international solidarity

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

an idiom and political concept describing the sense of mutual obligation, shared fate, and active support that transcends national boundaries, motivating people and countries to support one another across differences of nationality, ethnicity, and culture in pursuit of common goals and in response to shared threats and injustices; international solidarity has roots in labour internationalism — the aspiration of the early workers' movement to transcend national divisions in pursuit of global working-class interests — religious universalism — the sense of shared humanity that motivates humanitarian action — and anti-colonial solidarity — the mutual support of independence movements across colonised countries; in development discourse international solidarity provides a moral foundation for aid, debt relief, and equitable trade arrangements, framing them not as charity from rich to poor but as expressions of mutual recognition and shared commitment to a more just world order; it is also invoked in responses to climate change, pandemics, and forced migration as justification for global collective action