Organizing conflict in times of ecosocial crisis
The last weekend of August I shared a table, conversation and reflection with my colleagues from Anticapitalistas, at their Summer University. Ecosocial strategies for the end of the old order. The fifteenth edition of a week dedicated to generating a joint space for political reflection and analysis, training, conversation, critical thinking, and enriching, stimulating, and hopeful experiences.
Not many weeks ago, Sobremesa also took place, a second edition (the first was in 2022) of a completely self-managed space that emerged from a shared sentiment within social justice movements (housing, ecosocial, anti-racist, queer, land defense movements, etc.): that together. Many of the people who attended the Anticapitalist Summer University also came from there.
In our debate space within the uni, in the ecosocialism block, we talked about how to organize conflict in times of ecosocial crisis. We shared space with the people in Galicia fighting against a large-scale pulp mill (Altri non) and with comrades from the Local Emergency and Reconstruction Committees, who, through the Valencian National Action Party (DANA), have articulated a grassroots, grassroots proposal for mutual support from the community. Also, the dynamic of struggle proposed by Earth Revolts, which first germinated in May in Camp de Tarragona (against a company that the multinational Lotte wants to establish in Camp to manufacture battery components for electric cars), was brought into dialogue to open a reflection on each of their strategies for social justice, as well as the challenges and possible future prospects, all of which they shared.
And it is that in a turbulent time, where it seems that eco-social crises are accelerating and leading us directly to the abyss, the pillars of the necropolitics that direct our lives are becoming evident, generating a reality of multi-crises, which become chronic emergencies: such as that of ecological imbalances such as the loss of biodiversity and the climate crisis, etc. All fueled by ecocidal, racist, unjust and increasingly violent policies, which legitimize and normalize atrocities – such as the genocide in Palestine – in societies that are increasingly broken, more polarized, more violated and more discouraging. Everything is related. And to these chronic emergencies we must add what has begun to be assumed as the true "new normal": localized climate disasters that will occasionally materialize to devastate infrastructure, homes, towns, lives... as was the case in the Valencian Country with the dana that will soon be a year ago (2)
Faced with this panorama, spaces for the confluence of social struggles are increasingly being generated, by organizations and grassroots structures, taking into account that the eco-social crisis is the framework for action. The starting point from which we must join forces, to share strategies, to resist and confront, but also to dispute our own autonomy to decide the presents we want to live in. From the margins, from organized rage, from social justice, classical environmentalism necessarily converges with anti-racist, feminist, dissident, housing, anti-genocide, working class struggles... why? Because the world we want is built on social justice and by addressing the diversity of realities impacted in different ways and with varying intensities by the most serious consequences of an economic model that has declared war on life (as Yayo Herrero so often says). We need each other strong, united, side by side, feeling that we are part of the same struggle—diverse, rich, broad, global. Organizing conflict in times of ecosocial crisis necessarily implies not imposing some struggles over others, nor defending them at the margins of others. Working together without phagocytizing them, keeping in mind that the objective is ecosocial transformation and that every conflict, every battle, every articulation, every complicity, every strategy, every collective, every movement, every acronym and identity, becomes a collective body of rebellion and struggle.
This also leads me to many reflections within the environmental movements themselves, here and across Spain, by entities that have spent years working on the defense of the territory, nature conservation, pacifism, denouncing the exploitation of resources, the problem of waste, the right to water, etc. These have been many years of battles, campaigns, struggles, they have gained legitimacy and social support based on the hard work of many people. In many cases, for years they have been a single, central, exclusive voice. Now the foundations of environmentalism permeate many other struggles, feeding off each other and nourishing them, adding to them. They do not lose their centrality, they allow for a society increasingly aware of its eco-dependence and add trajectory, experience, professionalism, and structure to new and diverse struggles. They are the trunk and memory that nourish the confluences that, in a moment of civilizational crisis, are needed to build the collective desire for other possible worlds starting today and together.
