the call

I wrote this article for the Cultural Institute of Montreal. It's a small account of what I experienced with The Tribe, an ecological and itinerant community that was born in France in 1976.

The Tribe was an intentional community that started in the suburb of Paris in 1976. At the beginning, there were a few people who joined forces to create one of the fastest growing network of green co-operatives in France. These socially-oriented eco-enterprises were providing their members - both consumers and producers- with healthy goods and services, on a fair trade basis. The ecoops were also places of socialization with their vegan restaurants, conference rooms, a free radios, a newspaper, a printing house and a multicultural center.

In 1978, The Horse of 3 – a three thousand square meter space located in the heart of Paris - became the headquarter of the cooperatives. It was fully dedicated to alternative lifestyles, giving exposure and support to many non-for-profit and grassroots organizations. The center was visited every week by thousands of people stemming from different walks of life, and was supported by many volunteers who dedicated time, energy, talent and enthusiasm to make it work. Our activities expanded very fast and new coops were opened in many towns and cities all over the country, soon followed by Brussels, Copenhagen, Rome.

In March 1980, we came up of with the idea to organise the First International Symposium of Alternative Lifestyles. During one entire week thousands of visitors came to make their mind about concrete ways to live more lightly with the Earth. A whole range of workshops, seminaries and conferences were organized. Issues ranged from organic farming, natural food, alternative health care, renewable energy, waste management and recycling, to free communication networks, North-South dialogue, non-violence, peace and disarmament. Hundreds of producers and small companies presented their products and services. A festival of world music was held, with concerts every night.

The following years, the symposium moved to Bastille. It became more international, with participants from India, Japan, Canada, United States, South America and Africa. The number of visitors had grown too, from 30.000 to 50.000 people. Representatives of the main alternative and ecological groups, communities and networks like Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Médecins sans Frontières, Solidarinosc, Chipko, Stampa Alternativa, shared information with the public. At the same time many projects, initiatives and campaigns were presented.

In 1981, we decided to develop the concept of a Peace University, transnational and without walls. The idea was to create a free and independent think-tank whose main aim was to explore all the streams of human thought and to find innovative ways to answer such problems as the arms race, environmental degradation and poverty. In 1984, Johan Galtung became rector of the New International University. Galtung is a well known sociologist and the author of a large number of books and publications dealing with irenology, conflict resolution and the social cosmology of the West. In the Fall of that year, a serie of public courses was held and inaugurated at the Sorbonne in Paris. The following issues with at the program: Gandhi Today; Hitlerism, Stalinism and Reaganism; The Green Movement.

In the middle of the 80s, famine erupted in Africa, and some of us were mobilized to submit an action plan - the Sahelian Front- to governments and international organizations aiming at fighting desertification from Green Cape to Djibouti, by promoting endogenous technologies, strengthening NGOs and CBOs, and creating an eco-developme task-force that would be called Green Helmets .

Another group of experts left Paris and headed for Senegal on foot. This was a three year walking program whereby people would cross Southern Europe and Africa, experiment eco-living survival techniques, set up information and educational campaigns on environmental issues, and collect data on biodiversity and traditional knowledge. They covered 6,000 kilometers within about two years, from France to Southern Spain. They established temporary camps in hundreds of municipalities and built up the grounds for collaborative efforts between Europe and Africa. In Ceuta, the group was forbidden to enter Morocco and spent a whole year waiting for a permit to cross the border.

They finally decided to move their activities to Italy where they embarked on a Mediterranean campaign called Mediterraneo Verde. From 1988 to 1990, thousands of trees were planted all over the country. As a result, the government re-established a yearly event called Tree Festival involving all the schools of the country. A decree was also proclaimed inviting local municipalities to plant as many trees as there were new borns in their area. A twin campaign involving the UNESCO clubs and several national agencies of Burkina Faso was initiated. In 1990, the campaign received the UN Global 500 Award for environmental achievement.

