When Comfort Becomes Complicity Part 2

When Community Prepares You

I got diagnosed with severe ADHD a few weeks ago. If I’d received this diagnosis without preparation — without five years of conversations in our coworking community, on the Coworking Values Podcast, at Drive the Collaborative Network, and Urban MBA about inclusion, diversity, and accessibility — I would have hidden under the duvet for a month.

Instead, I had context. Language. Examples from people in very different life circumstances who’d navigated this before me.

That’s what community does. It prepares you for shocks you didn’t see coming.

Things I thought were just “good for me” — like walking a lot — turn out to be absolutely fucking essential. In a short space of time, I’ve been able to dramatically improve my wellbeing.

Because I knew where to look. Because people showed me.

The Pattern I Can’t Unsee

As I’ve been talking with people about showing the ACTionism film in coworking spaces, I’m seeing something I can’t unsee: the economic divide between corporate and independent-owned coworking is darker than ever.

I see everything through the Citizen Story and the Consumer Story now. Jon Alexander’s framework ruined me for polite conversation. I look for it everywhere.

Back in the Ouishare days, I thought the sharing economy was humanity’s way forward. Then the extractors showed up instead of the value creators.

Here’s what I’ve learned: We only need to pay a little bit more attention to each other and what’s going on in the world to make a big difference.

Not grand gestures. Just attention.

The Moveable Middle

I found this analysis by Dr Raj T. the founder of Bystanders No More that maps UK public opinion on Gaza: 40-50% are disengaged, 15-20% are vocally pro-Israel, and 12% are activists.

And 25-30% are the “moveable middle” — sympathetic but unsure how to act.

Here’s the strategic insight: 12% of activists might be dismissed as “the usual suspects.” Politicians require pressure from the middle — individuals who vote, donate, and engage with their MPs.

If you’re reading this, you’re in the middle.

Labour’s silence on Gaza isn’t about morality — it’s about math. Without visible pressure from the sympathetic middle, politicians calculate risk and stay quiet.

That’s precisely why your voice matters.

The Grapefruit Ladies

In 1984, Mary Manning was 21 years old, working the till at a Dunnes Stores supermarket in Dublin.

A customer brought a grapefruit to the register.

Mary refused to scan it. The grapefruit was from South Africa. Her union had called on members to boycott goods from the apartheid regime. So she said no.

Her manager suspended her on the spot.

Her shop steward, Karen Gearon, and nine colleagues walked out with her. Ten women, one man. The “Grapefruit Ladies,” as they became known, set up a picket line that would last two years and nine months.

They survived on £21 a week in strike pay. They were ridiculed in the streets. Some lost their homes. For months, they were ignored by the government, the company, and most of the public.

But they stayed.

And in April 1987, the Irish government banned all South African goods, becoming the first Western country to do so.

Years later, it was revealed that Nelson Mandela, imprisoned on Robben Island, had heard about the young Irish workers striking on his behalf. He said their stand gave him and his fellow prisoners “great hope and inspiration” — proof that ordinary people far away cared about their freedom.

Four months after his release, Mandela visited Dublin. His first request? To meet the Dunnes Stores strikers. He thanked them personally.

When Mandela died in 2013, the surviving strikers were invited to his funeral as official guests, representing the people of Ireland.

What began with a single grapefruit became a symbol of how grassroots action shapes global politics. Jon Alexander calls this the “People’s Foreign Policy” — when citizens develop their own policy of divestment, and eventually force governments to adopt it.

Mary Manning didn’t think she could end apartheid. She just knew she couldn’t scan the grapefruit.

That refusal changed Irish law. It reached Mandela in prison. It helped end apartheid.

When Raj says “the sympathetic middle holds the power,” he’s describing how change actually happens.

Through ordinary people making uncomfortable choices at the point of contact. The cashier. The event attendee. The person who says, “I can’t do this anymore.”

My Grapefruit Moments

In August, I wrote about Daniel Ek investing €600 million in AI battlefield technology.

Last week, I found out Spotify was running recruitment ads for ICE — the U.S. agency behind mass deportations and surveillance. Musicians noticed. Cancellations followed.

2% of our Coworking Values Podcast traffic comes from Spotify.

If it were 99%, I’d think differently. That’s the calculation. How much am I willing to lose for this?

I still haven’t deleted it. I keep hovering over the button. But I should kill it.

Daniel Ek invests in defence startups while musicians struggle to live off their streams. Now he’s recruiting for deportation infrastructure.

My entire business runs on Google Workspace. Google was named in a UN report on the “economy of genocide.” I know what I’m funding.

I haven’t switched because the friction of migrating everything feels insurmountable when I’m already running on fumes.

I’m not here to perform righteousness. I’m here to sit in the mess with you.

The Industry’s Grapefruit Moment

While individual coworking spaces host Palestine solidarity events, I’ve been thinking about institutional structures.

Like Samia Tossio during Refugee Week Oru Space with her Brutiful Tales Launch: An Evening of Stories, Solidarity & Silk.

I was skimming LinkedIn and noticed a regular industry event. Out of curiosity, I looked into one of the event organisers. Where their funding came from.

