Collective action remains the best way of renewing the march

Host: The city square was drenched in the late afternoon light — that hour when the sun lingers, hesitant to leave, brushing everything in tones of bronze and dust. In the distance, the crowd was dispersing: banners rolled up, voices fading, the echo of chants dissolving into the breeze. The air still smelled of sweat, hope, and the faint smoke of burnt paper — the remnants of signs and passion.

Jack stood by a stone fountain, his coat slung over his shoulder, his face half-lit, half-shadowed. He looked like a man who’d seen too many revolutions start, stall, and fade into slogans.

Jeeny sat on the edge of the fountain, her hands still stained with ink from the placards she’d been carrying. Her eyes, alive with tired fire, caught the last rays of the sunlight, reflecting something between faith and exhaustion.

Between them, on the fountain ledge, lay a printed sheet — Guy Standing’s quote, damp from the mist:

“Collective action remains the best way of renewing the march towards the great trinity of liberty, equality, and solidarity.”
— Guy Standing

Jeeny: (breathing deeply) “He’s right, you know. We can’t move forward alone. Not toward liberty. Not toward anything worth calling civilization.”

Jack: (dryly) “And yet, here we are. The crowd’s gone home. The slogans are fading. ‘Collective action’ lasts exactly as long as the coffee is free and the cameras are on.”

Jeeny: (frowning) “You always reduce it to cynicism. Don’t you ever think maybe people really mean it?”

Jack: “I think they mean it until it costs them something. Liberty’s cheap until it demands sacrifice. Equality’s easy until someone has to share.”

Host: The fountain’s water rippled faintly, catching the light like fragments of broken truths. A flag lay crumpled at the edge of the square, its pole bent but still clinging upright — the symbol of persistence, or fatigue.

Jeeny: “You sound like you’ve given up on humanity.”

Jack: “I haven’t given up. I’ve adjusted my expectations. You think collective action builds the future? It builds bureaucracy. It builds compromise. Remember the Paris Commune? A fire that burned bright and died choking on its own ideals.”

Jeeny: “And yet it happened. That’s the point. For a moment, people stood together — for liberty, for equality, for solidarity. Even if they failed, that moment still matters. It’s a blueprint.”

Jack: “A blueprint for more failure.”

Jeeny: “No — for memory. The reason we can even say the words liberty and equality today is because people once dared to act collectively in their name.”

Host: The wind picked up, scattering old pamphlets across the ground. Some stuck against the wet pavement, their letters bleeding into unintelligible shapes — words trying to hold on to meaning in the rain.

Jack: “I’ve seen enough marches to know where they end. The same speeches. The same chants. And after the applause, people go back to scrolling through their phones while the same powers tighten their grip. You think solidarity can survive the algorithm?”

Jeeny: (quietly) “I think solidarity begins the moment someone looks up from the screen.”

Jack: “That’s optimism dressed as rebellion.”

Jeeny: “And cynicism is just fear in a nicer coat.”

Host: Her words hung there — not loud, but steady. The square seemed to hold its breath. A few distant sirens echoed, then faded. Pigeons picked through the remnants of leaflets, small living metaphors of survival among slogans.

Jack: “Tell me, Jeeny, what do you think this trinity really means — liberty, equality, solidarity? Sounds poetic, but it’s impossible. You can’t have all three.”

Jeeny: “You think they contradict each other?”

Jack: “They do. Liberty means the right to rise — to excel, to possess. Equality demands you don’t. Solidarity insists you share. So which one do we sacrifice?”

Jeeny: “None. That’s the test. The point of collective action isn’t to perfect the trinity — it’s to keep it alive. Liberty without equality becomes greed. Equality without liberty becomes slavery. Solidarity without either becomes pity. The balance isn’t the prize, Jack. It’s the struggle itself.”

Jack: (pauses) “That’s a nice speech. But struggle doesn’t feed children.”

Jeeny: “And comfort doesn’t free them.”

Host: The sound of her words seemed to travel through the square, bouncing off the walls, as if the city itself was listening. The light dimmed further; the sky was bruising into evening.

Jack: “So what now? You march again tomorrow? Print more signs? Chant the same phrases until your throat bleeds?”

Jeeny: “Maybe. Because silence costs more. Because even if no one listens, someone has to speak.”

Jack: “You think Guy Standing was talking about protests? He’s an economist, Jeeny. He meant collective bargaining, social frameworks, the working class fighting for fair policy — not poetry.”

Jeeny: (smiles faintly) “Every policy begins as poetry. The problem is when the poets stop marching and the bureaucrats start editing.”

Host: The streetlamps flickered on one by one, painting the wet cobblestones in pools of amber. The faint steam from the fountain rose upward, curling like the breath of something ancient — liberty, perhaps, whispering in a language too old for microphones.

Jack: (softly) “Do you really believe people can still unite? In this world? Where everyone’s shouting into their own echo chamber?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because shouting is still noise, and noise means someone’s alive. The danger isn’t chaos, Jack. It’s silence.”

Jack: “So what — you think humanity’s one big choir?”

Jeeny: “No. More like a protest — dissonant, messy, imperfect, but somehow still moving in one direction.”

Host: He stared at her then — not dismissively this time, but as though something in her defiance unsettled him. The rain had eased, and the moonlight began to push through the clouds, soft and hesitant.

Jack: “When I was younger, I believed in movements too. Then I saw one collapse — people turning on each other, ideals swallowed by ego. It taught me that collectives break the same way individuals do: from within.”

Jeeny: “And yet, every movement that dies leaves behind seeds. Rosa Luxemburg’s death didn’t end socialism. Martin Luther King’s didn’t end justice. Even Guy Standing — he’s reminding us that the only antidote to despair is connection.”

Jack: (half-smile) “You really think we can connect again? That solidarity can survive self-interest?”

Jeeny: “Only if we stop mistaking self-interest for survival.”

Host: A pause — deep, echoing. Somewhere in the distance, someone began playing a violin. The melody was slow, aching, and it threaded through the air like the memory of something that had once been whole.

Jack: “You make it sound so noble — marching toward the trinity, even when the road keeps collapsing.”

Jeeny: “It’s not about reaching it. It’s about not stopping. That’s what Standing means. Renewing the march — again and again, even when you’re tired, even when no one’s watching. Because liberty, equality, and solidarity aren’t destinations. They’re verbs.”

Jack: (softly) “You sound like you believe we’ll get there someday.”

Jeeny: “Not in one lifetime. But maybe in the echo of many.”

Host: The camera began to pull back — the square stretching wider, emptier, the figures of Jack and Jeeny now small against the vastness of the city. Their voices, though quiet, carried — like embers refusing to go out.

Jack: “You always have the last word, don’t you?”

Jeeny: “Not the last. Just the next.”

Host: A faint smile crossed his face — the kind that admits defeat, but also relief. The wind tugged gently at the scattered flyers, lifting one into the air, carrying it upward until it vanished against the night sky.

And as the scene faded into dusk, the faint echo of Guy Standing’s truth lingered — not as doctrine, but as promise:

Liberty is the breath, equality the pulse, solidarity the heartbeat —
and together, they march on, renewed by those who still believe.