09191 Mutual Aid

By mutual confidence and mutual aid — great deeds are done, and great discoveries made. — Homer

We are not put on this earth to see through one another, but to see one another through. — Unknown

Mutual Aid is the title of a book by Peter Kropotkin. About the book, Wikipedia says —

Written partly in response to Social Darwinism and in particular to Thomas H. Huxley's Nineteenth Century essay, "The Struggle for Existence,” Kropotkin's book drew on his experiences in scientific expeditions in Siberia to illustrate the phenomenon of cooperation. After examining the evidence of cooperation in nonhuman animals, pre-feudal societies, in medieval cities, and in modern times, he concludes that cooperation and mutual aid are the most important factors in the evolution of the species and the ability to survive . . .

. . . Kropotkin pointed out the distinction between the direct struggle among individuals for limited resources (generally called competition) and the more metaphorical struggle between organisms and the environment (tending to be cooperative). He therefore did not deny the competitive form of struggle, but argued that the cooperative counterpart has been under emphasized: "There is an immense amount of warfare and extermination going on amidst various species; there is, at the same time, as much, or perhaps even more, of mutual support, mutual aid, and mutual defense . . . Sociability is as much a law of nature as mutual struggle.”

Mutual aid is one of the essential aspects of permaculture. In the first section, we talked about how a forest can persist for long periods of time without a gardener to make interventions. The wastes of some are food for others — everything gives and everything receives. We’ve returned to this concept frequently as the iPermie pages have turned.

While it could be said that our entire approach to permaculture is about mutual aid, in this chapter, we will consider mutual aid as it relates to disasters, in particular, systemic disasters. Mutual aid can mark the difference between life and death in such events.

We think of disaster response as a government responsibility. The events of recent years question the prudence of relying on the government to come to our assistance.

Government budget cuts reduce the resources available to agencies responsible for disaster relief.

Nonprofit agencies doing disaster relief also have had to cut budgets because of declines in contributions.

If the disaster is above a certain threshold, such as the Katrina hurricane — or if there are several large-scale disasters in progress at different geographic locations at the same time — government and private agencies may simply be overwhelmed by the events and unable to respond adequately, even with the best of intentions and organizational development.

Government authorities may turn criminal. During Katrina, police shot unarmed African Americans attempting to evacuate New Orleans through a mostly white suburb and some were killed. Caretakers abandoned people in nursing homes who were not rescued by local authorities. Government authorities put people at risk while they squabbled about responsibilities and turf. The 20th century teaches us that we can’t trust the government to tell us the truth.

The evidence is clear that we rely on government aid during a disaster to our mortal peril. If the government’s cavalry shows up in the nick of time, great. If not, we need alternative, close-to-the-ground structures, that can go into action immediately during a crisis.

Getting there the firstest with the mostest.

In a crisis, those who get there the firstest with the mostest have the best chance of influencing the outcome, for good or for ill. Here is a process that you can use to prepare to respond effectively when the times call for prompt grassroots action to save and protect human life and community:

Prepare yourself and your household first.

Then, find and develop a core leadership group to form a mutual aid disaster response organization, and give yourselves identity, competency, authority. This can be your permaculture education and action group. Or it could be the beginning of a permaculture education and action group.

Work on your shared map, shared plan, and leadership issues.

Find the knowledge and instructions you will need.

Develop the essential organizational infrastructure, both physical and social, and practice using it.

Become involved with your community.

Localize and Regionalize.

Be ready to act without hesitation or uncertainty at short notice.

By implementing this program, you can plant and nurture the seed of a spontaneous emergent order that can cope with a perilous situation that may be mushrooming out of control. Good design will enable you and your community to build new structures amidst the collapsing ruins of the old that both replace the old failed systems and protect you and your neighborhood from their falling debris.

Prepare yourself and your household first. Observe and analyze/evaluate your own household's vulnerabilities. Design your responses. Implement your plans. One of the roots of authority is authenticity. Walking your talk gives you credibility in a crisis.

Find and develop your core leadership group and give yourselves identity, competency, authority. Where do you find these people? Start with those you already know from work on permaculture issues. What’s that you say — you aren’t already working with other people on permaculture issues? You have managed to work your way this far into iPermie, reading through hundreds of thousands of words, and still you resist the permaculture call to community?

Believe it or not, I understand that. We live in a gravely damaged cultural ecology that teaches us to be afraid of connecting with others. It’s not for nothing that the motto of the ruling aristocracies is “divide and conquer.” Their job is much easier if we remain disunited and fearful of each other.;

It’s a hard lesson to learn, but permaculture is not a solitary, individualistic affair. Permaculture incorporates cooperation and community — mutual aid! — the title of this chapter. Communities of compassion and mutual responsibility and interdependence are, I think, the missing factor in many people’s ideas about permaculture. For the iPermie approach, community is as necessary and important as the permaculture ethics, the principles of redundancy, diversity, and stacked functions, and the utility of forest gardens, spiral herb gardens, and edible landscaping.

