Co-Create Holistic Green Economy in global Palestine
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First Version in: Palestine-Think-Thank
Enhanced second version on my blog: What Does a New Start Look Like in Palestine? Returning Home to Create Holistic Green Economy
In German as well: Wie
wir ein Palästina des 21. Jahrhunderts aufbauen können! Ein neuer
Anfang in Palästina: Ganzheitliche „grüne“ Wirtschaft im weltweiten
Palästina
Related writings in Arabic:
نحو انشاء منطقة/خلية انتاجية تعاونية خضراء نمطية من مواد طبيعية كنواة لجسد اقتصادي شعبي وطني تعاوني اصيل ممتد
Abstract
The Palestinian collective nation-building and national-independence process faces huge challenges, due to immense political and geographical fragmentation.
In spite of the lack of a common collective democratic basis, diverse cultural development took place the last 6 decades (since the NAKBA, a force generated outside of ourselves) in the lives of Palestinians around the world makes this process very strained. This fragmentation has resulted in differing political stances that have prevented us from forming a unified front on which we can insure the individual and collective welfare of the Palestinian people through the
possibilities and resources we have in spite the limitations the Israeli occupation. This draft proposes alternative holistic model of social, economic and environmental reconstruction based on a “healing economy”, which insure positive change that recognizes and honors our indigenous roots.
The vision of using the model of “holistic green
healing economy” is self-empowering toward individual integrated comprehension of life and awaking the collective
Palestinian consciousness .
It is a model for the establishment of new foundations that will radically
initiate a positive global attitude toward peace and social justice by embedding the
change we want to see in economical design using Economy as vehicle.
The project proposal is to co-create a broad holistic cooperative network that encourages low-tech social cooperative green production in rural areas. The network consist of open source semi-modular naturally built eco-villages for organic economy with intent of building synergy and integrate all resources in a way that operates in harmony with ecology and comprehensive human needs.
Background
Like a prodigal son, I have returned mid of August 2009 to my Palestinian homeland after 17 years of secure living, studying, and working in Germany. I am now a citizen of Germany, so I will be returning to Palestine as a dual national. I am returning to my homeland, but I will maintain my connection to the global human family I built strong relation to the last year's as a universal human.
I return because of a sense of responsibility. Social responsibility, because my homeland is suffering from a social, economic, and political collapse, as a result of too many factors to list here. I return to a homeland that does not have a state, but building one which should be different from any other suported by 21-century emergance trajectories. I return to a homeland that is suffering from over 60 years of Israeli occupation, and from its own internal political disorder. I return to a homeland that has long played a blame game, which complicates the Palestinian situation and makes it frustrating and overwhelming for the masses.
Time is now!
Yes, it's true, Palestinians do not have a real state, but we do have communities. We can build from within, climbing in an upward spiral of development, instead collapsing in a downward spiral of destructvie chaos.
Building and developing a community is about connections between people and about cooperation to create new reality in the location of living. So what type of community can be created for Palestine? We have land under our control, and the land is capable of high capacity through dryland permaculture. We can invest in innovative means of production, and we can learn to be more productive. Any step towards the development of our indigenous communities, our living environment, and especially our economical productivity, will have a positive effect on our political structure and other different life domains.
In a nutshell, that is how a sustainable approach to agriculture and to community building can transform Palestine. Hopefully, this approach can at attract broad non-partisan political and civic support.
The Idea
The basic idea is to build a network of semi-modular open source naturally built eco-villages for organic economy spread in rural areas with centralized administrative hubs that provide Research-Innovation-Development (RID) services, along with Communication-Infrastructure (IC).
The eco-villages produce high quality organic food products for own consumption, for local market and for export, in addition to other appropriate industries and services, so that each cell functions as an "Integrated Ecosystem of Production", which means mainly:
- Equity and direct ownership of complete system of production: The villages are cooperatively owned by the involved community. The community is the farmer, the worker, the engineers, and all are participating in the sustainable economic growth and involved community development.
