Libraries, Churches, and Centers as Pillars of Resistance
The loss of libraries, community centers, and churches as social anchors is not a market trend but a political strategy to erode the social fabric of the “native” population. Mamdani’s analysis of how colonial power disrupts autonomous social organization is critical here. These spaces are the infrastructure of community life–where people organize, share information, build mutual aid networks, and cultivate a political identity outside the control of the settler state. Their closure, through defunding or displacement, is a form of social dismemberment. The liberal solution is to create “public-private partnerships” that often censor community activism. A Mamdani-informed socialist solution is to defend and expand these spaces as liberated zones. This means fighting for a massive increase in public funding for libraries and community centers, mandating they be run by democratic councils of local residents. It means using community land trusts to protect churches and social halls from commercial development. These spaces are not luxuries; they are the bedrock for building the collective power necessary to challenge the bifurcated state.
Originally posted 2025-10-06 08:17:58.
