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Title: Free the Islands Author: Laya Date: 2020 Language: en Topics: Philippines, introductory Source: Retrieved on 2020–05025 from https://laya.noblogs.org
We live in an Archipelago of 7,641 islands, alongside a colorful and
diverse tapestry of languages, peoples and cultures whose common ground
for contact has been the sea. The sea connects people and their
identities together, forming concrete, intersecting relationships of
varying degree. Our histories, both recorded and unwritten, are defined
by these connections and our mutual differences. We are not defined by a
flag or any other symbol, we were simply bound to each other. We also
cherish to live free and peaceful lives and our history is marked by
many upheavals which sought to remove these injustices of authority:
Dagohoy, Hermano Pule, Tamblot, Silang, Bonifacio.
But are we free? Are our lives truly our own? Do we really have a say in
how we should run ourselves?
You might look around and see outright that this is not so. There is
poverty everywhere. There are police abusing their power all over the
news. People are intimidated from challenging authority and the
government holds our lives hostage in their management of a crisis that
they themselves ignored at the start. It is fine to feel like you cannot
do anything; it is a human thing. But we have had our better days
before. Many people have tried to fight for theirs, and we can, too.
We just have to make them.
Growing up, we were taught that we have freedom. As an individual and
together as groups, we have the right to think whatever we want, believe
whatever we want, and do anything (as long as it is legal). We take
things for granted, we do things that are dumb. It is a free country, as
they say. We can live as we please.
But what is freedom?
The freedom being described at the beginning is one of two definitions
of liberty. Positive liberty is the freedom to do whatever you please,
while the other, negative liberty is the freedom from others bothering
or trying to do something to you. Both look valid, but at the same time
it seems you can not have one without the other — if we can do whatever
we want, we can step on each other because we are free to do so, but if
we are free to be left alone, then other people can not step on our
freedom.
Positive liberty and negative liberty are two ends of the same pole. To
truly seek freedom and have it is to understand it. We have to realize
what freedom really means. Of course, agency — the capability of ours to
make choices — involves us knowing what our choices are.
Let us not treat freedom as a thing that is given to us, like a pass in
which we agree with the terms of those who make the rules. Rather let us
treat freedom as something that we own. In one sense, a person’s liberty
ends where another begins. To be free, is to be sovereign — to rule
oneself and nobody else — not to simply leave all of our inhibitions and
stop considering about other people. To be free is to enjoy a vast space
of possibilities in which we exist, to have as much choices in life as
possible. To chart our own course! To enter and leave in things as we
please! To be anything!
To be truly free — to be liberated of constraints — can only mean to
have more branches in our paths of life. It means to not confined within
some arbitrary box or a bubble of our own isolation, but radiating ever
outward into the world. Freedom is openness. Rather than thinking of
every person as an island, we are together an archipelago where we all
sink and rise in the same tides, connected in a vast sea in which we can
swim or sail to others and simply stay in ours as we wish. The sea
belongs solely no one and everyone at the same time. Our freedom is
interdependent with others and is bound up together. We will be free
when we regard our fellow siblings as equals and free.
To be free is to be capable of living as ourselves, as individuals and
as with others. And when we help others to be one, we call it
liberation.
Many people consider themselves “free” and in control their own lives.
In some cases this is true. You can believe whatever you want to
believe. You can go into whatever career you want to get involved with.
And you get to decide what to do with your time. But, if all of that
were true, why would so much talk about “work and life balance” and
“fighting for your dreams” even happen if it were really all that easy?
That is because the “freedom” we have all been taught is the freedom for
the very few, the freedom to do anything and everything one wants to do,
because they can. And the freedom of these very few, defined by the
subjugation of the many is no freedom at all. This is hierarchy, placing
the interests of only one section of humanity above the rest. All those
not part of this elite club are forced to just follow along.
The freedom we want to put forward here is a more radical — literally
going to the root of the matter — form of freedom: Freedom from the
domination of hierarchy, in whatever form it takes.
