We have a paper:)
Back in June, we posted this: We’re going to be bringing out a paper:) Well, the At the Grassroots paper is back from the printer and ready for distribution. We’ll be handing out the papers on any relevant protests and pickets in Bath and Bristol. We’ll also be attending events such as vegan and community fairs to distribute them. What we also want to do is find venues who sympathise with our aims and would be happy to take a bundle of papers for their patrons. Obviously, any help we can get with distribution will be greatly appreciated. If you think you can help in any way, our contact details can be found on the About page. As we’ve mentioned before, the long term aim is to make this project a collaborative effort. Getting involved with the distribution of the paper will be an important step towards helping us to achieve this. As we can only afford a limited print run, we're making the paper available as a downloadable PDF. The text and images from the paper are reproduced below:
Doing it for ourselves where it matters
It’s easy to know what you’re against in a dysfunctional, unsustainable and increasingly dystopian world. Railing against the world we have to endure may make you feel better but…does it lead to positive change? We know that the political, economic and social system we inhabit is rapidly heading towards its use by date and that we have to bring about radical change if we’re going to survive.
There are many ways of bringing about the change that's needed. What At the Grassroots is about is what can be done in the here and now to boost community cohesion, neighbourhood resilience and sustainability in an increasingly volatile world. It's about building the new world we need and want in the decaying shell of the one we currently have to endure.
That means grassroots initiatives and projects at the neighbourhood level that start to make a difference right now. Essentially, it's about experimenting with and building what we want to see in the new world, while recognising that what can be achieved is subject to the constraints of the world as it currently is. As these projects grow and have more influence, those constraints may well start to loosen their grip as better ways of organising our lives and communities emerge.
It could be a community garden that gets people asking questions about how their food is produced. It could be a repair cafe that goes beyond merely fixing household items to challenge the basis of the unsustainable consumer society we inhabit. What we're interested in are projects that prompt people to start questioning the world we live in. It's also about grassroots projects set up in such a way that people involved in them are empowered to start self organising without the need for leaders.
That's what we want to achieve with At the Grassroots - encouraging and supporting the process of grassroots initiatives linking up to support each other, exchanging ideas and experiences so they can grow together. Bringing projects like these together has the potential to create something considerably greater than the sum of its parts. That's how we'll start to bring about some real change.
Building neighbourhood solidarity and resilience
With the grassroots community projects we want to 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 a 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.
Digging for victory?
As you will gather from reading this paper and the At the Grassroots blog, we're pretty passionate about localising food production. This is because whoever controls the food supply, controls the population. When food production is decentralised and localised, it's a lot harder for government and the corporations to exert their malign control over us. Also, localised food production is a lot less vulnerable to disruption than the complex, 'just in time' supply chain we have at the moment.
If you have been following the news, you will be aware that certain elements among those who presume to rule over us, plus their mates in the media, are talking up the prospect of war with Russia in the not too distant future. The drumbeats of war are getting worryingly louder. The propaganda war is already underway. This is on top of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East that the UK has allowed itself to be sucked into.
There has been a fair bit of coverage about the increasing threat of war with Russia in the mainstream media. Among this, there have been some pieces speculating on what the impact of war would be on the population of the UK. This is one such piece: What war could mean for life in modern Britain - Colin Freeman | The Telegraph | 27.1.24. Amongst the impacts discussed, food security is one of them. It has been pointed out that given how much food we currently import, an all out war with Russia could mean strict rationing and shortages in the face of supply chains being attacked and disrupted. To counter this, it's been suggested that the UK seriously starts to rely less on imports and more on home grown and produced food.
It could be made out by some mischievous elements that there's an overlap between our principles of decentralising and localising food production on the one hand, and on the other, those advocating for more home produced food to counter the threat of severe supply chain disruption in the event of war. We want to make it abundantly clear that there is in fact, no such overlap. We are not going to allow our principles about food production and supply to be co-opted into a nationalistic 'Dig For Victory' campaign. If anyone does ever attempt to do this, we will be issuing a pretty strong rebuke to them.
A 'Dig For Victory' campaign is essentially the state marshalling our labour to fulfil their malevolent war aims. It has absolutely nothing to do with our principles of the decentralisation and localisation of food production which is aimed at lessening and eventually eliminating our dependence on the state and the corporations, neither of which have our interests at heart. We hope that is abundantly clear to all of our supporters and readers and also, any warmongers who may be tempted to co-opt and twist our principles to suit their nefarious aims.
The Directory
We want the emphasis for this project to be on helping the work of building the new world we want in the shell of the decaying, dysfunctional and increasingly dystopian one we're currently forced to endure. Essentially, what we're talking about is prefigurative politics which can be defined thus:
Prefigurative politics are the modes of organization and social relationships that strive to reflect the future society being sought by the group. According to Carl Boggs, who coined the term, the desire is to embody "within the ongoing political practice of a movement [...] those forms of social relations, decision-making, culture, and human experience that are the ultimate goal".[1] Prefigurativism is the attempt to enact prefigurative politics.
Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefigurative_politics
What we eventually want to achieve with At the Grassroots is to promote and where possible, support projects that each in their own way, help to empower people in making where they live a better place. Doing so in a way that gives them more power over what happens in their neighbourhoods and how they develop. It's about bringing power down to the grassroots where we're accountable to each other. Also, it's about starting to build parallel systems so that when the one we're in inevitably fails, we're already well on the way to building the world we want. By building these parallel systems, we're starting to withdraw our consent for the existing system we currently endure to keep on screwing us over.
One of our very modest contributions in the struggle to achieve these aims is this: The Directory
This lists a number of grassroots projects operating in Bristol, Bath and the wider Avon region. They range from community vegetable growing plots and community food banks through to repair cafes and what can best be described as neighbourhood solidarity groups. This compilation is very much in its early days and we know there's a fair bit of work needed to bring it anywhere near to being a reasonably comprehensive resource. Any help in achieving this from anyone in the Avon region will be gratefully accepted.
The common theme linking all of these projects is the desire people have to make where they live a better, more equitable place to be. They all rely on volunteers to keep them going. Volunteering being the proof that despite the onslaught of neo-liberal propaganda, most people realise that co-operation with each other is the best way to improve our lives. It's also proof that many people want more control over where they live.