Image ID
ID: A poster in 3 segments, 2 at the top and one bellow:
-
The text “if we wait for the government it will be too late” above a drawing of 4 people meeting in an airconditioned building. One is Grey and is smiling and showing love to the others, saying “I love you guys!”. The 3 others are red, who is smoking a cigar, green holding a bag of cash, and yellow wearing a top hat represent gas oil and coal respectively.
-
The text “if we act as individuals it will be too little” above a drawing of a person in a small but flourishing garden, they are holding up an apple they got from one of their trees, saying " Such… beauty!" with sparkly eyes. Beyond their fence to the left is an incoming tsunami, to the right are a field and trees on fire with bellowing smoke.
-
The text “if we act as communities it might just be enough” above a drawing of several groups of people outside. From left to right, there are 3 people standing around a produce table that has a sign above it saying “crop swap on today!”, next to it is a small cabinet marked “seed library”. On the ground in the centre foreground are an adult and 3 children sitting around a campfire, the kids listening intently, the adult has the Australian Aboriginal flag on their shirt. Behind them are an adult and child getting a pizza out of an outdoor oven. To the right is a stall with a sign above it saying “refugees welcome”, in front of it are two adults, one is wearing a head scarf and is holding a baby. In front of the stall are 4 rows of crops growing from the ground.
Quote by Rob Hopkins in “From what is to what if”
Credit: @brenna-quinlan
So, to be a different kind of doomer than the rest of the comments…
How does one do community? I realize that sounds stupid, but like… what can I do to help foster community in my… community?
I ask because tbh I’m not a community builder. When I was a kid, I was raised in a church community, and I knew vaguely what went into that, but I’m not religious anymore. So the only path to community that I’m even remotely familiar with is not viable for me anymore.
I don’t need a treatise or anything, but if you have any practical introductory advice on community building for terminally online leftists with a couple small friend groups, that’d be welcomed.
We have a small area of land that is very rural. We grow a lot of vegetables and all our own chickens, fish and hunt, raise hens for eggs and more. We are regenerative.
We created community by trading with like-minded individuals. We offer one another access to our “junk piles”, equipment, resources and labor. We don’t really fit in where we live but we have found people like us in the middle of nowhere by just existing.
Depends on the community, I know nothing about who you are, where you’re from, what kind of area you live in (a city block, a small town neighbourhood, and a rural village all have their own different challenges), or what the people around you could use help with.
First of all try to figure out if you’re able to provide anything others could benefit from - time? Money? Equipment? The means to move people or property? Are you an educator? Am advocate? A tinkerer? A builder? A cook? A carer? A writer? An artist? Are you too poor/overworked/disabled and feel like there’s nothing you can currently help with? Whatever the case, there is value to your being part of the community and contributing from your lived experience.
Then try and form relationships with the people around you, and from there learn how you might be able to help. Depending on your community there might be an online group, a newsletter or zine, a community centre, a place of worship, a pub - all are likely to have some leads to people already active in the community who you can join, or at the very least learn from about what’s going on locally, and go from there.
The point is to build solidarity and class (and other injustice) consciousness, and to show people through actions that we are stronger together.
Maybe give some of these a read:
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ronald-a-young-anarchist-agitation-community-building
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-mutual-aid-a-factor-of-evolution
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-anarchist-faq-editorial-collective-an-anarchist-faq-full
https://www.anarchy.no/horizon1.html
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-anarchy-works