Salah [ey/em]

  • 0 Posts
  • 5 Comments
Joined 3 months ago
cake
Cake day: November 1st, 2025

help-circle



  • Sorry maybe my reply came off harsh, that wasn’t my intention. You said you’d like to have orders on what is to be done so you don’t have to think about it, and my intention was to jokingly reply to that with my own organizing knowledge.

    You are absolutely correct in that every situation is different and that you don’t choose your conditions, and I don’t judge you at all for what you are and aren’t doing since I don’t know what your conditions are.

    My advice is just a general advice for those who have the time and energy to start organizing. I know that the basics of community organizing are unknown to most people so I try to mention it wherever I can.

    I’m really sorry if this is more unwanted advice, but just know that there are methods to convince people to join a union or community, and without those methods it can be very difficult. Secrets of a Successful Organizer is a good book that covers these methods. But again, this is only for if you find yourself to have the time and energy to look into it. I wanted to mention it so that you know that you shouldn’t blame yourself for not having been successful in trying to make people more active before.


  • I’ll give you orders if you like: get in an influential position if possible but don’t put all your time and energy into it and make sure you have a leftist community around you to hold you accountable. Look for any possibility for agitation within your workplace or community and start agitating and forming a rigid network of people ready to be radicalised.

    This sounds a bit too abstract without an example so here’s one:

    Suppose you live in a building with shit conditions and a rich landlord who doesn’t hide their wealth very well. Start talking to your neighbours about these conditions and form a tenants committee to address it and to try to build some leverage against your landlord. The only way to build leverage is to have a large majority of tenants on your side so you can do coordinated actions. So a large part of the work by the tenants committee would be talking to neighbours and making connections to use later. A groupchat is a good way to keep the community you’re building connected. While the initial goal for this community is to improve your living conditions, you will quickly find out that it is useful in many other instances as well:

    • If fascists come to your neighbourhood you can quickly mobilise to outnumber them.
    • If your building is planned for demolition you can quickly react and start your counter offensive towards your landlord by organizing protests and talking to local media networks to create outrage.
    • People will likely start using the community you built for mutual aid as well.
    • whenever a general strike is called its success will depend fully on community structures such as these.

    An influential position is only useful if you can use it in your organizing. For example by providing supplies or other forms of support or by using the access you have to reach more people and make more allies.