Reflecting on 2020: 10 sparks of promise in an otherwise miserable year
Let’s be real, for the human collective, it’s been a pretty terrible year — I don’t need to drag us all through it again, because it’s the story you well know by now — a global pandemic, the doubling down of white supremacy, the lack of action contrasting with the increasingly powerful effects of climate change, despotic leaders the world over; I could go on. You’d be forgiven for thinking that there have been few moments to celebrate and it’s important to sit with the pain and not dismiss the brutality of this year, but amongst the heartache and suffering, there have been a few glittering gems of promise for the future.
As Winter in the Northern hemisphere draws in, this will be our final newsletter for this year. We’ve put together some of the shining examples of things that have happened in 2020 which show what’s possible for us when we collaborate and grow together. Some highlights for our collective this year have been the further development of the DisCO project (check out the most recent paper in Autonomy here, and look out for more later in December), continuing to translate incredible and radical content for the movement with Guerrilla Translation and making lots of new friends and colleagues. For me personally, I have had the utmost respect for the fierce strength and love of determined activists and people the world over; those on the frontlines of the Black Lives Matter marches, or organising communities behind the scenes; those providing healthcare, life-saving support, food, love and care during the pandemic; those continuing to stand up to governments and businesses to demand or force change; for climate justice, to #EndSars, for the rights of farmers. Oh, and the Italian balcony singers. I am deeply grateful for each and every human that cares.
I would love to hear from you what your sparks of light have been this year, whether that’s personally, in your community or in the wider world. Feel free to email or to share on social media.
Wherever you are in the world, whatever season it is, I hope that you find time to rest and renew your weary hearts, bodies and spirits these coming months as the Gregorian year comes to a close. Wishing you all health, joy, justice and systemic change.
10 moments of joy in 2020
1. The community response to COVID-19 (for the most part)
As countries went into lockdown at the beginning of the year, we took care of each other. In an article in March, George Monbiot described: “All over the world, communities have mobilised where governments have failed.
In India, young people have self-organised on a massive scale to provide aid packages for “daily wagers”: people without savings or stores, who rely entirely on cash flow that has now been cut off. In Wuhan, in China, as soon as public transport was suspended, volunteer drivers created a community fleet, transporting medical workers between their homes and hospitals.
In South Africa, communities in Johannesburg have made survival packs for people in informal settlements: hand sanitiser, toilet paper, bottled water and food. In Cape Town, a local group has GIS mapped all the district’s households, surveyed the occupants, and assembled local people with medical expertise, ready to step in if the hospitals are overwhelmed. Another community in the city has built washstands in the train station and is working to turn a pottery studio into a factory making sanitiser.
In the US, HospitalHero connects healthcare workers who don’t have time to meet their own needs with people who can offer meals and accommodation. A group called WePals, created by an eight-year-old, sets up virtual play dates for children. A new website, schoolclosures.org, finds teaching, meals and emergency childcare for overstretched parents. A network called Money During Corona texts news of job opportunities to people looking for work.
In Norway, a group of people who have recovered from Covid-19 provide services that would be dangerous for non-immune people to offer. In Belgrade volunteers organise virtual coffee mornings and crisis counselling. Students in Prague are babysitting the children of doctors and nurses. Estates in Dublin have invented balcony bingo: the caller sits in the square between the blocks of flats with a large speaker, while the players sit on their balconies, taking down the numbers.
In the UK, thousands of mutual aid groups have been picking up shopping and prescriptions, installing digital equipment for elderly people and setting up telephone friendship teams.”
Read the full article here.
Jia Tolentino also has a great article about Mutual Aid in the New Yorker here and Eshe Kiama Zuri on the Black roots of mutual aid in Gal-Dem here.
2. The successes of the Black Lives Matter movement
In June, in the USA and around the world, the Black Lives Matter movement reignited in the wake of the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Nina Pop, Tony McDade and thousands of others before them at the hands of police and white supremacy. The community response and organising was incredible, with Black people and supporters the world over rising to demand change, dismantle oppressive systems and fight for justice, freedom and equity.
At the time we sent out a non-exhaustive list of resources, both for Black people needing support and ways for non-Black people to take action — much of it is still relevant and it’s essential to keep momentum going. Find the resources here.
The movement continues to grow, and things have been happening the world over — too many to know about or to capture here. It’s undeniable that BLM played a prominent role in the campaigns of both candidates in the US presidential election and just recently the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation launched a $6.5m fund for chapters to support their grassroots organising, as well as forming a political action committee to fund Black candidates who support a “divest and invest” framework, endorsing those who have vowed to reallocate budgets away from police and prisons and towards Black communities. We continue to support the movement however possible, within our personal lives, our communities, our towns and cities and our countries.
For those of us engaged in commoning, cofounder of the international Rise Ubuntu Network, Nonty Sabic ran a brilliant online workshop in July for white people in the commoning community called “Healing Racism: A restorative approach”. You can read more about Nonty’s work and philosophy here.
3. Free Black Uni launched
In June, Academic Mel Owusu began a crowdfunder to start a decolonised Free Black University in the UK. The total number of donations currently stands at £138,586 of the £250,000 target. We’re really excited to see where the project goes.
You can find out more on their website here and subscribe to their newsletter. You can also donate here.
4. Earth overshoot day was later this year
Earth Overshoot Day — the day on which human consumption exceeds the amount nature can regenerate in a year — arrived on 22 August this year, more than three weeks later than it did in 2019.
