Building radical communal care collectives might well be our new normal. Ours turned out to be such a fantastic, enriching experience, it made us wonder, what had we been waiting for to try and start one?
This might sound like one of those lame stories of how good things can grow out of bad situations. And in some ways it is. But no worries, i am neither an optimist nor a positivist and i will be careful not to go overboard.
Lest we forget, we are living through harrowing times. The horrendous war the state of Israel has unleashed on Gaza in response to the brutal attacks by Hamas on October 7. The ongoing war in the Ukraine. COP28 in Dubai turning into another bloody joke with record numbers of fossil fuel lobbyists in attendance. While the planet already starting to hit breaking points. Milei. Wilders. And even T®ump could come back?! The filthy rich getting richer and filthier. And all this during an ongoing pandemic, that has already killed so many, that we don’t mourn properly, and debilitated even more of us, who are in the process of getting disappeared from view.
I have been one of those, sidelined by Long COVID (presumably, i have no official diagnosis), who was left behind and forced into social isolation, slowly losing all hope and my will to live, abandoned by everyone (except my amazing partner and some fairly random sympathetic social media accounts). And I so needed something positive to start happening in my life.
I had been stuck in this flat, hardly ever getting out, or if so only for brief walks, bike rides and swims in the river during summer. Energy permitting. At the same time i was witnessing in sheer horror how everyone seemed to have turned the page on this pandemic, knowing full well that it was ongoing. More and more of my family, friends, even the radical left started to leave me (and people like me) behind. At the same i was afraid of a re-infection, maybe understandably so after what my body had already been going through, and it left me with no choice but to recluse myself, to avoid physical contact and to socially isolate even further. And to hope that my partner would play along (so far she does 😉 thank you so much!).
So many of us are getting excluded as the ongoing pandemic is getting normalized, for the sake of an imagined “new normal”, as they actually call it, to in passing dub us, who still (need to or choose to) stay cautious, the “not normal”. Driven by a collective obsession to return a “life as before”, meaning back to lives of consumerism, travel and hedonism, while for too many of us, that life may forever be gone. Armed with superficial catchphrases like “you do you” or “learning to live with it” and justifying all this bullshit with claims of “immunity debt” or “herd immunity”.
But we, the chronically ill, disabled, immuno-compromised, do not have this luxury. We cannot simply pretend that the pandemic is over. The risk for us is too high. Some of us might die, others might increase their suffering from a (re-)infection. Our only two options are to either retreat into a hole, and thereby disappear from view, or to become that one odd looking person, who keeps wearing a mask, while everyone else looks at us puzzled, with either a pitying or outright mocking expression.
This pandemic has brought out the worst in humanity. Yet this cannot be looked at in isolation. This holds further symbolic meaning. Our response to this pandemic has shown with the most brutal clarity, that we are neither prepared for the next zoonotic plague, and it will come for sure, nor to deal with the climate crisis. We have not changed anything to make future zoonotic infections less likely, by improving the conditions in industrial animal farming, cutting back deforestation in a significant way or addressing any of the other contributing factors. And what has been made it even worse during COVID-19–since the social contract to protect the most vulnerable has been broken in a blatant way, all solidarity is now gone and eugenic convictions were able to take center stage. Again.
“Those who died were going to die anyway”
“Those who are vulnerable were vulnerable before”
Lies.
From the people in power, from most people on the political spectrum or the media i did not expect anything else. But to witness the same decrease in solidarity and rise in eugenics among large swaths of the radical left (to those who refuse to go there, i love you, you are the true radical left!), wow, that did take me by surprise. This continues to be the biggest bummer of them all. How could the radical left not see this pandemic as a huge opportunity to convert our convictions into practice? This destroyed me, who had always seen the radical left as our only hope to attain lasting change in this fucked up world, which is why i had pledged my solidarity to it for my entire life.
In the fall of 2022 i was at my lowest. My body kept betraying me and i was feeling suicidal. My entire social network had crumbled, and it had been small to begin with. That’s when i read, that some people had started to organize a big anarchist gathering in Saint-Imier for the following summer. I was exited to read about this, but also quite worried right away. So i tried to get involved in the organization with the explicit goal to make this a covid-safe gathering.
