Confederacy: a loose alliance; or union of individuals for some (often unlawful) purpose.
A CALL TO CONFEDERATE:
You are invited to join the Diaspora Confederacy. You are invited because your vision of revolution bears a strong resemblance to ours. Which is not to say it's the same. It's not. Part of what we like about you is that you resist letting yourself fall prey to a monolithic version of resistance to this monolithic society. You may even be invisible to the traditional organized left movement, (even among the revolutionaries) or visible only when wearing a cloak to shroud your heart's true desire. You remain larger and more human than the various identities and ideologies that are compiled within you. We seek to affirm what can not be compromised, contained, controlled, or categorized about you.
Now, we understand that everyone chafes against their suffering and desires to be liberated. We understand that no matter how buried that desire is, every human has the capacity to fully actualize that yearning and be free. In this understanding there will always be a portion of our heart that stands in undying solidarity with all people. And yet, we are not inviting everyone. Each of us must choose our own path through and out of this oppressive society. And although no one will achieve liberation without us all achieving liberation, my way may not be yours. The end justifies distinct means for each of us.
"We were not able to choose the mess we were born into - this collapse of a whole society. But we are able to choose our way out." -C.L.R. James
Some things common about our way:
· We are radical. We seek to dig up the root sicknesses, crimes, and failures of this society and do away with them. We seek nothing less than the full re-organization of all elements of life such that the oppressive society may never take root again.
· We want to live. We are determined to do what is within our power to live, day by day, to the fullest and most dignified extent possible, despite the continued existence of the oppressive society.
· We view the reclamation of land as fundamental. We seek to be grounded in a place and willingly dependent on the resources that the land provides. We are determined to cultivate and honor the practices and skills that are necessary to have a right relationship with the earth.
· We honor those who came before us. We seek to ground our work in a deep understanding of the past. We look to the past to learn of the ways of our people, both the life-affirming aspects of culture and the destructive choices that brought us to our present wretched state. Particularly, we study the struggles of those who fought for freedom: John Brown, Harriet Tubman, the May '68 uprising in France, Tecumseh, the Intifada, Emma Goldman, the Haitian Revolution, Miss Ella Baker, Crazy Horse, the Mirabel sisters, to name a few.
· We honor the spirit. Recognizing that spiritually based societies created a much more liberated existence for the earth, animals and people, we validate and support those who integrate spiritual practice into their daily lives.
· We change where we are. While revolution is global, we have no pretenses that our work will profoundly change anything beyond our immediate locale.
· We seek human connections. we strive towards mutual vulnerability, intimacy, revelation and challenge among our co-participants in the liberation process.
Some things we challenge:
We reject reform. we are not looking for incremental changes, because incremental changes inevitably increase, rather than decrease, the longevity of the oppressive society. We resist the totality of our present conditions in order to gain total liberation.
We reject all creations of a category of human beings that is "most oppressed," by the system and we reject all of the ways in which this ideology fosters passivity among some and victim-ness or vindictiveness among others.
At the same time, we refuse to participate in a project that doesn't seriously address issues of privilege. We seek to both describe the poverty of the affluent, and to undermine and undo all systems of privilege (particularly capitalism, whiteness and patriarchy).
We reject tactical conformity. In all situations (but particularly in matters of self-defense or self-preservation) we have no pre-set response as an organization, and fully assume that any autonomous individual can and should act as they see fit, regardless of the actions of anyone else in the confederacy.
We question mass mobilization. While large scale demonstrations of solidarity and confrontations against the State clearly play an important role, building and/or engaging in protest organizations will never be our primary purpose. We have no desire to ask the power elites for our freedom, nor do we wish to influence public opinion through media which we do not control, and which speaks a language that we can not.
We question intoxication. In an effort to stay focused on the problems that face us, both individually and collectively, we question the dominant tendency in our society that says there is benefit in "escaping" our reality through drugs, alcohol, television or other addictive processes. We seek to participate in the joyous adventure of undermining this society and building a new one, rather than trying to "escape" something which will still be there when we come down from our high.