The Trapese collective. (2007). Do it yourself: A handbook for changing our world. London: Pluto Press

 

Nine different themes are explored in this book where people are struggling to wrestle back control and build more equitable and just societies – sustainable living, decision making, health, education, food, cultural activism, free spaces, media and direct action. (The Trapese collective:2007;1)

It’s about what we can all do about the challenges we face in the world and how we can make governments and corporations increasingly irrelevant. (The Trapese collective:2007;1)

change is needed and that the way to make it relevant is by
mixing resistance and creativity in to a powerful movement that is part of everyday life. (The Trapese collective:2007;2)

Our focus concerns ‘doing it ourselves’. It is about a revolution that takes place everyday amongst all of us rather than some huge event led by a small vanguard in a hoped-for future. Not waiting for bosses, politicians or experts to take the initiative but building at the grassroots – empowering ourselves and improving our own realities – not to become individual entrepreneurs or freemarketers, but to work together to make open, sustainable and equal societies. (The Trapese collective:2007;4)

Why do people get involved in such ideas? Often what motivates us are emotional responses – anger, fear, passion, desperation and hope. We all have a right to be angry at injustice, at oppression. Building movements and groups of change is about using this anger constructively. Not falling into traps of hate, powerlessness, blame and
desperation but turning those emotions into ones of defi ance and strength, hope and inspiration and to intelligent rage. (The Trapese collective:2007;4)

Of course sometimes it’s necessary that we get formal employment, take a fl ight, buy corporate goods,
compromise our ideals. Other times there’s scope to be more independent, confrontational and defi ant. Asking people to choose between these positions is divisive and
unhelpful. Doing something is better than doing nothing at all. Collective organising will not get rid of inequalities overnight or change some of the most destructive
things about this world but there are concrete steps that we can all take on the path to moving towards our hopes and visions and to claiming some control over our
lives. (The Trapese collective:2007;5)

These ideas haven’t been plucked out of the air but are part of vibrant, interconnected and often contradictory movements based on rich veins of thought including
Marxism, anarchism, syndicalism, socialism, Zapatismo, ecology and anti-capitalism to name a few. History gives us many inspirations: the Diggers, who established a
land-based community during the English civil war, the Paris Commune in the French revolution of 1871, intentional land-based communities formed in response to the excesses of industrialism, self-organised militias during the Spanish civil war, students on the barricades in May 1968. Latin America has always stood as an inspiration for those struggling against oppression, and in its attempts to stand up against US geopolitics from Allende in Chile and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. The piquetero and unemployed movements in Argentina and the Zapatista autonomous municipalities in the Chiapas state of Mexico are some of the most inspirational examples of how resistance and creativity in Latin America is developing. (The Trapese collective:2007;7)

 

How to communicate beyond tv, por Mick Fuzz (pag 246)