I understand mutual aid as a concept, but my local anarchist groups seem happy to just do random mutual aid. They will just stand on a corner, distribute food to anyone that comes by and say “great job team!” It feels ineffectual and the lack of planning really hobbles them. I suggested doing a more organized approach and they were all “you can do that if you want”, which I already knew I could do. I was wondering if WE should maybe be a little more organized and they just aren’t interested. They’ll do a toy drive and then just go to a random park to give them out. It feels more like a random act of kindness group than a group trying to build parallel systems of power. I understand that it may just be my local groups, but I would love to hear about other groups experiences. Is there maybe a more anarchist friendly way of organizing that I’m not privy to? I can do some reading if necessary. I’m not really an anarchist, but I believe mutual aid is important, I’d just like to see it done more purposefully. Is your mutual aid group a chapter of one I’d be familiar with? I’d be interested in trying a different group if it felt more helpful.
There’s a lot of anarchists at my mutual aid group helping distribute goods in my community.
I understand mutual aid as a concept, but my local anarchist groups seem happy to just do random mutual aid. They will just stand on a corner, distribute food to anyone that comes by and say “great job team!” It feels ineffectual and the lack of planning really hobbles them. I suggested doing a more organized approach and they were all “you can do that if you want”, which I already knew I could do. I was wondering if WE should maybe be a little more organized and they just aren’t interested. They’ll do a toy drive and then just go to a random park to give them out. It feels more like a random act of kindness group than a group trying to build parallel systems of power. I understand that it may just be my local groups, but I would love to hear about other groups experiences. Is there maybe a more anarchist friendly way of organizing that I’m not privy to? I can do some reading if necessary. I’m not really an anarchist, but I believe mutual aid is important, I’d just like to see it done more purposefully. Is your mutual aid group a chapter of one I’d be familiar with? I’d be interested in trying a different group if it felt more helpful.