An Open Letter to our Anarchist, Socialist and Radical Leftist Comrades5 min read

Our small radical communal care group for chronically ill/disabled people and their carers has written an open letter to our comrades or mirrored here or you can download the zine as a PDF or you can find an audio recording here:

“Dear comrades

We think you may have forgotten about us. Or at the very least you are trying to. The new normal in society at large excludes a number of people, among them some of your comrades: us. Need we remind you, that disabled and chronically ill people can be radical leftists. The entire range of self-proclaimed radical leftist politics should include anti-ableism by default. Without anti-ableism as a founding principle, all that remains of the radical left project is hypocrisy.

Inclusion and solidarity are not empty words. They call for practice. Without practical implications, they are buzz words made up of hot air.

Together, we can create a world that includes everyone. If you still want to, that is. And you should want to, because being abled-bodied and healthy is a temporary state – it might quite possibly not last forever. Most people experience disability or illness at some point in their lives. Or at the very least, they will have loved ones with this experience.

COVID-19 can disable anybody. The risk of getting long COVID is estimated at over 10%, and with every new infection this remains the case. In the so-called “new normal”, a world with such high rates of re-infection, we can expect the number of people who become disabled through long COVID to keep rising consistently. It is for that very reason, that many call this a mass disabling event. It is why some of us who have long COVID keep shouting about it on social media, in a desperate attempt to warn people and remind them to be cautious.

At what point is there going to be enough of us for you to start to notice?

In our circles, at our events, and gatherings, we can stop – or at least decrease – the damage. And by doing so we make society better for everyone. More inclusive. Safer.

Here, we attempt to outline some of the tools we already have, alongside all the protective measures that could or should be used in order to achieve a safer and more inclusive setting during our events, gatherings, parties, and circles. These guidelines are meant to inspire better accessibility and inclusion at events planned in the coming months and possibly years.

As you may have guessed, this text was written by people who were pushed into self-isolation because of the lack of solidarity we have experienced in society at large, but – and this was much more shocking – even among radical leftists. Please do let that sink in. Some disabled anarchists are in a state of shock because of the abandonment we experienced from our (former) comrades, who we had always assumed would have our backs in a crisis, maybe one just like the ongoing pandemic. We obviously expected nothing else from the state, the capitalist system including the health care system, and maybe even from our families. But from our comrades, who love to use words like “inclusion” and “solidarity”? It came as a huge shock to get abandoned by them, as well.

How could this happen?
This cannot stand.
[…]
We know that it sometimes is complicated, costly, difficult, hard to step up to do the right thing for more accessibility. We also know that leftist organisations are often underfunded, sometimes troubled by conflicts with the law, or the targets of fascist attacks. We are aware of the all encompassing propaganda by the state to keep dissenting voices a minority.

But just because something might be hard, it does not change what is the right thing to do.

We need to try and create the kind of events, spaces and groups that can serve as models for a future, better, world. This is what prefigurative praxis looks like. It is the work we need to do.

We should collectively reject the eugenics, the fascism, and ableism of all state institutions.

We should publicly grieve everything that we lost because of the ongoing COVID pandemic. And here we mean not only all the unnecessary losses of life and the increased rates of disability (because of an insidious virus, because perpetual growth imperative under capitalism, because nation states, because misinformation), but also the loss in solidarity and inclusivity, that have resulted. We should face these truths about the pandemic together, and process them together.

Practice grieving as a revolutionary praxis.

Together, we should fight the forces that want some of us dead, and the rest of us meekly agreeing to their tyranny. The disabled or the chronically ill are considered as surplus under the neoliberal capitalist system – we are no longer of economic value, and thus worthless. Refusing to fight this notion means being subservient and compliant to the interests and wishes of the rich and powerful – the exact same people responsible for continued oppression and genocide of many groups of both humans and animals, for inaction against climate change, and for normalising inaction against COVID.

That is why an anti-ableist stance and a clear position against eugenics, is so essential to our shared struggle. Since more and more of us under the current system will end up disabled, chronically ill, and turn into surplus, this is bound to become an even more important battlefield for both our mobilisation and our resistance in the coming years.

There will be no anti-capitalist revolution (whatever form it might take) without anti-ableism and anti-eugenics.

We need to fight the virus together: both the respiratory virus (like COVID) and the virus of capitalism.

And who else is going to do it, if not the radicals, the socialists, and the anarchists?

With solidarity and love,

some comrades”

Thanks for reading.
We would appreciate it very much if you can spread this open letter.
Please link to: https://rant.li/atlettertoourcomradesatrant-li/an-open-letter-to-our-anarchist-socialist-and-radical-leftist-comrades or mirrored here, if rant.li is down or download the zine as a PDF, where you can read the letter in its full length (yes, there is more *gulp*).

Find an audio recording of the zine here.
The letter was uploaded to the anarchist library
and re-posted on Freedom.