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Address: 440 Parramatta Rd, Petersham, Sydney, Australia. | Phone: 9550 9931 | Email: Jura@Jura.org.au
Reconceptualising Jura
Its pretty plain to me to see that if Jura is to thrive (not just survive) it needs to adopt a structure that will allow the core project to be a focus, but also allow input from people not interested in the core project itself.
Running a bookshop is hard to do with 4 people. With 10 people, it might work really well. But with say, 20, or 50 people, you start to lose focus and consensus decision making becomes more difficult even though there are more people to share the work around.
I'd really like to see Jura be able to adopt a structure that allows people and groups outside of the immediate project to become involved. So I want to think about reconceptualising Jura from being a project in its own right, to being a project in its own right and part of a much broader activist community. A community we can foster to grow.
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I AM THE GATE KEEPER. ARE YOU THE KEY MASTER?
The Jura Federation
Jura should become a federation of groups. I see it happening right now, with Community Action, Black Rose and John's food coop starting to get interested in us. The building itself is too big for just the Jura Collective itself, which was never big enough to be able to both maintain the building in an usable condition, and benefit thouroughly from its possibilities. But in spite of that, the same collective was capable, through decades and with many difficulties, to secure a resource that might prove very beneficial for our whole community. And one of the reasons for that was exactly the focus it always had on keeping that property.
The fact we're attracting more already formed collectives than single individuals should be recognised, and we should try to understand its meanings and implications. It reminds us that people that are already informed about anarchism and are able to contribute to our project will, of course, be already active before they meet us. They will not be people who will have spent their time up to now preparing themselves theoretically, so they could apply for Jura entrance exams (as if we had such thing). They will have been active, and will have been prepared by their experiences in being active in whathever other project they were engaged in. And they will not abandon those project in order to become 'pure' Jura members. Which, in my opinion, is great, as it creates the conditions for a much wider mutual aid network (between groups) than it would be possible if it would extend just to individuals in our finite Collective. It also allows for more variety, without forcing either us or them to loose our focus.
Having said that, I do think one collective should specialise in housekeeping, so responsibilities around our property (bleargh) does not disolve and fall in the vacuum between groups. The Jura Collective, for it owns the building in Parramata Road and maintains a bookstore, is in a privileged condition to do exactly that, and be a nest for the many other anarchisty collectives in Sydney to prosper. If rather, we did in the past, it tried to encompass all possible activities of an anarchist collective, it would end up loosing focus and wasting energy.
Hence, we should specialise as maintainer of a ground where other groups could more easily sprout and grow, that is, the building and the bookshop, which is what we always did best anyway. That does not mean that Jura Collective members could not participate in other projects that they might get interested, but rather would clarify what is the main responsibility of each project. I think that, more than being a proposal, this is a mere realisation of what is happening right now. I think we should be aware of this process, and help it as it develops, without fear.
The Jura Federation
AnnaAniston kindly provided the above image. It is based on a sketch I drew during the last Jura Collective Strategic Directions meeting. By drawing the Jura collective as both the "base" and a "side" of the Federation, I just meant that it would manage the building (base) and bookshop (another project, with no hierarchical precedence over the other collectives). Besides using our space, I think we should have joint Jura Collective and other groups meetings (what I call the "Jura Federation"), so, even if the Jura Collective should have the upper hand on matters of building maintenance and security, we should hear and coordinate with the other groups in a more formal way, so we have consensus and everybody feels happy and welcome. We could either have plenary meetings (not likely though) or delegates meetings, or even more likely, delegates from the other groups attending our Jura Collective meetings to discuss matters, as it happened in the last meeting with Black Rose comrades joining us.
Tiers of Involvement
I reckon this discussion should form the basis of our "Tiers of Involvement" document that we've been promising to write. This, and the discussion we had on last Friday.
As we talked about, there are several kinds of ways Jura can interact with "the external"...
I really like MrRock's idea that the Jura collective should focus on running the bookshop and caring for the building only. This might include:
But on other than tasks that concern the shop and the building, the collective doesn't make them a priority. So if someone wants to use our resources - great! But if someone wants to get us to divert attention away from keeping the shop, then we won't be as interested. Jura's focus is Jura, not the many other worthy projects that exist out there.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't and couldn't have a presence at other events, or be a part of the wider activist community. We should! But we shouldn't sacrifice ourselves every year to organise like mad for IWD, MayDay, RTS, etc while we neglect the bookshop. Jura should consider limiting itself to doing stalls at other events and maintaining networks. We can't be out there organising everything.
But we definately need to welcome people who want to use Jura's resources to organise for these events! Getting others involved means that we widen our support base (and can support others too) while we both teach and learn from others. Synergy, right?
So we need to figure out (and be open about) what kinds of relationships and rights we want people to have in Jura. I don't think there is anything wrong with having a structure as long as its democratic and transparent. There is something wrong with not having a structure and letting good opportunities go, or good people feel frustrated and alienated because we can't figure out what we want.
So perhaps we need to think along these lines...
Get access to the building because a Jura member(s) are involved.
After we work out these relationships, there are others to consider... like the way we build our relationship with individuals (who we usually call "friends and supporters of Jura")...people who don't want to run a bookshop, don't have a collective that wants our resources, but are still interested and still want to help out or be involved at some level some times.
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not much chance of succeeding in anything if we don't have the skills or confidence to get things done... Its a bit rich to make trouble before you make an alternative
Draft plan
Check out the draft plan for Jura here: http://www.jura.org.au/node/625