The Global Tapestry of Alternatives

The Global Tapestry of Alternatives

The world is going through an unprecedented crisis engendered by a dominant regime that has resulted in deepening inequalities, increasing and new forms of deprivation, the destruction of ecosystems, climate change, the tearing off of the social fabric and the dispossession of all living beings with immense violence. However, the past two decades have witnessed the emergence of an immense variety of radical alternatives to this dominant regime and to its roots in the capitalist, patriarchal, racist, statist, and anthropocentric forces. These range from initiatives in specific sectors such as sustainable and holistic agriculture, community-led water/energy/food sovereignty, solidarity and sharing economy, worker control of production facilities, resource/knowledge commons, and inter-ethnic peace and harmony, to more holistic or rounded transformations such as those being attempted by the Zapatista and the Kurds in Rojava, to the revival of ancient traditions or the emergence of new worldviews that re-establish humanity’s place within nature and the values of human dignity, equality and the respect of history.

The Global Tapestry of Alternatives is an initiative seeking to create solidarity networks and strategic alliance amongst all these alternatives on local, regional and global levels. It starts in the local interaction among alternatives, to gradually organize forms of agreement at the regional, national and global scale, through diverse and light structures, defined in each space, horizontal, democratic, inclusive and non-centralized, using diverse local languages and other ways of communicating. The initiative has no central structure or control mechanisms. It spreads step by step as an ever-expanding, complex set of tapestries, constructed by already existing communal or collective webs, organized as alternatives to the dominant regimes, each of them autonomously weaving itself with other such webs.

It organizes mechanisms of interaction between those regional and national structures and with the societies, in which they exist, in diverse languages and different means, promoting periodically regional, national and global encounters, when the conditions allow for them, as well as close and synergistic linkages with existing organizations, like the World Social Forum. The Global Tapestry of Alternatives is about creating spaces of collaboration and exchange, in order to learn about and from each other, critically challenge each other, offer active solidarity to each other whenever needed, interweave the initiatives in common actions, give them visibility to inspire other people to create their own initiatives and to go further along existing paths or forge new ones that strengthen alternatives wherever they are, until the point in which a critical mass of alternative ways can create the conditions for the radical systemic changes we need.

• A small group of activists from several regions of the world started the initiative, which community-led its structure as it takes shape in different parts of the world. The initial group will continue supporting the initiative as long as necessary. It has some sponsors, who subscribe to this document and will try to weave itself with similar initiatives around the world. Anyone interested in following the evolution of the initiative or participate in it may write a mail to globaltapestryofalternatives@riseup.net.