Ciao, e' in inglese ma datevi da fare...
----- Forwarded message from ca_favale@??? -----
From: ca_favale@???
To: euevforum@???
Subject: The story goes on...
We wrote this letter (>>) on the ecovillage list a few days ago, and we received a letter (with quotations >).
Our answer is at the bottom, take your time to read it -
Bye
Vladimir and Hoez
>>We don't want you to get angry but when you post messages to a list, be
>>careful that the content can be readable...
>>In Damanhur there will be a conference by the title
>>Communities: Yesterday's utopia - todays' reality,
>>what does it mean? That an utopia became reality?
>>I don't know if I'm allowed by the ecovillage forum to express some
>>thoughts in this list - maybe let us know if this list is supposed to be a
>>forum or just a marketing space -
>>
>>in the first case, I express some doubts about ecovillages as they are
>>todays'reality- Up to now we just see messages proposing courses (fee
>>always encluded) - there has never been someone wanting to share some
>>ideas about anything - from self-celebration to straight propaganda, but
>>
>>how is this possible? Is this the new reality or utopia, or what the new
>>generation want? Nobody feels different about this courses, youth
>>manifestos, ecovillage-creation-aided-moderated-facilitated conferences?
>>Everything so schematic to all of you I can't believe - because if this
>>was true, I feel a cold shiver at my back - where's life gone? Is life
>>utopia?
>>
>>No hope - just want to see if someone answers this
>Hello ca_favale@???
>who are you ?
>Here is Nicole from Poland
>reading your letter I enjoy meeting some one alive
>I like your impatience to make a real change
>tell us what would you like to see happening ????
>Which one of the many level of change would you like we reach together ???
>
>With love
>Nicole
Hmm... discussions on a virtual level as they happen on the web are impossible to reach some points: you can't really discuss freely on things, and usually virtual communications tend to oversimplify people's thoughts... if you think of this so called network of ecovillages you quite fastly reach the point that the only thing going on is marketing of courses or meetings on usually irrelevant topics like the one in Damanhur "communities: yesterday's utopia todays'reality". Usually self-celebrating, self contained advertisments of this brand new product which is the "ecovillage"... we have a book speaking of ecovillages from all over the world and it is quite scary to look at the aims of them.
Basically, find a comfortable place to live in for many people sick of this modern world's life - there isn't any critic appearing, no ideas of change, but defining the same society with other colours and in an alternative...spiritual...ecological...linked with mother nature...way.
- no critic on industrialized society, on the contrary new technologies are sponsored and ecovillages are seen as the key to society progress...
Since we live on this world and are dominated, with the use of force, by the actual society, it's quite clear that one of our enemies is this society we live in. Laws, states, religion, prisons, money, property, protected by institutional violence; aren't these all topics on which is important to have an op-position? I would like to understand on which side of the barricade ecovillages stand.
The ecovillage network, in my opinion, is not confronting ANY of these matters thinking that living in "harmony" can solve some problems. Questions arise:
Which are the problems? In harmony with what? What about the existing world? Nature apart the 1km surroundings? The whole biodinamic universe?
How do people think, if they think, of changing the world: is it just living in harmony? time travelling? going to courses at other dimensions through the ecovillage network? Trading skills or meditating together in a circle?
Making of everything a big market where you sell any kind of material or immaterial products is a step forward for the ruling society (let's call it capitalism which is a banned term from ecovillage-related discussions). Developing eco-industries and eco-everything is the next market for all the big industries and all the multinationals (let's remember that some once called ecovillages in italy are sponsored by Volkswagen because of some shit thinking about the fact that some multinationals are better than others blah blah the renewable energy car blah blah and shit like this)
Today ecovillages, as it is expressed by their leaders'talk, are looking to find business solution to get their share in the society of profit -they call it no-profit but what they do is selling courses, selling hospitality, selling knowledge, providing eco-tourism. Just adding the prefix eco to all of the different industries existing on earth -
if you read the book on ecovillage you'll find examples of ecovillages developing eco-industries, and I'm not joking! See the paragraph "Green business and the ecovillages", pages 64-74, from "Ecovillage living - Restoring the Earth and Her People" edited by Hildur Jackson and Karen Svensson (in association with GAIA Trust, Denmark at the price of 26.95 euros - maybe steal it from your local ecovillage-shop)
We don't have anything to do with this.
But still we're present at some ecovillage meetings when we have time to waste, and read ecovillage mail and answer it just not to leave the ecovillage lobby the total dominance of this scene. Reading the email on the ecovillage list you can feel only the silence of the audience and the speech of the leaders like in the normal world of hierarchy and burocracy.
Organizing ecovillages as NGO and trying to find out ways to gain money as a guy recently wrote on some notes posted on this list are operations which can be managed only by people with a positive attitude towards earning money, as the guy says in his document. Pointing out the key importance of trading, he wants more skillful trading experts to be enrolled in ecovillage marketing strategies.
We are not at all interested in trading and we don't like the idea of being consumed.
We share the importance of having money because it's impossible to think of not needing money NOW - and probably we'll need this all our life long. In the place I come from we had many discussions on this topic and we never reached a conclusion: everybody living here finds his or her own way of making money.
One point on which we all agree is that we don't like to sell products. Sometimes we're doing works, but just when we need it - and we try to get this need as minimum as possible. That's why we don't work much.
We end this very long letter with some quotation from this evil-lage book: have a good read and enjoy yourself but don't forget it's real! They mean it as they say it -
Ciao,
Vladimiro and Hoez
page 148, "Working with authorities" by Max Lindegger
Public servants are not your enemies. They're actually there to help you.
Be open to compromise. Be 100% honest even when it hurts.
Getting your ecovillage project passed by your local authority may seem like a "life and death" struggle - BUT IT'S NOT.
[crystalwaters@???]
page 168, "The Findhorn foundation: Cooperation with the United Nations"
Cooperation with national and international organization is an important part in expanding the ecovillage concept as a planning paradigm
The cooperation between the United Nations and the NGO community can provide a bridge for communication between the people of the world and policy makers at the national and global levels.
It's a great privilege and responsibility to be part of the larger action network which supports the process of implementing the principles of the United Nations on Earth.
[www.findhorn.org]
page 150, "Fundraising is Friendraising, interview with Jeff Grossberg"
[...very long interview on fundraising, which ends with...]
money follows!
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