On February 27, 2015 the Ghent anthropologist Rik Pinxten gave the kick-off of Ateliers Selfcity. Ateliers Selfcity is an initiative of Bral, Brussel Academy and Crosstalks. In a series of ten lunch seminars they will explore experiences of commons and bottom-up initiatives in Brussels. With his book ‘Kleine Revoluties’ (Little Revolutions) Rik Pinxten was the perfect person to set the scene and provide the background against which these little revolutions take place.
During a period of 500 years of colonization, Western Europeans believed that they were superior to other cultures, substantiated by the fact that in 1900 about 90% of the world was under Western governance. However, since World War II and especially since the 1980’s there has been a deep global shift in power balance in this Eurocentered worldview, both on an economic and a political level. Referring to Henry A. Kissinger’s famous book Diplomacy: History of Foreign Policy (1994) Rik Pinxten reminds us of the fact that the dominance of the Transatlantic West is over. As an example, he recalls that since 1990 there has not been one war that the West has won, and that there is not a single U.N.-initiative that has been successful.
Rik Pinxten then illustrates two completely different reactions to this shift in power balance. The first is neoliberalism, although Pinxten prefers the term 'neofeudalism' since the idea that all humans are equal – the key to European Enlightenment – no longer holds. With neoliberalism we move back to state power and Roman times, with thinkers like Plato who thought that a strict class division was necessary and that society needed to be ruled by a small elite that alone had the expertise and knowledge to properly govern a society. According to Pinxten, and with him also Thomas Piketty and Joseph Stiglitz, freedom has become the privilege of 1% elite of the world population and everything is in function of power and economy. Anyone trying to react against this is silenced by the so called argument that There Is No Alternative (TINA).
According to Pinxten, and this brings us to the second possible reaction, there is an alternative. He calls it the little revolutions: new ways of surviving on one’s own resources. In Europe, cooperatives are growing fast since the states and superstate Europe are pushing out people. Think of all the jobless youngsters; in Spain 50% is without a job, in the UK 52% of the families can't make ends meet. Despite all the charters for peoples’ rights at U.N. level, Pinxten says, at state level people are not all equal, because treating them all in the same way, would just be too expensive. That is why we need to revolt. In England this revolt has been growing faster than in wealthier countries like Belgium, France or Germany. In the summer of 2011 high rates of youth unemployment, economic decline, and severe social and economic inequality led to the worst riots in London in the past 25 years.
Other – less agitated - ways of revolting against the state’s power is creating cooperatives. At Ghent University the department of Geology has done research on how Ghent could organize its own energy supply. As Belgium now depends on Algeria and Russia for its gas supplies, this seems to be not such a crazy idea. For Ghent, and later on perhaps even for the whole of Belgium, the extraction of geothermal energy, organized in local and cooperative structures, seemed to be a feasible and ecologically acceptable alternative. Yet, the initiative was stopped by Electrabel, the international energy producer because this kind of local initiative would violate the FTA (Foreign Trade Association).
Rik Pinxten cites two final cases. First the notion that elderly people should be stimulated to live at home as long as possible, instead of forcing them to make arrangements for residential care long in advance. Let elderly people organize themselves so that they can take up a role in society for as long as they want it and are able to do it instead of imposing top-down regulations that prevent them from making decisions of their own.
Last but not least there is the energy and mobility issue. Traffic jams are a huge cost in Belgium and distribution has to be re-thought. Why not re-use the existing canals and a new type of locally made boats? Yes, there are alternatives and they are affordable. Instead of focusing on the major changes and a big revolution, thinking small and bottom up is a good start.
Goedele Nuyttens
Aware of a little revolution in Brussels? Join Selfcity Brussels group on Facebook and post a message.
Want to attend the Ateliers Selfcity? Check our page Ateliers Selfcity.
Rik Pinxten then illustrates two completely different reactions to this shift in power balance. The first is neoliberalism, although Pinxten prefers the term 'neofeudalism' since the idea that all humans are equal – the key to European Enlightenment – no longer holds. With neoliberalism we move back to state power and Roman times, with thinkers like Plato who thought that a strict class division was necessary and that society needed to be ruled by a small elite that alone had the expertise and knowledge to properly govern a society. According to Pinxten, and with him also Thomas Piketty and Joseph Stiglitz, freedom has become the privilege of 1% elite of the world population and everything is in function of power and economy. Anyone trying to react against this is silenced by the so called argument that There Is No Alternative (TINA).
According to Pinxten, and this brings us to the second possible reaction, there is an alternative. He calls it the little revolutions: new ways of surviving on one’s own resources. In Europe, cooperatives are growing fast since the states and superstate Europe are pushing out people. Think of all the jobless youngsters; in Spain 50% is without a job, in the UK 52% of the families can't make ends meet. Despite all the charters for peoples’ rights at U.N. level, Pinxten says, at state level people are not all equal, because treating them all in the same way, would just be too expensive. That is why we need to revolt. In England this revolt has been growing faster than in wealthier countries like Belgium, France or Germany. In the summer of 2011 high rates of youth unemployment, economic decline, and severe social and economic inequality led to the worst riots in London in the past 25 years.
Other – less agitated - ways of revolting against the state’s power is creating cooperatives. At Ghent University the department of Geology has done research on how Ghent could organize its own energy supply. As Belgium now depends on Algeria and Russia for its gas supplies, this seems to be not such a crazy idea. For Ghent, and later on perhaps even for the whole of Belgium, the extraction of geothermal energy, organized in local and cooperative structures, seemed to be a feasible and ecologically acceptable alternative. Yet, the initiative was stopped by Electrabel, the international energy producer because this kind of local initiative would violate the FTA (Foreign Trade Association).
Rik Pinxten cites two final cases. First the notion that elderly people should be stimulated to live at home as long as possible, instead of forcing them to make arrangements for residential care long in advance. Let elderly people organize themselves so that they can take up a role in society for as long as they want it and are able to do it instead of imposing top-down regulations that prevent them from making decisions of their own.
Last but not least there is the energy and mobility issue. Traffic jams are a huge cost in Belgium and distribution has to be re-thought. Why not re-use the existing canals and a new type of locally made boats? Yes, there are alternatives and they are affordable. Instead of focusing on the major changes and a big revolution, thinking small and bottom up is a good start.
Goedele Nuyttens
Aware of a little revolution in Brussels? Join Selfcity Brussels group on Facebook and post a message.
Want to attend the Ateliers Selfcity? Check our page Ateliers Selfcity.