- Re-invest in community: In addition to business beside, the social gravity of our indigenous rural communities will carry and develop all the domains (see graphic) incorporated/integrated with community economical development. Through revenue - and therefore success- a diverse community will grow, and innovation will expand to include new products/industries/community and business need infrastructure.
- Ecological stewardship: Sustainable preservation and reservation of Ecosystem (e.g. permaculture, xeriscaping, recycling, environmentally-sensitive architecture.. ) will be an integral part of the formula in order for its success.
- Social, economic and political reconstruction through unified nexus proposed trademark "THE EARTH" of production to be explained bellow. (this trademark is already reserved. Any proposals?)
- Green-Business-Products: Contribute on economic growth and exchange with all possible
markets and balanced practices through meaningful work and propitiate
technologies. Here are some production and industry examples:
Agriculture, Farming: Food, beauty and care. Botanicals, herbal medicine, social cultural Ecotourism and wellness (local and foreign), Indigenous handicraft, Green industry and technology (evolving): Raw material, Animal Food, Composting, Recycling, Regenerative Energy Systems, Indigenous Architecture, Water Conservation and Management, Sewage and gray water treatment, housing and construction, IT, Software, Multimedia, Media, Consulting and Solutions.
The basic of the network topology is a “healing cell”; An open-source eco-architecture build mostly with natural building technique. to be rural green production and soft-industry estate. A multi-purpose intelligent ecosystem of production runs an open rural grassroots co-creative economy/enterprise.
open-source <> transparent manuals, open design, modular, tailorable and expandable can be seeded "every where", networked entirely to achieve sustainable self-growth/organization. Co-creative universal collective intelligence solution.
natural-building <> self-construction with local natural material
multi-purpose <> comprehensive function of living architecture, capacity and creative potential in rural ecology/society.
Ecosystem of production <> all activities high efficient interconnected, sustainable allow high participatory freedom with new definition of work and profession. Technology will allow dynamic alignment of positions and jobs to be chosen freely.GAIA-University-like will enable worker, and innovators.
Eco-village is a cells of a body/network <> boarder-less cooperative resilient eco-social economic body.
Business model based on "direct ownership" so that we turn the economic traditional pyramid up-side down > meta-individuals and ban-hierarchy.
With the introduction of electronic cooperative enterprise currency. At the beginning the salary payment might be 50% electronic money based on our own cooperative currency. Community money can be spend on what we consume and use from own production/services. This percentage increases over the time in relation to activity expansion and re-investments.
Why constructing the "cell" rather than regeneration of villages?
It is easier to create new organ, the “healing cell” shared by village/group of villages, rather than re-generating the whole village and existing rural-life experience.
The result is postmodern, open, green, free participatory economics!
Technically all is quite do-able since the approach is soft-industry and not a heavy one. The
national and political resources are available. Funding is not a critical
issue, because what is needed is sweat equity in the form of minds, of hands,
of will power, along with the earth and a shared purpose.
Indigenous roots as basic for innovation
The idea is basically based on our indigenous culture/structure/identity in our Palestinian rural areas. Over 5000 years of community survival and tradition Palestine was not ever broken by the mightiest of empires, even against mighty ancient empires, hence, a strong social gravity and rural cooperation is a significant base to build upon. The proper strategic nourishment can have very positive economic and social impact on Palestinian local communities, and even abroad.
"THE EARTH" as nexus trademark for
global stretched-community
The Palestinians living abroad are a very integral part of this model through what could be called stretched-community franchising!" They would be part of an international marketing network, which should include the construction of "THE EARTH" stores in many cities where Palestinians live. These franchises would provide a global marketplace managed by the Palestinians, providing a ready outlet for the work products of the local community. The larger community would become more productive and developed as a result.
This global franchise model will contribute to social change within the
extended Palestinian community because of its open learning and development
nature and will contribute as well to the global social change movements!
If we can develop the first network of "Integrated Ecosystem of Production" as
solution, it could be benchmarked in different areas with similar conditions.
