Amaris Vitae

Understanding Love 22 - Manifesto and Statutes

 

Article I: Scope of Understanding Love 22

Understanding Love 22 is a living, breathing community initiative built from the love between Oliver and Alfred—a love rooted in radical acceptance, mutual growth, and the unwavering belief that love is understanding, and understanding is love. This community expands that vision outward, offering a space for individuals and collectives to come together through shared values, open dialogue, and embodied action.

 

The scope of Understanding Love 22 includes core initiatives that intersect to cultivate equity, creativity, healing, and liberation:

1. Empowering Queer People: We center queer voices and experiences, using "queer" as a unifying term to dissolve binaries and affirm identities outside heteronormative frameworks. Through storytelling, resources, workshops, and safe, affirming spaces, we support queer liberation, self-definition, and holistic well-being.

2. Co-Creating in a Post-Capitalist World: We reject extractive systems rooted in patriarchal and colonial hierarchies. Our vision includes circular, community-based models of exchange inspired by Indigenous knowledge and radical communitarian values. We imagine economies where mutual care, not profit, is the standard. Building solidarity economies to provide direct support for queer, racialized, and migrant communities. Establishing food, housing, and legal aid networks outside of capitalist and state institutions.

3. Committing to Decolonization: Decolonization is not metaphorical. We advocate for dismantling systemic injustice, calling for reparations, cultural sovereignty, and the full creative license of colonized peoples. This includes abolitionist efforts, immigration justice, racial equity, and the liberation of all marginalized bodies and identities.

4. Raising Awareness Around Equity: True love cannot exist without equity. We challenge performative allyship and instead embody justice through real conversations, education, and advocacy. We believe abundance means there is enough for all—none of us is free until all of us are.

5. Promoting Creativity: Creativity is our birthright. Colonial and patriarchal systems have long suppressed our creative instincts. We reclaim imagination as an act of resistance, healing, and vision-building. Whether through art, music, movement, language, or in daily life, creativity is central to liberation.

6. Incorporating A.U.R.A.: Our framework—Accepting, Understanding, Reflecting, Acting—guides all that we do. A.U.R.A. is both a personal and collective tool for transformation, rooted in love of self and humanity. It is through this rhythm that we build a conscious, sustainable, and liberated future. A.U.R.A. is based on the premise that our spirituality goes beyond religion or beliefs. In Understanding Love 22, we define spirituality as the love for self and humanity, and the responsibility to connect this love to everything around us, including this earth. We encourage members (and aspiring members) to participate in Empower Your Identity courses to understand their role in community and navigate change.

7. Sharing and Communitarianism: In our community, we value the spirit of sharing, embodying the role of communitarianism in what we do. We celebrate the contributions each member brings to Understanding Love 22.

 

Article II: Structure & Decision-Making

Understanding Love 22 operates on horizontal, non-hierarchical principles. Decisions are made in consensus-based assemblies.

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Article III: Membership & Participation

The community is open to those who want to create a more equitable, peaceful, and socially conscious existence. This would include queer, and/or trans/non-binary, and/or feminist cis women, and/or global south immigrants, and/or racialized individuals, and/or allies committed to all of the activities outlined within the scope of Understanding Love 22. We actively protect our spaces from negative influences, including but not limited to fascist threats, performative activism, egoic pursuits, gatekeeping, racism, sexism, transphobia, xenophobia, elitism, colonialism, imperialism, capitalism, and those resistant to change.  Continuous change and adjustments are at the core of Understanding Love 22.

 

1. Security Culture Protocols: All members commit to encrypted communication, secure meeting locations, and digital safety practices.

2. Vetting & Trust Networks: New members will be introduced through trusted connections and committed to the advancement of humanity.

 

Article IV: Membership Rules & Values

Understanding Love 22 members are expected to uphold the following values and principles:

 

1. Commitment to anti-fascism, anti-racism, anti-capitalism, and queer liberation.

2. Respect for all community members and active opposition to behaviors including, but not limited to sexism, racism, ableism, transphobia, queerphobia, xenophobia, fatphobia, ageism, or classism.

