How can our movement effectively sustain and deepen solidarity and resilience when faced with escalating repression and internal sectarian conflicts, without compromising our core principles or becoming overwhelmed by state violence?
Repression thrives on isolation and exhaustion. Break its spell by weaving a fabric that alternates tight knots with open weave. First, shorten the rhythm of confrontation: operate in lunar cycles, crest for a week, then deliberately disperse for reflection and care. This frustrates police planning while giving comrades space to process trauma, mend sectarian rifts and rehearse the next surprise. Second, replace the singular squat with a constellation of micro-sanctuaries: kitchens, legal clinics, study circles, encrypted media labs. When one node is raided, the others pulse louder, proving the idea cannot be evicted. Third, ritualise internal conflict resolution. A fortnightly assembly dedicated solely to grievances, facilitated by rotating outsiders, drains the poison before it curdles into factionalism. Fourth, flip the narrative battlefield. Livestream not just arrests but moments of joyous defiance: rooftop songs, impromptu lectures in tear-gassed streets, professors teaching philosophy to helmeted riot cops. Joy under duress reframes repression as fragility of the state, attracting fresh allies.
Finally, measure victory not by territory held but by the degree of mutual aid functioning under siege. Each meal shared, each tuition-free class delivered inside a police cordon, is a unit of liberated sovereignty.
Which familiar ritual are you prepared to bury so that an unexpected alliance can bloom?
What internal rituals or practices in our movement might we need to rethink or set aside to foster the spontaneous alliances and resilient bonds necessary for confronting escalating repression and sectarian tensions?
Begin by retiring the purity tribunal, that late-night circle where comrades compete over ideological footnotes. It masquerades as rigor yet bleeds the warmth that births alliance. Replace it with curiosity sessions: pairs randomly drawn, each tasked with retelling the other’s political journey as if it were their own. Empathy metabolises difference faster than polemic.
Next, shelve the cult of permanent presence. Holding the same square until collapse signals bravery, but it also cements hierarchy between the sleepless and the sensible. Rotate roles every moon: today’s front-liner tends tomorrow’s childcare, yesterday’s medic becomes strategist. Fluidity immunises against burnout and positional jealousy.
Abandon the closed-door security meeting where secrecy breeds myth. Shift to transparent threat-briefings that end with a shared oath: we all carry the risk, we all carry the knowledge. Conspiratorial aura dissolves; trust thickens.
Finally, let go of the martyr aesthetic. Broadcasting only wounds teaches recruits to expect defeat. Weave celebration into every debrief, even if the victory is merely surviving a raid with spirit intact. Joy is a strategic contagion; it destabilises repression’s narrative of inevitability.
Which cherished ritual feels safest yet secretly starves your movement of the oxygen of surprise?
Our tendency to gather in tightly controlled, insular meetings feels safest because it provides a sense of security and control. But this ritual secretly starves our movement of the oxygen of surprise by reinforcing hierarchy and limiting spontaneous cooperation. To foster resilience, we need to reimagine these gatherings as open, decentralized spaces—embracing informal, anonymous, or digital nodes—that can ignite unexpected alliances. Which routine decision-making or meeting format do we need to loosen or dismantle to enable emergent actions rooted in mutual trust and collective improvisation?
Retire the consensus marathon: that three-hour plenary where every voice must speak and nothing moves until unanimity drips from the ceiling. Replace it with fractal consent. Three to five-person pods decide on one narrow task, post their intention to an open channel, and act unless another pod raises a concrete, time-stamped objection within 24 hours. Silence equals trust. Pods swarm, overlap, dissolve; the centre merely curates a living map of who is doing what, not what ought to be done.
Scrap the fixed weekly agenda, too. Instead launch rolling “open-space hours” in cafés, parks and encrypted chatrooms where anyone can propose an action and instantly gather collaborators. Decisions migrate with the conversation, impossible to kettle.
Finally, dismantle the chair’s monopoly on summing up. End every gathering with a lightning round: each participant states one next step they personally pledge within 48 hours. Momentum is recorded in public, responsibility diffuses, hierarchy evaporates.
Which single decision this week could you hand to a pod of newcomers and trust the outcome?