and limitations. This year’s COP is a qualitative step forward compared to the last editions because there is at least a minimum of participation of critical civil society actors. In many past COPs you couldn’t demonstrate or organize people-driven parallel events at all.
But now, it is completely insufficient: behind closed doors, leaders from the corporate oil and gas sector, from mega-mining, and even agribusiness discuss false solutions to the climate crisis and climate emergency, while outside, barred from entering, are Indigenous peoples, traditional communities, and the very people who actually point to and build real solutions to these problems in their daily lives, and who are being crushed by this terrible, destructive system.
So the COP doesn’t reflect either the seriousness of the problem or the real solutions. But the events that happen outside the COP, like the People’s Summits, the large climate marches, and all the parallel events. They point to the need for the world to unite and build a horizon different from this one.
The time will come when either we occupy the COP and transform it, or we make it obsolete and build power directly from the people – implementing real solutions ourselves.
KV: You often talk about how struggles are interconnected. At the same time, especially from a psychological perspective, it’s interesting to see how people’s pain has been individualized. It breaks collective struggle. We no longer have a culture of shared imagination. In a world dominated by Big Tech, how can we recreate that collective spirit?
TA: Transforming the world goes completely against neoliberal ideology. Neoliberalism manufactures consent for a deeply sick society. It treats people who become mentally ill in an absurd system that only harms them as if the problem is within them, and that they must be medicated, isolated from society.
Instead of thinking of a “therapeutic process” as simply returning these people to the workforce without complaining, we need to point toward building a healthy society, a living society, and a life worthy of these people.
People don’t fight back because neoliberal ideology says it’s a waste of time. It consumes all their time in transportation, in work, in all the other problems created by this system, and then tells them that struggle doesn’t work either, that they’ll never achieve any victory. We have to say the opposite: that when we fight, we build another system, new forms of social life, in which we create our communities of resistance, our territories of struggle. And that’s where real healing happens, because we’re not just healing ourselves. We’re leaving behind that destructive dynamic and are creating a path to heal society as a whole.
KV: How can people who already feel defeated or powerless do something for themselves and for their community? What can they do?
TA: The most important thing is simply to start. Everywhere, in every territory, there are beautiful initiatives of community work involving solidarity, hands-on action, collective work, and the practice of organizing.
Neoliberalism says people shouldn’t organize, only compete with one another to accumulate material things by selling their labor. But when people decide to do the opposite — to organize — they begin totruly know their territory, beyond prejudice and the criminalization of social struggle. And people develop a taste for that freedom.
Every major reference in social movements understands the importance of service. By serving communities, we are constantly confronted with the real problems present there. If you’re not afraid tomobilize to transform them, you will be entering this social struggle – head-first, which is how it should be.
KV: Rephrase is a European magazine highlighting voices and pathways for systemic change, mostly coming from the Global South. What responsibilities do countries like Belgium and the Netherlands have, given Europe’s role in creating many of these problems?
TA: It’s important to begin with recognition. The world is divided into social classes. In Belgium, there is a working class that is also exploited, oppressed, and suffers from the destruction of the planet — by a ruling class that also kept the world under the horrible regime of colonization for a long time. Belgium was responsible for one of the most horrific genocides in history, in the Congo. Much of Belgium’s “development” and civilizational advancement was built from the blood of peoples of the Global South.
Recognizing this means acknowledging the need for historical justice and reparations, and thinking of justice and historical reparations for these peoples, the working class in Belgium, and in Europe and more broadly, should unite across the world to build another system – one not based on colonization. The blame is not on the Belgian people, they fight there just as we fight here. The blame lies with the ruling class, the small group of people who benefit from this horrible system.
KV: And what is the importance of independent, critical media, like Rephrase Magazine?
TA: According to Antonio Gramsci, one of the most important thinkers in the history of revolutions and revolutionary theory, oppressive regimes maintain their hegemony in two ways. One is through force: war, coups, and the violence they always use. The other is through consent: by controlling access to information, controlling the educational system, and manufacturing consent.
Having independent, alternative media that brings the truth to people is an essential step toward breaking this barrier of ideological domination. So having a magazine like Rephrase, and all other outlets that aren’t afraid to say what needs to be said, is fundamental to transforming the world. People cannot unite and fight to change society without truly knowing what is happening. So this magazine is essential.
KV: The name Rephrase has a double meaning: we rephrase actual sentences people write, but we also try to change the world by rephrasing the narrative. What are you trying to rephrase?
TA: For decades we were told that the “end of history” had arrived — that capitalism would now dominate and lead the world through the imperialist system of the United States. Across the world, people are now rewriting that history. So rephrasing what they imagine as the future and creating new phrases, new verses, new texts for the future of humanity we need — that is absolutely necessary. That’s the work we are doing.
Koen Vanderschelden works as a policy advisor in Ghent. With Rephrase, he aims to diversify the Flemish media landscape by pushing new voices and narratives to the center stage, envisioning a more just society.
Thiago Ávila is a Brazilian socio-environmentalist. He is one of the organizers of the Global Sumud Flotilla.