Mutual Aid: A Factor of EvolutionKropotkin, Petr Alekseevich, kniaz
Science
Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution
Kropotkin, Petr Alekseevich, kniaz
Cooperation; Social groups; Social institutions
I can only cursorily mention two other most interesting features of
Kabyle life; namely, the anaya, or protection granted to wells, canals,
mosques, marketplaces, some roads, and so on, in case of war, and the
cofs. In the anaya we have a series of institutions both for diminishing
the evils of war and for preventing conflicts. Thus the market-place is
anaya, especially if it stands on a frontier and brings Kabyles and
strangers together; no one dares disturb peace in the market, and if a
disturbance arises, it is quelled at once by the strangers who have
gathered in the market town. The road upon which the women go from the
village to the fountain also is anaya in case of war; and so on. As to
the cof it is a widely spread form of association, having some
characters of the mediaeval Burgschaften or Gegilden, as well as of
societies both for mutual protection and for various
purposes--intellectual, political, and emotional--which cannot be
satisfied by the territorial organization of the village, the clan, and
the con federation. The cof knows no territorial limits; it recruits its
members in various villages, even among strangers; and it protects them
in all possible eventualities of life. Altogether, it is an attempt at
supplementing the territorial grouping by an extra-territorial grouping
intended to give an expression to mutual affinities of all kinds across
the frontiers. The free international association of individual tastes
and ideas, which we consider as one of the best features of our own
life, has thus its origin in barbarian antiquity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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