Due to the pandemic we decided not to print an issue of Organise! but we are publishing one online instead. The current special issue contains articles by AF, member federations of our International, and others we like. Read online: http://organisemagazine.org.uk/2020/04/15/organise-pandemic-special/ Download the special issue PDF here: http://afed.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/organise_pandemic_special_issue_spring_2020.pdf

Contents:

We’re at a very strange time in our lives.

In the first week of April, one third of renters in America did not pay. Here in the UK, tenants’ unions swell at such a rate that it’s hard for them to keep up the admin as the call for rent strike saturate social media. The imminent pandemic has seen some four thousand mutual aid collectives spring up as around the world workers have taken to strike action, securing victories across the board.

The same bastards who laughed as they blocked a pay rise for nurses now clapping on the door step and calling them heroes. As they do that, half a dozen nurses die alone because in 2017 the Tories ignored advice to stockpile PPE. They couldn’t see the cost/benefit.

Labour meanwhile have voted in a centrist as top dog. He’s more likely to win they say. Never mind that his politicalls spit in the face of everything that just a few months ago they swore they believed in whole heartedly. The fantasy of radical reform in the ballot box now tumbling down around the wishful thinkers.

The DOW Jones had it’s best day since 1933.

The streets are filling up with a revolutionary susurration, you talk to anyone on your daily allotted mooch and you’ll hear how pissed they are, how close they are to spilling over. The boss has fucked them over, landlord’s demanding rent and four weeks ago the governments plan was to let their nan die to protect the economy.

Now the cops want to snoop in your shopping and lock you up if they don’t think it was an essential trip. People aren’t fools and they can read past the saccharine smiles and promises. The stench of Tory hubris oozes out of the TV screen on a nightly basis and the people are waiting in limbo holding their breath, waiting. Not only for lock down to be over but for something to happen, a spark of change.

The fealty capitalism had built up with it’s promises of comfort and security have been washed away.The names of dead nurses betrayed by the state will not be forgotten and the “we’re a family” bullshit from your boss even harder to buy. We’re heading into the peak of Covid-19’s death rates and the majority of people are sat at home realising just how disposable we are to them, how little the preventable deaths of family and friends means to them.
Left wondering, “what can I do about it?”
Now is the time for revolutionary anarchists and our fellow travellers to shoot for the brass hoop and take action.

We must stop with the dilly dally and set about work empowering the local voices. We need to be push back and get busy organising at the grass root, setting up ad hoc tenants unions, strike assemblies and fronts for action various. It is critical that we help empower our communities as the government continues to spew false promises and lies. Our greatest weapon right now is every day mutual aid, the more we strengthen the bonds in our neighbourhoods the more people come to the realisation that they don’t need any parasite, blue or red, to tell them who they are and what they should do with their lives.

We cannot sit idle, waiting for the lock down to pass and for things to return to normal. That would be a return to an insidious sickness, the abusive worship of capitalism. No, we must organise and strike back. That begins with sharing ideas and taking inspiration from each other.

Pulled together in short notice and little rough on the edges this special edition of Organise! contains a wealth of statements, thoughts and plans for action that I hope inspire you to get your people together and get plotting.

We are but a small drop in the ocean, please take the time to look up the organisations who made contributions and read more about what they do and how they go about it.

After you’ve finished reading I highly suggest taking time to catch up on the ongoing coverage from the likes of Freedom News and Libcom. You’ll also find a compilation of articles from across the Anarchist spectrum from The Anarchist Library that is well worth diving into.

Check in with your local groups, find out what they are up to and how you can get involved in organising down your ends. If you are organising, you are winning. Reach within you, and find the means by which to take back your freedom. Your fate and that of everyone you know, depends on it.

Together we are stronger.
To the revolution now!

Peter Ó Máille
Editor of Organise!