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“Care and Resistance” brings together five diverse movements — Abahlali baseMjondolo (South Africa), LILAK (Philippines), West Street Recovery (U.S.), MST (Brazil), and Southern Peasants’ Federation of Thailand (Thailand) — alongside Raj Patel, Focus on the Global South, and A Growing Culture. Over the past two years, they've held virtual and in-person spaces to share how each movement embodies care at the core of its struggles.

For issue 148 of The Internationalist, we excerpt from the zine that resulted from these conversations. The following excerpt illustrates how capitalism fosters dependence by stripping communities of control over their basic needs, while grassroots movements cultivate autonomy through initiatives such as food sovereignty, land reclamation, and self-sufficient energy systems.

Capitalism is often praised for its capacity to produce an endless stream of commodities and services, yet what it primarily manufactures is dependence. By forcing people to rely on state and market systems for essentials like food, energy, and healthcare, capitalism keeps those who challenge it in a state of subservience. In times of crisis, the most vulnerable are often abandoned, while aid is directed toward the powerful. This pattern is clear in recent history: after the 2008 US housing crisis, financial bailouts prioritised banks over struggling families. Following natural disasters, poor, Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities often received inadequate support while wealthier areas were prioritised. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the rich accessed healthcare and relief first, while millions faced barriers to food, vaccines, and essential services.

Movements emphasise the importance of reducing reliance on state and corporate systems, fostering community self-sufficiency, and safeguarding the land for future generations. Building sustainable food systems and energy sources is not only about meeting immediate needs but also laying the foundation for long-term community autonomy.

The MST, SPFT, and Bill prioritise food sovereignty and agroecology, while West Street Recovery helps communities transition to solar energy to reduce dependence on the state grid. These efforts fill the gaps left by state neglect and ensure care for their communities during crises and in daily life.

The MST believes, “We can’t have good relationships if we’re consuming poison.” Across millions of hectares of reclaimed collective land, MST settlements grow organic, agroecological crops using a cooperative model. Members share labour, resources, and harvests, ensuring everyone in the community is fed. They trade surplus with other settlements and supply nutritious produce to Brazil’s public school lunch programs. The MST also grows medicinal plants, preserves crop diversity through seed banks, and builds schools and hospitals to become nearly independent of state and corporate systems.

SPFT focuses on communal land titles to protect against land grabs. Their land management system divides land into six categories: public spaces for shared use like kitchens and gardens; household plots for homes and small-scale farming; livestock areas; collective plots for food production and medicinal gardens; cash crop areas to fund community projects; protected zones for conservation and agroforestry. As Suraphon from SPFT explained, “All year round, we need to ensure that our subsistence in the community is produced according to the peasant way of life, to make the government see why we demand land rights. We are trying to create a community model that the government can follow.”

Abahlali has recently embraced food sovereignty and agroecology, transforming reclaimed urban spaces into thriving communes. Community gardens grow food and medicinal herbs, offering a sustainable path forward. Abahlali emphasises that true development requires people’s agency over the systems that govern them. As Thapelo from Abahlali said, “The government says they have been creating development for us. But at Abahlali we say, ‘Nothing about us without us.’ We must be part of our own development.”

Read the entire zine here at: https://www.agrowingculture.org/care-and-resistance/

The Internationalist Archive