If capitalism is a disease, we are the Earth's immune system

What our bodies & ecosystems teach us about the revolution

Unity of the Fields (Part I)

This is a two-part piece written with Aisha Abu-Asaba who is a Palestinian poet, care provider, co-organizer & dear friend based on Nashville, TN.

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Capitalism/ colonialism try really hard to make us believe that we are separate from the Earth & from each other. That is why these violent systems seek to destroy indigenous, collectivist cultures who have always seen humans as part of nature rather than “individual” entities that exist separate from it. These two drastically different lenses— individualism vs collectivism— shape our world as we know it. The former has led to genocides, extinctions & ongoing mass destruction. The latter is a revolutionary force against these deadly systems & our only hope. At a molecular level, every particle in our body comes from the land. The land gave birth to us all but why do we operate in our day-to-day lives as though our kin are the enemy, including within so-called leftist movement spaces? What is the impact on us of all the ego-driven drama plaguing organizing spaces? & How can we exist with our undeniable interconnectedness as our guiding north star even when it comes to dealing with people who we may not like or be aligned with?

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The last 11 months have transformed every fiber of our being. Witnessing the most recent horrific intensification of a nearly 100-year long genocide has shaken us to our core. Everyday, shielded by our relative privilege, we see unfathomable carnage that captures only 0.1% of the real horrors manifesting on the ground. Some of us may have been “radical” & organizing for a long time but this is different. We can’t let anything get in the way of us dedicating our entire being to the pursuit of collective liberation. Now more than ever, we are wholly obsessed with figuring out how we can free us. It’s the least any of us can do. Part of this fervent pursuit of collective liberation for us has been dissecting the hurdles that keep getting in our way.

One thing that became painfully apparent in the last 11 months is that we ain’t s**t. We are very far from having the revolutionary critical mass needed to be a real, change-catalyzing threat to these systems, let alone take them down. We have failed to stop this genocide but also how could we possibly think we can suddenly wield a type of power we never had or never wholeheartedly threw ourselves into building or cultivating?

Those of us that live in western, capitalist societies lacking collectivist community infrastructure have unique additional challenges that make it harder for us to come together & build the power we need to dismantle these systems. This genocide did not start in October nor does it exist in isolation unrelated to the widespread poverty & suffering that exists on our own doorsteps. No amount of begging politicians was ever going to work because they create & maintain these horrors. We must be honest about where we’re at if we want to go anywhere.

This is a two-part series about the self-enforced barriers to liberation that are plaguing the western left and how to limit damage coming from within our movements. Here’s what we’ll cover:

• Part I (The big picture)— We are our Earth’s immune system

  • Unpacking our role in the revolution through an ecological lens

  • How big egos, narcissism & individualism destroy movements

  • Navigating interpersonal beef with integrity like our lives depend on it

• Part II (The details & a case study feat. our experience navigating internal/ external movement threats in Nashville)—

  • Historical patterns of state-sponsored infiltration of movements (from FBI’s hunt for the Black Panthers to more recent examples) & how their impact is the same as ego-driven, unchecked bad faith actors within our communities

  • Unity in the Fields — Examples of hurdles we’ve faced paired w/ lessons learned on how to exist with integrity within toxic organizing ecologies, deal with big egos creating incessant unnecessary conflict & stay afloat

Many of us face fighting in the heart of the empire face unique challenges. Living in the belly of the beast means we are heavily shaped by the values & instincts of the beast itself. One of the biggest hurdles to us building revolutionary people power are our own egos. Across history, empires & states have used various repression tactics to crush effective movements that disrupt the status quo. Their calculated models also rely on us destroying each other and crashing & burning from within. For example, the FBI catalyzed and used excessive discord within the Black Panther party ranks to bring about the group's demise. Big egos & incessant strife between different groups ultimately played a massive role in the collapse of the Panthers as we once knew them.

If we ever think we’re above the influence of the system we’re trying to tear down, that is when we succumb to its greatest manipulations & become its mercenaries disguised as revolutionaries.

