Thinking a new way to be

your words in the fierlight

Safar means journey and in this series we have journeyed from the global to the local, from the individual to community, from competition to cooperation, from dogma to new conversations, from resource depletion to resource regeneration, from labour exploitation to the shared benefits of community labour, from private ownership to commons thinking.

A different type of journey (mine’s the little one)

In many ways, this contemporary discourse is reminiscent of the politics of post-colonial Africa. Colonial capitalism was rejected in favour of something distinctly African. As an example, Tanzania led by Julius Kambarage Nyerere, instilled a philosophy of Ujamaa. Ujamaa translates as ‘familyhood’, which he saw as the basis for African socialism. In a paper written in 1962, Julius outlined his vision for Tanzania (Tanganyika). His first goal was kujitegemea, autonomy from foreign aid and investment, instead envisioning a moral economy of justice and equality for all. To achieve this he implemented a form of tribal socialism. Extended family or community units made local participatory decisions and worked cooperatively for local self-sufficiency - a return to the past in which autonomous tribal self-sufficiency was the dominant form of social organisation.

The leader stepped down in 1985 due to an apparent failure of Ujamaa to achieve economic growth for the country. Tanzania shifted toward a more liberal economic policy. However, economic growth as a criteria for success of political policy is a limited measure and, I would argue, isn’t a relevant criteria for the times in which we live. As

Julie Gabrielli

said in response to last week’s post, “We know the capitalist system destroys the earth, exploits workers, and increases the wealth gap. Growth at any cost is not sustainable”. Since the early years of this century, a resurgence of the moral values of Ujamaa made a reappearance in Tanzania’s political discourse. A people disillusioned by the failure to realise the promise of Neo-liberalism, returned again to its past. While this hasn’t yet translated into policy, Julius Nyerere’s legacy persists in political debate as part of a reimagining of the future of Tanganyika.

This discourse, or thinking a different way to be, is mirrored in community conversations and action world-wide. In response to each of the stories shared, you have an equally powerful one of your own.

John Lovie

shared his own experience of transition:

When I moved to the island twelve years ago, our realtor took us to a meeting of Transition Whidbey, where she thought I might find my people. She was right. Within a few months, I was president of TW [Transition Whidbey, Pacific NW].

We wound up winding it up, not because it failed, but because it was redundant. We are so rich in community organizations. We did talk about a currency, Whidbey Bucks, but it never quite took off.

This month I'm giving four talks on water, two to farming groups, and tonight I'll be part of a conversation on making the island more bicycle friendly. Many of these conversations include people I first met at TW. The transition spirit lives on!

As it also does on the other side of the Atlantic. Anthropologist,

Caroline Osella

, has adopted Transition town, Worthing (UK), as her hometown.

It's a very open collective and they work very closely with the more recent group that has sprung up, CREW, climate resilience centre. Because we're a small town, we tend to have dense cross- cutting networks, so we can thrash stuff out face to face and build relationships. I'm hopeful.

This has led me to question whether the prior existence of community identity is necessary to see the kind of transition we’ve been exploring, or whether community is the outcome. Although Brixton is part of the large city of London, it has a distinct community identity which perhaps facilitated its transition, but the transition itself seems to have strengthened local solidarity. I suspect it is a case of the chicken or the egg.

While these stories build hope (to use

Julie Gabrielli

’s term), it is important to consider the wider context within which they arise and the subsequent challenges they face.

We've had a lovely co-op supermarket HISBE around here [Worthing, UK] for a couple of years. But a series of events means that it's now shut and we don't know if it'll re-open. First lockdowns, then lengthy roadworks making their street inaccessible, then austerity crisis have hit hard. SUMA was a key brand in here. But also tiny local indie producers (like the Sussex peasant, Barnaby ferments). Profits here were used for social investment, such as projects for unhoused folks or for people coming out of the prison system. We miss them very much and hope for some kind of upturn in our local economy that would encourage people to get out and support them. It's estimated that if everybody spends a fiver a week in local indie businesses, it has enormous positive impact.

Caroline Osella

If a fiver a week can make that much of a difference, imagine what could be achieved if existing subsidies were redirected to those hardest hit by these forces!

The Corn Exchange, Leeds, a collection of small independent businesses set in a historic landmark

Sometimes it seems as though each post warrants a series of its own. None more so than the one dedicated to participatory democracy. Being a new concept to some readers I received a request for more:

As for participatory democracy, I wonder if anyone here in Japan (besides activists) have even heard the term. I want to know more examples and possibilities!

Louise Haynes

I had come across a discussion of a Japanese example during research. The link to this, plus others which you have provided, have been added to the community area.