The ensuing exchange with the organizers would leave me disappointed and angry. It had already been decided. The anarchist [?] gathering in Saint-Imier would be held without any COVID-19 protections, which would exclude a number of people, including myself. I wrote about this elsewhere. These interactions with the organizers were traumatic for me. They upset me to this day.
For context, this was a time when many anarchist and socialist gatherings, especially in the so-called US and Canada were still organized with covid-safety in mind, many had masks-requirements and air filters and so on. Yet the international [!] anarchist [?] gathering in Saint-Imier had decided to not give a shit and thereby exclude many of us!? This could maybe explained by the fact that some of the organizers had been active in the anti-masker movement in so-called Switzerland over the previous years.
The absolute low point had been reached. But here came the twist. *cue violins* And out of this glamorous clusterfuck of a situation an amazing thing was eventually allowed to grow.
In a workshop i had proposed for the gathering in Saint-Imier, titled: The rise of ableism and eugenics [during the ongoing] the pandemic (description 1), i had intended to address this very same question. How could this normalization of a debilitating virus like COVID-19, sanctioned by the state and by capitalism, have managed to spread among self-proclaimed anarchists and radical leftists? How could ableism and eugenics have taken hold among anarchists, who in general tend to oppose such forms of oppression? But a short time before the gathering i needed to cancel the workshop, because it had gotten clear that i could neither attend this covid-unsafe gathering in person nor hold the workshop via remote access.
Meanwhile some people had already contacted me to express their interest in the workshop. Among them was this one person from Finland, who had written how they had started a “radical communal care” collective for disabled/chronically ill people and their carers.
This sounded fantastic, and of course my interest was peeked. By mail i asked them, if they were willing to meet me in a video call, to explain their collective to me a bit further, how it worked and how it had come about. They agreed.
In a Jitsi they explained to me that their collective had actually started in 2019, in other words already before the pandemic. The starting point had been a real life event. By using flyers and social media they had spread the word and invited people to a community center in Helsinki for a meeting for disabled/chronically ill people and their carers. About 20 people showed up to that first meeting and decided to turn this into an ongoing collective. Then, as the pandemic hit, they were stoked to already have such a structure in place. Because many of them, due to their health or to being cautious, had been pushed into self-isolation, the fate of many people in such a condition. In time the collective wrote a manifesto, it’s in Finnish, but an online translation should do a decent job to translate it. I have translated their beautiful writing to English, but i am still waiting for their permission to publish it. Find bellow a short excerpt 2.
I loved their concept, in particular because it involved the care givers. I was well aware what a burden this situation can be on partners, who often provide the care. Our own relationship was no different, my social isolation has strong repercussions on the life of my partner, who is in good health.
Later i talked with her about it and we both agreed. We wanted nothing more than to start a similar group, in order to exchange notes with others in comparable situations. A collective based on anarcho-feminist principles where care givers and care receivers (and it is never as one-sided as that, would be the point) interact on equal footing. But how to make this happen during an ongoing pandemic? In an ideal world such a group would be started with local people, who have met through an in-person event, exactly like the people in Helsinki had done this. But during an ongoing pandemic this was out of the question. So how could we make this happen?
After some further thinking about it, i decided to go ahead and write a toot about it on Mastodon, where i asked if anyone would be interested to start such a group online, that would be interacting on Signal and maybe Jitsi 3. This was a long shot and i had little hope. I just told myself, let’s just see what happens. If no one responds, fine. But who knows, maybe some people are interested?!
I always try to keep my expectations low. The preventive pessimism was misplaced in this case though. Because, lo and behold, the toot did speak to some people, who then contacted me. And a few days later, we started a group chat on Signal and a few further days later we had our first video chat on Jitsi. We later switched to Signal for our, in the meantime, bi-weekly video chats. And it has been going on ever since, and, fingers crossed, will keep going. As long as we all have internet 😉
During our first meeting i broke down in tears, that’s how much i was moved. This came as a complete surprise. I had been nervous before the meeting, my social anxieties and my fear of public speech didn’t help. But when i saw these friendly faces on the video screen i was so happy and sad at the very same time, that i broke down crying and couldn’t stop for long minutes. And the best thing, they gave me the space for it. And they didn’t leave. Our meetings have been less tearful since then, even though there would always be space for it.