The same year, we were contacted by Women without Frontiers who wanted to launch a tree planting campaign to remember the children of Chernobyl victims of the nuclear incident that had happened some years before in Bielorussia. A new walking program was designed and a group of young mothers started to walk from Sicily to Oslo. They covered 5,000 km across Europe, planting a tree at every kilometer and running educational programs in schools. The Walking Trees campaign was a real success, especially in Eastern countries. In August 1991, the walkers arrived in Berlin at the celebration of the breakdown of the Wall. Some weeks later they reached Oslo where they met with Mrs Gro Bruntland who was the chairman of the International Commission on Sustainable Development back in middle of the 80s.

Later in the beginning of the Summer, a group of experts was sent to Finland to take part in a research program of ecological survival designed by a scientist and member of the Parliament. It was about experimenting with, studying and giving value to community-based and forest eco-living practices inspired by people of aboriginal culture. A pilot village was set up 200 km North of the Polar Circle. After one year of intensive public debate, the so called Lifestyle Indians had to leave the country. Despite a large campaign of public support backed up by well-known academics, nothing could be done to convince the authorities to withdraw their decision. This last act was to prefigure the end of The Tribe’s odyssey throughout Europe.

During the industrial revolution, the dominating society created a multiplicity of institutional bodies to regulate the flow of people and peoples, and to subjugate them to economic goals. Cities and factories became the main features of man's mental, physical and social landscape. The power strategy was based on “the denial of solidarity existing between nature and people, by parcelling out the land, by privatizing it, and by creating barriers, enclosures, walls, places of forced residence that were to become the bounded reservations where the problems for which the industrial world had no solution had to be handled. Psychiatric institutes to cure insanity, asylums for elders condemned to isolation after the breakdown of their family, relocation institutes and prisons to answer delinquency, public centers of social help, youth clubs,… ”

In 1969, Man walked on the moon. Our worldviews collapsed. What was meant to be only a technological achievement was soon at the origin of a prodigious mind-shake. With the image of the Earth shot from outer space, we could no longer live in splendid isolation on our small planet.

In a book published in 1986 at Barrault and titled “Nous l'avons tant aimée la révolution” (We loved the revoltution so much), Daniel Cohn Bendit, an emblematic figure of the late 60's student insurrection, summed up in a few lines the prevailing reasons that caused the great awakening which moved the youth at that time:

“In 1968, the planet was set ablaze. It almost seemed if somebody had given a universal password. In Paris as in Berlin, in Rome and in Torino, the street and the cobblestone became the symbols of an era of rebellion. Jim Morrison was singing 'We want the world and we want it now'. This happened 15 years ago.

“Supported by the prodigious development of new means of communication, we were the first generation to live the physical and daily presence of the whole world at home, through a flow of images and sounds. Not only thanks to music and TV, but also thanks to the moovie industry, fashion mode and mass consumption. All this was possible because our political regimes had allowed that flow of information to circulate, because our nations had developed a culture of mass media, and because the small screen was in every home.

“I'm convinced that we have been living a time of intoxicating enthusiasm, but also of great anguish. There are still many people asking themselves what pushed them to rise up and to fight in the beginning of the 70's. I think we were willing to change the course of our life. We wanted to be part of that historical period. This ambition has sealed our destiny and thrown us into a form of political activism which was full of very intense experiences, but also full of dangers and risks.

“We had a taste for life - not death. This is the key to understand why we took up the challenge.”

The excess of materialism, the accumulation of weapons to secure peace, the acceleration of life, the destruction of the environment, were some other reasons. Many people felt in great distress and were not ready to give up their soul to a one dimension society lead by technocrats. The war in Vietman, the famine in Biafra, the assassination of Kennedy and Martin Luther King, were among the events who brought people together to question the meaning of the new society that had emerged after World War II. Those questions were taken to the streets, the factories and the universities.

“Let us regain the control of our lives'” was the motto of the 70's. Like many other slogans of the time, it sums up the movement of thousands initiatives taken by young people willing to build their lives without having to wait for the blessing of politicians, priests or technocrats. New symbolic sites like practical ecology, social economy, alternative health, natural survival, continuing education, local and community-based development, international solidarity soon emerged. They became new fields of commitment for a whole generation. It seems that nothing could limit the democratization of counter- culture. Unpredictable in forms, dispersed in time and space, those experiences transgressed all forms of barrier and prohibition. Some were only success stories. Many were real achievements. One cannot underestimate their unquestionable impact in all sectors of society.

