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transition towns
Promoting the Commons in the Time of Monsters
The excesses of neoliberal capitalism may have finally eroded any remaining trace of its intellectual credibility. However odious, these excesses had become comfortable for many people, offering a false sense of security and predictable margins of action. Prolonged austerity politics and the pillage of the welfare state have left large numbers of people frustrated, hopeless, and angry, though, and the awakened right-populist movements have exploited this with alarming consequences. But without an apparent alternative, political engagement can seem limited to a pointless choice: scramble on loose rocks over the familiar but shifting ground of globalized capitalism, or hitch one's wagon to a careening carload of 21st century hubris, i.e. Brexit, Trumpism, the alt- or far-right. Is it time to give up on the representative democracy experiment, or are there any active models for more humane, participatory politics?
The political context described above has been outlined in a good many contemporary books and articles, but sadly, there are seldom any viable alternatives offered to stem the tide of inevitable ruin. This article describes an attempt to reimagine our political systems emancipated from rollercoaster markets and bureaucracies. Based in existing, effective political movements that have been winning elections in a variety of locations, this is an account of radical innovations in governance, production, care work, the stewardship of our cultural, digital and natural heritage, and of a politics that lays a bedrock for bottom-up system rebuilding. This is the politics of the commons and peer to peer (P2P), an expansion on the shared creation and management of common resources, and its recent successful eruption in municipal governments.
Commons in the Time of Monsters
As Gramsci said (or didn't say), "The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters". After nearly 40 years of progressive neoliberalization and social decomposition, contemporary politics has been very publicly upended by a misogynistic, xenophobic and financially privileged "new right" intent on coupling its politics of hate onto the apparatus of state power.
So, where is the margin for action, if change from within is effectively blocked by the structural constraints of statist politics and the electoral arena? The Leninist notion of achieving state power with or without popular consent, and as a certain precursor to equitable and lasting social change, has proven misguided: the next system won't just fall into place at the pull of a lever.
Amid this increasingly bleak political landscape, affinity-based networks and communities using P2P dynamics and building commons have been taking action. Small-scale innovations in many fields are paving the way for true, sustainable resource management and grounded social cohesion. In governance, food growing, service provision, science, research and development, education, even finance and currency, these community-enabled developments demonstrate how differently our lives could be organized. Many of these place-based efforts are being documented and replicated worldwide through the Internet, in the process re-seeding the knowledge Commons from which they draw. This is done through commons enabling, aka P2P (peer-to-peer, person-to-person, people-to-people) technologies, which are gaining momentum as forces for constructive change. They enable small group dynamics at higher levels of complexity and enable the reclamation of power.
With this power, people can create innovations in production, open book accounting, and the stewardship of natural, cultural or digitally derived commons -- but also in governance. Together, all of this forms the building blocks of a truly bottom-up system. Could all this really coalesce into something that, in the future, might be called "post-capitalism"? Only if those who identify as commoners recognize, promote and develop these systems and increase their cultural and, vitally, their political influence, while remembering that there are other players already on the field using similar means towards very different ends.
Prefigurative social arrangements and provisioning approaches are some of the key components for constructing sensible alternatives, but they are not developed in isolation. Instead, they are built within the constraints of existing systems. Likewise, whether through the enclosures brought on by neoliberalism or through authoritarian, exclusionary hate politics, the 'normal' conditions people expect or aspire to will undoubtedly shrink. This would affect things people have taken for granted to some degree, including job security, pensions, unemployment, sensible working hours and conditions, fairness. As an effect, the 'wiggle room' assumed for the operations of those productive communities will inevitably compress.
Apart from the Western context, this wiggle room could be considered as 'privilege'. Under the market-maximizing dictates of Brussels, such privileges seemed like they were on their way out in the EU. But the man behind the curtain was revealed in 2008, and a sudden flare of counter-political activity reached its peak of public attention in 2011. In 2017, the question is not theoretical, but hands-on practical: how do we build the new world in the shell of the old - and before the shell squeezes shut.
The post-2011 protest movements never quite got it together, politically speaking, well or quickly enough to counter the rising hate wave from the right. The contemporary European political landscape shows a populist reaction against global capitalism, but by harking back to a past that never was. Adding insult to injury, we see these xenophobic constructs have built their social base not just with deft internet and social media skills, but also by using P2P tactics. That's a bit of salt in the wound, given that P2P tactics and tools have largely been promoted by people working for a more inclusive and just world, not one that seeks to "otherize" and exclude.
