zine

ichbail ta muk' or, an ode to the commune form.

by alyaza birze (they/she)

to steal a phrasing from anarchist John P. Clark, our current social-ecological crisis should compel us to give respect and recognition to all beings in both the natural and social worlds. all flourishing is mutual, after all. we cannot exist without one-another—without plants; animals; clean water and air. but so often we are robbed of any sense of interconnectedness with the natural world or oneness with the land. in the words of Murray Bookchin, we have become consumers, succumbing to capitalism's "objectifications of reality as mere materials for exploitation" and becoming alienated from that which gives us life. the social and economic forces—the hierarchies of everyday life and the imperative of limitless growth—that govern us only beget the domination, despoiling, and destruction of nature, the cannibalization of the biosphere in the name of accumulation.

social and economic forces, however, are malleable and not inevitable; and capitalism, hegemonic as it may be, is not all-encompassing and inescapable. the better world we need and demand is being built every day, piece by piece, in the jungles of Chiapas and the urban barrios of Venezuela—and everywhere in between. when we look to the commune and its form, the embryonic stages of a better world are prefigured for all to see.

to build the commune, in its most basic essence, is to return labor to its rightful place under democratic and socialized control, to create a new set of social relations mediated by the well-being of everyone and not by hierarchy or profit motive. to adhere to the commune form then, writes Kristin Ross, is "first and foremost about people living differently and changing their circumstances by working within the conditions available in the present"—that is to say: the commune form is not an idea, but an ever-morphing strategic orientation through which to establish the social and economic relations our situation demands.

indeed in building the commune—in organizing through the commune form—we do not merely resist the coercive forces of capital and hierarchy but defend from them, actively affirming the right of something newer and better to exist. this is not a mere semantic distinction but an outright assertion of one's right to a "usable social space," liberated from accumulation for its own sake. the commune is ultimately a collective reappropriation of that which is ours, the mechanism by which we can contest what Kristin Ross calls the "dispossess[ion] of our dignity, our social life, our time, the sense of mastery over our lives, the beauty and health of our lived environment, and of the very possibility of working together to invent our future collectively."

and the commune, or its form, need not be exoticized simply because its most celebrated manifestations happen elsewhere. just as there are communal experiments in Chiapas or Venezuela, so too have there been experiments in the "Western" backyard. in the book Neighborhood Power, authors Karl Hess and David J. Morris write of the commune—speak its essence and its form—in outlining the virtues of a fulfilling, urban neighborhood life. such a life, they write,

is the life that brings or tries to bring as much of human life together as possible [...] in a new birth and building of neighborhood life, all human activity could be brought back together so that work, play, love, life, politics, science, and art could be a shared experience by people sharing a space, sharing agreements as to how to live together, and mutually aiding one another to enjoy the fullest, ripest existence as human beings in a humane setting. (p. 13)

perhaps it is no surprise then that Hess himself was once a communard in the Adams-Morgan neighborhood of Washington D.C., a participant in an expansive neighborhood commune that sought "a new way to make social decisions and, specifically, a way to do it without social exploitation of one group by another." he, as so many others before and since, sought to "develop, deploy, and maintain the tools of everyday life and production, directing them democratically rather than being directed by them." and what is his animating impulse if not ichbail ta muk’—the act of carrying one another to greatness—that abides in the Zapatista cooperative work projects? what but time separates the example of Adams-Morgan from the example of El Maizal, the Venezuelan commune that liberated pig farms and university buildings and declared them social property for all to partake in and benefit from?

when we build a commune, what we are ultimately defending and building is a space defined by its unity of experience—an experience that is shared across identity and ideology, time and territory. we join, however loose it may seem, a struggle that transcends borders; transcends temporality; transcends petty sectarianism or division; transcends ourselves. to come together in this way—as the Zapatistas might put it—is to create a big collective heart, one which can overcome capital and hierarchy, one which can ease our alienation from our environment and one another, and one that can finally bring into being our fullest, ripest existence as human beings in a humane setting.

i linger, finally, on the words of Robin Wall Kimmerer in The Serviceberry, wherein she writes that

We live in the tension between what is and what is possible. On one hand, we can witness the reciprocity of the economy of nature, showing us how things are supposed to work. And on the other, we see the outcomes of extractive capitalism, breaking every facet of natural law. [...] In illuminating these alternatives [repair cafés, the Buy Nothing movement, campus free stores, etc.] people have the courage to say, Let's create something different, something aligned with our values. We don't have to be complicit. (ch. 4)

to build a commune—to exhibit the commune form—is to put into practice once more what the natural world has always illustrated for us. mutual flourishing is made possible only by symbiosis, cooperation, and interdependence with one another, and further with the natural world that we exist in. the commune form makes this possible through organizing the democratic and social control of labor, and through the explicit rejection of hierarchy and profit. but furthermore it does this through its manifestation of a usable social space tethered to the land, an antidote to the ill of alienation from the natural world. "A relationship to the land," remarks Kristin Ross, "can serve as a support toward fostering ecological practices and can aid in losing the habit of consumeristic ways." i concur.

against the objectifications of reality; against the reduction of the world into mere materials for exploitation; against the social-ecological crisis created by hierarchy and profit—let us re-learn the reciprocity of the natural world around us, and our place within it. let us build the commune and carry one another to greatness through its creation.

commune or nothing! for lekil kuxlejal!