Freedom to express yourself? What about freedom from persecution because
of your religious or sexual identity? Freedom from discrimination,
sexism, and transphobia?
Freedom to choose your career path? What about freedom from having to
participate in an economic system designed to grab as much work out of
you for the least pay possible? What about freedom from precarious
living arrangements that force people into the most convenient,
short-term occupations?
Freedom to love? What about freedom from toxic relationships, not only
in a moral sense, but also a material one? Most domestic abuse goes
unreported because the victims can not find any other places to go in
the event of an incident, instead choosing to stay and receive more
abuse.
George Orwell wrote of power in his book 1984: “imagine a boot stomping
on a human face — forever.” The freedom we are taught today is the
freedom to step on other people. The freedom we present to you is the
freedom from that boot — freedom from the power of another. Freedom from
hierarchy itself.
The fuel that keeps hierarchy going is authority.
We have seen authority defined as a “power to influence or command
thought, opinion, or behavior,” or authority as “people who command.” By
these definitions, authority at its most basic is when is people impose
their will upon others. Ever had a boss power-tripping just because?
Domineering “friends” insisting they know what is best for everyone? Or
parents actively trying to force you into a path you have no stake in?
Or someone holding your money hostage just to get you to do something
you do not want?
These things do not have no good reason to exist and exist only out of
the personal desire of the person wielding that authority. People
bothering you to be something, or forcing you to follow along what only
they want. They are everywhere! Eventually, it just becomes a fact of
life, something we are used to, to the point that we stopped even
thinking about questioning the problem here.
So from these grounds, authority maintains hierarchy and restricts ones
freedom. So what happens when authority extends to something wider?
The state, as political theorist Peter Kropotkin defines, is a
territorial concentration of power in the hands of a few situated above
society. In another perspective, sociologist Max Weber defines the state
as a group or an institution that maintains a “monopoly on violence”–in
that only they have the structural power to do anything to everyone.
Basically, the state is power excluding society at large. This applies
to all governments, whether they answer to a king, a president, or a
dictator. It may be an elite class, a vanguard, an oligarchy, or any
other happy few who act in the name of something or someone. A state is
necessarily a concentration of power, else it would not be a state. The
few of which power is concentrated into use coercion to maintain its own
power through the use of apparatuses of violence like the military or
police. To the state, this use of violence is legitimate and will use
this violence to wage war against its own people in order to reproduce
their rule.
Under the current republic in the archipelago, it would seem as if
people have some control over the state. After all, we are told to “vote
wisely.” But do not you notice that it is always the same names, the
same families and same parties? Choosing from whoever the few people
with the real power have chosen is no choice at all. Not only is this
choice an illusion, so is the supposed “control” our votes have on “our”
representatives. The extent of our acceptable participation in politics
is restricted to voting and “running” for office — and it is a rare
occasion for someone without influence, patronage and the resources to
be taken seriously by those established.
These established elected officials are the ones who make the rules that
shape the rules that dictate how we should exist. The actions of
government seem arbitrary and serve only their own interests.
Is it not absurd, that the representatives of the state have the final
say on:
that looks “suspicious” (Anti-Terror Act 2020),
as E-VAT and TRAIN Law),
Molo), and
people, they disregard it for their own interests as we saw in the drug
war killings, and extrajudicial killings!
With this, we pin our little hopes to people who sell us sweet promises
of uplifting our lives only if we elect them. We swoon for public
officials doing the bare minimum in a crisis because the alternative is
those who only care about their own interests. A progressive president,
mayor, or governor is in an uphill battle — it is not just a question of
managing things, they also have to contend for their lives with an elite
who see them as a threat to their own interests. We have seen
progressive figures be invited to serve in the largest echelons of state
but are rejected by the apparatus themselves. And if we seize power, we
will have to keep it from being taken from us — that means we will have
to repeat the same cycle of hierarchy, coercion, suffering, and death
that the last rulers have so comfortably sat on.