3. Commitment to direct action, collective decision-making, and active participation in organizing activities, providing mutual aid, and participating in political/social/historical education.

4. Support for marginalized members – prioritizing care and solidarity.

 

Article V: Principles of Action through A.U.R.A.:

Understanding Love 22 follows takes action based on the A.U.R.A. framework: 

 

1. Accepting: We face the truth of our interconnected world, acknowledging both its fragility and its resilience. Acceptance is the courage to see reality clearly so that change can take root.

2. Understanding: We seek the root causes of division and harm, listening deeply to the experiences of others. Understanding grows from the love of self and humanity, guiding us toward unity.

3. Reflecting: We pause to align our choices with our values and consider their lasting impact. Reflection transforms awareness into a vision that sustains both self and community.

4. Acting: We turn vision into movement, building systems of care, justice, and innovation. Action is love in motion—steady, intentional, and committed to a shared future.

 

Article VI: Liberation 

1. Understanding Love 22 is committed to the liberation of ourselves and our community. We recognize that liberation is not a single event but an ongoing process.

2. We build toward long-term liberation, knowing that true freedom requires continuous change and active work.

3. Liberation is not a destination - it is an evolving practice of dismantling power structures and creating sustainable futures based on the love of ourselves and humanity.

4. Our community is founded on the understanding that we are working towards making society more equitable, conscious, and sustainable. Our broader mission is to redefine what freedom looks like.

 

Article VII: Digital and Physical Safety

1. All communication follows secure organizing practices, with an emphasis on encryption, anonymity, and safety against state surveillance. 

2. No meetings or discussions are shared with the media or external organizations without collective approval.

 

Article VII: Funding & Resources

1. The community rejects conditional sponsorships, state grants, NGO, or political party dependency.

2. Understanding Love 22 is self-funded through community fundraising, mutual aid networks, and independent means.

3. All financial decisions are made collectively, ensuring transparency and accountability.

 

Article VIII: Solidarity & Alliances

Understanding Love 22 stands in solidarity with global struggles for liberation, including (but not limited to) Indigenous sovereignty, Black liberation, sex worker rights, migrant justice, decolonialism, open borders, feminism, ecosocialism, housing, and HIV justice struggles. The collective builds alliances with other movements while maintaining autonomy and independence.

 

Article IX: Dissolution & Legacy

Understanding Love 22 exists as a living, evolving community and movement. If dissolved, all funds, materials, and resources must be redistributed to other radical queer and antifascist struggles based on the consensus of the members. The legacy of Understanding Love 22 remains in the continuation of liberation, knowledge-sharing, and community power.

 

Article X: Ethics

Our ethics are NON-BINARY, and this goes beyond non-binary identity: it also refers to our way of thinking, which avoids taking polarised positions and tries to grasp the contradictions, nuances, and possible coexistences between so-called "opposite" things. To fight against norms, we adhere to ethical norms:

 

These include:

 

1. STANDPOINTS: We respect the speaking position of people with different experiences from ours. 

2. LISTENING: We value listening to people, reflecting on what is said, and revisiting our positions and behaviors.

3. CONTINUOUS LEARNING & UNLEARNING: Deconstruction is an ongoing process. There is no finish line, diploma, or certificate. 

4. ADHERENCE TO WELCOMING SPACES: All are welcome within the community, where we recognize that true welcome requires ongoing effort and care. Each person arrives with different experiences, knowledge, and perspectives, and these encounters may bring challenge as well as connection. We approach these moments with openness, engaging tensions as opportunities for shared learning, deeper understanding, and collective growth.

5. EXTREME SITUATIONS: Membership can be terminated in certain circumstances, including (but not limited to):

   1. Seriously problematic/violent speech, stance, or behavior.

   2. Insistence on any problematic stance that goes against the guidelines here, even after repeated conversations, or

   3. False and/or dishonest accusations against others. ​​

6. MEMBERSHIP IS FREE: However, certain activities or initiatives may require a contribution (financial, time, or sharing).​