Prefigurative Politics

An interview with a friend at Left Forum and her experiences in prefigurative politics in New York City through community living, Food Not Bombs and other projects, like radical feminism.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• food not bombs
• surreal estate
• anarchism
• radical politics
• socialism
• commune
• community
• anarcha-feminism
• Left Forum 2009
• New York City
• Bushwick Park

[Irtidad]

Really interesting. Makes me a bit sad to hear all the difficulties, but this really strong sense of community is really fascinating. It reminds me of my Arabic professor. She grew up in al-Maghazi refugee camp in the middle of Gaza, and the alleyways between the little houses were so narrow that you could just open your kitchen window and reach into the other person's kitchen. Any time you cooked anything, all the neighbors could smell it, and they'd all come over to your house to eat.

[buddhagem]

Yeah this was my favorite interview. Their space--Surreal Estate--has some really incredible activities/events/parties going on. So it was great to hear her talk about her experiences in some detail. It's so important that we as Anarchists realize that smashing the state and ending Capitalism is but a small part of the puzzle. There's lots of other work to be done and that's why prefigurative practices are so important.

[Irtidad]

For sure. I think just throwing out the state without having ideas for what to do afterwards is a pretty risky way to go about things. Fortunately, there are already anarchistic ways of doing things even within State Capitalist society, we just need to emphasize them some more and bring them out.

[Irtidad]

Or it reminds me of Riverside, California, where I was born and lived for the first couple years of my life. My parents lived in a little neighborhood originally meant for the families of US soldiers fighting in the Pacific Theater in WW2, and the houses were pretty small and there were no fences. Everybody knew everybody, and everybody loved it.