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Our kin are not the enemy (even the ones we don't like)

One of us (AK) is an Afro-South Asian migrant from the global south who came to the U.S. from the South West Asia/ North Africa region 13 years ago. One of us (AA) is a diasporic Palestinian born & raised in Tennessee. Both of us think that organizing spaces can be one of the most cruel, ruthless & draconian spaces in the west which is saying a lot. At baseline, people can be excessively judgmental, cold & self-righteous. Many want to be the most revolutionary person in the room and perceive people who are different than them as threats & act on this disdain. Many are so terrified of disrupting norms or making mistakes warranting a cancel campaign that they refrain from taking initiative at all.

By Safia Latif

There’s also a heightened level of fragility at play in the west. Since most people don’t have a solid collectivist community to anchor into, at the end of the day, their baseline isolation drives them to perceive even their comrades as “the other”. Many see something new, different or an opposing idea as a personal attack impeding their own growth. Transformative justice jargon and social justice language are often co-opted and weaponized to cause, reinforce or escalate harm. We’ve seen folks go after people they simply don’t like or vibe with by using words like “harmful”, “dangerous”, “unsafe” or “abusive” even without factual evidence which fundamentally sterilizes & sanitizes the power of these words. We’ve also seen people fabricate information to demonize people they are threatened by. Such ego-driven actions are the primary cause of widespread, recurring movement collapse besides external state threats.

If we are championing & ushering in an impending revolution, then we have the utmost responsibility to the people to embody values of kindness, dignity & integrity— including towards each other, even with people we don’t like or get along with. With every action we must ask ourselves if it is in the best interests of the people or if it is something that more-so serves our ego & selfish interests. This is something we are all equally susceptible to. No one is above succumbing to the cop/ capitalist/ colonizer in their head that is often loudest when we are most vulnerable or insecure. All we can do is keep it in check in community. Since people are socialized to be individualists, we often don’t see the greater impact of our actions.

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A post shared by @annalaura_art

Egos & narcissistic tendencies can literally kill movements AND they make us all miserable. People leave movements exhausted by endless, unproductive discord that isn’t helping the group grow but draining it of energy, time & resources. We can’t keep coming together when there’s a sudden insurgence of public attention around an issue & then fail to create something sustainable. We need to build a strong foundation that a mass people’s revolution can stand on. Every individualistic, ego-driven action creates a crack in that foundation. Also, constantly directing unsubstantiated contempt at people poisons our own soul. As in, when we think we’re better than others & spend an excessive amount of time trying to tear someone down simply because we don’t like them, we become harder, colder & crueler and by extension communal joy is more inaccessible.

It is important for us to learn to be messy, upfront, direct and simultaneously kind, considerate & warm towards each other. If we share space, it is critical for us to work through problems without attacking each other’s fundamental being. Many people want the idea of community but don’t want to commit to the real messy, uncomfortable, chaotic process of building & sustaining it. It requires us to learn from people who are different than us while challenging & pushing back on each other when necessary— that is the only way we grow as individuals & as collectives. Most importantly, a diversity of personalities makes the whole more creative & resilient. There is a place for people to be soft, reserved & tactful and just as much necessity for people to be firm, assertive & boisterous. Just like grief/ suffering/ pain and relief/ joy/ contentment are two sides of the same coin, as are different personalities even if they are seemingly opposites.

P.S. This piece is not speaking to instances of severe interpersonal violence like assault. There are caveats & nuances to that we will not address here.

If you haven’t already read it, please read this piece on nurturing dissent & diversity in our movements. It may seem at odds with this piece but they actually compliment each other:

For dissent & diversity in our movements- A critique of the call for "leftist unity"

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An ecological framework to think about unity

Collectivism is the basis of survival, individualism is the basis of self-annihilation

All life on Earth exists because of the cooperation of many individual cells that came together to create larger, multicellular organisms. The molecular parts that make us “alive” beings originate from the ground beneath us & the sky above us.

Despite what colonial scientists like Darwin have you believe, evolution has always favored collaboration & cooperation over competition & cut-throat individualism. No single cell or a multicellular organism has ever survived in isolation. If we look closely, nature shows us on a microscopic & macroscopic level that acting solely out of self-interest inevitably leads to self-destruction. Individualism is a path to extinction & total annihilation at an individual, population & planetary scale. Collectivism is the only path to sustainable survival.

