How many peoples in the worlds that make up the world can sayas we do, that they are doing what they want to? We thinkthere are many, that the worlds of the world are filled withcrazy and foolish people each planting their trees for each oftheir tomorrows, and that the day will come when thismountainside of the universe that some people call PlanetEarth will be filled with trees of all colours, and there will beso many birds and comforts... Yes, it is likely no one willremember the first ones, because all the yesterdays which vexus today will be no more than an old page in the old book ofthe old history. Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos, Our Wordis Our Weapon, Seven Stories Press, 2001

Autonomy is our means and our end. It is both the act ofplanting our tree of tomorrow, and that tomorrow ofmany different hues: rich, diverse, complex and colourful.Autonomy is freedom and connectedness, necessarilycollective and powerfully intuitive, an irrepressible desirethat stalls every attempt to crush the will to freedom. Asthe politics of escape attempts from capitalism in theNorth and the experience of liberated realities in theSouth, it is a global theme. The movements againstcapitalism have once again brought it to the fore, vibrant,alive and urgently needed.

In the middle of the nineteenth century, a simple

question was asked of a utopian community in England,and it is just as relevant today as it was then: How do youget to a place where people live in harmony, and managewithout money by railway or rainbow? By dreaming ordoing? There are many answers and plenty of examples,some of which arise in this chapter, some of which arewoven through the book, and some of which you haveseen, thought of, imagined or fantasized about.

We call these experiments in autonomy, though othersmight prefer freedom, liberation, or self-organization. Theappeal of autonomy spans the entire political spectrum.Originally coming from the Greek and meaning self pluslaw, it is at the core of the liberal democratic theory ofjustice and values such as freedom of speech andmovement. Understood radically, however, it has been theterrain upon which revolutionary social movements haveencountered each other throughout Europe; autonomy atthe base, from the grassroots, is the core organizationalprinciple of the influential social movement known asAutonomia in Italy. Globally it has been a refrain ofcountless uprisings, struggles, rebellions, and resistancemovements from the Zapatistas in Chiapas to the OrganisasiPapua Merdeka (the Free Papua Movement) in West Papua, acolony of Indonesia. From the Cauca people of Colombia tothe communities of Kerala in southwestern India and on to

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Autonomy creating spaces for freedom

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the asamblistas and piqueteros of the Argentinean uprisings,people worldwide are developing political and social formsrooted in differing concepts of autonomy.

What is the appeal of autonomy today? We seem tohave reached the point where trust in representativedemocracy has run out. The consistent betrayal by thosewho promise everything and deliver nothing has led manyof us into apathy and cynicism. More profoundly somehave begun to question the idea that our involvement indecision-making should be limited to a simple vote everyfew years. Participation, deliberation, consensus, anddirect democracy are emerging from the margins and, inmany instances, are being reaffirmed as the centre ofgravity for communities the world over.

Autonomy appropriated The public be damned! I work for my stockholders. William H. Vanderbilt, 1879

Break the rules. Stand apart. Keep your head. Go with your heart. TV commercial for Vanderbilt perfume, 1994

Our desire to influence the decisions that affect oureveryday lives, however, has a powerful enemy disguisedto seduce and lull into sleep that very desire. The cultureof capitalism portrays autonomy as a key mechanism ofthe free market. For us to be free, the mythology goes,we must exercise our autonomy as consumers in themarketplace, where our bank balance determines our level

of participation in other words, we are free asconsumers, where one dollar equals one vote.

By this same logic, the World Trade Organization, theInternational Monetary Fund, and the World Bankbecome advocates of freedom. Freedom, that is, fromunnecessary regulation and barriers to trade (such asenvironmental standards, trade union rights, corporatetaxation, bans on child labour) the freedom of money toflow around the globe at will. In such a free world, food,water, shelter, education, and healthcare are all trackablecommodities. Insisting on them as basic rights ratherthan something to be bought, however, is a barrier totrade. But those basic rights provide the security that is atthe root of a positive understanding of freedom as afreedom to do or to be.

For in order to be truly free to create, co-operate,produce, dream, and to realize ones own autonomythrough the respect and recognition of the autonomy ofothers requires the freedom to be in the world and tohave a network of care and support. The corruption ofautonomy by free marketers is at the heart of thecapitalist project to capture the idea of freedom and sellit back to us. From self plus law, they have fashionedthe idea that individuals are actually a law untothemselves. The market is presented as the logicaldevelopment of our self-interest as well as the mechanismfor its fulfilment.

