A timely reminder about the need for community solidarity...

The rage baiters, race baiters and divide and rule merchants have certainly been having a lot to say for themselves recently, haven’t they? One of the most recent incidents sparking the aforementioned into apoplectic rage was at the Glastonbury music festival where Bob Vylan was leading the crowd in chanting ‘Death to the IDF!’ This really got the rage baiters foaming at the mouth, with calls for Bob Vylan to be prosecuted for ‘hate speech’.

The imprisonment of Lucy Connolly last year for a hastily withdrawn comment on X after the killing of three young girls in Southport last year is being used as comparative justification for these calls. It should be noted that Avon & Somerset Police are currently investigating what happened with Bob Vylan, and also with the Irish rap act, Kneecap, who also appeared at the festival: Update: Investigation into comments made on stage at Glastonbury Festival.

It has been said by some free speech advocates that no matter what you may think of Lucy Connolly on the one hand, and Bob Vylan and Kneecap on the other, unless it can be proven beyond doubt that there is incitement to cause harm to specific individuals or groups, they should not be subject to any kind of sanction. Free speech applies across the board, no matter how abhorrent some of the views being expressed may be to some people. As a bit of an aside, regarding Connolly, it has been argued by some that she is in fact a psyop aimed at justifying further clampdowns on what can be expressed online: The dirty laundry of Democracy 3 (aired by Lucy Connolly).

Bloody culture wars eh? Designed to divide us. Designed to get us at each others throats. Designed to atomise us and create a state of fear. Designed to get us looking to the authorities to come in with draconian laws to keep the lid on the situation, all in the name of ‘safety’. Problem, reaction, solution. Something that people who really should know better keep falling for, time after bloody time. Which for those of us working to promote neighbourhood solidarity as the foundation for successful community projects is a massive headache. It’s almost as if there are forces that don’t want to see successful, autonomous grassroots projects...hang on a minute, there are forces who don’t want this!

All of this is why I feel compelled to re-post the piece below which was first posted on our sister blog, At the grassroots and was also published in an earlier edition of one of our papers. For us, community cohesion and solidarity are vital so, those who attempt to undermine this, regardless of their political perspectives or motivations, need to be called out for who they are.

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Building neighbourhood solidarity and resilience

With the grassroots community projects we promote and do our level best to support, there's one key fundamental and that's generating a sense of neighbourhood solidarity. We're not talking about an exclusive sense of solidarity centred on one particular group - we're talking about the kind that respects the variety of people that go to make up a neighbourhood.

This recognises that while people can be very different from each other, they can all play a role in making a neighbourhood a better place to live. It's the kind of solidarity that our rulers hate because it means people have seen beyond their games of divide and rule aimed at making us nothing more than selfish, atomised, uncaring producers and consumers. It's what we'll need in an increasingly uncertain future as we face rampant food price inflation and possible supply chain disruption down to a range of factors that stretch from geo-political instability through to incompetence.

This is the kind of scenario where life in an atomised neighbourhood where no one knows or trusts their neighbours could start to get uncomfortable. The kind of scenario where neighbourhood resilience cannot happen because everyone is fearful of everyone else. The kind of scenario where the authorities can control us because we fear and can't trust each other. Basically, a nightmare scenario that no caring human wants.

This explains why we support community projects that bring people together, regardless of their backgrounds. At the end of the day, whoever we are and wherever we're from, we all want to live in a neighbourhood where people look out for and care for each other. A neighbourhood that in an age of failing public services can provide networks of support for its more vulnerable members. A neighbourhood that's making steps to take control of its food supply with community gardens/allotments, community food kitchens, food buying groups and the like. A neighbourhood that once it gains a degree of self confidence about looking after itself, will start to ask some searching questions about power, who exercises it and how it has to be brought right down to the grassroots.

So, while At the Grassroots may on the surface seem to be a 'fluffy' project, what we're about is building the new world in the shell of the crumbling one we have to live in at the moment. The key to success in that project is building neighbourhood solidarity and resilience so we can not only survive the challenges of the dysfunctional world we currently live in but we can also start to build the saner, juster and more sustainable one we desire.