Mujawara

connecting hubs on a planetary scale

When making a proposal for building revolutionary autonomy almost a decade ago, establishing a hub locally was one of the first steps we suggested. As we said at the time:

“Hubs are points of aggregation, centers of activity. Creating a hub is the logical next step to finding each other. We need dedicated spaces to get organized and to give ourselves time together. Hubs bring together the people, resources, and shared spirit necessary to create the foundation for a life in common.

Pool resources, target an area, and start a hub. Rent a space in the neighborhood. Build a structure in the forest. Take over an abandoned building or a vacant piece of land. No space is too small, or too ambitious. Start with what’s at hand and then multiply. Use the hub to ground all of your initiatives.”

We are proud of the hubs born of the Inhabit proposal, but it’s also been a commonplace strategy shared by revolutionaries across the world. Trapped within an increasingly alienated and colonized social context, it makes perfect sense to create a place for organizing, care, and connection. This applies equally as an antidote to daily isolation or as a center for mass cooking and combat during an insurrection (as with the ollas communes in Santiago.

We are therefore pleased that many hubs across the world are coming together this month via the proposal made by the Peoples Want for Mujawara, “a revolutionary neighboring across borders.” They describe it as “a transnational mutual-aid project linking physical places across the world so they can strengthen, sustain, and empower each other from a revolutionary and autonomous perspective.” Mujawara as a concept is rooted in the experience of the recent insurrectional sequence in Lebanon, as it became vital to build new neighboring connections across the sectarian divides used to govern that country, so that people from different ethnic and religious backgrounds could deepen together the subversion of that sectarian order. The Peoples Want describe this international month of activity this way:

“To inaugurate Mujawara and begin weaving this revolutionary neighbouring we are organising, across five continents and throughout the month of June, simultaneous internationalist actions within all these spaces born in the wake of our revolts which support and sustain our struggles: neighbourhood councils, autonomous spaces, community centers, collective farms, self-managed bookshops, cooperatives, popular kitchens, and other spaces of encounter. The actions could include discussions, banquets, concerts, film screenings, marches, rituals ….”

In short, Mujwara is a proposal to connect and coordinate hubs across the world. This is thrilling to us at Inhabit, because it addresses a need we neglected in the book - how to think concretely about hubs connecting with and supporting each other so as to make it more realistic for each hub to persist and grow in a shared power. Benefit events this month will support the creation of new autonomous hubs organized by Sudanese and Syrian revolutionaries. There are events in dozens of places around the world, so we will only include some of the North American events below.

The Mujawara video is also available in Spanish, Arabic and other languages via subMedia: https://www.youtube.com/@submedia. Check out the Peoples Want book here: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2732-revolutions-of-our-times and follow the Peoples Want on IG to see more of the Mujawara events.

Some Events in North America:

Jobel, Chiapas

Guerrero

Mexico DF

⁨”Together with a group of comrades from various collectives in Mexico City and from different countries (Mexico, the United States, France), we are organizing a gathering for June 12th at the 400 Voces chocolate cooperative. It will be titled: “Mirrors of the Global Revolt: Internationalism from Below in Times of War.” We’ll be discussing the Syrian revolution, the latest rounds of struggle in Mexico, the war against the people in Mexico and around the world, urban resistance movements, and internationalist networks. We are also producing a zine featuring a Spanish translation of texts by Omar Aziz regarding local councils in Syria.⁩”

Bloomington, Indiana

Olympic Peninsula

Hamilton, Ontario

Montreal, QC