Is the left too centred on cities?

[Bitter Ashes]

I'm writing this as somebody who lives in a fairly large town in Yorkshire, so yes, I accept that there may be bias here.

I've noticed it quite a bit that the left only really seems to have a major presence in large cities, at least in the UK. Where I am, that takes the form of everything either being in Leeds or Sheffield. Although there are lefties in my town, all except the SP, seem to be either disorganised, or only ever wake up when something's going on in the cities.

I do think there's a lot of potential for smaller towns and cities and even rural areas that goes untapped. In fact, I could go as far as to say that there's both more anarchists and communists in Huddersfield that I'm aware of than in Leeds, despite bieng 5 times the size! There ARE numerous local issues in smaller communities too that often go un-noticed by national groups who again are more focussed on what goes on in Leeds, or London, or abroad, than Crewe, or Huddersfield. Meanwhile, whenever support is needed, the smaller towns empty of the left to go join up and get no support in return with thier own local issues. I can recognise that is at least partially down to lack of organisation on the part of the smaller communities, although I do feel that there's a lack of encouragement from the bigger places for us to organise ourselves and tackle our own issues.

What would the way forward be for smaller communities to begin challenging thier own local issues as well as bieng able to offer support to larger campaigns when need be? Would it even be easier to gather support in smaller communities than in larger ones and a shift in strategy in what national organisations and larger groups support should change to accomidate this?

Thoughts?

[The Ungovernable Farce]

In the AF (sorry if I sound like a "partyist" here, but it's the only organisation whose internal policies I'm familiar with), when there's a functioning local group (which is usually, but not always, in a city) and an isolated individual or two nearby (usually, but again not always, not in a city), the group has a constitutional responsibility to keep in touch with them and offer support to whatever activities they're doing. It seems like a pretty sensible policy. Obviously, when there's not even one or two people in a town or village who've expressed interest in our ideas, we can't really parachute in from outside to build a group there. Also, I think YAG are quite focused on the kind of stuff you talk about - their mission statement (http://yorkshireanarchist.wordpress.com/about/) says

The Yorkshire Anarchist Group (YAG) was created partly to bring together divergent groups and individuals who are scattered throughout Yorkshire’s ridings in the hope that we can work more efficiently by presenting a united front, but also to provide an umbrella for people and groups in the smaller towns that make up a significant proportion of our region’s demographic profile. All too often important struggles and campaigns go unsupported because attention is focused on a few key cities. This is not intended as a criticism of the people who are doing some amazing things in those cities, but we could have a few more ’successes’ under our belts if we sometimes lend a hand to our less fortunate neighbours – a kind of ‘mutual aid’ for activists.
And does Huddersfield really have more revolutionaries than Leeds? If so, that's impressive, I thought Leeds had loads going on in it.

[Bitter Ashes]

Leeds has more going on for sure. Hudds has the numbers, but they're disorganised and inactive in the most part, again with the exception of the SP who are doing rather well for themselves.

I put myself on the contacts list for YAG a few weeks back and it's been intresting, but I did wonder how the other parts of the left spectrum were coping.

[The Red Next Door]

yeah, i think people on the left do not want to be bother with country bumpkins because most of them are stupid(that when we used brainwashing with ads and slogans that will appeal to them) communists supports the rise of the south yahoo yall, vote commie if you want the south to rise again :laugh:. but we need to be active in small town because there might be potential comrades in those towns.