• They received significant investment from two large Israeli institutional investors — Harel Group and More Provident Funds.
• Both these companies hold substantial stakes in Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest private defence contractor.
• Elbit supplies surveillance technology, drones, and military equipment used by Netanyahu’s government in Gaza.

The same company is the target of worldwide peace protests.

Elbit quit its London HQ in 2022 after persistent protests and blockades by Palestine Action, one of which I saw in person.

As of October 2025 in the UK, at least 2,094 individuals have been arrested for showing support by displaying banners reading: ‘I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action’ since the UK Government enforced the ban on Palestine Action on 5 July 2025.

This concerns institutional capital structures that are often overlooked.

The involvement of Elbit Systems in the military sector and its profitability during the conflict are extensively detailed in Francesca Albanese’s UN report titled “From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide.”

This is about institutional capital structures that most of us don’t see until we look.

The investment that connected this event organiser to defence contracting occurred in 2021, before 7 October 2023. But the relationships are ongoing.

The investors who backed them remain major shareholders in Elbit, while Elbit supplies equipment for Netanyahu’s military operations.

Complicity at scale works through financial structures that connect seemingly unrelated industries.

Investment portfolios fund both flexible workspace and battlefield surveillance. Capital flows wherever returns are highest, regardless of where the weapons end up.

Do you want to know where the money comes from?

You can research this for yourself. Francesca Albanese’s UN report From economy of occupation to economy of genocide is public.

You can look up and trace the investment chains in ten minutes.

Once you know what changes about how you show up?

Everyone will say they’d never agree with older adults being arrested in Parliament Square for protesting against genocide.

But they’ll take the hospitality of a company connected to people who enabled that genocide.

Which is the same as me using Google Workspace.

Why the Middle Class Squeeze Should Terrify Every Independent Space Owner

Gary Stevenson’s analysis isn’t abstract. It’s your members.

The freelancers who did everything right and still can’t afford rent.

The small business owners who are one bad month from closing. The creatives are building portfolios while their savings disappear.

During COVID, the UK government distributed over £1 trillion (about £20,000 per UK adult). This money didn’t end up with furloughed workers — it was accumulated by the wealthy. Result: the biggest increase in inequality in the country’s history.

When inequality rises, the rich use passive income to buy property, driving up prices. Industries stop producing for the middle class. Workers move closer to wealth. Small towns empty out.

Corporate coworking spaces are thriving. They serve the rich.

When the middle class disappears, independent coworking disappears. Not because we failed, but because the economic structure eliminated our market.

The only way independent coworking survives is if we stop being a consumer product and become civic infrastructure. A place where people build mutual aid networks, support local economies, and pay attention to each other.

• When your members lose homes because property prices are driven up by wealth concentration — that’s your problem.
• When your members can’t afford childcare because industries stopped serving the middle class — that’s your problem.
• Tax wealth, not Work.

The people we exist to serve are being squeezed out of existence.

If we’re not building spaces that actively resist that squeeze through local economic support and civic connection, we’re just another consumer product waiting for the market to collapse.

What Paying Attention Looks Like

Mary Manning didn’t end apartheid by refusing to scan a grapefruit. But she started a conversation. She found the others.

That’s what we need to do.

Last week, I recorded a Coworking Values Podcast with Ellie Meredith, co-director of Reaction Collective and the subject of the film ACTionism. Ellie said:

“I was looking for people... I was feeling quite lost at sea. What I love about finding the collective is that it’s permitted me to imagine another way of doing things. I’ve got a crew by my side.”

Your Monday Domino: Watch the Trailer

Watch the ACTionism trailer. 2 minutes.

Then share it. LinkedIn. WhatsApp. Email one person.

Add a line: “This made me think. Thought you’d want to see it.”

That’s it. That’s the move.

If someone in your network wants to host a screening, they’ll let you know.

Urban MBA is hosting an ACTionism screening during Global Entrepreneurship Week 2025 (”Together We Build”)

Your space may be too. Maybe not.

But you’ve planted the seed.

Here’s the contrast:

• Spotify’s Daniel Ek leads €600 million into AI military defence and runs ICE recruitment ads
• Kofi Oppong and Urban MBA teach people how to use AI to navigate social services, local government, and education

One extracts. One builds. Which story are you part of?

Other Monday Dominoes (if you want options):

• Write to your MP — Redline for Gaza has templates. 5 minutes.
• Look up one company’s investors — use your AI Deep Research for 10 minutes. (Fact check it!)
• Text one person — “I’ve been thinking about you. How are you?”

Bernie’s Picks

🎙 Coworking Values Podcast: Why Coworking Spaces Are the Antidote to Brain Drain with Dimitris Manoukas — Breaking the cycle: How peripheral Europe is using collaborative spaces to stop youth exodus and rebuild local economies - Listen here.

📖 Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown - Get it here.

🎥 ACTionism documentary — Watch the trailer

📊 Bystanders No More by Dr Raj T. - bystandersnomore.org

☮️ Jewish Voice for Peace - How to Have Hard Conversations

📺 The Grapefruit Ladies by David Nihill — Watch on YouTube

I’m sitting in Vigo, looking out at the sea. Community prepared me for my diagnosis. Now I see the same pattern everywhere — we either prepare each other, or we don’t.

Let’s keep noticing together.

Bernie 💚🍉