A Complaint I Could Not Bear to Reject, Yet Had to Reject

The purpose of running KangAi Commune is to help people. But after all these years, one of the most painful things is how often we have to turn away people who genuinely need help.

Today I read a complaint from a member, and it was hard to get through. She had taken part in KangAi Commune’s mutual aid for twelve consecutive years, but after a one-year interruption, she has now been diagnosed with a malignant tumor. She wrote:

“Now that I need help, could the Commune help me on humanitarian grounds? Even a small token of care, to help me get through this — would that be all right?”

Emotionally, of course I want to help her. But the funds we share come from members’ contributions — would members accept a contribution made outside the rules?

Everyone who is turned away may have a sympathetic reason. If we broke the rules because “he really is in difficulty,” “he took part for so many years,” or “can’t we make an exception this once,” then the rules would eventually lose all meaning.

This is where mutual aid is hardest: you need the goodwill to help people, and the courage to refuse them.

We can rethink the rules and amend the rules, making them more reasonable and more humane; but under the rules, no one can be granted an exception because they are more deserving of sympathy.

Goodwill is the reason KangAi Commune exists; rules are the foundation that allows it to exist for the long term. Neither can be missing.

So the only possible response to this complaint is a refusal — but how to refuse requires weighing every word.

The daily operation of KangAi Commune often sits exactly in this space between rules and morality, between sympathy and coldness.