We cannot afford to forget that financial interests will always favor extreme right wing or fascist options that safeguard their stake, and that any redistributive political options will be harshly and publicly ridiculed, or worse. With the noxious spirit of the thirties rebounding, there's not a moment to spare; patience now would be a deadly strategy. It's time to occupy the collective cultural imagination with compelling and practical political alternatives and expose the normalization of neoliberalism as deadly propaganda; to expose the numbing spectacle (Brexit, Trump, etc.) as yet another synthetic opioid addiction.
This is why it's time for the Commons movement to become more overtly politically active. Beyond self-organized production, care work, ecological stewardship, even beyond ethical generative markets, it's time for more effective political engagement, not only to protect the essentials of the welfare state model, but to transcend it with a radically reimagined politics that facilitates social value creation and community-organized practices. There are models for this commons-oriented political engagement in Spain's municipal movements, which the rest of this article will outline. To be clear, "political" describes not only political representation, but also the actionable rights of all those affected by political decisions - the public sphere. There's a false dichotomy between wanting to build new alternatives now and wanting to enable change by hacking existing political channels. Both approaches, prefigurative and institutional, can work together.
Vanguardism: a 21st century cautionary tale
Now it's time to look back at the origins of a particularly visible political party, one that offered the promise of a more inclusive, commons-oriented political process, but which eventually failed to deliver. The spirit of the commons was present in its nascence, though, in public assemblies.
This factor is one to keep in mind while considering the eventual rise of municipalist parties.
In January 2014, a group of political science professors from the Autonomous University of Madrid found themselves gaining some popularity on Spanish national television. They announced the formation of a new political party, one that would demand:
"...a politics that goes back onto the streets that talks like the majority of people who have had enough. (...) Our demand for a greater generosity from representatives, for a greater horizontality and transparency, for a return of the republican values of public virtue and social justice, for the recognition of our plurinational and pluricultural reality is more real than ever. It is decades since our desire for making our own decisions and answering our own questions was so real." (Mover Ficha Manifesto)
In the European Elections four months later, the new party won 5 seats in the European Parliament with more than 1.2 million votes.
Of course, that party is Podemos, whose trajectory indicates what a commons-oriented political party can -- and more pointedly, should not -- do. Their early months impart what is politically feasible in urgent circumstances, and show the power that can be harnessed by appealing to people's' hopes while articulating their needs and desires. The early success of Podemos is due to their work on two distinct-yet-related levels: mass media and network media.
Having cut their teeth on prime-time TV debates, Podemos' most visible figures (chiefly male) made for great entertainment, clobbering the arguments of the chronic political class, which they dubbed la casta ("the caste", a jibe implying a privileged class).
It wasn't all show business. They were savvy enough to capture the networked, horizontalist politics of the 15-M movement. A staggering number of geographical- and interest-based assemblies (called "circulos") were enabled and bolstered online through tools like Reddit, Loomio and others.
With its legion of tactics, Podemos became a totem appealing to many types. One type is the once politically apathetic actor, who sees in Podemos' secretary general, Pablo Iglesias, a contrarian avatar through which to channel their disdain for the middle-class destroying "casta". Next would be the old guard leftist, disenchanted with the Social Democrat (PSOE) party's devotion to neoliberalism and austerity politics. Similarly, there are those who had been disillusioned after placing their bets on the more leftist outgrowths of the Spanish Communist Party. The last type, obvious but worth mentioning, is the activist, who found or rediscovered their political voice in the squares during 15-M and/or the preceding alter-globalization movement.
Of course, we're not here to tell the story of Podemos. That story has turned darker and duller over time. Once high on the taste of popularity and leadership in the polls, the Podemos ruling committee slanted towards becoming a vanguardist "electoral machine", taking power on behalf of those left behind. It began to look like Podemos would win the elections at all costs and bring liberation to the silenced masses -- whether the masses wanted this imposed from above, or not.
Three years later, the results are plain to see. Surpassed by both the Social Democrats and the somehow-still-ruling Popular Party (a den of Franco apologists and Brussels bootlickers), Podemos failed to make "fear change sides", as once they boasted.