We refute this notion of autonomy. It is not the tree oftomorrow that our movements are planting today. Our

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understanding of autonomy includes community ownedand run healthcare, education, and social support; directdemocracy in zones liberated by the people who live inthem not as enclaves or places to withdraw to but asoutward looking and connected communities of affinity,engaged in mutual co-operation, collective learning, andunmediated interaction. This is the reason for ourimpassioned defence of the mechanisms and supportstructures that have been fought for and won, the hardtoil of movements who have struggled for hundreds ofyears indigenous, revolutionary, and democratic.

Autonomy and capitalismAutonomy is always in process. But autonomy is oftenmistaken for individual independence which most of usunderstand as growing up, leaving home, finding work,earning money, making our own decisions: where to live,what to eat, what to wear, buy, and so on. But even wherethese decisions can be made (and in most of the world thisfiction of independence is impossible), these choices are,in reality, entirely dependent upon the actions of others.That is, dependent upon the labour, transport,distribution, and exchange involved in the production ofthe food, clothes, house and so forth from which we gainour experience of independence. Our lives aremanufactured for us, instead of being the outcome of ourchoices and desires. Not only are we produced by thissystem, we in turn reproduce it by acting within itsestablished parameters and boundaries and as long as we

remain within these boundaries, we are perfectly free togo about life according to the paths offered to us bygovernments and corporations. In short, we are free tochoose anything, as long as it doesnt defy the logic ofcapitalism. When we defy that logic, we soon discover thetrue limits of our freedom.

The relationship between those with power and thoseunder their command lies at the foundation of capitalism.Our capacity to create and to produce is separated fromthat which is produced the product, so instead ofdeciding together the best ways we can meet our ownneeds, while respecting the needs of others and theplanet, our energies are appropriated to produce for theprofit of others. Consequently, we are alienated from thevery fruits of our work and work itself becomes somethingtedious, imposed, and suffered, rather than somethingimagined, anticipated, and creatively experienced. Thecreation of value and its concentration in things, orproducts, is then confirmed through their exchange in amarket. This value invested in things means they quicklycome to own us, rather than us owning them.

Of course, most of us are not slaves. We can refuse,walk away, desert, quit, but where should we go and whatshould we do? This is the question and the challenge atthe core of our consideration of autonomy. Refusal is onlya real weapon if it is collective, with the combinedcreativity and strength that implies. Autonomy can neverbe about simple individualism, as we have beenencouraged to believe. Autonomy is not about consumer

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choice, whether wearing brands or boycotting them,choosing to drive an SUV or a biodiesel bus. No amount ofethical consumerism, self-help, no amount of therapy, noretreat inside ourselves will allow us to make the jump.Autonomy is necessarily collective.

You are not aloneOf course, this is a simple way of describing a verycomplicated set of processes and the world is far toocomplex for easy explanations to hold up for very long.The means of producing, the nature of production, andwhat we might think of as products are all changing andhave all changed. However, evidence that this powerfullogic surrounds us and penetrates the everyday can befound in every sphere of life: from the marketization ofbasic needs such as water, to the patenting of gene types;from the opening of markets in healthcare, social services,and education, to the assertion of intellectual propertyrights; from the simulation of dissent to sell culturalexperiences in everything from fashion to cinema and art,to the erosion of any distinction between the simulated andthe real in popular culture all are tainted by the logic ofcapital and the elevation of the commodity above all else.Under these circumstances it is no wonder that many of usrespond with a sense of incredulity at the pace andcomplexity of life, a sense of helplessness, a feeling of beingoverwhelmed, and a general state of apathy in response tothe wilful appropriation of creativity and energy for whichwe are offered in exchange the most meaningless level of

participation produce, consume, die.But once we act purposefully despite these constraints,

we embark on a journey a process of becoming whichleads simultaneously towards freedom and connectedness,towards autonomy. We realize it through our connectionsto others, through interaction, negotiation, andcommunication. To be autonomous is not to be alone or toact in any way one chooses a law unto oneself but toact with regard for others, to feel responsibility for others.This is the crux of autonomy, an ethic of responsibilityand reciprocity that comes through recognition thatothers both desire and are capable of autonomy too

So when we talk about autonomy, we are not talkingabout or advocating a few journeys of independence;

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WE'VE BEEN LIVING AUTONOMY, BUT WE'VE

ONLY JUST DISCOVERED THERE'S A

WORD FOR IT. WE COULDN'T FIND

ANYTHING OUT THERE THAT ANSWERED

OUR NEED FOR CHANGE SO WE CREATE

THIS AS WE GO ALONG. THERE'S LOTS OF

CONTRADICTIONS IN IT. IT'S NOT A

THEORY BUT A PRACTICE IN

DEVELOPMENT.

