The struggle of Larzac taught me that ...

I prefer the term "Other worlds are possible" to "Another world is possible" because it allows the expression of all the perspectives of design, context and implementation efforts. The other possible world in Africa can not be the same than in Europe, Asia or South America, although all must change, putting human beings at the center and not productivity.

The accepted "de-growth" can lead to a better quality of life, away from the race for productivity that destroys inner peace, fill us with obstacles and prevents a peacefully live together. Despite the difficulties inherent in life, the farmers I met carried an enviable serenity, the result of a choice of lifestyle. The consumption of local products reduces carbon emissions while creating harmony between producers and consumers, and the strengthening of peace and solidarity. The farmers I met had accepted with no resignation that common resources of our planet are limited and must be used with caution.

The struggle brings results: in what would become Larzac? A large army camp that would have erased centuries of farmer tradition and civilization. And then we had not managed to see in this area the agriculture we see today, the statements of tomorrow farming to ensure the survival of the planet, as it has chosen to protect the Earth against a slow and violent death, spread by chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, and against the privatization of life.

The struggle creates fruits, because without it, six thousand hectares of land had been stripped of the farms that give him life today. Instead of the agricultural results that have surprised us, they had shown us the effectiveness of the machinery of death. Yes, Larzac lives and can show the way of farming in the future, rooted in the struggle that has succeeded in opening minds to the idea that other worlds are still possible, and that lead to the European Parliament to one of its most faithful representatives.

Unlike industrial agriculture, that preach us with large projects in Africa, Europe finances its slow conversion to organic agriculture. With patience and in the every day events, farmers from Larzac hinder globalization through the choice of living in harmony with their environment (social, physical and cultural). Try to create an economy with social value added without spliting up from the world, what a beautiful lesson in this time of financial crisis, which involves the loss of values!

From Nant I emerged stronger...

The diversity of the Sustainable Earth Alliance is a platform and a set of flags that allow us to make an unknown leap in the training of social leaders. Each experience described in Nant is no longer the same for those who had live it. The person who has shared his experience with others has also changed as the one that has heard it. As the saying goes, if I give you an egg and you give me an egg, each of us has an egg. But if I give you an idea and you give me an idea, we each now have two ideas. The experience is one of those things that is enriched when shared. How much wealthness was created in Nant, while agreeing to share so many ideas!

Sustainable Earth University will be more fulfilling and rewarding if it becomes an unprecedented opportunity to give and receive. The training of social leaders must also follow the path of Larzac, no copy, because the struggle brings fruits, instructs and temper.

Ultimately, leaders can not be trained, they train themselves. What stands out in the history of the leaders of Larzac will not be learned in a workshop. It is the result of a personal path sometimes lonely, inside a community.

But the collective contruction of the way to knowledge, of the collective struggle, of learning to live together, of sharing experiences, creates the conditions for personal transformation, one of the objectives of the leaders training.

Form to transform, we have always said.

How well then! We are now at a crossroads of other possible worlds.

It is time to choose.


Cotonou, July 16, 2009

René M. SEGBENOU