31/10/2025
Cork Anarchist Library - Tuesday 11th November 7-9pm ! theme will be, “health inequalities / justice”
@ Rebel Reads Marina Commercial Park.
Cork Anarchist Library is a monthly gathering where ideas on revolution, liberation and real equality are allowed to circulate freely. CAL themed discussions are always healthy and friendly.
November’s theme will be even more healthy being as it is a theme on, health inequalities / justice.
A regular at the CAL will kick this off with a short summary of the new book, Inflamed
Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice, by Rupa Marya and Raj Patel.
To quote,
“the hidden relationships between our biological systems and the profound injustices of our political and economic systems”
The book explores one area of our lives that has been subject to colonisation: that of medicine.
There’s a long history to this most egregious of inequalities…perhaps well captured in the quote,
"Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and inhumane" - Martin Luther King Jr. said in a 1966 press conference in Chicago about the segregated and inferior medical care received by Black people in the US.
Further back in terms of healthcare provision to Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution ( in truth a popular science book as much an anarchist book!)
Where he noted the endless variety of ‘friendly societies, the unities of oddfellows, the village and town clubs organised for meeting the doctor’s bills’ built up by working-class self-help. Examples of Mutual Aid, were also to be added to the later book, Modern Science and Anarchism.
Healthcare provision was just one example of working-class self-help.
A notable working class example is the Tredegar Medical Aid Society which was founded in Tredegar in South Wales. In return for contributions from workers it provided health care and dental care free at the point of use. Tredegar was Aneurin Bevan’s constituency and the model he borrowed and used to create the more hierarchical NHS had "evolved from the vast network of friendly societies and mutual aid organisations that had sprung up through working class self-help in the 19th century." to quote Colin Ward in Anarchism A Very Short Introduction. ( 2004 edition ).
The potential for that local, mutual/ municipalised ( decolonised?) provision to be federated at scale, was unfortunately never realised but is still there…
A topic like this can bring up many areas, of discussion, transport, food (for instance evidence for the profit motive behind the use of Ultra Processed Foods, UPF, and its harmful effects), the workplace, housing ( black mould) etc and many more, and are just a few possible things that a topic like this could bring up!
Queries can be sent to [email protected]