- Ral Gatica, indigenous community activist from Oaxaca, Mexico

much less a withdrawal from the world into a kind ofretreat. Something else entirely is happening, somethingrooted in this concept of autonomy as freedom andconnectedness. A dynamic geometry of social struggle isemerging, fractal-like, where local autonomy is repeatedand magnified within networks that overflowgeographical, cultural, and political borders. On thehorizon is an exodus thousands of escape attempts, amass breakout that is taking place globally. People arepassing around the keys, exchanging tunnellingtechniques, tearing down the fences, climbing the wallslearning to fly.

What follows are a few of the branches of thecomplex tree of tomorrow that is autonomy. Throughthese stories, we hope to move beyond the idea thatautonomy is just about deciding things with others oflike mind in ideal communities that are often verydifferent from those we usually experience in theeveryday. Like stars on the horizon, some of theseexamples have burned themselves into our collectiveconsciousness, while others are now faded distresssignals echoing across other realities, re-visioned,transformed, and partially renewed in forms that maynot even be recognizable to their founders and catalysts.None are perfect, and none are offered as blueprints.All have in common an experimental quality, openness topossibility and contingency, and an intoxicating blend ofcreativity and courage which resonates across ideologicalbarriers and national borders.

Italy autonomy at the basePolitical autonomy is the desire to allow differences to deepen at

the base without trying to synthesize them from above, tostress similar attitudes without imposing a general line, toallow parts to co-exist side by side in their singularity. Sylvere Lotringer & Christian Marazzi, The Return of Politics

in Italy: Autonomia, Post-Political Writings, Semiotext(e), 1980

Autonomy at the base was the core principle of PotereOperaio (Workers Power) the influential group andmagazine that was at the heart of social unrest in Italyduring the late 1960s and early 1970s, dissolving itself in1973 to become part of a broader movement known asAutonomia (Autonomia Operaio). Autonomia as a movementnever unified; as a series of fluid organizations andshifting alliances, it refused to separate economics frompolitics and politics from everyday existence. Thisapproach led ultimately to the idea of refusing wagedlabour and to the extension of struggle from the factory(occupations, sabotage and strikes were commonplace) tothe city (20,000 buildings were squatted between 1969 and1975) and on in to the lives of what was termed thesocialized worker. The state finally crushed Autonomia asan active political force beginning with the 7 April 1979arrests. Over 1,500 intellectuals and militants wereimprisoned within a year.

But how does this relate to us today? In many ways,Italy remains something of a political and culturalexperiment in the possibilities and potentials of

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autonomous forms and processes, currently embodied inthe Disobbedienti (Disobedients), the network of socialcentres and autonomous groupings that has grown in thewake of the G8 protests in Genoa, 2001. The Disobbedientiemerged from the Tute Bianche, a movement tool andstrategy of confrontation that became renowned during thePrague protests against the World Bank and IMF forwearing white overalls (or coveralls) and deploying bodyarmour made of foam padding and bubble wrap to ward offpolice batons. Their white overalls are an ironic celebrationof the Mayor of Milans comments on the eviction of asocial centre in 1994, a popular community space in whichcultural events, free meals, and political discussion broughtworkers, immigrants, students, and neighbours together.The mayor remarked, From now on, squatters will benothing more than ghosts wandering about in the city!

These white ghosts sought a visibility from which tocelebrate the margins, experiment with both localdemocracy and terrains on which diverse social groupscan encounter each other. Tute Bianches use of the bodyas barricade and bludgeon during actions epitomizes theneed for presence, the desire to be an obstacle; it alsodramatizes the futility of endless debate about violenceand nonviolence. Putting bodies on the front line in thismanner allows for confrontation while calling forrestraint, for resistance to the temptation of resorting tofurther violence, or engaging in a battle with the state onits own terms. It clearly opposes the needless descent intocivil war:

