Building Autonomy #

The working group of Building Autonomy—one of the thematic committees of the Peoples’ Platform of Europe—consists of a variety of organisations and collectives from all over Europe. We have different practices and we live in different territories. What is it that unites us?

Although we come from different backgrounds, we share a common understanding: capitalist modernity—a way to name today’s shape of the dominant, patriarchal and neoliberal system—has colonized all aspects of life. The results are the constant and multiple crises we are living through: ecocide, rising fascism and expanding war and militarisation.

We all see with our own eyes and feel with our own hearts that a radical social change is deeply needed. A revolution is needed. Or better put: many revolutions regarding all aspects of life are needed. We believe in the importance of dreaming in the search for a free life. But we also need to critically analyze our history and our present. This analysis shows us that in Europe, the antisystemic and democratic forces of society are not yet at the point of starting a radical mass revolution to free ourselves from the nation-state’s dominion. So in one way or another, we are all faced with these questions: 

Can we build a free life under the current circumstances?

How can we break free from the domination of nation-states, which we see as the principal agents of the patriarchal and capitalist system?

What does the revolutionary process look like nowadays and in our territory?

The organisations and collectives coming together in this working group have reached a common conclusion: in times of radical isolation and fragmentation of society, the revolutionary potential lies in an autonomous, communitarian approach to society itself.