Reposted from Brighton Antifascists
Like everyone else we’ve been in lockdown, spending a lot of time at home with our stockpile of beans in our Antifa™ bunker. But we’ve also stayed active playing our part in local organising initiatives in Brighton and further afield – food banks, food deliveries, mutual aid groups, projects manufacturing PPE etc. And we’ve also made time to chat to some comrades from Oregon about what’s going down in the USA, where they have also had to contend with a social situation that is in some ways more extreme and also with right-wing street movements protesting the lockdown. The following is an interview with Alexander and Thomas, two anarchists who are active in anti-fascist and left organizing in Portland, Oregon.
Can you tell us how the anti-authoritarian left and antifascist movement is responding to the current crisis ? Are there any mutual aid networks forming? We have seen for example images of Portland antifascists involved in production of hand sanitiser that was then distributed for free for those in need. Can you tell us more about those kind of initiatives?
There are a variety of mutual aid projects in Portland, surrounding housing, food, and pandemic preparedness goods like PPE and sanitation products. The two of us are actually essential workers, and are still working in our respective industries to keep parts of the city moving, such as it is. But from our networks and friends we can report some mutual aid projects of note: barter networks, trading, and free distribution of goods that are in high demand, including food; making and distributing PPE to people who cannot obtain them; resource lists, to inform people where scarce goods are available (like which stores have toilet tissue or sanitizer in stock); and organized community camps for the houseless who are at-risk or marginalized.
As our personal organizing work typically is anti-fascism, we should also note that there is still a great need for that in this current crisis as well. Like in many crises, the far-right is attempting to take advantage of the political moment in order to gain strength. We’ve seen groups like the Proud Boys and Patriot Front attending protests against the stay-at-home protocols. Racist and nationalistic conspiracy theories about the origins of the disease and cures are spreading. There have been attacks and other displays of bigotry against people of Asian ethnicity. White supremacists online are talking about spreading the disease deliberately, and fantasizing about this crisis creating a state of open war in society. While we all have to do our part to fight the pandemic, we cannot let up our guard against fascism and the far-right. So it is good that those networks are continuing their work as well, even as we all are having to deal with the pandemic.
