Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the next)

by Dean Spade

On the day the first COVID-19 case in Hong Kong was confirmed, people from the protest movement created a website that tracked cases, monitored hot spots, reported hospital wait times, and warned about places selling fake personal protective equipment (PPE). The protesters defied the government’s ban on masks and countered misinformation from the World Health Organization discouraging their use. They set up brigades that made and distributed masks, specially making sure they reached poor people and old people. They created a system of volunteers to set up hand sanitizer stations throughout crowded tenement housing and maintain the supply of sanitizer at the stations. They also created digital maps to identify the station sites. This essential mutual aid work was complemented by bolder strategies. When the government refused to close the border with China, seven thousand medical workers, as part of labor unions that had been formed during the protest movement, went on strike demanding PPE and that the border be closed. Members of the protest movement threatened the government with stronger action if steps were not taken to address the epidemic, and explosives were found at the border with China, possibly for this purpose. The Hong Kong government then created quarantine centers in dense neighborhoods, but never consulted the people in those neighborhoods, and the protest movement responded by throwing explosives into the quarantine centers before they were used, causing the...