For any larger complex system to thrive as a whole, its parts must forego the idea they are “individuals” with self-centered wants/ needs/ goals/ ambitions/ desires. Without this collectivist framework, entire ecosystems will collapse as we are witnessing all around us with the planet we call home hurling towards extinction.

The idea of an “individual” as capitalism/ colonialism have fabricated is an absurd concept. We cannot live without the unquantifiable contribution of trillions of non-human beings from the microbes living in & on us that call us home to the plants that make the oxygen we breathe and our ecosystems at-large that produce the food & water we consume. We exist because they exist.

If we want to build a better world, we need to start thinking of ourselves as cells that make up a greater whole. In order for the whole to live on, we must keep individualism in check, within ourselves & our movement spaces. While a certain amount of destruction & collapse is necessary for new life to flourish, the sum total of our actions must be ultimately synergistic & complimentary to each other rather than antagonistic. This is obviously difficult when within radical movements there are a diversity of beliefs and personalities, many of which may clash. So how do we not shoot ourselves in the foot & not act in selfish ways that brings about our own annihilation?

Those which we perceive as the “other” are still extensions of ourselves

Let’s start with a single cell. A group of cells come together to make tissue, tissues cooperate to create an organ like a heart. Organs coming together into organ systems like the cardiovascular system. Organ systems along with trillions of microbes make a human being. But it doesn’t end there. Humans come together to form a community which in collaboration with flora, fauna & the land create an ecosystem. Ecosystems come together to form our home planet which in conjunction with a star and other planets creates a solar system & so on & so forth. Colonialism has convinced us to draw an arbitrary boundary at the “individual” to separate us which is beneficial for oppressive systems but not us.

Of course, this doesn’t mean we look at everything through rose colored glasses. Fascists, for example, are a cancer that needs to be cut out. However, in our pursuit of collective liberation, we must lead with the fact that we fight for the people, our kin, & the land itself— all that are extensions & a part of us. It is naive to think that we can needlessly attack each other for some momentary ego kick & not suffer much deeper, longstanding consequences to our wellbeing.

A slide on individualism from one of AK’s recent “Decolonizing Medicine 101” workshops

We are the white blood cells that make up the Earth’s immune system

Capitalism/ colonialism are an infection or cancer of sorts that are rapidly spreading, proliferating, expanding and devouring this planet & everything in it including us. We are sick because the planet is sick. However, we also have a role to play in fighting this sickness so it does not destroy us all.

White blood cells (WBCs) are the bread & butter of our immune system. They circulate throughout our bloodstream and respond to injury or disease. They are a frontline defense system against foreign, dangerous “invaders” like bacteria, viruses, fungi & parasites or even allergens & cancer. WBCs are incredibly diverse in their physiology and function. They differentiate into specialized fighters like neutrophils, eosinophils, basophils, monocytes, T or B cells. Some directly attack invaders by engulfing them while others make ammunition (antibodies) to improve the strength & specificity of our immune response. In our fight against colonialism/ capitalism, I think we are the warriors that are meant to serve as the Earth’s immune system.

There is a lot we can learn from understanding the molecular basis of how the immune system is regulated. An effective immune response is decentralized yet beautifully synchronized. Different parts of the immune system must synergize with each other even if they are not in intimate contact or directly working & coordinating with each other. They are driven by a shared purpose & vision that shapes their core functions. Their inherent diversity is critical. Any effort to obliterate or homogenize the immune system leads to death. Each part is essential for the whole to thrive. An effective immune response cannot take out an invader with a few cells playing their role— a critical mass is necessary. There is power in numbers. Only when collectives of WBCs mobilize together, forming coalitions of sorts, can the immune system truly be “functional”. This surge of momentum cannot be short-lived either. The WBCs must be consistently unrelenting with their efforts, pass down knowledge through generations and learn with each attack iteration or the disease will return with a vengeance. Intergenerational knowledge building is the basis of a protective vaccine induced immune response. The collectivist structure of the people’s revolution is already mimicked and mirrored by the natural world around and within us.