Meanwhile, across the Mediterranean, Greece proffers another cautionary tale: SYRIZA, the party from the "little country that said 'no'". Except that, after saying 'no', the little country's political representatives, now disconnected from the social movements that lofted them to power, kept on playing the rigged game rather than build one fresh.
The story does not end here. A new political milieu arose between 2014 and 2015, led by the third profile mentioned above: the post 15-M activists, stepping up and into politics. They wanted to be the creators of representative politics, not its recipients, and to act as facilitators for many other voices to be included. The genesis of Spain's municipalist coalitions tells a new story, describing keys to a successful commons-based political strategy that creates tangible change.
Proclamations of a movement's death, greatly exaggerated
The origins of this other story lie in the apparent decay of the 15-M movement. The word "apparent" is key here - as long as we are speaking of visibility, we must acknowledge the Occupy movement as part of this disappearing act.
In 2011, Time magazine's "Person of the Year" was not Donald Trump, but the protester. This marked the apex of media-visibility for the networked movements demanding attention by standing their ground and announcing their presence through encampments, which provided a compact mass of human profiles against a mainstream media-friendly backdrop. Here, we should draw a distinction between how the 15-M and Occupy encampments disbanded and were disbanded.
In Spain, the activists took a page from the Art of War and voluntarily dispersed their large-scale occupations, decentralizing them into neighborhood assemblies. In the US, the FBI coordinated with the Department of Homeland Security, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, private sector players (notably banks), local law enforcement, and mayors of several prominent cities to first infiltrate and then violently dismantle the occupations. If we limit the import of Occupy to those few, highly visible months in the squares, we can see that it had not so much "died" as it was assassinated.
In both Spain and the US, the media -- behaving as if geospatial proximity is the only thing holding affinity networks together-- rushed to pronounce these and all their sister movements worldwide to be defunct. So much for the person of the year in 2011! This was not a natural passing but a brutal attempt at disappearing a large movement. However, to paraphrase Mark Twain, "proclamations of the movement's death have been greatly exaggerated". If these movements still live and breathe, though, we must ask ourselves with whose complicity and consent they have been labeled "failures".
Think of a sugar cube. Held in your hand it is compact, with a recognizable shape and texture, easy to measure and describe. Drop the sugar cube into a coffee cup and stir that around. Magic! The cube has disappeared. Take a sip, though, and you'll agree that the flavor has changed.
In a nutshell, this describes the argument that the 15-M/Occupy/Syntagma/various local movements are alive and well, albeit in distributed and less immediately apparent ways. For those willing to look, their effects are readily identifiable. Remember that not even six years have passed since the occupations; this is not a tale of hippies turning into yuppies. This is the story of a movement that refuses to take the news of its own demise as a binding contract.
In the US, you can perceive how Occupy infused the Bernie Sanders campaign (also undermined by entrenched interests), and recently we can see its influence in the Women's Marches, strikes and parts of the anti-Trump movement.
In Spain, however, these activists, people with real memories and lived experiences, chose to politically organize, and they actually won - not once, but multiple times in multiple locations.
The Rise of the Urban Commons
In the spring of 2014, spurred on by Podemos' success in the European elections, a group of activists met in el Patio Maravillas, one of Madrid's most prominent occupied social centers. "We're going to win this city", they announced. They began organizing, enabling unprecedented levels of citizen participation and facilitating a common space for previously unaffiliated and disaggregated political actors. Anyone who agreed with the basic principles and wanted to be present could propose him or herself as a candidate on fully open and participatory electoral lists.
A month or so earlier, activists from Barcelona launched a manifesto to invite existing social movements and political organizations to converge around four fundamental objectives:
Guaranteeing the citizenry's basic rights and a decent life for all,
Fostering an economy that prioritizes social and environmental justice,
The participative democratization of institutions,
To meet an ethical commitment towards citizens.
The call for convergence was an astounding success, and Guanyem Barcelona, publicly represented by anti-eviction and right to housing campaigner Ada Colau, begins its yearlong mutation into Barcelona en Comu, an "instrumental" electoral coalition comprising a variety of actors from social movements and anti-establishment political parties working together to take back the city.
Ignored or decried in the popular media, these coalitions, much like the 15-M and Occupy encampments, replicated themselves in other locales, forming alliances and swarming around shared values and beliefs. The process was messy, effervescent and busy. No one had tried this before and there is no instruction manual; in practice, it can only be written together.