we do not have to turn this space of revolt into a war zone.We have to think of the conflict in a different way. We call itdisobedience, conflict and consensus, an action always open toexperimentation, open to transformation and rethinking themovement. We could have gone to Genoa carrying molotovsand we decided not to, because it does not work against thebullets and the Carabinieris trucks that chase demonstrators.We also had to confront the police force. We built barricadesafter they shot at us. But we are always holding ourselves backin order not to be dragged into a civil war. That is what powerwants: for the conflict to become a war. Luca Caserini, a spokesperson for the Disobbedienti, interviewed

by Ezequiel Marcos Siddig in Z Magazine

The deepest desire of the state in such circumstances is foran escalation through violence that leads to the prison celland grave. The Italian legacy of armed struggle, whichended with hundreds in prison in the 1970s, wasinstrumental in teaching the Disobbedienti this lesson.Refusal to engage in a confrontation whose rules areestablished by the state is a pre-requisite of autonomousaction; the stakes are incredibly high as the experience ofa generation of Italian activists indicates.

The danger of celebrating confrontation whether (asthe Seattle slogan suggested) we are winning or not, isthat our aspirations and tactics are once more reduced toa simple binary opposition. In reality, who we are isnever clear, what winning means is always difficult toascertain, and those who would rather we didnt win

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often take a far longer or broader perspective. As theDisobbedienti argue, strategy is crucially important, as iscommunication, adaptability, knowledge, and willingnessto listen and change. Where confrontation is necessary and it is always likely to be necessary an autonomousstrategy requires us to be free both from the constraints ofrules established by the powerful and from our ownexpectations that resistance requires us to always meetforce with force. True autonomy means new and variabletactics, learning patience in order to flow around andabove obstacles, learning to retreat, disperse, and then re-group to swarm and surround. It requires us to educateand communicate, and to be grounded in and to nurturesupport within constituencies beyond narrowcommunities of activism. All of this is essential to thepractice of radical social change and all of it is essential tothe idea of autonomy as freedom and connectedness.

Wild autonomy: local inspirations and global visionsA journey off the beaten track that highlights fascinatingexamples of autonomous initiatives could take usanywhere in the world for they are numerous, andoften include people, organizations, or activities that wemight not suspect of being subversive to the status quo.Think, for example, of those forms of mutual aid thatprovide the webs of support on which huge numbers ofpeople already rely: community education and healthcare, food and housing co-ops, social centres and info-shops, shared transport initiatives, independent media,

art, and publishing projects, and many other local andoften unsung alternatives. All form a self-organizedmatrix dedicated to the construction of alternative socialrelationships. These are the support structures for ourcollective escape attempts.

Some of the most interesting are coordinating throughnetworks of communication and information exchange.Some are shaped by specific issues, or are clusteredaround social divisions such as race, class, gender,disability, sexuality, or age. Others are unique because ofparticular cultural traditions or sensibilities, or becauseof geographical location, or perhaps their courage in theface of overwhelming opposition. And for some autonomyis a whole way of being, living in communities that areliberated, directly democratic, and self-organizing,communities of struggle where the politics of autonomyhave been realized in the social practices and day-to-dayexistence of alternative realities.

Autonomous communitiesThe Kuna people live on a series of 50 tiny islands in anarchipelago of 360 known as Comarca Kuna Yala, situatedin the Pacific Ocean and straddling the Colombia-Panamaborder. They gained autonomy after a bloody strugglewith colonial police in 1925. Today 70,000 Kuna managetheir day-to-day affairs through an elaborate system ofdirect democracy that federates 500 different autonomouscommunities within the Kuna General Congress, whichmeets once every six months. Each community and each

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inhabited island has their own internal rules andregulations, and is completely autonomous from theothers; the only obligation is to send four delegates to thecongress in order to enable coordination and to facilitatedecisions on issues that relate to all Kuna. As Ib, a Kunaactivist points out in an interview: If the Government(ie: the Panamanian Government) wants to carry out anykind of project within the region it has to consult ourCongress. It has to be subordinate to the Congress, and theCongress has to make the decision it has the last word.

Their autonomy is not a matter of mere theory, or ofthe formal but tokenistic recognition of indigenous rights.When the Panamanian Government granted a Canadianmining company license to explore and exploit Kunaterritory that permission was revoked by the Kuna.Equally, the Government was refused permission to installa naval base in Kuna territory. And the Kuna are neitherlocalist or naive: they have independently negotiatedrights to their territorial waters for the purposes of layingtrans-Atlantic fibre optic cable for improved web linksbetween South America and Europe. They are also activewith local and regional groups within Peoples GlobalAction in resistance against Plan Colombia a jointproject between the Colombian, US, and EU governmentswhich has heavily militarized the region. As Ib puts it:Our organization wishes to struggle and to fight together,as fighting is necessary, without distinguishing betweendifferent ideologies, colours or nationalities.

