Take the Power Back: Building a new foundation

It is best to build on a solid foundation. This concept is usually applied to physical structures, but is equally important for intangible structures. We build foundations for ideas and theories, for all interpersonal relationships, for movements, for communities — everything requires at least some foundation.

Level playing fields make good foundations, and the best foundations are also autonomous from outside manipulation. Any imbalance of power or dependence on power is an eventual disaster.

In our society, the social, physical and intellectual foundations are already crumbling because of poor planning and shortsighted thinking. If we are to build a brighter tomorrow, we desperately need a different way of thinking, living, being and becoming, and for that we will need to build new foundations.

Let's say we want all social relations be founded on equality, freedom, love, respect and mutuality. As a movement, we need to look at the big picture in order to create that future strategically. We must pick our communities, allies and partners well. We can't just team up with our enemies' enemies to help build their foundations. We can't get bogged down trying to fix holes and cracks in the crumbling foundations of the past, either. Many of us forget history's lessons and repeat the mistakes of those who came before us. We get swept away in the tide of whatever life brings us and lose the ground we stand on in the process.

Place yourself in a northern Mexican border town where there are no police because they've all been taken prisoner. As somebody who dislikes authority, you might be happy to know that the armed hand of the violence-monopolizing state is no longer functioning. But the problem is that the officers weren't taken out of the picture by an empowered populace intent on self-organizing, but rather by drug cartels who have no interest in human liberation or abolishing power. In fact, the cartel's motives are far from "liberating" — these would-be cops plan on filling whatever power vacuums they create, and will be just as oppressive and violent as the previous armed gang that controlled society before it.

If we do not distinguish between our allies and our enemies' enemies, we risk being suckered into situations even worse than what we started with. True freedom fighters have often learned this the hard way by aligning themselves with authoritarian leftists, only to be massacred, mass-imprisoned or made invisible once they were no longer needed. We are also known to ally with liberals, social democrats and reformers around particular issues, but since they do not share our foundation or the same desires and visions as us, they disappear from "the movement" after tiny, sometimes inconsequential, victories.

Therefore, the most important foundation to build is the affinity between ourselves and others who share common visions and projects. We must fight our own battles, for our own purposes, from here on out.

Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.