If we finally succeed in a revolution and decide to replace the
government with another government, with a new army and a new police and
a new everything, what changes then? Will we fare better in five years?
Ten years? Fifty?
There is a lot of talk about Capitalism as a “free economy,” if not the
“freest.” Of course, it would seem obvious. Capital has been seen as the
main driver of progress and personal prosperity. There is a logic where,
you own something and you make use of its resources, you sell and make a
lot of money out of it, grow your operations and then be able to afford
Netflix after that. If you are unable to do so, you may render your
services to others and make a living of it. Money flows, everyone wins!
But if that was the case, why do so many people starve, in many cases
right outside of large fast-food restaurants and supermarkets? Why do so
many parents work themselves down to the bone to make ends meet? Why do
so many mothers live with the anxiety of getting evicted from their own
homes?Why are there so many new condominiums and residential
developments but still so many people living in shanties or homeless?
Why do we live in apparent abundance while at the same time living with
scarcity?
How much do the rank-and-file workers of any enterprise get, compared to
the value they make for the business? Leaving the workforce to fight for
scraps on the shop floor leaves one with stories of workplace politics
that I am sure everyone has heard of before. That does not even mention
the long-term effects of being forced to do things a certain way just
because some aloof, profit-chasing middle manager could increase revenue
by half-a-percent. And if all of that is happening to a single person —
imagine how it would impact their daily life, how much of their
workplace troubles unintentionally gets brought back home.
So let us say you were able to start a business of your own. Great! Now
you can try to serve your community directly, emphasis on “try.” That is
because what usually ends up happening is that you become a wage-earner
in your own right by serving both your landlord and your creditors (the
banks), and if you are able to start your own business without getting
into a large amount of debt, you might not be who we are trying to reach
with this piece. Talk to any small businessperson and they will tell you
how many sleepless nights they have pulled to keep the business afloat,
all so the bank will not repossess their shop, farm or house.
But then, you figure out that if you hire people to do all the dirty
work of “work” for you, and getting favorable zoning/tax legislation
from local government. And the higher you go, then you just repeat the
same problem you have had with your bosses, just to someone else. The
cycle continues.
The hell of capitalism is the same as that of authority and states — it
is the massive power of the few at the expense of all of us.
The power of the state and capital seems inescapable. But it is
important to remember that they aren’t as powerful as they think. They
can’t touch the entire world however they want it. There are many spaces
in which authority cannot reach us. All we need is to find them, or make
them.
In liberation, we do not act because we want to lead a revolution, nor
wage “war for the people,” because no one can free us but ourselves. We
act because we can, and any small act we can do lays the foundation for
something greater than ourselves. Our liberation is tied up together; we
will be secure in our freedom when everyone around us are also free.
There are many ways in which we could expand our freedom just by
establishing places where freedom is possible among ourselves. This is
the strategy of creating autonomous spaces. A key feature that we should
keep in mind is trust. As CrimethInc. puts it, “unlike authority, trust
centers power in the hands of those who confer it, not those who receive
it.” Who needs authority when you have trust? You would not let someone
boss you around just because, would you? In focusing on each other and
our immediate world, we are planting the seeds in which a free society
may rise. From it, anything may grow.
There may be seeds, but it can only grow if you water them. And if there
are many seeds, then we should water them like rain. The path to a freer
society is one built along the lines of us doing what we can in our own
little way, together. There is no singular path towards our collective
liberation.
If there is a giant rock blocking your path, the first thing that would
probably think of would be to either hop over it or move it aside. If
you move it aside, it does two things: you let yourself through, and you
potentially let other people walking the same path through. By this
small act you, yourself just did something to achieve a goal that also
helps everyone that would have to deal with the same problem. This is
direct action at its most basic, and it is something that showed
results.