The practical effects of globalization for PGA affect all

oppressed people, and not only the Kuna or the indigenouspeople are oppressed: blacks, peasants, unions andsyndicates are also oppressed. But we should act withrespect for diversity of culture, diversity of opinions, andthe diversity of all the people who live on the planet.

Now we are awakeOf course, the most globally influential of recentexperiments in autonomous organization is the Zapatistacommunities in Chiapas, Mexico. The Zapatistas emphasisupon direct democracy so familiar to the indigenouspeoples of Chiapas combined with the collective projectof the EZLN has allowed them to advance local affairs andsettle differences for themselves, without the impositionof general rules or norms of behaviour.

Networks such as the Zapatista-inspired National

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IT IS NO ACCIDENT THAT MOST OF THE

REMAINING NATURAL RESOURCES ARE ON

INDIGENOUS LAND. FIRST THE WHITE

WORLD DESTROYS THEIR OWN

ENVIRONMENT, THEN THEY COME ASKING

FOR THE LAST PIECES OF LAND THEY

HAVE PUT US ON, THE EARTH WE HAVE

PROTECTED. Luis Macas, spokesperson for indigenous

Ecuadoran organization, CONAIE

Indigenous Congress show that far from a retreat tolocalism, the organizational dynamic of the EZLN hasalways been towards regional, national, andinternational collaboration. Autonomy as practiced bythe Zapatistas is about inclusion and connection, aboutprojects and actions that form a whole, over and abovethe capacity of any group or individual to determine orimpose a particular direction or outcome.

Zapatismo is therefore the emergent philosophy of aconstellation of essentially autonomous projects. Fromthe indigenous womens initiative which specified aseries of womens rights contrary to the patriarchalculture that surrounded them, to the autonomousZapatista National Liberation Front (the unarmed civilsociety branch of the Zapatistas), to the national andinternational gatherings known as encuentros thatsubsequently led to the founding of Peoples Global Actionand had a significant influence on the development ofthe world and regional Social Forum movement.

All these examples of autonomy challenge the basictenets of state power and the continuance of governmentin anything like its present form. In a similar way to theKuna, the Zapatista revolution in thinking and practicedid not taken place in a vacuum, but is rooted in ananalysis of the national and international context withinwhich they find themselves. Consequently, whilenegotiating for indigenous autonomy and civil rightsduring peace talks in San Andrs Sakamchn, theZapatistas were simultaneously pushing for profound

constitutional reforms that would have in effect begunthe process of dismantling the existent power structure ofMexican society. This was only realized by the governmentafter their representatives and negotiators had reachedthe final stage of the peace accords and it is a majorreason why the Mexican Government failed to implementthose accords.

The Zapatistas also bypassed the state through theorganization of a consulta: a programme of populareducation involving 5,000 Zapatistas travelling the lengthand breadth of Mexico followed by a plebiscite on the SanAndrs peace agreement. As a result, over three millionMexicans voted for its ratification. You came and foundus sleeping, but now we are awake, said one old manfrom Morelos who took part. Participation, deliberation,transparency, and democracy are at the forefront,essential to the transformative power of autonomy.

Examples such as these are found globally, andeverywhere the refrain is the same. In Indonesia, asystem of regional autonomy introduced in 1999 as ameans of responding to global market pressures forproductive flexibility has instead led to incredibleinnovation amongst civil society, as well as a qualitativelydifferent way of doing politics in some areas. In theMentawai Islands, the ideal of replacing government witha lagai, a consultative and deliberative body is gainingmomentum as, they suggest: the functioning ofmainstream politics contradicts the ideals of dialogue inpursuit of a generally acceptable lagai-based consensus.

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In the village of Mendha in the Gadchiroli district ofMaharashtra State, in India the slogan is Mawa mate,mawa Raj, (in our village we are the government). Thisautonomy began with their opposition to the incursionsinto their forests by Ballarpur Paper Mills, which theysubsequently defeated. In defiance of centralgovernment, they developed a system of forest andwatershed management, as well as new methods ofhoney production realized through their system ofparticipatory democracy and self-organization. Up to1,500 such villages across rural India have been recordedtaking similar steps. In these villages, governmentofficials fear to tread.

