The manifesto is a living document that has been created from five years of trying things out together.
The Common House is an ongoing experiment in making urban commons, as well as a home for the local anti-capitalist community. It is a space for practicing political organising, learning and unlearning, mutual aid and peer support, imagining alternatives to the subordination of life to profit, and practicing new ways of relating to each other as well as other elements of our wider environments/things/beings inhabiting our planet.
Its purpose is:
- To provide a regular home for groups involved in challenging capitalism and its corollaries imperialism, racism, cis/hetero/sexism, ableism, and imagining/building alternatives
- To create space for the cross-fertilisation of above groups and encourage skill-sharing, collaboration and comradeship
- To provide a shared and collectively managed resource to sustain us, help to meet our needs and counter the ways in which our lives are made difficult under capitalism
- To develop and explore the concept of ‘commoning’ as collaborative action around a shared set of radical politics and organising cultures which help to reproduce our space and community
- To encourage and develop a way of working together for mutual benefit that is collaborative, supportive, respectful, aware of power differentials and critical of hierarchy
- To work against oppression and exploitation of other people as well as of our environment
- To contribute to the infrastructure of the radical left and form alliances with other campaigns and collectives which work to similar ends
- To enable communities, groups and individuals affected by intersecting oppressions to be part of this wider community, and to support each other in our struggles
And our ultimate aim is to bring about the world that we want: one that is held in common for the benefit of all.
The Common House is underpinned by a commitment by all groups, members and guests to utilise explicitly and proactively anti-oppressive practices, language and behaviour. The Common House recognises that power operates in society, and is wielded by institutions and individuals in a way that harms, exploits and undermines people in different ways. The Common House therefore seeks to challenge and resist these structures through its activities and ongoing development, and by supporting groups struggling against these intersecting oppressions. Input into this development is welcomed and encouraged from all.
This means there is a zero tolerance policy in regards to racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, classist, ableist or otherwise oppressive language or behaviour. Events and groups that are deemed to enable or promote these oppressive practices will not be facilitated by The Common House.