The time to develop trusting relationships is before a crisis hits. Start with people you know and trust. If you aren't working through an existing organization, start one.

There are four primary sources of an organization's emergent authority in a crisis:

The human rights to participation & association. Everyone has an inherent natural right — and responsibility! — to participate in your own life and to freely associate with others for mutually agreeable goals.
Practical work in advance of need to identify challenges and opportunities and develop plans to mitigate dangers and adapt to changing circumstances;
Your willing ability to freely share this expertise and situational awareness with others (servant leadership!), and
Your competent group discipline to work together on common tasks.

Appearances count! Make an authoritative-looking picture ID for each member of your group. Get everyone an orange vest, like hunters wear. How do you make a picture ID? Get “passport size photos” of everyone. Make an identity card template on a computer. Print it out, customized with each person’s identity info and your organization’s name. Put their photo on it and have it laminated at a copy shop. Punch a hole in the top, run a cord through it, hang it around your neck.

Work on your shared map, shared plan, and leadership issues. Use the Shared Critical Infrastructure Map system. http://www.resiliencemaps.org/

The time to identity threats, find resources, and design contingency plans is before the crisis hits. Make multiple copies, and spread them around. Plan for best and worst cases, and points “in between.”

Find the knowledge and instructions you will need. To establish credibility in a crisis, provide practical knowledge and instructions that help people protect themselves and their families and adapt to changing circumstances.

While computer files and CDs are useful to transfer and distribute info, in some emergencies they may not be usable. Get paper documents and books for critical information. Make copies of printable flyers to distribute in advance of need. You need enough to saturate your neighborhood and extra to share elsewhere. Make copies of the Civil Emergency flyer for every household in your neighborhood, & one set of the other printable flyers for every 10 households.

Develop the essential organizational infrastructure, both physical and social, and practice using it. Get a small copier, a generator/inverter, and make a hectographic duplicator. Get a radio system (CB, Family Radio Service, or Ham) and test it regularly. Conduct drills to test your designs and practice your responses.

Become involved with your community. Don't be a stranger to your neighbors. Know them as well as possible under the circumstances. Where appropriate, join neighborhood non-governmental organizations/institutions and patronize locally owned businesses. Introduce yourself! Trusting relationships built in advance of a crisis are likely to carry through the emergency as trusting relationships. Know who the troublemakers are too. Getting your neighbors involved with mutual aid in case of disasters could be the first step to introducing them to permaculture.

Localize and Regionalize. If your Mutual Aid group is concentrated in your neighborhood, help start similar groups in other areas of your municipality/region and network with them. If your Mutual Aid group is scattered over a region, members should establish mutual aid groups in their local residential neighborhood. In a crisis, your areas of practical cooperation will be the household, neighborhood, and municipality. Before the crisis, you can work effectively at the region and even higher levels, but the most productive will likely be the individual, household, neighborhood, municipality levels. Support community/regional projects that increase resilience, protect infrastructure, and reduce the brittleness of vital systems.

Be ready to act without hesitation or uncertainty at short notice. Get there the firstest with the mostest!

Essential design disciplines and principles.

Here is a basic review of permaculture design principles and strategies to use in designing mutual aid disaster plans.

Observe carefully and thoroughly.
Trust yourself.
See everything as part of a whole.
Solutions grow from place.
Never do anything for only one reason.
Do only what is necessary, but do what is necessary.
Design and act on a scale appropriate to the circumstances.
Incorporate redundancy, responsibility, and resiliency everywhere.
Work with the edges, promote/protect bio-diversity.
Nothing you do (or don't do) is without consequence(s).
Energy follows patterns set for it; everything works both ways.
Everything needs something else. Seek a harmony between giving and receiving.
We start small or we don't start at all.
Make the least change for the greatest effect.
Design from patterns to details.
Cycle everything.
Prefer biological solutions where possible/practical.
The problem often contains the solution.
Don't let the perfect become the enemy of the good.
First things first, second things second, etc.
Design so that all can participate in their own rescue.
Think and design “outside of the box.”
Don't be afraid of manual labor.
Incorporate personal, household, and community responsibility everywhere.
Use a 4-step design plan — Observe, Study and Evaluate, Design, Implement (follow that with critique and practice.) OSEDI!
Don't abandon your morality and principles.
Don't leave anyone behind for the wolves to devour.
The best designs care for people, care for the planet (with a particular focus on your immediate neighborhood), and have a care for the future.
In a crisis, cooperation is more important than competition.
Never seek a good end by immoral means.
Simple rules produce complex behavior.
Complex rules produce stupid behavior.