The everyday reality of autonomy then, is one whichis rich, diverse, and complex and once embedded isdifficult to root out, for like Mendhas honey, the taste offreedom and the inspiration of connectedness areunforgettably sweet. In many communities of struggle,autonomy is the beating heart of defiance,simultaneously echoing the rhythms of the everyday,which are also the rhythms of resistance.

Networking: new social spaces and old social realitiesThere are many examples of communities that have beenable to make the leap, albeit precariously, towards a formof autonomy that is rooted, indeed is given meaning,through everyday existence in liberated zones where ideasand practices are one. Elsewhere, autonomy is morefragmented and incomplete. It can be the experience of

working in an affinity group and making consensusdecisions based upon trust and respect, or the kick ofgrowing your own food, organizing a co-operative, orjoining a group of people agitating for community controlof vital services.

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BECAUSE OUR HISTORICAL VISION HAS BECOME

SO USED TO ORDERLY BATTALIONS, COLOURFUL

BANNERS, AND SCRIPTED PROCLAMATIONS OF

SOCIAL CHANGE, WE ARE AT A LOSS WHEN

CONFRONTED WITH THE SUBTLE

PERVASIVENESS OF INCREMENTAL CHANGES

OF SYMBOLS PROCESSED THROUGH

MULTIFORM NETWORKS, AWAY FROM THE

HALLS OF POWER. IT IS IN THESE BACK

ALLEYS OF SOCIETY, WHETHER IN ALTERNATIVE

ELECTRONIC NETWORKS OR IN GRASSROOTED

NETWORKS OF COMMUNAL RESISTANCE, THAT

I HAVE SENSED THE EMBRYOS OF A NEW

SOCIETY, LABOURED IN THE FIELDS OF

HISTORY BY THE POWER OF IDENTITY.

Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society, The

Information Age: economy, society and culture, Volume 1, 1996

It is educating your child, occupying a building,refusing a job, working for satisfaction rather thanmoney, and achieving everything. These escape attempts,though small and often unseen, coalesce in cycles, andsometimes they grow and spread exponentially. Previouslythey were easily co-opted, their threat neutralized,because they were isolated attempts from brieftransgressions to large mobilizations, they often signifiedsingularity rather than solidarity.

In contrast, the movement of movements againstcapitalism is composed of groups, (dis)organizations,networks, and constellations of networks that are linkedto each other through struggle. There is nothing new inthis except that most of those active within thesemovements are now vibrantly aware of these links thestrategies, forms of action, modes of decision-making,and of course, the common enemies. Previously, episodesof resistance such as the rise of Zapatismo would havebeen a footnote in the history of indigenous rebellions, abrief flare on the horizon; now they are the digitalarchive of a global revolutionary consciousness, a wholevista set alight. These links are fostered bycommunication technologies, travel, and gatheringswhere people can meet, interact, learn, teach, andstruggle together. These spaces have been and continue tobe crucial to the vitality and the continued expansion ofthis global cycle of resistance.

Keeping these spaces open is essential, as is retaining abalance between the need and desire of groups to operate

independently autonomously. We also need a level ofcoordination to increase communication flows betweenourselves, and to ensure that participation at regional andglobal levels is participatory and democratic. Networkforms of organization, such as Peoples Global Action havebeen crucial to the development of global resistance andthe coordination of autonomous projects within a broaderframework which itself seeks to be autonomous.

Other spaces of coordination reflect the emphasis onpopular processes of deliberation, discussion, andeducation that are such a feature of the liberated zones ofthe Kuna, the Zapatistas, and others. In 2000 in Spain, forexample, activists facilitated a social consulta on thequestion of abolishing external debt. Over 10,000 peoplegot involved in 500 neighbourhood assemblies, andultimately over one million people voted by 97.5 per centto abolish the external debt. This process wassubsequently made unlawful by the state judicialauthorities. Fourteen countries across Latin America haveconducted social consultas on the Free Trade Area of theAmericas in Brazil ten million voted against it in a civilsociety referendum in September 2002. A European socialconsulta, is now being organized, seeking popularinvolvement catalyzed by autonomous promoter groupsworking in their own localities.