How to Achieve an Integrated Ecosystem of Production?
A prerequisite of an integrated ecosystem of production is a cadre of professionals with various areas of expertise. Therefore, one of the first steps to achieving success is to stimulate a migration back to Palestine by many of the professionals and experts who now live abroad. These people can help to develop community associations, especially since many have a strong drive and a passionate commitment to building a stronger Palestinian society
From the Idea to a Scenario to a broad comprehensive Plan
In our open world, in which the social-media gain increasing dynamic and performance, it is wrong to hold any constructive idea back. To keep it buried till I have returned to Palestine would mean losing time for its growth, spreading it and wealth from getting feedback and related proposal, ideas from our open sphere, where the ideas actually originated.
From current point of view I am looking forward to:
I. Creating a diverse Scenario-Building Palestinian Team
A friend of mine told me to pay attention to the current nation-building development in South-Africa, exactly to check the DINOKENG scenarios which includes the concept of "diverse scenario-building team", which I will make use of here.
The team is diverse, meaning:
- It represents a broad spectrum of Palestinian society.
- The members have different backgrounds, experiences and perspectives.
- They did NOT agree on everything!
What team members have in common:
- A deep concern that things are not what they should/could be in Palestine.
- A desire to contribute to the construction of a sustainable future.
- Together, their diversity and shared intent is a core strength of process
II. Creating a supportive community around the idea.
Any contribution in form of critique, feedback, thought, idea, comment, link, .. etc. is very welcome. Especially help the web2.0-collaboration beginner. How to feature this post? How to build an intelligent collaborative environment in order to manage information-flow and contributions?
With off/online Discussions, Conversations, Workshops, analysis, research and writing work we will develop a comprehensive concept which will allow broad public facile engagement with the political leaders, citizen and affected community. All open questions to the scenario should be answered in this concept. How, When with whom ..? The answer on these and other questions will emerge later I think.
As mentioned above, I believe time is NOW and now lot of things can happen, while I am packing my laggings in Germany. Now a virtual supportive team can help doing lot of things for the idea for example by:
- Finding existing models for integrated ecosystems of production
- Present possible lay-out of the production units and infrastructure
- Share manufacturing plans fits the concepts
- Start working for an animation film about the idea and how the future in our locality can look like.
- Together we can answer key questions like those at the end of the presentation attached.
1. How can this idea be supported politically?
2. Which national / international organizations come into question?
3. How do I find fellow entrepreneur?
4. What are the relevant or related projects in the Palestinian territories?
Global Palestine as pioneer for Healing Humanity with Global Holistic Healing Green Economy
Technology is the most easy to change, followed by individuals. Change get more difficult when it comes to "partner" and more difficult when Community is concerned. Social change is the highest complex mission.
Economy is a technical set-up of human activities and value-flow. This is the clue of the idea: Instead of to focus on theoretical academic efforts to change the world we go over new praxis and learning process. We build smart economy, which should help us to set-up a positive-change-process.
The cell I have in my design draft can be a key element in re-mapping the world into global holistic-green-productive communities, which suppose to be a
biotopical economic healing cell for human, community, society and
ecology.
Local/Regional/National/International
Networking of modular cells with central infrastructures (R&D, CI,
Exchange (sales) ) is a concept for healing the world (Earth and
humanity). Global Biotope-Economy based on Permaculture Design
Principles should create a global nexus hybrid trademark we identify
our self with.
Ethical
Honest
Equal chances
No harm culture
Democracy and Opinion Freedom
mutual respect
Apply Permaculture "every where"
Resource Efficiency
Use Renewable Energy
Product as living Service
Waste as Resources
Maintain Natural Capital and the services it provides
Social
Respectful Equity
Sustain community and its benefits
Honouring cultural diversity
Flourish Civic Society
Fundamental needs within Integrated Ecosystems of Production
Education and Qualification
Health, Family, Hobby, Entertainment and spiritual demand
Economical
Fair trade, True cost pricing
Direct relationship to ownership
Distribute wealth equitably among those who contribute to its creation
Equitably distributed responsibilities of ownership
Build resilient local economies
Reinvest in the local community
Value-Added Production without increasing the strain on ecosystems
Best
in class collective performance pursue high international standards
Functional
Innovative enhanced Synergy
Co-creative Holacracy: Full involvement/participation/transparency/
accountability for every person
Effective living and natural design/structure/architecture
Pursue dynamic role- and task-alignment
Where else the idea is being developed? How to interact?