Against poll expectations, a hostile media, and entrenched political interests, these parties overwhelmingly won in Spain's main cities, not only Madrid and Barcelona, but also in Valencia, A Coruna, Zaragoza, and Cadiz. Podemos, although a participant in many of these coalitions, chose to run the regional (as opposed to the city) ballot on their own. The result? Zero victories in all the places where the citizens' coalitions had triumphed. In the city of Madrid, where the same census group could vote for the city (Ahora Madrid) and regional (Podemos) ballot, Podemos got just half the number of votes won by Ahora Madrid.
Spain's municipalist coalitions were the result of a number of movements representing changes in cultures, mindsets and relations to power. The most notable among these is 15-M and, unlike Podemos, the coalitions can be considered its true political byproducts. Prior to the 2014-2015 electoral cycle, 15-M had also developed strong transversal relations with movements around housing, public health and education and culture. Known as "las mareas", or "citizen's tides", these were characterized by self-organized protests and capacity building that, although inclusive of traditional actors such as labour unions and political parties, were truly multi-constituent in nature. For example, the public health marea would include healthcare professionals, patients, civil workers, health reformers, hospital staff, specific disease-focused associations and help groups, etc., as well as all supporters of the public health service. 15-M itself was also a product of already existing tendencies, with people who had been working in digital activism, free culture, de-growth, the commons and a host of other movements.
Today, the municipalist platforms coordinate among themselves to share resources and best practices, functioning as trans-local affinity networks. Although mainly focused on providing real world solutions to their constituencies, the coalitions share a number of notable features. One of the most refreshing is that their attitude towards political discourse is considerably more feminized, a contrast to the old guard and masculine attitudes typically found in institutional politics.
The municipalist focus on participation and radical democracy, honed through many street assemblies, has been refined into a shared "codigo etico" or ethical code, which shapes the platforms behaviors within the institutions. The code acts as both a glue and draw for the participants, again not limited to party staff, but to all who want to feel involved. The main features are as follows:
- No revolving doors (no cycling through public/private positions)
- Salary cuts
- Participative program
- Open primaries -- no party quotas, and open to anyone
- Voluntary/citizen self-financing, and rejection of institutional or bank financing
Beyond their local concerns and trans-local alliances, all the municipalist platforms have their eye on the transnational dimension in order to form a network of "Rebel Cities". This, as a practice, mirrors the locally embedded but globally networked practices of P2P productive communities. In addition, the multi-constituent approach seen in the citizen tides is mirrored within the coalitions, which, although inclusive of established political parties, are notably non-partisan as they all reflect the interests of wide breadth of civil society actors.
And they lived happily ever after? Of course not: the activists-turned-political representatives face an unwaveringly hostile media environment, which exaggerates their blunders (or invents them when convenient) while burying their achievements. After four years of precarity and engaged activism, these individuals face 60+ hour workweeks while clashing against the entrenched realities of horizontalist bureaucracy, holding minority seats within electoral alliances with Social Democrats. The pluralistic nature of the citizens' coalitions have unsurprisingly led to incoherencies and gaffes and, perhaps worst of all, a noticeable abandonment of direct-action tactics and counter-power building efforts. Still, they soldier on, and the list of benefits and advances (cancellations of public contracts with multi-nationals, participatory budgeting, more gender-balanced literature and representation, increased public spending, anti-gentrification strategies, basic income pilots, direct-democracy mechanisms...) is plain for all to see.
The best of the truly good news is that Spain's municipalist coalitions are not alone. Progressive cities worldwide are enabling and empowering the act of commoning. Rather than directing what the citizenry can do for itself and its environments, these "Rebel Cities" or, "Fearless Cities" as the upcoming event calls them, are listening to commoners' voices and creating spaces for ordinary people to roll up their sleeves and manage those matters that concern them most directly. Cities like Ghent, Belgium; Bologna, Italy; Amsterdam, Holland; Frome, England; Belo Horizonte, Brazil; Naples, Italy; Montreal, Canada; Jackson, USA; Lille, France; Bristol, UK and Valparaiso, Chile are examples. Their people are increasing transparency, enabling participatory budgeting, turning empty lots into community gardens, co-creating skill and tool sharing programs, and facilitating the creation of social care co-ops among many other actions relevant in their local contexts.