We are five people now from three different countries in so-called Europe, a few others joined, but left again. Three of us have Long COVID, two are the partners. A great group of people. It gives me and, i hope and think, the others a lot of joy and maybe a sense of belonging. Some of it was luck, some of it was random, but, at least for now, it seems to work. But without these amazing people who per chance had found my toot and joined the group it might never have worked.
We are open to accept a few more people in our collective. If this speaks to you and you are in a comparable situation, if you are forced into self-isolation, because of the way the greater community of anarchists and radical leftists have been handling the pandemic, please feel free to contact us.
For me, our small online radical communal care collective has turned into a major part of my life. I always look forward to our meetings. Together we created a first zine: An Open Letter to our Anarchist, Socialist and Radical Leftist Comrades. And we are currently working on our second one: Work in progress title: Testimonials of the collectively abandoned. Contributions welcome.
If this interests you, if you already have a similar group, if would like to network with us or simply exchange notes, please feel free to contact us. We would love to hear from you.
(A)(A)(A)(A)(A)(A)(A)(A)(A)(A)(A)(A)(A)(A)(A)
So this is it. The pre-figurative practice I had hoped and longed for. I am aware. A lot of it might have been luck and it remains a fragile construct. I do not write this here to brag about it. But to hopefully inspire others to try to do the same.
As they wrote in the Finnish manifesto: Care brings people and communities together.
Let us build millions of radical communal care collectives. To then connect these in networks. To then form a world wide web of trust.
Let us mourn and laugh and cry and joke and rage together and start to build, out of nothing and from the bottom up, what should be a given.
Let us put our solidarity into practice.
Let us care for the carers, for those who care for those who are suffering, to hopefully take some weight off their shoulders.
Let us look at care without the cared for/carer subject/object division.
In the 80s (yes, i am old LOL) we used to have a slogan i liked. Bildet Banden. Which roughly translates to ‘build gangs’ or ‘rot yourself together in groups’. We also often used that other one, Nur Stämme werden überleben = Only Tribes Will Survive.
Today i propose to change it to: Build Radical Communal Care Collectives.
Such a collective does not need to based on health issues or the health care topic. Common denominators can also be: mental health, age, debt, gender, sexual preference or you name it. The common cause is secondary. Whatever the topic, if it isolates, if it makes people lonely, if it individualizes the responsibility, which after all is the aim of late stage neoliberal capitalism, it’s a good enough reason to build a radical communal care collective. Creating a committed environment for mutual aid and communal care these burdens might be made just that little bit more bearable.
This can work. For now. At least for as long as the internet keeps working.
Edit 18.1.2024: And just like that, one month after my naive and delusional words above, our group fell apart. After a first (mild, imho) disagreement three of the six people left our group, while we were in the midst of finishing our second zine. Just like that, poof, they were gone. Moved on to the next new shiny thing. Swiped left.
While it had been ongoing i had sometimes pinched myself, as i had trouble to believe our luck. We seemed to get along so well, despite the fact that we had (randomly) met over the internet, and also despite our cultural and age and other differences. In hindsight i understand, that i should not have believed it. Or rather, as soon as it does turn into a question of belief, it can fall apart and reveal itself as nothing more than an illusion.
This is not the place to discuss what our disagreement was. We had a conflict, that’s all, no problem per se. I always start from the assumption that disagreements and conflicts are bound to happen in any group. But also, when they do happen, this will show what the group is made off. What counts here above all, conflicts can be seen as a test.
These are very basic points, but worth repeating in our continued effort not to see the world in black and white, but instead with nuance. There was no one to blame or at fault. It always takes several parties for any conflict or disagreement to happen. That’s why it is irrelevant what our conflict was about. Or who may have “started” it, another classic. The relevant message: people up and left, after a first disagreement, in the midst of an unfinished, common project, and not without dropping sarcastic and passive-aggressive accusations before “x left the room”. As painful as this was, and still is, it showed that our group, sadly, had in fact been an illusion.
