Since we became activists, we have always felt that the big family of the disunited left has a strong tendency to conflict among us [0]. But especially since the pandemic, we feel that wherever we go, in all our communities of affection, feeling or belonging, the conflicts between us have increased, become more numerous and more intense. We are hurt, angry, exhausted, traumatised, and in some way we are taking it out on people who are very close to us, as well as those who are a little further away and who are part of our networks of social and political transformation.
Our communities of affection are the ones that shape our identity, the way we present ourselves and interpret the world around us, the ones that shape our practices and where we believe we need to put our energy to change things. We see ourselves in some way as anarchists, hackers, squatters, cyberfeminists, ecofeminists, transfeminists… There are many overlapping identities that shape us. These movements and those who make them up are an extension of ourselves, and so we also feel affected and called by the conflicts and violence that permeate our communities.
Here we share some personal experiences from feminist communities interested in hacking, technology and building feminist infrastructure. We do this in order to heal and because we believe it is necessary to take these reflections beyond our circles of containment and conspiracy, because we believe that we need to begin to deal much more carefully with the phenomenon of violence that is tearing us apart from within. While we know that there are conflicts of all kinds, some of them very valuable for social and political struggle and transformation, other conflicts are not so transformative, but have paralysing effects that can even destroy us and make us withdraw from activism and struggle. They are epiphenomena that play into the hands of the patriarchal capitalist system that we so want to destroy in order to sow other possible worlds.