John Lovie

also provided an example with which I was unfamiliar and led to a more lengthy discussion:

Here in the US, opportunities for participatory democracy vary widely by state. In my state of Washington we have a range of opportunities from advisory committees to ballot initiatives. A grass roots group close to me was able to get a bond initiative to build a community pool on the ballot. That's not possible in many states.

What’s a bond initiative?

A feature of government in Washington is an entity called a special purpose district. Examples are water and/or sewer districts, local improvement districts, cemetery districts, school districts, and diking and drainage districts. These are very local. They have directly elected commissioners and can raise taxes.

This instance was a joint effort between the parks and recreation district and a volunteer committee.

I then asked how representative bond initiatives were:

This project was years in the making. Bond initiatives need 60% support to pass. The volunteer committee showed up outside grocery stores, at the farmer's market, put out signs, held public meetings. Among the District's 15,000 voters, it got 62.5% on a 62% turnout, unheard of for an odd year election. So I'd say as good as it can get.

and are they restrained by existing structures?

Going beyond existing structures is tougher, but not impossible. Getting a new special purpose district off the ground is hard.

Of course, we're seeing local engagement play out in other ways, as school boards ban books. Part of the reason this is possible is lack of engagement in district elections. Republicans have been strategically and deliberately taking over at this level for decades. That kind of overreach is sparking increased engagement, with these boards being voted out. Local politics matters!

Local politics matters. This is something we’ve seen evidence for, but not in the form of voter turnout in local elections within the structure of national democracies (in the UK voter turnout for local council representatives is generally lower than for general elections, which is also not particularly high).

A recurring theme in the comments and my own Substack reading is what

Renée Eli, Ph.D.

refers to as relatedness. In response to my quoting

Peter Reason

in The Great Forgetting, Renée shared:

Peter's statements here echo Thomas' [Thomas Berry, cultural historian] visionary work and often echoed phrase about our world as "a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects." Your reflections on "commons thinking" are beautiful and, too, reflect this relatedness that is everywhere apparent except in the human confused by capitalism.

The comments reflect a relatedness in our writing, thoughts, and readings on this platform. It is almost magical.

Jeanine Kitchel

made me smile with this comment:

So interesting—serendipitous?—how things come our way. … Sometimes the cookie crumbs on the path lead us in the right direction (or maybe always, just got to go with it).

And the magic of trees returned to us through

Lorraine Tilbury

spotting related themes in different posts:

I was blown away by the "synchronicity of trees" as you say; I wandered into another post about trees as well but I can't remember where that one was... I love how collections get created like that. 🙂 We live in a magical universe

Sue Clancy

agreed, and expressed a relatedness of thoughts which I really hope she expands on later:

As I read your newsletter I thought of the similar ways trees network together and the ways humans can network. Trees are a system of breathing for our planet. Community is a system of mental care/circulation.

I've been giving this concept of community and mental care/circulatory systems a lot of thought lately. Humans "catch" ideas from each other like cold viruses and then spread them. We do this with helpful/good for us ideas as well as misinformation/disinformation harmful ones. I've been looking at both mythology and history through this lens of helpful/harmful ideas being circulated.

and similarly:

I too have found myself reflecting on the silence of spaces in between, there has been much written on this vast subject here recently. I read Samantha Clark’s beautiful words also... perhaps, time allowing, I will gather together my thoughts for a future publication?

Susie Mawhinney - A hill and I

I adore Sue’s analogy, the way we catch ideas from each other. Many of you have shared your role as educators where your own virus catches on: Louise, who enjoyed the discussion on reframing discourse, saw an opportunity for constructive dialogue about racism with her students; and Caroline, whose work on affluent foragers has created an openness in her students to different ways of organising society.

Sue’s assertion that the virus can also be harmful came into stark focus when it made an appearance in the comments in the form of a vitriolic alt-right, white supremicist, anti-semitic, unwanted intruder. I would like to think we are an antidote to the disinformation, hate and personalised offensive waffle parading as intellectual authority by leaving you with Caroline’s words:

It takes a lot of work to make humans competitive, individualist, mean-spirited, unempathic and stunted into instrumental rationality. It wouldn't take much at all to undo all of that. It's already happening.

Up Next

I promise to return to participatory democracy as a series in itself, but in the meantime, I’m going to take a break from political discussion and draw our attention to beauty. The next season of The Fiertzeside will take a peak into the relational world of art and the environment.

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For more on Ujamaa see:

African Socialism

Julius Nyerere, Ujamaa, and Political Morality in Contemporary Tanzania

Ujamaa: The basis of African Socialism by Julius K. Nyerere (download available).