The End of Allyship

A concept whose time has finally gone

I have never liked the idea of being an “ally.”

The word comes from a Middle English word with Latin roots meaning “to bind together;” the archetypal alliance is a marriage. In its modern usage, the terminology comes from the military/diplomatic sphere: an ally is a country you are formally bound to by treaty in some fashion, generally to come to one another’s aid when under attack or to undertake jointly to make war on someone else. In the realm of foreign policy, the concept of “ally” has undergone an evolutionary debasement over time, as countries that are properly understood as clients or even frenemies get promoted to ally status. Most recently, in some circles, the assumption has started to emerge that a country (or America, anyway) is obliged to behave like an ally toward any country with a sufficiently sympathetic cause.

This is the concept that has been extended, by analogy, into the domestic social and political sphere. As I have seen it used, “allyship” means social deference to and affirmation of the speech of people who claim to represent groups of people who presumptively deserve support. If, for example, you want to be a good trans ally, you are supposed to post on social media the messages and memes that you are told (by individuals who proclaim themselves to be either representatives or allies) will signify this status. You are supposed to, in your private and public conversation, look out for language that runs contrary to the views that you are supposed to endorse, and vocally reject it. And you are supposed to vocally applaud trans people (or their allies) who do articulate those views. I’m sure it’s meritorious to also give money, to volunteer services, and so forth, but unless you are in a policymaking role in an organization, allyship generally boils down to symbolic assertion of oneself as such by the foregoing means.

I think the Israel-Gaza war that Hamas started on October 7th should, at a minimum, have caused a lot of people to question this idea. I’m hoping that before too long it buries it entirely.

To be a good ally, after all, you’re supposed to vocally affirm and support those you have allied with and to do so in the terms that they understand to be affirming and supportive. You don’t get to tell them the language you use; they get to tell you. You also don’t get to question whether they are legitimate representatives of the group in question. Nor is it acceptable to be silent, because silence at a time when support is demanded is practically the definition of bad allyship. The old ActUp slogan declared that Silence = Death, and during the George Floyd protests I saw many signs declaring that Silence = Violence. You have to speak, and you have to speak the language you are told to say.

But it is transparently impossible to be allied in that sense with both Israelis and Palestinians, both Jews and Arabs. In a very literal sense, if you want to be a good ally of one side in the terms described, you need to adopt and use language that will be widely-perceived by the other side as marking you as an enemy.

Ok then; perhaps it’s impossible to be a good ally to everyone. If you’re comfortable saying “Israel is a colonialist oppressor practicing apartheid therefore ordinary Jews who sympathize with Israel are my enemies” or “Hamas is a religious fascist organization therefore Arabs or Muslims who empathize with Gazans are my enemies” then you are fine. You’ve chosen which side you are on, like a good ally should. The accumulation of enemies can be clarifying, I’m sure—a relief, in its way, that you don’t have to be conflicted or confused. But apart from the fact that this is, generally, a terrible way either to do politics or to make friends and influence people, it makes it impossible for purportedly liberal institutions—which are routinely asked to act as allies—to function.

Consider how numerous such institutions have behaved since October 7th. Many, particularly universities, dithered before saying anything about the horrors visited upon the civilians of Sderot, Kibbutz Aza, etc. that was remotely as forthright as what they had said about other causes that involved far less barbaric behavior and a far lower body count. They then belatedly came in with the requisite statements, only to face incoming rhetorical fire from Palestinian solidarity organizations—and, to be clear, that fire was not only for failing to express adequate outrage at Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, but for not explicitly blaming Israel for creating the conditions that led to Hamas’s invasion. Now we’re seeing instances of people with pro-Palestinian views being fired from jobs, canceled from speaking engagements, denied awards, etc. All of this is entirely incompatible with pluralism, with being a liberal institution. But it’s just the metaphor of “allyship” working out exactly as you would expect: it is forcing people, and institutions, to make more and more enemies.

I’m sure it’s tempting to think that this is a peculiarity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is distinctly intractable and complex. Surely other issues are simpler. But are they really? Trans lives matter, yes—but there are radical feminists who think modern gender ideology is fundamentally misogynist just as there are trans individuals who think that those same feminists want to define them out of existence. To be a good “ally” to one, you must make enemies of the other. Black lives matter, yes—but there are radical criminal justice reformers who think that we should literally abolish the police while large majorities of Black people view the question in a completely opposed manner. To adopt one side’s language under the compulsion of “allyship” is to affirmatively alienate the other; they may even feel treated with contempt. Even on once-controversial issues where a broad social consensus has developed—same-sex marriage, say—there are many people with profound convictions that cut the other way. I’m not even going to start on abortion. In all of these cases, the declaration of allyship is implicitly or explicitly to declare other people to be enemies. It’s not just a matter of narrowing the scope of acceptable discourse; it’s a matter of making metaphorical war core to the institution’s ethos.

For some institutions, like universities, a partial solution might be to eschew allyship, embrace the Kalven Committee report’s conclusions, and simply refuse to issue statements on any topic that are not directly related to the institution’s mission. That wouldn’t end the metaphorical war, but it would at least position the institution as above the zone of battle. But many institutions do, as part of their mission, need to articulate the institution’s views on at least some issues of the day. More to the point, even if you don’t make pronouncements, you may still have to make policy, at least with respect to the institution itself, and then you will have to defend that policy. Will you open meetings with a land acknowledgement? If so, what will it say, and who gets to opine on what it says? Will you enter into contracts with military contractors? Invest in companies engaged in fossil fuel extraction? Will employees be permitted to wear political paraphernalia to the office? What about an IDF t-shirt? A Palestinian flag? A pin with a picture of Hamas terrorists on a glider? How will you liaise with the police to protect public safety around campus? Will you retain a pharmacist as an employee who refuses to provide abortifacients or cross-sex hormones to patients? Etc., etc.

Depending on the nature of your institution, you may have to decide these things; you may not have the option of standing above the fray. But you don’t have to decide them on the basis of “allyship,” this construct that says that it’s easy to figure out what to do or say by deferring to the people you are commanded to defer to. Instead, you do have the option of actually deciding what you think is right, in itself and for the institution, and bearing the burden of making those decisions on the basis of the best information and analysis you can obtain. Or you have the option to punt—but you can be honest about doing that instead of pretending there’s something virtuous about acting out of laziness and fear.

I hope that’s the direction that things trend going forward and that “allyship” is one of the few welcome casualties of this terrible war. To restore our democracy and our civil society, we need fewer military metaphors in our public discourse, not more—and we need more real thinking about our speech and our actions, not less. For most issues of any consequence, there really are no shortcuts. The concept of allyship promises precisely that, though, which is why it tends to empower the sorts of people most inclined to cut intellectual and moral corners. Frankly, those aren’t the sorts of people you want as allies, whatever their views.