What happens when an immune system does not work properly? A decrease or loss in functionality makes us hyper-susceptible to injury & disease. However, an over-active, dysregulated, unbalanced immune system is the molecular basis of many chronic illnesses like diabetes, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and a slew of other autoimmune disorders or chronic pain diseases. Autoimmune disorders are the result of the immune system being unable to distinguish between harmful invaders/ disease of the body’s own tissue, i.e. an inability to differentiate between the self versus the other. The immune system attacks your own body instead of protecting it. Instead of being focused on pathogens, B and T cells are excessively, aberrantly triggered by “normal” host cells which can have diverse manifestations from slight abnormalities & select organ damage to multi-organ failure & death.

When we are fixated on attacking each other more than oppressive systems that are slowly killing us all, we are dysregulated immune cells that are directing our efforts at the wrong thing. Not only is it a waste of energy & resources, it contributes to chronic suffering & eventually without sufficient self-correction or intervention, it leads to a death of the whole. We must know better & in situations where we may have been overly reactive & misdirected our rage at someone who very clearly isn’t the enemy, we have a responsibility to co-regulate in community to restore equilibrium.

It is us against the state, against global capitalism/ colonialism. We are up against a unified alliance of brutal, violent empires which are wholly committed to destroying us & the planet we call home. We may not like someone, have fundamental ideological differences, or other issues that might even make it impossible or counterproductive for two people to intimately work together. That is alright. Luckily, not all immune cells need to be in close contact or direct communication. Just like the immune system as a whole, we can function in autonomous collectives & still be coordinated or synergized. These collectives can come together into coalitions & amass people power if we’re willing to navigate the messy, uncomfortable challenges & conflicts that come with being in community. Some conflicts are regenerative, necessary & critical in our growth. They help us evolve, adapt & mature as collectives. However, excessive unnecessary discord is an autoimmune disorder of sorts where in the process of hurting another, we are hurting ourselves even if we don’t consciously realize it. Aberrant overreactive T cells don’t necessarily know they are attacking the self but the damage inflicted nevertheless persists & has downstream consequences.

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In the west, we are up against external threats from oppressive systems, internal threats within our collectives & also the demons within (i.e. the cop/ capitalist/ colonizer in our heads). The primary reason behind excessive ego-driven discord on the western left is the fact that some people are unaware when their actions are driven by the colonial values we’ve been socialized with since birth. The desire to dominate, conquer, defeat, be better than or superior to is deeply embedded within all those who were raised in capitalist societies and no matter how radical we think we are, we are susceptible to falling back on this conditioning when we are at our lowest. None of us are above the bs. So long as we have jobs & sell our bodies in some form to access the right to live under capitalism, we are interfacing with & deeply embedded within the violent matrix that we are attempting to dismantle. We are forced to comply with its rules & forced to endure its constant invalidation, rejection, & exploitation. We are made to feel worthless every day by the state in overt & covert ways. The mere lack of agency we have to decide what to do with our bodies hurts us deeply. We have all developed personalities within this context. It isn’t the only influence of course since the beautiful, kind, revolutionary aspects of our communities & ecosystems also have a profound influence on us. But these systems have bred us with big egos whether we know it or not.

Unlearning internalized capitalism/ colonialism is a big task especially early on when people are figuring out how to apply values of liberation to their actions & day-to-day life (i.e. praxis). But this is a task we must wholeheartedly commit to if we want to be free. We can be the revolutionary parts that make up the greater, transformative whole— the people’s whole that will bring about the downfall of these empires. But, we must learn from other revolutions (both successful & failed), from our own mistakes & evolve/ improve constantly. There is joy in rising above the bs. It doesn’t happen seamlessly. We can’t always keep ourselves in check. That is why we must build reciprocal friendships & relational bonds that are just as much nurturing & supportive as they are critical & growth-inducing. We are friends that are comfortable calling each other out, being honest & upfront about issues while working through them together. When we give each other critical feedback rather than just enable destructive behavior, we co-regulate as immune cells and inch closer to amassing the critical mass needed for a revolution.

With Care, 

عائشة + عائشة

PS: We know we’re not the only ones grappling with these contradictions in the struggle. We would love to hear your ideas, feedback or thoughts & realizations that came up as you were reading this!