One of the greatest examples of direct action in our recent times has
happened during the Coronavirus crisis. The government’s response to the
crisis was to enforce a militaristic solution to a health crisis. The
Extended Community Quarantine was mainly handled by the military, and
started as a military- and police-enforced lockdown. The President
ordered violators of the Extended Community Quarantine to be shot dead
while threatening military action against critics. There was a lack of
mass testing to actually gauge how bad the situation was. Food aid was
inconsistent and at times nonexistent from the central government,
prompting LGUs and civil society to bear the brunt of helping those
trapped in the situation. And once these groups were showed more results
compared to what the government was doing, the central government decide
to reprimand them!
All these issues piling up led to massive outrage accross the political
spectrum, even conservatives were calling for the president to step
down. There was a certain feeling that a future protest action that
could include everyone was underway. The following day, the
administration relented, reversed the reprimands, moved to pledge money
to the pandemic effort, and even declared for free mass testing! This
happened all before any actual direct action had happened. It not only
showed that the government is not as all-powerful as we thought, but
also shows how much what we can achieve should we act
One of the more long-term (and complete) forms of direct action is dual
power. Dual power is the idea that we should build institutions outside
the purview of the state and capital. Forming networks and links of
trust with others while forming counter-institutions—intended not just
to build solidarity with people, but to also make so that the people
only depend on themselves and each other, not the state. Some notable
examples of dual power in real life are:
and also work and benefit from it together. It does not have to look
like a garden, just that it produces fruits and vegetables. If you live
in a city, keep your fruit seeds and put them on a pot with dirt on it.
If you have leftover vegetables like lettuce, kangkong, mongo and
onions, put them in trays of shallow water with sunlight on it. You will
not believe the yield you will have from the seeds of a single chili
pepper or a single tomato. You could keep it just outside of your home
or on an open space in your neighborhood. Let your neighbors
participate!
fix and create tools for our daily needs against the planned obsolesence
of some modern technologies. Your local repairman or mechanic seems to
be more trustworthy than an Apple Tech who would suggest you would
replace your gadget with a new one instead. There is also international
initiatives towards making medicine accessible to people where medical
help is expensive — from Open Source Pharma to Four Thieves Vinegar.
People also sent out free schematics on how to make your own medical
equipment duringin the time of the pandemic. People are weaving their
own masks, crafting personal protective equipment, and making manuals on
how to make their own plants grow.
members and create a stronger defense against criminal activity in
communities. People can and will stop crime themselves if given the
power. If a snatcher or any other thief drops his gun, concerned people
will move together to stop them before he gets that weapon. There is a
“women’s patrol” in Pateros to keep clear of potential vigilante groups
killing people. This community-based vigilance became an impetus for
their communities to return to relative safety.
alternatives for public welfare, basic services and aid relief. Mutual
aid is people pooling together to make something helpful from what they
have. Free schools such as Kariton Klasrum and small study groups as a
form of alternative education tools. Community kitchens like the ones
being run at Sitio San Roque where the residents themselves are made by
the residents for everyone. Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPS)
run by and for rural communities in the US and Europe.
they are not under the oversight of larger financial institutions.
where workers themselves become stakeholders and managers of the means
of production. Cooperative ventures allow for a more sustainable form of
employment in the face of corporations seeking to curb worker’s rights.
A lot of cooperatives around the world exist; the most successful of
them being Mondragon in Spain, while there are also notable collective
agricultural ventures like the Palaymanan Farmer-Partner’s Association
in Bohol.
sure that everyone has a home that they would be proud to call theirs.
Examples include the Canadian Cohousing Network and the
transgenerational housing projects in the Netherlands.
In these situations people give what they have and what they know in
order to help as much people as possible. And a lot of these are just
everyday things!
pool your resources to pass your requirements. Studying together instead
of individually can result in easier time passing requirements.
managed by the community themselves. If you are an engineer or an
electrician, you could offer your skills to install stuff such as solar
panels or lighting, or just help with machinery.
gardens or grafting fruiting branches.
to pirate books, films, music and media kept from a paywall for free
distribution.
the red tape of the educational system and set up a community school.
ensure that vital skills are never lost. You can organzie paid or
renumerated internships and apprenticeship programs make sure that there
will never be a shortage of capable hands and minds.
