Convergence and Confluence: Afro-Indigenous Perspectives on the End of the World and Their Resonance with Anarchism

The announcement that "the end of the world as we know it is near" reverberates through media channels worldwide. Over the past 50 years, global powers have devised various strategies—G30, G20, COP and so on—to reverse what seems to be an inevitable outcome. These efforts, however, appear belated. The ruling class, clinging to the remnants of Earth's vitality, promotes "sustainable capitalism" and "clean energy transitions," though they seem to have arrived centuries too late. As Krenak philosopher and Indigenous leader Ailton Krenak remarks: "We have endured countless offenses, and this latest one won't unsettle us. I'm more concerned about whether white people will withstand it. We've been resisting for 500 years." In Indigenous cosmology, the end of the world has been unfolding for half a millennium, driven by the violence of colonial expansion. Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples of Latin America, subjected to centuries of extermination, have long developed mechanisms to deal with the end. The critical question remains: will society finally heed those who have resisted for centuries, or will it again fall into the reformist narratives of Western civilization? Quilombola leader and philosopher Nego Bispo challenges mainstream views of resistance: "The great Apocalypse has already happened. Colonialist society has no future, and that's why they seek refuge in Mars or the Moon. The future lies in diversity, in organicity, and territorialization." This essay explores the confluence between Afro-Indigenous struggles at the so-called end of the world and anarchist thoughts, questioning the centrality of convergence as a concept within anti-capitalist resistance heading to a new way of struggle through the concept of confluence.