One can read and write history as a confrontation between masters and slaves, as a process that obeys the laws of natural selection. One can be haunted either by death impulses or predatory appetites. One can state  that “Man is a wolf to man”. But this is only one way – a Western civilized way – of looking at life.

In the course of centuries, the process of civilization has developed and given birth to empires and nation states that were imposed by force upon people and peoples. Today, more than ever before, those forms of human organization are running out of steam. The gap they leave behind them has been occupied by new corporate powers. The imperative of material growth and development, the pressure of the global economy, which means the over-exploitation of the earth and of its natural resources in favor of a privileged class of people, are leading to the shameless modernization of misery and violence throughout the world.

None of these processes goes completely unchallenged. Not everybody shares the spirit of celebration – “thinking big” - they seek to promote. At the margins and periphery, in the rural communities and suburbs, where the paralysis brought about by development and modernity is most glaring, a portion of humanity is pioneering new forms of solidarity and along with them of organization and identity. In some case, it brings to fruition experiences of the past, producing self-reliance, autonomy, elaborating answers which take account of the genuine limits of human intelligence and capacities.

Nothing can prevent us from hoping that the visions, knowledge and living structures inherent in the primordial world views will play a leading role in shaping new possibilities for the future of mankind. Visionary activity and creative human fantasy are not an extra any longer - if they ever were. Global economic thinking has yet to be liberated from materialistic arrogance and autocratic, bureaucratic, and technocratic narcissism.

At every turn of their journey of cultural dissidence, The Tribe’s members have met with the resistance of a system whose rationalism leads to irrationality. They have understood certain mechanisms and perceived some of its limits. Simultaneously, they have become aware of the pluralism of the ways that remain to be explored.

In Europe, the dream is still there, even if those who were part of it for almost three decades are not together anymore. Maybe those who will remember it weren't there. Who knows ? 
 

Three months before we broke up in Spring 1994,  another call came from the forest. A few poorly armed Indians had started a rebellion in the South of Mexico. Millions of Mexicans and many more people around the world were then activated by the “Ya Basta!” of the Zapatists.

For anyone who seeks to go beyond the premises and promises of modernity and to struggle for local regeneration, a long journey still lies ahead. From my experience, as an ideal and concept, Sylvilization allows us to touch the depths of human being and opens new territories for human experience to those who want to go beyond the limits of the myth of civilization itself. Nevertheless, it is true that real men and women cannot be reduced to mental categories, whatever they may be. Taken alone, civililization and sylvilization are nothing but an angle, reveal nothing but a fugitive spectre of the One, Whole, Substantial Diamond-Reality.

Personnally I believe that real changes will only come from the politics of animism. Animism creates a world view in which culture, ecology an society are interconnected. It suggests that there is no pure object world and calls for a transcendental attitude - which does not necessarily mean an explicit belief in transcendance. It means an awareness accompanying every action, that life on earth is bigger than us and yet taking place without us. 

It also suggests a cross-cultural understanding of the diversity of the world. Each sparkle, every gleam has to be revered. Indigenous people in East Malaysia struggling against deforestation are not doing it because they are ecologists. What is happening there is a struggle between worldviews and modes of being. The politics of nature is actually ontology. It is why many conflicts seem so irresolvable. Usually the two parties are talking at entirely different levels: their epistemologies are radically different.
 

Probably the interlude of civilization we are going through since recently in human history is necessary and we may hope it is a healthy intermezzo. However if we get stuck in it, the result could be lethal to the human species. Life on Earth is something unique and we should be proud of it. But we don't own it. We are only part of it. Sylvilization offers a new angle from where to look at it. It can help us to get back to the world and to be re-born. For that reason it is a politically subversive issue. It points to a mode of thinking, organization and rootedness in the universe that goes beyond traditional politics, pure economic thinking and materialism. In one word, it points to an attitude: LOVE-RESPECT-ADMIRATION. Something that can be hard to learn sometimes and is part of a lifestyle. 

Maybe we are all brothers and sisters after all. 
 

San Francis said: “Nostra strada e caminare insieme”. (1)
 

I hope to see you soon.

(1) Our path is aiming at traveling together