In Los Angeles, the Bus Riders Union is a trilingualorganization composed of the urban poor who aredependent upon public transport for work, education, andleisure. Militant and carnivalesque strategies of

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confrontation, including non-payment of fares, theatreskits, and onboard teach-ins through bus-based educatorsand organizers has forced the Metropolitan TransitAuthority and the courts to recognize them as the voice ofan incredibly diverse coalition. Race, class, gender,disability, and the environment have been highlighted ina vibrant and massively effective campaign that hashelped keep fares low, led to the replacement of olderdiesel buses with newer compressed gas models, andultimately increased passenger numbers as confidencegrows amongst the black and ethnic minority, female, andpoor communities that are so in need of decent publictransport. Organized independently of political partiesand operating with a high degree of autonomy andinternal democracy, this organization has resonated withothers across North America, and new Bus Riders Unionshave sprung up in many large cities.

In Canada, the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty(OCAP) is another example of autonomous organizingbased upon alliances forged across social divisions. OCAPwas founded in 1990 and intervenes using instrumentaldirect action aimed at obstructing the application ofneoliberal policies employed by the state or nationalgovernment. This involves direct action case-work,focusing on issues and events which are directly relevantto the quality of everyday life experienced by oppressedcommunities. The casework involves a process thatrequires active resistance at the point where it can make adifference not symbolic protest, or advocacy, but

building communities of struggle and respecting theautonomy of those communities to self-organize.

OCAP has had success working against homelessness,poverty, police harassment, privatization, deportations,and corporate power. As an avowedly anticapitalistorganization not allied to any political party, they haveattracted members from different ethnic and classbackgrounds, and have shown clearly that to organize in away which can make a difference often means beingprepared to fight. As OCAP organizer Jeff Shantz says, aslong as movements remain trapped in methods of limitedprotest, governments and profit-seeking regimes willcontinue to escalate their attacks on poor people, people ofcolour, and the Earth.

It is easy to call for a fight and easier still to lose one,

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THE MONEY KING IS ONLY AN ILLUSION.

CAPITALISM IS BLIND AND BARBARIC. IT

POISONS THE WATER AND THE AIR. IT

DESTROYS EVERYTHING.

AND TO THE U'WA, IT SAYS THAT WE ARE

CRAZY, BUT WE WANT TO CONTINUE BEING

CRAZY IF IT MEANS WE CAN CONTINUE

TO EXIST ON OUR DEAR MOTHER EARTH.

The U'wa people in Colombia, after oil corporation Oxy was

forced to withdraw from their land in 2002

but it is very difficult to sustain a serious defence againstthe ever-more regressive and brutal tactics of the state.However, OCAPs autonomy and vitality has enabled themto mount such opposition. For their strength lies in theroots of their organization rather than being content tomirror the liberal call to tolerate diversity, theypractice an actual unity in diversity, and this means theydraw upon a wider constituency than many similaractivist organizations.

As Thomas Walkom wrote in the Toronto Star, OCAP is:An eclectic band that includes not only poor people, butstudents, retirees and the odd university professor, OCAPdoesnt play by the usual rules. It is direct, in your faceand occasionally rude. Where other protest groups try tomake their points by holding demonstrations in authorizedpublic spaces such as Nathan Phillips Square, OCAP tendsto take the fight right to where its enemies live.

In OCAP, we have an example of how new strategies ofdirect action have reinvigorated campaigns aroundperennial social realities of poverty and inequality.Similarly, in the new networked spaces of PGA and themyriad processes of consultation, we have a model forhow everyday social realities might come to inform eachother while retaining the autonomy each prizes so highly.

The tree of tomorrowThe nature of autonomy is necessarily different indifferent locations; both political philosophy andgrounded practice, an aim of self-organization and the

outcome of participatory democracy. We have sketched outthe bare bones of what this might mean: liberated zones,networked social spaces for organizations, coordinatingacross geographic and cultural barriers, and the toughresolve required to organize autonomously in the shadowof the state across difference and division. Yet it willalways be difficult to do justice to autonomy. For as theoryand practice it is the life-blood of the movements againstcapitalism: as freedom and connectedness, as unity indiversity, as recognition of the other.

The politics of autonomy encourage us to push for andtake, to refuse, to be prepared to fight, and to escape, exit.For to exit is also to take, to take ourselves out of thecontext within which we are ensnared, to choosedifferently, to reinvent our circumstances, and to decidewhat it is we should, or need, to do. Autonomy is a keydemand of a complex movement, a tree of tomorrowwhose deep roots were planted in yesterday and today andare spreading everywhere.

Notes from Nowhere

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