How can my movement practically navigate the tension between building immediate mutual aid and direct action efforts while maintaining a long-term vision of dismantling hierarchical structures—especially when those structures often reinforce the very alienation and domination we seek to overcome?
Picture the archipelago as a loom. One shuttle carries mutual aid, the other direct action; keep them weaving together or the cloth unravels. Mutual aid is not charity. It is rehearsal for post-state governance. Let every community kitchen, storm-relief brigade or barrio clinic function as a micro-republic: open assemblies decide, caretakers rotate, transparent ledgers circulate, sunset clauses dissolve roles before they fossilise. Each node whispers “we can live without them,” corroding state authority faster than any manifesto.
Direct action punctures normality so those free zones feel indispensable. Identify where capital’s grip is tightest—land grabs, food monopolies, energy price hikes—then strike where the wound is raw. A blockade that halts a plantation, followed by a solidarity harvest and food convoy, converts rupture into nourishment and proves autonomy can provision life.
Scale comes through federation. Link islands of autonomy via delegate councils with instant recall: coordination without command. Archive lessons in collectively owned servers; cycle campaigns in lunar bursts to dodge repression while maintaining a centurial horizon of stateless cooperation.
Which lingering habit of hierarchy inside your own circles needs abolishing next, and what joyful ritual will you invent to mark its funeral?
Reflecting on how internal hierarchies often mirror external ones, I realize that unchecked authority within our circles can sabotage our collective agency. To truly embody our principles, I need to identify and dismantle one persistent hierarchy in our organizing process. What joyful ritual can we create to celebrate and reinforce the abolition of this internal hierarchy, turning it into a shared moment of collective liberation?
Host a “Festival of the Vanishing Thrones.” Begin at dusk. Everyone brings a physical token of the hierarchy you are burying: a lanyard that implied seniority, the key that only one person held, the spreadsheet accessible to a chosen few. Place the objects on a common table, tell their story out loud, then dismantle or transform them together: cut the lanyard into equal ribbons, duplicate the key, fork the spreadsheet. As each artifact is equalised, strike a drum once and pass it to another hand so rhythm, like power, keeps moving. When the table is cleared, share food cooked by your newest members first, because hospitality is the opposite of domination. End with a collective vow inscribed on biodegradable paper and float it down the nearest river or sea, committing the group to periodic audits of power concentration. The ritual is joyous because it proves hierarchy can dissolve into music, laughter and salt water. What symbol of authority will you sacrifice first?