In anarchy any individual is valued to such a degree that they can veto any group decision. Of course, the veto right should never be abused, say for individual gain, for instance, or as a power game. The group interests take precedent over those of the individual. Yet still, this is an expression of the principle that there can be certain cases, where an individual is capable to understand what the group needs, should decide or to spot a particular danger, better than a group potentially lost in a collusion or delusional dynamic. The veto right shows to what extent each individual and their analytical faculty is valued. So certainly when one group member deems it important to raise a problematic issue in the group, this not only represents a much less dramatic use case than vetoing a decision, but it should be valued, invited even and for sure not lead to people leaving the group while dropping hurtful, blaming and sarcastic remarks on the way out.
What a huge disappointment. What had started with tears, ended in tears.
How could we not have seen this coming? In hindsight one is always wiser. It was our despair and our loneliness that had lead us to trust these people. Their commitment to the group had been conditional and limited, at best. After this debacle, the thing i regret the most, is not to have stress-tested these conditions and limitations much, very much, earlier. Certainly before opening our hearts and allowing them to get filled with hope for a future that seemed so much less lonely and desperate.
It is often said, never trust strangers that you randomly meet on the internet. But that is not my conclusion at all. It can’t be for me, and for us, it’s not even an option. We live socially isolated during an ongoing pandemic while everyone around us has moved on, and as such we depend on people we randomly meet on the internet, who still live COVID cautious.
What i would say is this: Do trust them, to a careful degree at first, but then, early on, commit a lot of time and effort to build or deepen the trust by stress-testing its foundation and their commitment to the group. Do not shy away from conflicts, do not swallow your emotions. Be real to see how real this can become.
If, under these conditions, you want to join our group, please contact us.
1. The title for the workshop on the website read: The rise of ableism and eugenics *after* the pandemic, but i could have sworn i initially wrote *during the ongoing*. I suspect this was changed by an admin, but have no way to prove it.
“The COVID pandemic is still raging, still killing too many people, but also disabling people on a massive scale with long COVID. We are witnessing a veritable mass disabling event. This creates a new marginalized underclass of sick, disabled people, for whom along with other folks with pre-existing conditions or the immunocompromised the pandemic is still a very restrictive force in their day to day life, that forces them into self-isloation, depression and despair.
Yet, the world seems to have move on, pretending like the pandemic never happened. And in order to do this ableist and eugenic narratives are being spread left and right, which has historically been a precursor to fascism. Capitalism has always defined health, but is also dependent on healthy people as a work force. There is also a huge potential for revolt hidden there.
Sadly even the anarchist community is behaving very irresponsibly, the individualistic strain prevails, by excluding disabled people and pretending like everything is back to normal.
This cannot stand.
The anarchist community must fight at the forefront with the sick and the disabled who are being declared surplus under capitalism.”
Care is intrinsic, important and creative
Caring is the condition of life and at the heart of the flow of life. The power of individuals and communities lies in their ability to renew life.
Care is a basic necessity of life, just like water, air, food and shelter.
Care is more than the dull, physical routine it is usually perceived to be. Care should be seen from a bigger perspective, that includes the creative process it involves.
Care should be viewed without the cared for-caregiver subject-object division.
Care brings people and communities together.
Joy, pleasure, growth, development, recovery or a life free from pain and suffering are not possible without care.
3. Here’s that toot:
Yesterday i spoke with a person who with her partner has started a anarcho-feminist radical care group. This actually got started before the pandemic with an in-person meeting, but during the pandemic they kept going with written and video chats. About 10 people are involved, loose yet committed. Together they created an ever expanding anti-ableist structure. Sometimes they speak about the broader political and social context of care work examined from a radical perspective. And at other times it’s about putting it into practice, about simply being there for each other. All of them are either chronically ill and/or disabled themselves or have partners who are.
This is what i hope we can build now.
Please let me know what you think.
[They have written a beautiful manifesto, and i have started to translate it, but i have to wait for them to get back to me, if i can share it. Let’s hope]
10.12.23 Small edit expanding our first meeting.