Apr 5, 2021 12:34 PM EDT
When a deadly winter storm this February left more than four million people in Texas without power, nearly 15 million without clean water, and 111 people killed, Secunda Joseph sought refuge in her cousin’s Houston home. Joseph was unable to make phone calls, but was still receiving text messages from community members reaching out to the community-organized hotline she helps manage, for assistance.
Emergency services were overwhelmed. So were grocery stories and gas stations if people could actually reach them. Home and utility damage was rampant, and estimates for repairs stretched out months. Joseph wanted to help, but her car had been frozen over in the storm and wouldn’t start. Wasting no time, fellow organizer Josie Pickens picked her up so they could drive to distribution sites around the city to get a sense of what resources were available and how many people were in need of aid.
Anarchist Violence
The anarchist movement has a long history and encompasses a wide range of movements from the labor movement to the free love movement, from anarcho-communism to Rothbardian economics. Anarchist theory is not inherently violent, but there is a violent faction that is revealing itself once again in America. As the violent wing gets exposed, anarchists of all stripes will rally to defend their particular branch of the family tree while largely ignoring their violent cousins – the revolutionary anarchists.
Some perhaps are only familiar with the peaceful forms of anarchy, extolling the virtues of harmonious existence in communes and mutual aid societies. There are even anarcho-pacifists and Christian anarchist movements; free love anarchists and free education anarchists. Regardless of the benign, intellectual side with its laudable and legitimate theories of mutual aid and self-determination, there has been a consistent wing of anarchism that embraces revolutiona
Arunabha Bhattacharya and Divya Raghunandan
Arunabha Bhattacharya is currently a Partner, Mission Advancement at Rootbridge. He focuses on telling stories of those who can’t to those who can take action, imagine new possibilities, and mobilise resources for change. Prior to this he has worked at Vrutti in Partnerships and Fundraising alongside stints with Azim Premji University, ICICI Bank, Deutsche Bank and Infosys. He is an alumnus of Goa Institute of Management.
Divya Raghunandan is the Director of Mission Advancement at Rootbridge. She was earlier leading a vertical at Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiative (APPI) which enabled the institutional capacity building of mid-sized organisations that are ready to amplify and scale. Before APPI, Divya co-founded the Common Ground Collective and also spent 15+ years at Greenpeace where she was the Programme Director. Divya is an alumnus of Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai. Less. More
COVID-19, the Climate Crisis, and Mutual Aid
Mutual aid is not only about addressing the crisis at hand but also about undoing the injustices of colonialism and imperialism.
In the wake of disasters, most people respond with altruism, creativity, generosity, and a cooperative spirit.
âMutual aid,â a concept coined by the Russian naturalist and anarchist Peter Kropotkin in his 1902
Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, refers to the principles of cooperation, and of people joining together to help each other. It ran counter to the then-hegemonic Darwinian theories emphasizing competition and survival of the fittest. Kropotkin did not deny the role of competition, but he argued that the cooperative spirit has gone under-examined.