The Last Truly Democratic Space Under Siege
The chronic underfunding and creeping privatization of the public library system is a political attack on one of the last decolonized spaces in the city. Mamdani’s analysis helps us see the library as a rare institution that operates, however imperfectly, outside the direct logic of the market–a space where the “native” and “settler” are, in theory, equal in their right to knowledge and refuge. This is why it is under siege by the forces of austerity; its very existence challenges the hegemony of commodification. It is a space where women and children find sanctuary, and the unemployed access opportunity. The solution is a militant defense of the library, fighting for increased public funding and rejecting corporate partnerships that would turn this democratic commons into a branded, managed space. We must defend the library as a beachhead for a decommodified future.