Beyond the city level, we now also find pan-European efforts to bring the practices of commoning to the institutions, while not losing sight of the necessary mutual recognition needed for the Commons movement to emancipate itself from markets and state as it radically re-imagines these. In November 2016, a group of 150 commoners from all over Europe gathered in Brussels to lay the foundations for a united and strong movement, and the European Commons Assembly was born. Building on several weeks' collective work in policy proposals, the Assembly sat in European Parliament to explore the ECA as a platform and the commons as a powerful paradigm for policymaking.
Commons Transition: Building the political lexicon of social governance from below
The lexicon and practices of commoning are evident in how these coalitions, Rebel Cities and transnational assemblies have formed and are articulating their governance. With a focus on transparency and citizen participation, and taking advantage of open-source P2P technologies, they prefigure many aspects of the politics of a better future. The challenge ahead lies in applying the network logics that have been so successful in Spain to recover the latent power of Occupy and 15-M and build resilient, more feminized and ethically coherent, transnational political movements.
In the same way that prefigurative strategies incorporate social and environmental priorities into their informal constitutions, without waiting for markets or state to deal with such 'externalities', the municipalist ethical code can form the kernel of a set of political guidelines to be hard-coded into commons-oriented coalition principles, bringing fresh accountability to contemporary politics.
Potential success is also about keeping it real and relatable. The old left has traditionally communicated in abstracts, which tends to create rather than solves problems. At the same time, the "new" populist left of Syriza, Podemos and Bolivarian Socialism seems satisfied making grand paternalistic promises, resorting to throwing blame rather than proposing participatory, unalienated and feasible actions. In a culture where the elderly self-organise affinity groups through social networks and informal, participatory communities emerge to address the shortcomings of a decaying welfare state, people are demonstrating that they want to have a say in how things are run. They do not want to have someone paid exponentially more to say it on their behalf. Can a Commons politics address and support this shift towards self-organization?
The vision is to develop the emerging commons and P2P political movement at higher levels of complexity -- the regional, national and transnational levels -- while preserving the characteristics of local, real-place dynamism. By engaging the creativity and input of those communities most affected by political processes, commons-based practices can nurture a sense of identity that can be harnessed for effective political action. The integrative narrative of the Commons invites citizens' direct political engagement outside the restrictive bureaucracies of the market state and economies.
Imagine a radically reconfigured and democratically accountable structure. One that, while preserving the more desirable characteristics of the Welfare State -- social and public health provision and large infrastructure management and upkeep -- radically democratizes them. It would do away with the State's cozy symbiosis with market entities, while deconstructing its pernicious monopolies over money creation and exchange, and property and judicial rights. A second radical set of measures would prohibit the structural enforcement of inequality and the often violent repression of emancipatory alternatives. This structure would function in much the same way as foundations do in the Open Source software economy: providing the infrastructure for cooperation and the creation and upkeep of commons but not directing the process of social value creation and distribution. In other words, it would empower and protect the practice of commoning.
This enabling metastructure -- often referred to as "The Partner State" -- would also take on new functions derived from already existing P2P/Commons practices. Among these, we would see a promotion of real, needs-oriented entrepreneurship, bolstered by explicit recognition and support of bottom-up productive infrastructures, such as Open Coops, mesh wireless networks or community renewables through public-Commons partnerships. It would allow commoners to repurpose or take over unused or underutilised public buildings for social ends while giving legal recognition to the act of commoning, whether through copyleft-inspired property-law hacks or through a longer process of gradually institutionalizing commons practices. Its grassroots democratizing ethos would create new financing mechanisms and debt-free public money creation, which, alongside social currencies, could fund environmentally regenerative work and the creation of new, distributed Open-source infrastructure. These would be supported by taxation schemes favouring the types of labor described above, while penalizing speculation, parasitic rents and negative social and environmental externalities. The overall system has to be kept in check through a pervasive culture of participatory politics -- made feasible through its attendant pedagogy -- to involve a newly enfranchised citizenry in the deliberation and real time consultation of political and legislative issues and budgeting. In issues of power, the Partner State shifts to being a fluid facilitator to assist and emancipate the bottom-up counter-power that keeps it in check.