With few exceptions (the years following the 2008 financial crash being among them), Earth Overshoot Day has come around earlier each year as humanity’s ecological footprint has increased. In 2019, it landed in July for the first time.
It’s not guaranteed that this will continue if things return to normal, but it shows that we ARE capable of making the changes we need if we choose too.
Read the full article here.
5. Indigenous peoples fought for and won greater representation
It might be a small victory in the face of all that indigenous communities have been through and are owed, but in some settler-colonial nations this year saw a rise in representation of indigenous people in government.
In November in New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern appointed the ‘most diverse cabinet in New Zealand’s history’, with indigenous Maori ministers making up a quarter of its 20-strong members.
In the US election, although there were two white men running for president, a record number of Native American women were elected to the House of Representatives; Democrats Sharice Davids, a Ho-Chunk Nation member for Kansas, and Deb Haaland, a Laguna Pueblo member for New Mexico, retained their seats having become the first Native American women elected to Congress in 2018. They were joined by Republican, Yvette Herrell, who is Cherokee and represents New Mexico.
6. Scotland was the first country to make period products free to all
In November, Members of the Scottish Parliament unanimously approved the Period Products Bill which means there is now a legal duty on local authorities to ensure that free items such as tampons and sanitary pads are available to “anyone who needs them”.
The bill was introduced by Labour MSP Monica Lennon who has been campaigning to end period poverty since 2016. It’s a practical, progressive and vital move — especially because of the pandemic. Will other countries or communities follow suit?
Read more here.
7. European states being ordered to respond to youth activists’ climate lawsuit
The European court of human rights has ordered 33 European governments to respond to a landmark climate lawsuit lodged by six youth campaigners.
If the defendant countries fail to convince the Strasbourg-based judges, lawyers say they will be legally bound to take more ambitious steps and to address the contribution they — and multinational companies headquartered in their jurisdictions — make to overseas emissions through trade, deforestation and extractive industries.
Read the full article here.
8. Our greater understanding of the Earth as alive and interconnected
At the beginning of 2020, David Bollier published a blog post on “The rise of a New Animism” (read it here). Recognising the historical problems of animism as a Western-centric concept, Bollier suggests that ‘New Animism’ which “sees the experience of life as a dynamic conversation among the creatures and natural systems of the Earth’ is on the rise, suggesting a greater receptivity to the Earth as alive and its elements all interconnected & interdependent.
In a 2019 Guardian article (read it here) which Bollier cites, writer Robert Macfarlane lists a number of “rights of nature” laws that had been enacted around the world, such as in Ecuador, Bolivia, and for Lake Erie in Ohio, the Ganges and Yamuna rivers in India and the Whanganui River in New Zealand.
A recent article in Common Dreams by Markie Miller, and Crystal Jankowski (read it here) suggests that, thanks to tribes leading the way, the nature’s rights movement has continued to grow through 2020 and is gaining traction: In August, the USA’s Democratic Party recommended the formation of a presidential Rights of Nature mission — it didn’t make it to the final party platform, but the interest is there. There have also been significant gains in Ecuador, French Guiana, Australia, the Nez Perce Tribe, Spain, Costa Rica, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, the Tŝilhqot’in Nation, and elsewhere.
We look forward to seeing what’s possible in 2021.
9. Our collective questioning of capitalism and economic growth
As people rallied together to stand up to oppressive, stagnant governments or to fill the gaping holes where they have been unwilling or able to support and provide — this year has made it very clear that our global and national systems aren’t working for the majority.
Anitra Nelson sums it up in her abstract for a journal article published in July (access it here): “The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed weaknesses of capitalism as an economy and polity, and revealed the latent potential of postcapitalism. A novel coronavirus is more likely to arise given massive industrial agriculture; the state of health care sectors is a result of neoliberal policies; the pandemic’s impacts were characterised by capitalist inequities; economic repercussions expose a crisis-prone system. Conversely, responses included pandemic solidarity and sharply increasing mutual aid groups. Postcapitalist currents have been arguing for localisation of economies and autonomous governance for decades; the Covid-19 pandemic reveals the rationale for these calls and the urgency to apply such approaches.”
As a result, conversations about the ‘end of capitalism’ and the concept of degrowth have gained mainstream attention, and even respectability. Two of the books published on degrowth this year include Jason Hickel’s “Less is More” (find out more here) and “The Case for Degrowth” by Giorgos Kallis, Susan Paulson, Giacomo D’Alisa and Federico Demaria (find out more here). Both are recommended reading, as well as Hickel’s Twitter feed (accessible here), to learn more.
10. The Nap Ministry
It’s been a tough year, and despite being in the middle of a global pandemic, and everything else that we had going on, depending on where we live, our personal circumstances and our identities, it sometimes felt impossible to slow down and take care of ourselves. That’s where The Nap Ministry came in (find them here).
Founded in 2016 by Tricia Hersey, The Nap Ministry is an organization that examines the liberating power of naps. They engage with the power of performance art, site-specific installations, and community organizing to install sacred and safe spaces for the community to rest together. They facilitate immersive workshops and curate performance art that examines rest as a radical tool for community healing. Fundamentally they believe rest is a form of resistance and name sleep deprivation as a racial and social justice issue.
In the midst of it all, The Nap Ministry was a solid reminder for those who needed it of the importance of rest, even and especially in the face of white supremacy, capitalism and patriarchy.
Find them and support their work here.