Debategraph (Thanks David Price, Co-founder)
Local-Meetings
Planed:
Held:
27 March 2010 at Bisan center in Ramallah.
Düsseldorf-Germany 31.05.2009, Karlstr. 20,
Munich-Germany 23.7.2009, 19.00 Uhr EineWeltHaus Schwanthalerstr. 80
29.07-06.08 Tamera, Portugal: http://www.tamera.org/index.php?id=164
Presentation (Version 2)
It will be great to have your comments, feedback .. any contribution is a real support.I see critisim as a true gift from your co-selves mirrors
It would be great to make the adaptation of the idea unstoppable. For now on, it is your idea if you like it. I would be thankful if you keep me along your way for it.
Thanks!
Wael Al Saad
Email: globalpalestine -at- gmail.com
SKYPE: wael.alsaad
Twitter: Wael_
Comments (1 - 18 of 18)
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Flag comment for removal Jafra about 1 year ago
like international efforts are able to build
very complex thing like ISS .. or like big corporation like McDonald are
able to seed their economic solution from the box in a week, the
earth-human movement should build a model which can be the seed for
holistic healing economy, to invent the semi-modular open eco-village
for "organic" economy, which can be seeded everywhere and networked to
build a healing body based on one "cell" (the whole eco-village)-design
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The global community, its intellectuals and intelligentsia are lacking for common ground to program the human civilization operating system: Please consider my tactics to design the seed of healing within economy. This seed is the self-constructed modular eco-village for rural green economy in my concept, which will be the base for large-scale network of similar cells forming new economic body. The shareholder of such economic network will function like a Global Brain connected to the physical world through what we do in our economic dynamic.
No one more than us Palestinian need to be connected after so many years of diaspora and political collapse/fragmentation. Palestinians as global entity can support liberating the world of self-destruction machinery. We must re-think the concept of diaspora and link our efforts to universal trajectories making every human the center of life (meta-individuals). My conclusion is that economy can be the framework for this practice starting by one seed/cell/eco-village. Sorry to elaborate that long on my thoughts. The nature that each one of intellectuals who spend long time thinking about change in his own mind and locality and found individual big ideas which are now meeting in many arenas is part of the universal diversity our minds are equipped for. My long deep search brought me to melt this diversity within ONE eco-village for rural economy to put the masses in an environment of self-liberation and self-empowering along broadening the reach of collaborative practice locally and globally. |
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some more mustard :)
the point I am coming from is developing forms of constructive unity
within "Global post-national Palestine" by applying economy as essence
of communication and interaction. My core question is actually about
how to develop and transcend expressive internal human capacities,
awaken intelligence so that they enable them to collaborate developing
solution for common challenges. As challenges are very complex, they
demand certain level of intellect, collective intelligence, to come
into progress. With my model, I am willing to reach this point by
"exercising" collective intelligence through equation dealings
sustainable holistic economic solutions. |
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The basic idea is to develop out of the cell large scale cooperation through a living vital conversational economic bottom up platform. In later phases of the development people from western has the technology and know-how can be the partners of the so called third country people instead of others global capital giants.
A partnership supports self-empowerment of the human and the nature.
In this sense most of contribution and dynamic to change the world will flow into constructive healing holistic economic equation, which will increase the efficiency and density of the intentions for the good. To develop healing economic values rather than creating and exchanging lot of theoretical intellectual efforts, beside inventing the wheel so often. Similar solutions will be condensated into sustainable economic application.