Is this narrative Utopian? No more than the "what are their demands...?" proposals of Occupy and 15-M. In fact, many of the Partner State practices described above are already being enacted by the Fearless Cities. Accusations of utopianism are used dismissively to enclose the commons of the imagination. People need courage (and encouragement) to imagine something better in human nature, more than inevitable conflict and self-interest. History, despite its observable patterns, is not deterministic. Nothing suddenly materializes from detailed concepts into fully formed realities; there was no group of wise men sitting around in 15th century Florence proclaiming: "...and we shall create Capitalism! And it will progress through creative destruction! And we shall have high frequency algorithmic trading!" or any such nonsense. Instead, if we look, we can identify various socio-technological trends including the rise of the merchant class, the printing press, double book accounting, all of which would proceed from the 18th century to form what we recognize now as "capitalism".
Back in our present-day chaos, applying a Commons Transition to the field of politics entails creating a new, inclusive political narrative that harnesses the best practices of three distinct progressive trends: Openness (e.g. Pirate parties), Fairness (e.g. New Left) and Sustainability (e.g. Green parties). The optimal game plan for building a new political vision fit for the challenges of our time involves building bridges between these three trends, precisely what the municipalists have achieved and translated into political and legislative power.
This vision for a new politics must also promote other underplayed concerns such as race, gender, and reproductive justice, and radically diversifying political representation in response to increased interest in balance -- at the least, being sure that the representative picture is not always and only straight, white men, particularly in leadership roles. Take into account that women spearheaded the municipalist candidacies that triumphed in Barcelona and Madrid.
There is a need for deeper respect towards rural and deindustrialized areas, where P2P dynamics can usher in workable solutions and grounded, bio-regionally based political engagement. Inclusive by nature, the Commons as applied to politics can enable grassroots political participation by affected individuals and communities. However, this new narrative must be grounded in scalable, existing best practices that are accessible to change makers and civil-society organizations, not only to existing institutions.
Taken together, these successful municipalist occupations of power structures show that the logic of the Commons, coupled with democratic, participatory relations enabled by P2P systems, can reinvigorate and instill a new sense of purpose in today's political field. If we can imagine a commons-oriented future including a commons politics, it practically becomes a moral imperative to do everything in our power to bring that better future to reality. In this fight in the time of monsters, the fight between David and Goliath, why not be David? He won after all and, after seeing what the municipalists had to overcome, perhaps so can we.
Note: This article expands on themes showcased on Commons Transition and P2P: a Primer, a short publication from the P2P Foundation and the Transnational Institute examining the potential of commons-based peer production to radically re-imagine our economies, politics and relationship with nature. Download it here.
Initiating a Global Citizens Movement for the Great Transition
Journey to Earthland is a recently released book by the Great Transition Initiative (GTI), a worldwide network of activist scholars with a unique purpose--to advance "a vision and praxis for global transformation". Few civil society organisations have such a broad focus on transformational strategies towards a new global social-ecological system, as condensed and overviewed in this latest publication by GTI's director, Paul Raskin. The short and accessible book presents a majestic overview of our historic juncture and expounds the urgent need for systemic change, with a hopeful vision of a flourishing civilisation that has long inspired Share The World's Resources (STWR) in our complementary proposals for peaceful mass civic engagement.
How Do I Know Good Can Overcome Ignorance, Spite and Hate? Because I've Seen it.
I want to share a story with you today that I've not shared before on this blog. I was moved by something I saw on Twitter to the effect that the future will not remember Trump, but the future will remember the remarkable things done by those mobilising to oppose him. It really resonated with me. I wanted to share a very personal story from my own life which, for me, illustrates that this is possible.
I lived in Ireland from 1996 until 2004. It was wonderful. From 2002 onwards, Emma and I built a home for our family, what was the first new cob house built in Ireland for over 100 years. Building this house was the culmination of a 10 year plan, something Emma (pictured below laying our limecrete floor) and I had dreamt of for many years. The process of construction involved the input of many people.
People came on courses to learn how to make rubble trench, lime and stone foundations, how to mix cob with diggers, how to build masonry stoves, how to make clay plasters. Hundreds of people came as volunteers to work on the house, picking up the skills necessary to then head away and build their own (as some did).
It was a beautiful house, not a right angle in it, beautiful soft light, wood, stone, clay and hemp. A roof like an upturned boat. I loved it. I was so proud of it. We told the story in an online diary. It was in the papers, on the TV. We were at the stage of fitting doors and windows, the gorgeous, curvaceous clay plasters nearly complete. Although we weren't living in it yet, it was starting to feel like home. Then, one clear, cold night in October 2004, someone set it on fire.