The possibilities are endless, so long as you have the will to do it.
“But how is this different from charity work?”—one may ask. Mutual aid
differs from charity because people do it for themselves instead of
waiting on others to help them. Mutual aid is something that does not
just throw people a bone, it is an effort to get ourselves moving
without the help of a higher authority.
Mutual aid networks can band together to form large, self-sustaining
networks that turns their economic power into a political force and dual
power that could one day directly contend with the powers of state,
capital, hierarchy, and authority. There may be a time when the state
crumbles under the weight of its own corruption and our networks can
swoop in to abolish the remnants of hierarchy and capitalist oppression,
as it has happened once in Rojava in the Middle East. Our networks of
mutual aid can potentially outlast the state as it is the people
themselves who are involved and who sustain it. They hold a stake in it.
You hold a stake in it.
Imagine if the things we are doing right now outlast governments in the
future. Imagine it continuing beyond ourselves. Imagine it blooming
beyond what we started with. At the end of it all, it is just people,
people living as they will and depending on each other. It would be a
real ecosystem where our own niches as individuals change as we please.
We set our own time, our own work, our own worth.
From childhood we have been taught to share. We have been taught to
speak up and explain why we think the way we do. We are taught that if
we do that for ourselves, we will be able to get further in life. And we
could get further in life, assuming you get lucky, meet the right
people, and kiss the right boots. But we are not free within capitalism
and we are not free under the thumb of the state.
A free society does not need bosses and patrons, or servants and
underlings. There is no center, no group of people to please, no ideas
to follow without doubt, and no person to step on and be stepped by.
Everyone is on an equal field, trying to develop themselves and the
people around them. Everyone simply works at their own pace, and
everyone receives the fruits of their labor. You go to get some
vegetables on a market, and instead of immediately asking for something
in exchange, they just gave it to you because they know the clothes you
helped make, or the games you stream while testing them, are going right
back to them in the end, all in a roundabout cycle of care and
gratitude. This is an economy based on needs rather than profits. “I
scratch your back, and you scratch mine.” This highest valued-currency
is reciprocity.
Reciprocity does not end just on your community — what about other
communities? Not just all around the archipelago, but also throughout
the whole world! Being able to freely share things, ideas and resources
from one end of the country to another thanks to technology allowing us
to directly connect to people from far away. And with those tools we
might be able to remake the luxuries we once cannot have. We can
collaborate on new things with anyone and everyone. The possibilities
are endless.
When we are governed by no-one, we open our affairs to the world. That
is what a free society is.
All over the world, people are also fighting for freedom — true freedom
— against the systems that seek to control and exploit them. Many rise,
many fall, but many of them persist, flowing like water. We ca not
survive without helping one another, and that extends to the whole
world. We may not see them face to face, but our desire sings true for
all of us.
The fight for freedom never stops, and bubbles up all around the world:
control in Hong Kong,
left them for dead during the COVID-19 pandemic,
persecution, and deportation
We must free ourselves and take back control of our own lives. Once we
liberate the islands we call our home, we must act for the freedom of
those beyond the seas we have explored. We raise an armada to protect
all the other islands in the world that still face the threat of
oppression, of authority. We will not stop until there is no island
beyond us still in fear of capital and the state. We will not stop until
the archipelago of man is free, from anyone and anything, and free to
act however and whenever they see fit.
Authority may be strong and on firm ground, but the sea of freedom
belongs to us.
And we have a whole lot of sailing to do.
Palayain ang Kapuluan!
Palayagin ang malalayang bayan!
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A lot of what is written here touch the surface of what is actually
being talked about. So, if you are interested in knowing more, we have a
bunch of texts we would like to share with you.