What comes after the end of the world?
Tim Hollo is the Executive Director of the Green Institute, a think-tank and repository of resources that promote “ecological democracy” through ideas, conversation and action. He argues that the centralisation of power in any organisation, including our Western forms of government, makes them very fragile. By contrast, decentralised, participatory democratic organisations are more flexible and resilient: they can organise themselves more readily and respond promptly to the evolving needs of the community.
The Covid pandemic, and recent floods along the eastern part of Australia, have shown us how ordinary neighbours, collaborating at a local level, have provided emotional and practical support. They have organised themselves, not waiting for central bureaucratic assistance. They are decentralised and participatory.
“The world as we know it” is founded on an eighteenth-century Western view of the world, which regarded nature as mere “stuff” that could and should be dominated and used for human ends. We humans are in a class of our own and are vastly superior to the natural world. Hollo calls this an “anti-ecological” view and contrasts it with the understanding of indigenous cultures that our species is part of the natural world, not apart from it. These cultures encourage cooperation with each other and with the natural world, since this is essential if we are to survive and thrive.
As an example of a decentralised, participatory democracy, Hollo describes the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), also known as Rojava, a de facto autonomous region in north-eastern Syria. The inhabitants of this region have built their own grassroots communities, which promote universal democratic, sustainable, autonomous pluralist, equal, and feminist policies in dialogues with other parties and organizations.
Underpinning Hollo’s work is the theory of “panarchy”, which (unlike anarchy) is a conceptual framework that accounts for how economic growth and human development depend on ecosystems and institutions, and how they interact. It is a model of change as a constant element. The collapse of one system (“the world as we know it”) at the same time offers an opportunity for us to determine for ourselves, in a participatory democratic way, what new forms of ecological thriving can evolve out of the ruins of what went before. Herein lies the positive message for despairing teenagers – and for all of us.
This engaging, thought-provoking book would be a great choice for a reading group – or as a prompt for quiet musing, and an invitation to action.
Further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_Administration_of_North_and_East_Syria
http://environment-ecology.com/general-systems-theory/535-panarchy.html
Contributed by Wendy Morgan