We never found out who. Or why. But by the time we saw the fire, the house was lost. All we could do was sit on the damp grass and watch the whole thing go up in flames. Two years worth of work. Most of our money too, as the building was uninsured - in Ireland it was impossible to insure any building project not made exclusively from concrete blocks.
It was deeply traumatic. It felt like the end of everything. It felt as though the violent, deluded, criminal act of one or two people had torn up our family's future and thrown in back in our face. Our future, which had seemed to be laid out enticingly in front of us, was now an unknown blur. It was horrible.
But then, in the days and weeks following the fire, something remarkable happened. Dozens of people, some of whom we didn't even know, turned up to help clear the site up and make it safe (see photo below). Neighbours came together to offer whatever support they could. Some friends started to organise a fundraiser in our name. People sent in cards containing cheques, or cash, often people we'd never met, or even heard of.
They wrote things like "In the end, good does always seem to come from terrible events, though it must be impossible to see that now", before ending "don't write back. You have enough to do". One couple wrote "please know that we hold you in our hearts, thoughts and prayers, and if there is any help or support we can offer, we would be happy to do so". Another wrote: "we read about you in the Times, and wanted to say we thing it is an evil thing to do to burn down a house on anyone, least of all children coming up to Christmas".
A blacksmith wrote to say "if you have the heart to start again, I will gladly offer any work I can as a blacksmith (or in any other capacity) for free". It wasn't just local people, it was people across Ireland. People we'd never met wrote to tell us "the house has been a source of inspiration not only for ourselves, but many others".
One woman from Limerick wrote "Stay with your dream. Your dream is a good one and most people see that. I hope things work out now". A letter from Dublin said "we are pensioners, but wanted to convey our sympathy in a constructive way, so please accept enclosed cheque for a very small amount as a token in this regard".
One order of nuns sent us a cheque for EUR5,000. One schoolboy invited his friends to play football in his garden, charged them each EUR5 and sent it to us. There were benefit gigs, pub quizzes. It was amazing.
People were happy to offer help, but with no expectation of what we would do with it. One letter which accompanied a EUR50 note, ended "a little something enclosed to help with whatever is right for you". Another said "just a wee note to let you know there's loads of people thinking of you at this time. Take comfort in the love of friends". One long letter ended "you are not alone. This has horrified us all into action, and I know many of us are now working to turn this situation to the light with all the speed we can muster".
Local gardening clubs sent donations. Local associations wrote to us to let us know that our situation had been discussed at their board meeting and they had unanimously passed a resolution condemning what had happened to us, and offering their support. The local university's Environment Society held a benefit event. One woman wrote from London to say "if you need volunteers to help with reconstruction, send out the word - my partner is a newly qualified electrician and could do with experience!" Our friend Greg wrote "whatever you choose in the coming year, you will have a community of support from around the island".
In the end, we decided not to rebuild the house. In time we decided to move on, and our path took us to Totnes, where we started this thing called Transition. But for me, once the initial trauma had subsided, the thing that I hold onto now, the thing that I took away from the whole experience, was just how very, very kind and amazing people are, rather than holding onto the actions of one of two people.
I looked back at a folder of clippings and stuff I kept from that time. Among them was this piece from the Cork Examiner with a photo of me where I look more heartbroken and washed out from crying than in any photo I know. I imagine as Trump (you won't hear the term 'President Trump' from these lips) settles into the Oval Office, many millions of people are feeling similarly bruised, lost and bewildered.
But I want to tell you that you are surrounded by oceans of goodness, oceans of caring people. Networks of people who are connected that just need to be activated. Get off Facebook, get off media that pours out trolls and hateful poison, and strengthen your connections to real, actual people.
The Women's March last weekend was a beautiful, and deeply moving example that we are here, and we are here for each other. As was the 'Resist' banner unfurled just behind the White House yesterday. They reaffirm that values of care, kindness, connection and reciprocity haven't gone away. They may sometimes need a disturbance to form around, an infection around which that immune system can kick in.
But when people ask me why I don't feel that Trump represents the beginning of the end, some inevitable slide away from connection and human values, it's because rather than some kind of new normal, his approach represents the aberration to the norm. Never forget that.
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