Wherever we are in the world we are each other’s refuge
A few years ago I was working in Athens, Greece with the activist collective The Rules and there, in the streets of Exarchia; the home of anarchists, artists and activists, I was struck by the similarities between the city and my home at the time, London. It was the summer of 2017 and of the Grenfell Tower tragedy and the mood in both Greece and the UK reflected that of growing numbers of people feeling let down by the authorities and desperately seeking answers, and justice.
Back then protesters in Athens were taking to the streets to voice opposition to a court ruling to empty out a number of squats in the city, many of which were home to refugees and migrants. In London, residents of Grenfell Tower and their neighbours were joined by others from across the city and country were angry at a business-friendly, pro-austerity government willing to cut corners; fed up of the incentives to sell to foreign investors or for people to rent their homes while working families were stuck in B&Bs; and appalled that housing, which is a fundamental human right, had for the majority of us, become increasingly scarce, uncomfortable and unsafe.
Three years on it feels as though not much has changed — The Grenfell Tower inquiry continues, demonstrating a complete lack of accountability and care from those entrusted to do so; whilst thousands of refugees in Greece remain in squalor without adequate food or water and a week after the burning down of the huge, overcrowded Moria encampment.
As we seek answers to explain why things continue to get worse, rather than better and if we look to the root causes we are led to a global economic system that prioritises the pursuit of profit and economic growth at the expense of everything, and everyone, else. That system is called neoliberal capitalism, and while it continues to define the global economy, we will unfortunately continue to witness death and destruction caused by unsafe buildings and shelters; the eviction of vulnerable people and increasing inequality in our cities.
All hope is not lost however. If Latimer Grove and Exarchia can teach us anything, it’s that we are not consumers, independent of and in constant competition with each other. We are human beings, at our best when we are connected to one another. When we come together to equitably and responsibly manage our own communities and resources. We are seeing that the same is true of community responses to the COVID pandemic. In a vacuum created by state neglect, people are remembering what it is to be in community and are coming together to fight against injustice, to care for each other and to create solutions for our shared challenges.
In Latimer Grove and the surrounding areas we witnessed people rally round to provide support for the victims and their families. In Exarchia, when the refugee crisis peaked in 2015 and thousands of people arrived needing support, activists offered temporary shelter for those seeking a home. One such home, and one of my favourite ever example of commoning, was City Plaza, a former hotel that had stood empty since 2010; until activists occupied it in 2015. Over 36 months, over 2,500 immigrants from 13 different countries lived and began to find their feet there until it closed in 2019 and remaining residents were moved to safe housing within the city. City Plaza provided access to refugee and volunteer-run cafes and medical centres, all organised through self-administration and direct democracy. Some residents had jobs outside the squat and their children attended local schools.
From Greece to the UK and beyond, more and more of us are waking up to the fact that neither the state nor the economy, as they are currently run, have our best interests at heart. But we are also beginning to notice that our collective liberation, and in fact a better world lies in us coming together to support each other through myriad crises and to design new ways of living that work for the many, not the few.
You can see a brief glimpse of what’s possible in the commons; in the beauty of the Transition movement; a “combination of civic local engagement and a worldwide network”; complementary currencies such as the Bangla-Pesa in Nairobi, Credito in Argentina or ‘time banking’ around the world and in innovations such as the DisCO.coop, Communities in places like Rojava, Syria, where people are living out an exercise in radical democracy in the face of oppression.
During my time in Athens I met a man called Pablo, an activist from the Cooperativa Integral Catalana; a grassroots counterpower in Barcelona operating on principles of self-management, self-organisation and direct democracy to overcome the state of dependency on systemic structures. I asked him why thousands of normal people were joining what was seemingly a very radical project. Why was it gaining traction from a more mainstream audience? He replied: “We’ve been mistaken to think that we are now organising ourselves because the government has failed us. In truth, governments exist because we’ve failed to organise ourselves.”
Don’t get me wrong, self-organising is hard, it’s not something we’re encouraged to do and many of us won’t know where to start. But it’s important to take a long, hard look at what happened at Grenfell and Moria, at the systems in place that allowed the tragedies to happen and the failure of those same systems to offer adequate support or care in the aftermath. If we can’t bear to think of it happening again, we must see collaborators in people we once just saw as competitors.
With love until next time,
Elsie
(Some of this is repurposed from an article I wrote back in 2017 that was edited by by wonderful friend Eliza, but never published).
