Page 18 - C.A.L.L. #29 - Winter 2007

Living in Green Houses KIBBUTZ SHORTS

Kibbutz Ein Dor - among others - is now building an additional neighbourhood in order to
be able to accept newcomers, mainly young families with
children. But this one is going to be different: all the 80 buildings
will be "Green Houses", paying special attention to the ecological
aspects of life (which are rather neglected in most Kibbutzim).
Each house will have a solar heating system, second use of water
which will then be used for irrigation, and all the arrangements
needed for recycling waste.

Well-developed and talented

Many ‘experts’ condemned the old, (long-abandoned)
Kibbutz system of children spending the night in their
respective ‘children houses’, separated from their parents.
Lately some of the Kibbutz-bred men and women
complained of psychological and social problems which they
attribute to these nights ‘away from daddy and mummy’. Nowadays a new wave of books
and articles have appeared, which try to analyze and interview these ‘products of Kibbutz
education’, and many of them have discovered that "Most of the Kibbutz-born adults are
as different and varied as any other society, and most Kibbutzniks display an enormous
amount of human warmth; a well-developed, rich individuality and a talent for ‘making it’
under any life-situation in and outside the Kibbutz".

SOLIDARY ECONOMY

In a world, in which not only daily food and clothing are turned into mere "goods",
but also interpersonal relations, our lives are more and more shaped by wild
competition, many of us strive now, urgently, towards solidarity and mutual aid. With
these words, the German "" (Monthly for "Self-organization") opens its leading article.

At our recent congress in Berlin (on Self-Organization and Ecology), the article continues, the
central topic for discussion was "Solidary Economy in Global Capitalism". From our debates it
became clear, that many of those who had engaged in criticism of globalization or in workers'
unions, seek now more practical, daily-life expressions of solidarity.

In the last few decades we have witnessed many experiments and practical start-ups of
“Alternative Economies”: communes, living-communities, joint housing projects, no-pay-shops
and more. It seems that this congress succeeded in recognizing some very real developments - a
giant step forward to minimize the social isolation and in bringing about a proper dialogue
between these societies and globalized capitalism, even if we did not find a satisfactory answer
to the question: "What does 'Solidary Economy' mean to people who do not accept a decrease in
their living standard but no longer want to be part of the 'War of Competition’", which is the
major drive of private production?

The majority of the participants at the congress favored the establishment of more new
enterprises, but a minority pointed out that in the last decades thousands of new projects,
which entered the market as "collectives", turned within a few short years into perfectly
"normal" private shops. And the question arose: do we really want to go through this process of
"adjustment to normality" again?

(From CONTRASTE, POB 104520-69035, Heidelberg, Germany [no signature])
Translated by Yoel Darom

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