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PeaceNews #2446: Utopias, Visions and Realities
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Utopias, Visions and Realities
Andrew Rigby
Utopia - no place, a never-never
land beyond the realm of
everyday experience, a dream
world that is unattainable, a fantasy
vision to which people might like to
fly in their dreams and escape the
chains of reality.
Utopian was the pejorative term also
used by Marxs associate Freidrich Engels
to dismiss the work of early nineteenth
century socialists like Robert Owen and
Charles Fourier, who were naïve enough
to believe that you could create a world
based on the values of cooperation and
human fulfilment without resorting to
violence and bloody class struggle. These
utopian socialists constitute one link in
the historical chain of activist-visionaries
who have searched for a non-authoritarian
way to create a new society, relying above
all on the power of examplebelieving
that if you could create an ideal society in
microcosm, then this would act as an
exemplar which others would follow in
the pursuit of their ideals.
Means and ends
One of the most articulate advocates of
this communitarian nonviolent
approach to social transformation was
Martin Buber. He argued that it was the
Marxists that were utopian, in the sense
of being out of touch with reality
deluded. He pointed to the complete disjunction
between the perfect world of
freedom and equality to which authoritarian
socialists might pay homage, and the
violent and coercive means they believed
necessary to bring about such a realm.
Echoing Gandhi and others, Buber
emphasised the importance of maintaining
a continuity between means and ends,
refusing to accept that in our reliance on
the future leap, we have to do now the
direct opposite of what we are striving
for. In words that still have a resonance,
he urged that we must create here and
now the space now possible for the thing
for which we are striving, so that it may
come to fulfilment then.
A flawed fantasy?
Buber believed that the kibbutz movement,
in what was to become Israel, constituted the most significant example of such
a movement. In his contribution in this
issue of Peace News, Uri Davis details how
Bubers dream has been poisoned. As in
so many historical examples, the practice
has proven to be corrupt and has fallen far
short of the original inspirational vision.
But does that mean the vision, any
vision, is worthlessa flawed fantasy?
Surely now, more than ever, the people of
Palestine - Jews and Arabs - need hope.
But as the violence and terror perpetrated
by Israelis and Palestinians continues, the
seeds for hope are becoming increasingly
difficult to find.
There are many who do have a vision of a
shared future based on equal rights for all
in Israel/Palestine. This is a utopian vision,
in the sense of being beyond the realm of
everyday reality, stretching the parameters
of what seems possible at the present time.
But it is only by holding on firmly to such
a dream that activists on both sides can
continue to struggleand to hope.
This is the function of utopias - to provide
us with a vision that tests the
boundaries of our mundane world, to
inspire us with hope for an alternative
future, and thereby act as a guide for our
actions in the here-and-now, helping us
to create the changes required to enable
the dream to be fulfilled.
Practical idealism
Gandhi described himself as a practical
idealist. He was also one of the best historical
examples of the visionary-activist.
Writing in 1927 he confessed to his
utopian mentality, the refusal to submit
to the total embrace of the world-as-it-is
in his quest to realise his dream of a
world permeated by truth and nonviolence.
He wrote, This scheme may sound
utopian. I however prefer to live in this
utopia of my imagination to trying to live
up to the unbridled licence of a society
that I see tottering to its disruption. It is
surely given to individuals to live their
own utopias even though they may not be
able to see them accepted by society.
(Young India, 17 November 1927).
In this issue Jenny James recalls her
efforts to live her own utopia, to construct
a personal and a communal life in accordance
with deeply held beliefs and values.
In her account one can sense the tensions
between the impulse to withdraw from
the violence of the world in order
to create a healthy human
environmenta haven for
herself, her children and
her communityand
the concern to engage
with the injustices of
the world.
Imposing blueprints
It is, of course, one thing
for individuals to live
their own utopias, and
to try and persuade others
to emulate them in their own fashion.
The danger and the horror lies in the
attempts by people to impose their own
utopia on others.
A dear friend in Cambodia once challenged
me about Gandhi, arguing that
Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge cadres had
been every bit as idealistic and utopian as
Gandhi. They wanted to start a new phase
of history, to transform Cambodia and its
people and create a perfect communist
society based on the values of collective
self-reliance, equality and cooperation.
The result was the auto-genocide of
their own people in the years between
1975 and 1979a terrible reminder of
the violence and the totalitarianism that
are necessary dimensions of all blueprints
which seek to order the lives of others
without their informed consent.
Legacies remain
Utopias as visions of alternative ways of
living and relating are always conceived
in relation to the conditions of the existing
society. As such they can be read as
expressions of the unrealised and unfulfilled
needs of their age. But some themes
seem to recur throughout the ages, and
we can still find inspiration in the dreams
and visions of long ago.
More than 350 years ago a young man
called Gerrard Winstanley led a small
group of people in occupying a plot of
common land in the south of England,
declaring that God had created the earth
to be a common treasury for all.
As Andrew Bradstock recounts in his
contribution, their venture lasted only a
short while before being quashed by the
forces of the state and the landed gentry.
But their legacy remains to inspire contemporary
visionary-activists who grasp
the intimate relationship between how we
treat each other and how we treat nature.
History reveals that again and again
the utopians of one generation have
proven to be the prophetic realists to
which subsequent generations have
turned for insight and inspiration in tackling
the paramount issues that confront
them, because what they possess in abundance
is that faculty of creative imagination
and moral courage that is so lacking
in most of us.
Envisaging the future
Too many of us lack the ability to envisage
an alternative human order beyond
some materialistic paradise
achieved through the
maximisation of economic
growth and
personal wealth. We
are unable to envisage
a world of perfect
freedom and fellowship,
a true commonwealth.
That is why utopias (and
utopians) are so important
to inspire and
enhance the visionary powers that have
been atrophied in so many of us. They
enable us to begin to see beyond the confines
of the present and to anticipate
alternative futures in both our dreams
and our actions. They help us in summoning
up the courage to move beyond
saying no to the violence that surrounds
and threatens us, and in affirming our
faith in the human capacity to create a
future fit for all, and in seeking to embody
that faith in our daily lives.
Andrew Rigby is a Peace News Trustee and
guest editor for this issue of Peace News. He
is also Director of the Centre for the Study of
Forgiveness and Reconciliation at Coventry
University.
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