In France, The Tribe shared the vision of most indigenous and tribal people who consider that Mother Earth should be respected for itself and for all the environmental services she provides to mankind. From a small community in the suburbs of Paris, it became a small movement of eco-topians with activities and branches in different parts of the world. I met with them in 1979 and joined in their project. The basic philosophy was to care of the Earth and people around us, especially those living in hte most depressed areas of the world. By reducing our own needs and dependency on mass consumption and by exploring innovative solutions, we could made a great job.

From the middle of the 70s to the middle of the 90s, half rebels and troubadours, half indians and gypsies, we created non profit organizations in France and all over Europe; established and ran green cooperatives; arranged courses, workshops, festivals, conferences; set up alternative information networks; built forest eco-villages; lived on the wild; planted thousands of trees; created tens of food and fruit gardens; walked 15,000 km across mountains and forests; studied, researched and practiced traditional craft techniques and vernacular knowledge that people had forgotten, although they were in use in remote periods of history, all around Europe, Africa, Asia, America and in the Pacific. At our surprise, we witnessed the return to values that bring humanness forward.

We wanted to innovate, culturally and socially, and free ourselves from the yoke of history which sees in Western industrial civilization the topmost stage of human progress. In the beginning of the 80's, we started to experiment with "paleo archaeology" and 'sylvilization’, the lifestyle of the “savages”, another way of seeing the world, i.e. from Sylva, the Forest. Experimental archaeology had its grounds in Denmark.

In fact, we were not the first ones to question history - the one taught at school. Many artists and intellectuals had done it before us. Experimenting with the "old ways" did not mean we refused “civilization”. Of course, we wanted to shatter the myth of civilization as unique point of reference of the social order. But we were more motivated to extend our understanding to cultural horizons that were surviving at the margins of the modern and civilized world. We had the deep feeling that people of aboriginal culture could help us, that they had something to teach us. But was it still possible?

As Francis Mazière, the French anthropologist who extensively worked on the Eastern Island, had already put it in his: 'Lettre aux Hommes oubliés' (Letter to forgotten people) published by the magazine Planète in 1952, this was a key question:

“ It's now time to decide if we consider tpeople of primordial/primal/primitive culture as being representatives of a lower stage of evolution according to our dialectic. It often happens that the most advanced scientific works are looking for truths that have been kept in the parable of these people of very ancient cultures. The main question is to know if it’s still possible to attempt a dialogue between us and them.”

France is a cultural melting-pot. We started with exploring the diversity around us and we learned how to deal with the creative tension that comes up with the interaction of diverse and multiple cultural identities. The Forest was our lab. Beyond each nationality, it's possible to trace one's ancestry and reconnect with ancient roots. We discovered there were many cultural shores among us we could explore, some of them with strong roots in ancient and forgotten “sylvilized” cultures like the Metis in Canada, the Ainus in Japan or the Samis in Finland. Looking back at those roots, we did not see our differences to be so conflictual. On the contrary, we had discovered many common grounds on which to build a new identity.

The story of the Metis in Canada and French America was a particular source of inspiration. It is still a hot and controversial issue. Metis population of Canada, which is today an officially recognised "aboriginal" population, is somehow the best possible representation of the fundamental nature of this country, in which there has been a blending of indigenous and European cultures. Particularly interesting is the fact that France sent emigrants to Canada in order to "civilize" the "Indians", which resulted in the opposite:

The small land we had on the banks of Marne river in the 80s became the headquarter of the first Laboratory of Experimental Paleo-archaeology in Europe. This was seen by many as a small Indian Reservation. There was however a huge difference with our sisters and brothers in Africa, North America and Australia. People had freely chosen to live on here.

