We are family

I tend to forget I'm not invisible when I'm with more than one member of my family at a time. It happens in other social circumstances as well - I often am too uninterested or unopinionated to even consider getting out of the observer role and add a sentence here or a comment there. With family, it's probably more intense than in other gatherings. I come as a visitor, an outsider, and observe the family subjects in their natural environment. I assume that the way they interact during my observations is their usual way of interacting. That their dialogues are their usual dialogues. This is reinforced by my strong suspicion that in England more than anywhere else, dialogues between two people will follow a set pattern, rules laid out years ago and only slightly changed by time. And me in the middle, or on the back seat of the car, or somewhere at the dinner table - thinking I'm invisible.

What particularly strikes me is the simple materialist filter with which a lot of the people gathered around the family table interpret their world. The term "success" is conceded as a prize to define somebody's life if theirs can be describe in simple terms - married, bought a house, is now a doctor/ works in a lawyer's office. People become ecstatic because they get a designer handbag for Christmas. People have "dream cars" or "dream phones". The meaning of their lives and their emotions revolve around material goods. There's no wondering whence these goods come from, how they were produced, and what function, both personal and social, they fulfil. They are there, or they could be there if there was money, and that's all that matters.

In keeping with this materialism, political positions expressed casually have a definite conservative touch, often even a hint of easy fascism. Is it the Brits, is it just these people, is it rural northern England that has a higher degree of socially acceptable fascism than I'm used to? Migrants are criminals, the borders should be closed, strong unions are bad for the economy, and there are enough muslims in this country as it is. What do I do? I try to show the weakness of the argument, but I know I'm not eloquent enough for the fight, so I go back to invisible mode. These are the "normal" people. They have their own priorities for their lives. And yes, they are comforting. They comfort me in my decision not to aim for anything they have. House, Family, Salary.

I do have the feeling I'm in a particularly radical phase of rejection. It might change and milden with time, but considering I've been entering this phase for the last three years, I have the feeling it won't. Meaning: I will eventually be comfortable with people having unidealistic life priorities. But that hopefully won't stop me from attempting not to compromise with my ideals of a more open, more equal and more "sustainable"* society.

*terrible word, that is. Lost all its meaning. I need to find another one.

Blessed little angels

The space under the Christmas tree was covered with presents, as was the space above it - a hamock was snuggling twice as many presents as were on the floor. We arrived a little late, at about half past ten, and the little ones had been waiting all along to be allowed to open the presents. "Grandad K", a.k.a. Humbug the Grumpy, walked in half awake and said "right, this year, you're each going to have one present, and we'll send the rest to people in Uganda." Little 6-year old goldilock refused ("NO!") but covered up her lack of human solidarity with a more restricted solidarity, if only a political one ("but we'll share with everyone in this house"). And then the butchering feasts started: Grumpy prepared the goose, pheasant and duck for his Bird in a Bird in a Bird in the kitchen, while Goldilock and her little brother grabbed packet after packet and orgasmically released them of their wrapping, and, without looking who it came from or what it contained, moved on to the next. My stomach grew queasy as masses of unnecessary plastic consumer goods piled up on the floor, while a mountain of frivolously wasted paper formed in another corner of the room. Instincts of property and selfishness swelled up ("No it's MINE", "Look Dady, it's mine! It's MY car!"). Goldilocks seemed perfectly happy with her pile of presents until her little brother was given his first bike.

The last Christmas I experienced with a little child covered with presents was at Ex Boyfriend's brother's house. Ex Boyfriend's niece, then 4 or 5, turned over the course of one day from a spontaneous, charming little girl, into a sickening, superficial, image-aware starlet. At that point, I already silently swore to myself that I would never do that to my own children. Giving and sharing is beautiful, but orgiac consumerist debauchery has no appeal. I didn't even really see any joy in the kids' eyes that would make it worth it. Ggh.

give me a ticket...

Today was my last day at work for this year. Well worth a little trumpet tune. The routine of going to work is only bearable as long as I know that I will NOT base the rest of my life on this model.
Anyway, I'm Urlaubsreif, as they say. Ready for a break. The first half of the semester has been very engaging and there's too much bubbling optimism in me. It stops me from falling asleep immediately when I go to bed, which, for a sleeping genius like me, is an unusual situation.
So tomorrow I will pack and clean up and perhaps try to find a few little fair trade gifts to exchange under the christmas tree. And hopefully the foggy shores of England will await me on Friday... Grandmama warned me that several flights to Liverpool had been cancelled because of fog. I think it'll be an interesting trip. By train through northern england.

static life and processes

There is a comfortable wave of processes slowly taking me forward. Some of the contacts I've made via my class on solidary economy will probably develop into more intense relations, and I feel comfortable with the fact that it will take time. M. and I's presentation went great, although we were both a bit nervous and, this being our first project together, were not necessarily familiar with one another's reactions. I would like us to work together again, and I think it will happen. I think we are both confident that we have time to develop our friendship. It's warming to know there's the development of a relationship to look forward to. Similarly, I am glad that I got to talk to R. a bit during the seminar. R. lived on another small commune I know of north of berlin, that is connected to Ulenkrug by human relations. I had seen his face several times over the course of the years - in environment seminars at uni, in agriculture-related presentations outside - and I knew we had similar interests, but we never came into contact. You can trust Berlin to eventually give anyone an opportunity to talk to those who share similar interests. I like the fact that I've fairly quickly made contacts with the commune world and feel confident and comfortable about going there for a while, knowing that the people would welcome me. I felt very German yesterday, and perversly enjoyed it. Enjoyed seeing roots growing. I've felt an immense love of human beings on a punctual basis over the past weeks. I must be becoming Gandhi.

random notes from my Little Book of Ideas

In November, I started jotting down random ideas I get at random moments in a Little Book of Ideas. The problem, I noticed, is that I rarely go back to my notes to get reminded of previous ideas and see how I can build on them. As a therapeutic measure, I will thus now, live, go through my Little Book of Ideas and take out what I can. (my notes are written in a mix of English-German. It's actually become much easier to write and think in German now than in English. And my French has now reached the level of external foreign language for me. In any case, I'll try to write it all in English, but there will be noticeable German influences hovering over my choices of concepts.)

The starting point of the Little Book of Ideas was to keep track of the development of ideas and questions for my next research project. Thus the first page states my broad interest for solidarity economy and the range of organisation forms it covers, from radical emancipatory communes to co-operatives working within the economic system. This is one of the main themes of interests throughout my notes and the semester - and even the last couple of years: The relation between institutions willingly working within the "system" (a label for the mix of representative political institutions geared towards the culling of technocratic elites and generally accepting economic logic based on the anthropological assumption of the Homo Economicus) and initiatives attempting to create spaces of freedom within this system, based on a Homo Cooperativus.
I was first confronted with this dichotomy state/emancipatory initiatives when I tried to write a paper on the Zapatistas. The teacher I had for this class worked as a consultant for the government on issues of security. His focus was thus finding ways to tame initiatives questionning the authority and value of given institutions, from a state perspective. I found myself supporting the Zapatistas (a social movement started in Chiapas, southern Mexico, and basically gradually developping its own collective political rules and institutions following ideals of direct democracy) and absolutely unwilling to come up with suggestions on how to deal with their movement from a state perspective. I was frustrated by my impossibility to find a pleasing way to combine State and emancipation in one society. The one is, from its very nature, made to stop the other's efforts if they become so important that they intrude on the other's domain. Yet I find both, state and the implementation of emancipatory utopia, necessary.
Luhman (Zukunft der Demokratie, 1986) speaks of Despontaneifikation and Rechaotisierung to describe this constant battle between self-limiting state institutions and alternative political groups who refuse to let their actions be ruled by technocratic rules - such as the German Green party in its youth. The German green party is a good example of despontaneifikation after it tried to chaotify the system a bit.
And with all this in mind, I suddenly remembered, as I was sitting in the U-Bahn and going to Uni, the deep horror I felt as I realised, as a 6 or 7-year-old, that grown ups HAVE TO work. I pictured life after school as Absolute Freedom - a bit like summer holidays only for ever - until mum put an end to these dreams and announced the horrible truth. I asked why people had to work - I really couldn't fathom it. She said to earn money and live. But, I objected, what if I take a piece of land and just live off my own vegetables? Then you have to work to pay taxes, she said. On that very moment, I instinctively felt a strong anarchic streak in me. I couldn't accept the fact that there was no escaping the State. Of course, in my rudimentary model, I wasn't thinking of the advantages provided by the State in terms of health care for instance. That wasn't my priority as a 6-year old. My priority was freedom. The anarchic streak fell asleep quickly but has been waking up slowly over the past couple of years.
In short, I am increasingly interested in the attitude of States towards attempts to organise parallel societies. Taking this interest further would necessarily lead me to look at the United States, possibly at the state of New Hampshire as the only libertarian state (The problem there being the lack of solidarity ideals I suspect to find in the Libertarian utopia).

That's all for today from my Little Book of Ideas. More themes will be developped on a random basis.

l'allemand est froid

Last weekend I met up with Asylum-seeker C. I met him on that anti-racism congress organised by an initiative of asylum seekers (mainly male, mainly from cameroun, as I wondered at the time) where I provided interpretation french-english-german (a draining experience).
C. was the only one of the African guys I talked to on that day who described himself as an anarchist. He talks a lot though, and many of the ideas he expresses do not necessarily fit my understanding of anarchism. In any case, C. enthusiastically answered my call for help when I moved in August, and since then I have been keeping in mind the fact that I promised we would meet up again.

During our trip to Ulenkrug, I had told M. about my feelings of guilt related to the fact that I hadn't taken time to meet up with him even though he had stated he wanted to talk to me. Asylum seekers have it very very hard in Germany. M. showed understanding and encouraged me to simply call and meet up in a cafe for a couple of hours. So when an email from him came on Friday, inviting me to a little gathering, I called.

We met in P-berg in the afternoon. We looked for a Mexican place he vaguely remembered on Kastanien. Saw L. in the street who had applied for a job at my work place. She didn't get it. She seemed shy and we discussed the fact that she should call to know what they thought of her performance during the interview. C., who is trying hard to perfect his German, followed the conversation and kept throwing in nods and sounds of understanding, and little laughters, which, considering she was probably still traumatised by the rejection, was a little off key. But he couldn't know that.

We didn't find the mexican place, and C. seemed to show interest in a sushi place. I was a bit surprised that a penny less asylum seeker would have gone to a sushy place before, but dismissed this thought as ungrounded preconceived judgement. So we stepped into the sushi place.

C. hadn't eaten sushi before, nor had he eaten with chopsticks. I had the feeling he wasn't comfortable with trying that out in front of me. He repeatedly stated that he could fit in everywhere and adapt and it wasn't a problem.

He told me about his disappointment with a series of associations he'd worked with who provide help for asylum seekers - some organised by Germans, some by asylum seekers themselves. He said a lot of the conflicts that existed in Cameroun, for instance between francophone and anglophone regions, were transported to the country of exile. He complained that German people were too cold and unfriendly. He said he knew himself very well, and that was thanks to his dad who had taught him to keep a precise diary every day, and analyse the diaries on a yearly basis.

All in all, communication was difficult. I don't really do a good job of speaking in French, and I had the feeling he was sometimes using certain words when he meant the opposite or something slightly different. There was no basis for jokes, little relaxing remarks, irony. And there was this constant reminder that I am a privileged European and that I should be ashamed of my ignorance about Africa.

He did a good job of using his chopsticks. When we left the place, he gave a broad grin to the waitress and fluently threw a "Cheerio! Have a good evening!". Next time, he'll cook an African meal for me.

ideas for new research project

i'm getting all sorts of ideas this semester, it makes me feel very productive even though I haven't produced a single thing. One particular idea would be potentially applicable for my final thesis. It seems feasible, though challenging, and a nice and tidy idea. I'm not as thrilled by it as I was by the idea for my project paper, but this is probably a good thing.
T H E I D E A is to look at the theory and reality of direct democracy, especially democratic structures based on consensus rather than majority vote. I haven't really started looking at literature on the subject, but I can imagine that various philosophers discussed with enthusiasm various conceptions of direct democracy, and it would be interesting to look at that.
In a second step, I would then look at a handful of self-chosen communities, such as a large political commune, a smaller political commune and an eco-village (which I expect to have a less radical political self-understanding than a political commune). I would use qualitative research methods focusing on individuals' practices and their construction of structures, in part through discourse, and spend a while living there as a participating observer. And then - hm. I still need to find the point of the whole study.
But that can come. This whole project is built upside down anyway: I'd chosen the method (participating observation in communes) before I'd even decided what I wanted to write about (for now it seems to be alternative democratic structures), so the actual research question can come last.

I'm also considering organising a student-seminar on the utopian potential of political communities. Students in higher semesters can organise and give near-official seminars for students in lower semesters, as long as they find a professor willing to lend his name to the project and who will officially sign the credits and grade the papers. It takes a while to organise such seminars and it's most probably too late for the summer semester - but there's still next winter semester. Perhaps M. would be interested in organising it with me.
I find the idea of giving political seminars nearly exciting and it's something I can imagine occasionally doing after my studies. It all depends where I end up, of course. My institute is happy to accept seminar suggestions by outsiders, but I don't know if this is the case with other similar places. Not that there are any places like the Otto Suhr Institute...

Boss asked me as we were taking the lift downstairs at the end of a working day what I was up to. This came right after him saying we should make an official appointment to discuss my Personal Development. Implying the questions - when are you done with your studies and will you start working with us straight away?
I shudder just at the thought of such an appointment. He looks at me and sees a neat and tidy trilingual political scientist who can wear a suit and feels comfortable chitchatting at conferences and is interested in environmental issues. Resizing his image of me to include the fact that I do not value technocratic conferences, am interested in communes and show no sign of wanting to get an office job working for German and European government institutions is going to disturb my boss profoundly.
But whatever. It's good to confront people with other conceptions of what life can and could be.

Back "home"

Yesterday after work, at around 2.30pm, I set off with my little rucksack for the train station. I bought chocolate and carrot-apple juice at the organic shop for the trip and waited on the platform at Südkreuz for red-head M. We were setting off for Meck'Pom, a Länder north of Berlin. M. and I were off to visit Ulenkrug, the German member of the Longo Mai network of commune-co-operatives. Our train would take us to Demmin, then we would take a bus to We Weren't Sure Where and someone from the farm would pick us up.
I had been looking forward to this trip for a while. I needed to confront the memories I had of Longo Mai near Forcalquier with reality, and see whether my positive impressions were not all linked to the beautiful landscape, the golden Provence light, the beaming dry stone houses, the gorgeous valley... I was quite sure I wouldn't be all too impressed by Ulenkrug - located in a former eastern Länder in northern Germany. And seen in December. Bound to be soggy, grey and miserable.

M. and I had a pleasant trip over to Demmin, chatting all the way.
I've known M. from afar since my second semester - Summer 2003. Since then we've seen one another perhaps once a year, randomly, but actually always had nice conversations. With time, I've felt that we were developing to share more and more interests and values. We share a lot of the unwillingness to take a "normal" job, to look more for a way to organise our lives that will make us happy and fulfilled - but we took very different pathes to get there.
She was part of the group of 5 who wanted to found a large WG (living community) last summer. Out of these five people, I knew two: M. and assertive L., whom I'd had a class with all year long and who had invited me to meet with the others and see whether I could be part of the project. It was a pretty bad phase for me and I didn't want to compete for a room in their living project. I didn't feel self-confident enough to assert myself or show anything of myself to those who didn't know me. I didn't really feel I belonged. But I tried all the same - mainly because I was happy to see M. again whom I hadn't seen in a while. The others didn't feel I should be part of the project, and L. and M. both told me they felt it was a real shame.
I've since decided not to take that badly and went to their house warming party, and recently had dinner there with L. and M., so that my relation with both of them has continued undisturbed.
This semester, I was happy to see M. in two of my seminars and we very naturally decided to prepare a project on communes together and very naturally decided to travel over to one for interviews and a visit. She first suggested another, relatively famous German commune, Niederkaufungen, but for some reason we came to choose the Longo Mai one. We both felt thankful that the other one was interested because we knew we wouldn't have gone alone.

So we chat in the train and gradually become more than just distant acquaintances who value one another.
We arrive in Demmin and look for the bus. No buses. Just lots of taxis and little vans. We ask a van driver if he knows where we can find the bus to Dargun. He points at a taxi across the street, calls the driver and says we also want to climb in. As we move towards the taxi, we realise that we wouldn't fit in - three other people plus luggage were boarding. The driver was calling another taxi. She told us to wait five minutes and that a black mercedes would pick us up.

The Berlin girls in rural east Germany. How strange to realise that we were noticeably not from around there, and came from a decidedly different world which we take so much for granted and standard.

Our "bus" driver, an overly round man in his sixties, arrived and drove us over to Dargun in his black mercedes. He was happy to chat. He said it was the first time they'd needed a second taxi for the shuttle service. That it wasn't worth having buses anymore and the towns had an agreement with the taxi services. He also said there was a great lack of discipline and order in the region. That old people couldn't go out at night alone because they would get robbed. He said that some people said that what was needed here was Zucht und Ordnung und 'n Führer (law and order and a führer). "Yes, it's funny but they say that, people around here." He had clearly stated he felt Zucht und Ordnung was necessary. He probably also felt that a Führer was needed, but he didn't want to tell us directly.
20% vote for neo-nazis in the region.

As we reached Durgun, I asked how much we owed him. He refused to take any money from us. A woman was approaching us - B. from Ulenkrug, tall and handsome, in her fifties. Our neo-nazi yet friendly driver left us in her care and wished us a good stay in this forlorne region.

The drive to Ulenkrug wasn't much of a scenic route - night sets in around half past four in our part of the world, and the sides of the roads were hidden in darkness. We arrived at the farm and I immediately recognised the spirit of Longo - people busy moving a truck out of the way - but also felt reminded of my aunt's place. B. showed us where we would sleep - a cosy room in a splendidly creative new house they are still building, and a bed each. We hadn't expected that much. And then off we went for dinner in the main house.

The common room has two large tables, one was already taken over by 15 people, including two or three children, so we sat down at the other one. Soon that one was also full as more people gradually arrived and sat next to us. Dinner was simple but delicious. We chatted with B., people asked us why we were there. One woman said she recognised me from the congress last week - I suppose that's the advantage of having a noticeable haircut. People remember my face more easily.
There were a lot of conversations and there was no moment where I felt this loneliness I had felt in Forcalquier - M's presence helped a lot, as she is always eager to ask questions and actively make people talk.
There was a lot of laughing. People were balanced, friendly, warm - though not excessively so.

On the next day, M. and I entertained fantasies of being taught how to use the carpenter's workshop, one day. We walked around whenever B. or other people had other things to do than talk with us, and exchanged impressions, took photos, chatted a lot.

I felt a lot more easily integrated at Ulenkrug than in the south of france. The women especially were fun to talk to. And I was once again amazed by the network they built up and the culture they share - the self-evidence with which they consider the fact that people can decide to move off to another of the communes for a while, to learn other things, see other people, other places, get some air and freedom, develop further - and then either come back to the commune they left or not. I admire this incredible network of trust, like an extended family, that allows for an alternative life style, mobility, and cosmopolitanism.

M. was very impressed and glad we'd come and she'd learned more about Longo Mai.
I should write about a lot of other little impressions, but there's too much, even though we didn't even stay 24 hours.
B. and several others invited us to come back next year, especially when they have work requiring groups of people. I think she liked us.

In the train on the way back, M. and I chatted some more and I eventually realised I was exhausted from all the communicative exchanges. I'm not necessarily used to it. I really enjoy talking with M. though.

--break for now. Time needed to process all these experiences.