#WORLD #WORLDWIDE #FRANCE #ANARCHISM #News #Journal #Update - (en) France, UCL AL #329 - Ecology, Modes of struggle: Let's cultivate anarchy in our countryside (ca, de, it, fr, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 Following the creation of a collective garden in Deux-Sèvres, strategic

reflections emerged, taking into account the difficulties encountered. We are
talking about the reappropriation of land and the creation of voluntary
propaganda projects of another kind. ---- Every revolution begins with new
foundations, the environmental struggle is no exception. Contrary to what
capitalists and technocrats say, ecology is not a problem to be solved
separately, it is intrinsically linked to systems of social oppression. To meet
these challenges, the reappropriation and pooling of land is an essential
element. ---- This is the observation of activists from Deux-Sèvres who have set
up a collective garden in a rural area. This article aims to share the
reflections inspired by this project but also the difficulties that we have
encountered.

If our revolutionary movement is mainly concentrated in the big cities, struggles
also take place in rural areas. This is, for example, the case of comrades who,
by occupying land intended for "development", face large useless projects.
Indeed, the institution of new commons[1]is effective when it is done actively in
opposition to the capitalist model. But in places where there are no or very few
comrades, or where the land is not necessarily destined to be concreted or sold
to developers, you have to find and invent other ways of reclaiming the land. ,
sometimes less conflicting.

Even if at first glance this may seem contradictory with our principles, in rural
areas it can be essential to work with the services of the municipality and the
town hall with the aim of recreating commons. Like their urban counterparts,
these peripheral and rural municipalities also depend on public money for their
operation, but often find themselves the last to be hit when the State
distributes its funds. It is precisely this lack of investment that gives us an
opportunity to set up projects in line with our militant aspirations.

Create new commons
Town halls and rural communes often own large plots of land that they use as a
financial stock; when the commune needs money, it sells this land to investors or
private individuals.

By developing alternative and free networks, it will be possible to guard against
optential recoveries and other shenanigans.
The activists who live in these municipalities have the possibility of
negotiating with the town hall the provision of land for the establishment of a
"solidarity project". In practice, the land must be pooled and then, from there,
launch a movement within the municipality.

Outside the cash economy
In the idea, by creating and participating in strictly voluntary work sites on
these lands, it will be possible to produce goods and services completely free of
charge, outside the capitalist system of value creation. Starting by meeting the
basic needs of part of the population, food, construction, energy, etc. it is
possible to create a local butterfly effect in the community and develop an
environment conducive to generosity.

This collective economy based on cooperation and the common management of
resources can take the form of a collective garden or participatory construction
sites. By reinforcing the habit of donating and recovering materials, these
activities aim to make money not forbidden, but useless. In the long term, the
sustainability of a first non-monetary network can be envisaged.

Beyond the ecological benefits of setting up such projects - consumption of
seasonal and local vegetables, reuse, eco-construction, etc. - one of the major
challenges is the creation and dissemination of countervailing tools. Control
over the production of housing, food, and energy is a pillar that constitutes one
of the main weapons of modern states in collusion with multinationals to
establish their domination.

Without label
By developing alternative and free networks, it will be possible to guard against
potential recoveries and other shenanigans. Free is a powerful lever because it
goes against all logics of capitalist accumulation. There are, however, several
potential challenges for this type of rural project.

First, rural areas are less conducive to overtly political projects, which can
scare people away or only attract those who are already committed.  In order to
have a real anchoring and therefore a more global impact, it is necessary to
attract less politicized people as well, and therefore, ideally, the project must
promote a subtle anarchism.

This does not mean setting up a clandestine Soviet-style entryism, the objective
is not to conquer the state apparatuses. It is rather a question of awakening and
encouraging the basic anarchist principles, which for some already benefit from a
good press, such as mutual aid for example, without saying so explicitly. The
idea is essentially to practice anarchist activity without labels. This approach,
which may disturb some comrades, allows anarchism in rural areas to take root
within a depoliticized community, while setting up projects that directly benefit
people, and of course, slow down the establishment of the extreme right.

However, in an anarchist spirit, the project must above all benefit the most
precarious people. It is necessary to be vigilant in the face of certain
capitalist biases that it is possible to maintain. It is common, especially when
setting up a project where money disappears, to substitute the monetary value
with another measure such as the quantity of work. It is essential that the
projects respect this principle of communism : "from each according to his means,
to each according to his needs", to avoid falling into the Labor discourses which
pollute our way of thinking today, and which risk creating tensions within the
project. Some people do not have the capacity to work, this is a reality, and the
anarchist project therefore does not only have a material objective, that is to
say to produce or render services, it also has a spiritual objective. , which is
to purge the capitalist perception of the world.

Maintaining morale without monetary incentive is also one of the difficulties
these projects face. Without funds, getting started and keeping volunteers
motivated is tricky. It's sort of a preparatory microcosm for the cashless world.

Reactivate mutual aid
But it is precisely for this reason that it is essential to first work with local
charities and town halls, not only because these actors are surely more conducive
to the idea of donations and sharing of equipment, but because that they also
constitute an anchor that offers a certain regularity and stability to the
project in a world where volunteering is no longer seen as an instrument of
activism for a "cause", but rather as an occupation of our free time.

Finally, in a broader perspective, the creation of a trade union network of
volunteers can be a longer term objective. This network would not only give
inter-local coherence to this movement, but could also allow the exchange of
materials, knowledge and products between the different voluntary projects, all
free of course.

The anarchist revolution in rural areas is not necessarily a question of open
struggle, especially when we see how depoliticized the populations are, but it
should draw from where the water already exists, that is to say, to reactivate
pre-existing rural solidarity links.

Niels (UCL Angers)

A NON-MARKET ECOLOGY

At the heart of the strategy described for pooling the land and available
resources, the emphasis is on the importance of donations, gratuities and
voluntary work, with the aim of radically questioning the capitalist system. and
productivist. Often the revolutionary strategy opposes the capitalized production
system, the socialization of the means of production, thought of as the abolition
of hierarchical relationships within production units. This may have given rise
to trade union struggles resulting in the creation of SCOPs, but these
cooperatives cannot exist outside the market relationship.

Still others are thinking about how to set up socialized distribution systems,
such as Food Social Security, seeking to regain control over what is produced by
trying to equalize access to basic necessities. But then, could the
multiplication and networking of this kind of voluntary and ecological productive
experiences, where the principle "from each according to his means to each
according to his needs" could concretely make it possible to take production out
of the market system??

What is certain is that the proposed model is directly opposed to the creation of
value which is one of the foundations of the capitalist model, which privatizes
and transforms everything it can into merchandise to be valued and accumulated.
But as a woman, it is also very clear that it is not because work is done for
free, without the objective of market production, that it does not serve the
production and reproduction of capital.

What is certain is that the proposed model is directly opposed to the creation of
value which is one of the foundations of the capitalist model, which privatizes
and transforms everything it can into merchandise to be valued and accumulated.
But as a woman, it is also very clear that it is not because work is done for
free, without the objective of market production, that it does not serve the
production and reproduction of capital.

Melissa (UCL Orleans)

help

[1]Commons, or simply commons, are resources managed collectively by a community,
which establishes rules and governance in order to preserve and sustain this
resource.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Modes-de-lutte-Cultivons-l-anarchie-dans-nos-campagnes
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca