Anarchy Works.pdf - Infoshop.org

economy
Anarchy Works
to's migrants have reproduced, transplanted and adapted
their communities of origin to facilitate survival in a hostile
urban environment. [...]Through the neighborhood
juntas, EI Alto has developed as a self-constructed city run
by a network of micro-governments57 independent of the
state. In Raul Zibechi's view, the autonomous organization
of labor in the informal sector, based on productivity and
family ties instead of the hierarcWcal boss-worker relationship,
reinforces this sense of empowerment: Citizens
can self-manage and control their own environment:5s
Horizontal networks "without traditional leadership" also play
a major role that is complementary to these formal structures in
both the organization of daily life and the coordination of protest,
blockades, and struggle against the state.
Now that Bolivia has an indigenous president and progressive
government led by MAS, the Movement towards Socialism, FEJUVE
faces the danger of incorporation and recuperation that typically
neutralizes horizontal movements that lack explicitly anti-state
goals and means. However, while supporting Evo Morales' reversals
of neoliberal policy, as of this writing FEJUVE remains critical of
MAS and the government, and it remains to be seen to what extent
they will be recuperated.
In South Africa, there are many other examples of informal
urban settlements that organizes themselves to create a better
57 Although the author of this piece chooses the tenn "government," the
underlying concept should not be given parity with what is considered
to be government in Western society. In the ayllu tradition, leadership is
not a privileged social position or a position of command, but a fonn of
community service.
58 Emily Achtenberg, "Community Organizing and Rebellion:
Neighborhood Councils in EI Alto, Bolivia," Progressive Planning,
No, 172, Summer 2007.
life and struggle against capitalism. Specific movements of shack
dwellers in South Africa are often born out of moments of violent
resistance that take on an extended life as people who met in the
streets to stop an eviction or a water shut-off continue to meet in
order to create structures for home care for the sick, fire watch,
security patrols, burial services, education, gardens, sewing
collectives, and food distribution. This was the case with the
movement Abahlali base Mj ondolo, which arose in 2005 out of a
road blockade to stop the eviction of the settlement to make way for
development in preparation for the 2010 World Cup.
The Symphony Way settlement of Capetown is a squatted
community of one hundred twenty seven families who had been
forcibly evicted from their previous home by the government,
which is trying to meet its 2020 target (under the Millennium
Development Goals) to eradicate all slums. The government
relocated some of the evictees in a tent camp surrounded by armed
guards and razor wire, and the rest in the Transit Relocation Areas,
described by one resident as "a lost place in hell" with high crime
and frequent rape of children.59
Refusing to negotiate with the highly distrusted political parties
or to live in either of the officially provided hell holes, the Symphony
Way families decided to illegally occupy an area along a road to set
up their community. They organize their community both with
mass assemblies in which everyone participates, and a high degree
of individual initiative. For example, Raise, a nurse who lives in
Symphony Way, volunteers as a teacher within the community center,
helps organize a girl's netball team, a boy's soccer team, a drum band,
a children's holiday daycamp, and assists in childbirth. Children
59 All the quotes on Symphony Way come from Daria Zelenova, "Anti­
Eviction Struggle of the Squatters Communities in Contemporary South
Africa," paper presented at the conference "Hierarchy and Power in the
History of Civilizations," at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow,
June 2009,
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