argia.eus
INPRIMATU
About the community (and III)
  • When I started this series of articles about the community, Antoine and Antoine were in the house, the cheese chamber was empty, the tours to the slaughterhouse were weekly and we made cheese every three days. By the time I started writing this, the place where Picardie’s friends went to their hometown and made their way to Mallorca, we went to the Zubillaga slaughterhouse once in a while – the last trip will be on Monday – and we already gassed every two days.
Josebe Blanco Alvarez 2025eko apirilaren 07a
Dani Blanco / ARGIA CC-BY-SA

From there I have been swimming in the great sea of the community; sometimes it has been a very intense sensation of suffocation, thanks to the subsequent calm... Today I would like to finish the collection, but I am sure that, even in retrospect, the current will carry me.

Before I got here, I don’t know exactly when and where, it occurred to me that perhaps this series of writings has been the tide of getting to the one I didn’t dare to write the first time. Just a simple approach to landing at the core of the community.

In this holistic definition I saw the functioning of the forest: in the ecosystem made up of several species, the contribution of each one has a direct impact on the members and the community as a whole. Thus, it is enough that a change occurs in a certain type of lichen or that it disappears from the community, in order to set in motion the concatenation and to distort the ecosystem.

For years I have been in social movements and I have seen and experienced all kinds of ecosystems. In the experiences that have been adapted there is a bit of everything, sour and sweet, and both have given this community a window into the future.

At a certain time of cirt or zart, it is as reassuring as it is enriching to think that, despite having a different perspective, the other also refers to the better needs of this community. From another starting point, with other nuances, but always thinking that what you think is the best.

In a short distance, to maintain the community spirit, although sometimes it is not easy, I would say it is feasible, it consists in trusting in the different as well. It’s not the same as trusting in what you’ve never faced before as the community expands. Among other things, because there are often threads and tailors that are invisible to you in this network of communities, and you are not aware of the entire design.

And without a photo of this latest community design, what’s the point of your sewing job? Maybe you’re accidentally stitching in the wrong place, and as soon as you realize it, the community doesn’t have a place to get the head because you’ve stitched it perfectly, too.

Unfortunately, the situation is not unique to this large community. The worst thing is that we take the diffuse management of information and the consequences that it entails as natural as breathing, among other reasons because this is the reference and almost the only model received.

In my opinion, in social movements, in addition to this specific function –Basque, rights, feminism, environmentalism...– we should pay a lot of attention to our internal dynamics. In fact, by neglecting these vertical models that we want to criticize and eliminate from society, we are repeating ourselves.

It is our duty to sow the seeds of the more egalitarian society that will exist. We need seminars for profound transformation in communities, both small and large, to create and continue to work on alternatives to the multiple crises that we live and experience. With all the personal work involved in building relationships from other axes.

I think we need to create the forest from everyday practices if we don’t want to be plantation cryptocurrencies or eucalyptus. With everything that comes with being a forest: without leaving anyone behind, doing your job for the better needs of the community, knowing that the well-being of the forest is your own and, without forgetting, when we are tired, we will have a way to rest in the community.
Taking advantage of the presence of spring, in the hope that we will not be cut to the brim, let us continue to form a diverse and stimulating forest, together.