The good thing about holistic economy - the combination and integration of all possible cycles of exchange, which is "technical set-up"- that "we" do not change the people, for whom life is only about struggling for their livelihood. We do not propagate for any world view. Actually no one can change any one, so that the world would get changed. But we can set up a new "environment" and new understanding for "work" and "profession", which will develop a climate stimulate the awaking intelligence and the seek for self-experience in freedom.
We can set up an environment with absence of fear, which is the root prevent people changing or dissolving their life patterns. Destructive patterns they are used to and comfortable within in absence of functional alternatives. These alternatives can be shaped through the equation of free market.
Being part of holistic unified economic platform, cares and works for all within and owned by is being part of secure environment (human security: see Human security and a holistic green economy in Palestine). When the corporation has the resources to cover all individual and community development needs (organic food, eco-architecture/shelter, health and wellness, self-education, .. ), such a feeling will emerge and transcend within the whole economic value network for life serving creation.
I believe the best tactics to establish collaboration coalitions between the sites and groups with similar intentions is to use conservation holistic economy as a vehicle.
If you are ready for the shift or already within, we can shift our positions in the dominating economic in-crises matrix and develop alternative functional healing one. Imagine the huge sum of intelligence and co-creative constructive ideas will be integrated in developing the products and services for humanity and earth.
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thanks James for the very good rating. I hope practice will look as good :O)
Yes Bowo. Oliver gave me great punch of energy and motivation beside adding value to what I am doing. I am very gratitude for that.
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Jafra,
I'm sure you've heard. Oliver is writing up an essay mentioning your work:
Human security and a holistic green economy in Palestine
Cheers, Bowo |
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Brilliant stuff - keep it up!
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thanks for your comment John! Community currency is essential to develop the "organic" business model for a living integrated ecosystem of production. I assure you that here I need lot of help :) Lass uns bitte darüber reden ~ Thanks! |
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Hi Wael I got here via your post at Fighting Peacefully. Really exciting what you are describing here. If you need any help with the community currencies aspect give me a buzz. I specialise in consulting and training for community currencies and am developing tools to guide people through selecting the best system for their needs. Roger is right that 'community money' is like a halfway between regular money and sweat equity. With the right design it can powerfully connect local problems, needs and goals with local assets. There have been thousands of experiments over several decades all over the world that show these systems can work with good design, governance and management. Check out my website at Value for People to see what I offer: www.valueforpeople.co.uk All the best with your efforts. Germany's loss is Palestine's gain! John |
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This comment was removed by a WiserEarth editor for the following reason:
in the wrong place |
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Hi Roger, its great you step by .. thanks for your support! I did some research about alterantive.currencies etc. an excited field. I am wating also for the meta-currencies guye to release something adaptable. Well, the idea need poltical faciliation, nothing more! Thats why the scenario-building team. The future productive community have *foul* money they hide and show scantiness because they do not feel secure and very afraid of the future of their kids (we have lot of). I do not have statestics, but the re-investment is minimal. And the missing trust between poeple lead to individual investements and not developing join-ventures. The motivation for narrow profit does not fit our indegenious identity Roger. Thats why we can do not have succesful economic infrastructre in our communites ...
@all, pls feel free and add answers to the questions above, or raise new questions or any related thoughts
Thanks |
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Hi Wael, Just a thought. am looking forward to hearing that you have made a success of this idea. Roger |
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Some update about related activities to this resource: I am planing to attend Open Translation Conference 2009
The last thing I will be doing before leaving Europe to Palestine is joining Tamera summer camp |
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Thanks Bowo. This is great! How you know them? They are from my region actually :) How can i use WE connect this resource to following lists? a list of companies either in or connected to the cleantech sector in Palestine. |
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Hi Jafra, Have you been in contact with Murad and Fred? http://www.wiserearth.org/user/Murad http://www.wiserearth.org/user/fschlomka Best wishes, Bowo |
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feel free to edit the article and put your answers to the question or add new key-question we cann all answer together.
Thanks |
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