For about three years, we went into the initial stage of camp life management. We built up flexible and modular shelters - so called gwams - on the site, with a lodging capacity equal to a block of ten flats, and transformed the garden in a productive area. It became a place of relief for a wide range of foods, aromatic and medicinal plants. The house was transformed in a study center with its own library. The garage became an art studio. We drew a map of the region with related data about abandoned orchards and woods where we picked up plants and firewood. We baptized Amazonia another piece of land we had bought and that became a demonstration center for ecological gardening and permaculture. We had access to some 120 ha in Southern France too where we could experiment more freely with forest life and organic production.

Our aims were not completely predefined. It was a work in progress. However the idea of starting a new life gave people such a creative enthusiasm that even the most unexpected difficulties were overcome without too much trouble. Of course, most of us were young, and maybe more able to accept the rules of non-conformity. But, people of all ages joined in.

Liberated from models of addiction and mass consumption, we lived for more than a decade instants of deep intercommunion and great joy - a festival of outstanding intensity. It does not mean there were no torments, moments of crisis or personal frustration. This was not a world of perfection and total coherence. Still it was an ideal place to experiment with humanness, to over-cross boundaries that had been imposed upon us. And those who were thinking we were building a model for the whole world got really disappointed. We could only build a model for ourselves, a framework of understanding that could help us to heal our wounds and become more responsible for what happened around us. This was not a place of escape from the world. It was a place to take responsibility and leadership, with the risk to transform the world within and around us.

When we left our place in the suburb of Paris in the middle of the 80s, none of us could imagine we would never come back. Our European journey ended up in 1994. A new Europe had been born, and we had been banned and fired. We were not the only ones. In the meantime, a new call from the forest had come from Chiapas in Mexico.

One can read and write history as a confrontation between masters and slaves, as a process that obeys the laws of natural selection. We can be haunted by death impulses or by predatory appetites. One can state like some philosophers of the 17th century that “Man is a wolf to man”. But this is not the whole of history.

In the course of centuries, the process of civilization has developed and given birth to organizational systems – urban, agricultural, industrial, technological - that were imposed upon people by force. Today, more than ever before, these systems are running out of steam, getting bogged down and even threatening a large portion of mankind. Even the middle class, which was the incarnation of success and industrial progress, is slowly losing everything that it considered to be its gain.

What yesterday was obvious only to a minority is becoming an unquestionable truth in the eyes of the majority: the imperative of material growth and development, the economic exploitation of the Earth and of its natural resources in favour of a privileged class of people, are leading to the shameless modernization of misery and violence at world scale.

In the face of the abyss created by that hegemony based on ethnocide, ecocide and economicide, a new dynamic of social movements is srpinging up. At the margins and the periphery, in the countrysides and the suburbs, where the paralysis brought about by development is the most glaring, a portion of humanity has already given up the illusions about economic growth. It is bringing to fruition the past experiences, producing self-reliance, elaborating answers which tend to be more respectful of both mankind and nature. New solidarities, or ancient ones that are being re-enacted, are born, and along with them, new forms of organization and identity.

While most of the political and social institutions of the world find themselves impotent in the face of cumbersome human realities, nothing can prevent us from hoping that the visions, knowledge and organizational structures inherent to those forms of solidarity and to Sylvilization will again find a place of honour among people. Globalization has still to be liberated from the materialistic arrogance and autocratic, bureaucratic, and technocratic narcissism of its leaders. However, if people can hope for a different future, it is hard to believe they can expect very longer, as most of them do no longer have faith in those who preached resignation and patience. Hope could transfrom itself in violence, and we should avoid it at any cost. For those who feel that Civilization has failed, it is here that Sylvilization can insert itself in order to discover the fleeting, poor, but joyous, mysterious and replete with hope, meaning of naked existence.

As ideals and concepts Sylvilization and Civilization exist of course only in our mind. Real men and women cannot be reduced to mental categories, whatever they may be. We are only but the shadows of something bigger than us. At every turn of their journey of cultural dissidence, the members of The Tribe have met with the resistance of a system whose rationalism leads to irrationality. Simultaneously, they have become aware of the pluralism of the ways that remain to be explored. A long journey still lies ahead.