Wael Al Saad – What Does a New Start Look Like in Palestine? Returning Home to Create a Holistic Green Economy
By Wael Al-Saad • May 11th, 2009 at 20:26 • Category: Culture and Heritage, Features, Ideas and Projects, Newswire, Palestine, Somoud: Arab Voices of Resistance
Background Currently I am making plans to return to my Palestinian homeland after 17 years of secure living, studying, and working in Germany. Meanwhile, I have become a citizen of Germany, so I will be returning to Palestine as a dual national living my global humanistic openness.
The main motivation for my return is a feeling of responsibility to our Palestinian society, which is suffering from a social, economic, and political collapse, as a result of too many factors to list here. Just some facts: We do not have a state. We still suffer from over 60 years of Israeli occupation, and at the same time our own political system is disordered. All is flavoured with blaming games, making the whole situation very complicated and overwhelming and frustrating for the masses.
Time is now!
Though we do not have an independent state, but we have communities we can build from within so that we can climb an upward spiral of development. If we do not, we will instead collapse in a downward spiral of destructive chaos. Building and developing a community is about connecting to communicate and cooperating to create. To create what? I’m convinced that we have enough land with high capacity (for instance for dryland permaculture) for innovative production methods in which we can invest resources, and become more productive building our nation. Any step towards the development of our indigenous communities, our living environment, and our economical productivity, will have positive effect on our political structure.
The Idea
That was a sketch of the background for the sensitive and kind of complex broad communal green-business idea which I would like to share with you below. It is meant to attract broad non-partisan political and civic support.
The basic idea is to build a network of modular green business production-parks/cells spread in rural areas with centralized RID (Research-Innovation-Development) / ICT (Information-Communication-Technology) departments besides a new-art open administration-network.
The production-cells produce food products in highest quality for own consumption, local market and export, beside other appropriate industries and services. Each cell functions as an “Integrated Ecosystem of Production”, which means mainly:
- Equity and direct ownership of complete system of production: The parks are cooperatively owned by the community owned. 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 trademark “THE EARTH” (name is a proposal) of production. I will explain this point bellow.
- 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, Ecotourism and wellness (local and foreign), Indigenous handicraft, Green industry (evolving): Raw material, Animal Food, Composting, Recycling, Regenerative Energy Systems, Indigenous Architecture, Water Conservation and Management, housing and construction, Consulting and Solutions
Technically all is quite do-able, and we have all national and political resources needed to realize it. We do not need even funds for it. We need minds, hands, will, the earth, and each other!
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 stretched community
Our community in the diaspora is also an integral part to this. Another feature within the idea is the concept of "stretched-community-franchising"! It means the concept of an international marketing network, which should include the construction of “THE EARTH”-stores in many cities where Palestinians live. The core principles of “THE EARTH” Association should be implemented within the franchised business to influence the involved community, stretching the productivity of local communities. The larger community will be more productive and developed as a result. This way, a healthy affinity will be generated within our national identity through “THE EARTH” social ecological embedded economy and development (SEEED).
In total, it will contribute as well to the global social change movements because of its open learning and development nature. A global Palestine will emerge!
If we can develop the first network of "Integrated Ecosystem of Production" as solution, it could be benchmarked in different areas with similar conditions.
Back-immigration to Build Palestine
One of the major effects predicted is that this will stimulate many professionals and experts to undertake back-immigration to Palestine to further develop the communal association I am proposing, as many of us have a strong drive to build Palestine and many like me would do it now if they find collective benefit through their passionate social commitment.
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 on 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 it 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.
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.
If any one willing to support this initiative, please write me an email: globalpalestine@gmail.com
For now any one can follow the development of the idea on twitter by following
http://twitter.com/ComGreBusinsPls
The article is published under http://globalpalestine.blogspot.com/2009/05/return-to-construct-broad-communal.html
Thanks!
Wael Al Saad
PS: please write to Wael for a presentation under construction about the concept.
Photo from Notes from the Field the site of the Michigan Peace Team, which shows a project where an orphanage reclaims land for agricultural use (permaculture) reducing the need to depend on imported fertilisers and food products. http://mptinpalestine.blogspot.com/2008/11/orphanage-in-bethlehem.html
Wael Al-Saad is a young Palestinian grassroots activist who has grown up and lived under Israeli military occupation and lives in Germany since his emigration for study.
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Good luck with this grand effort!
Thanks for your support ~
the first think I will do is to organize a conversation (world-cafe style http://www.theworldcafe.com/) with my local community in Düsseldorf about the theme. This is a good measure to reach commons and collective intelligence about practical ideas.
My Palestinian colleagues can help with building the scenario team. There is so many questions to be listed before we start answering them.
just a question: wasnt the Palestinian way of life already pretty environment -friendly, I mean the olive groves were very old and, I am told. also very beautiful, and Palestine has been harvesting olives and producing olive oil etc for a very long time and they did not pollute the land or poison the people. Also traditionally the different communities religious buildings were taken care of werent they? It is the occupiers whose way of life is an environmental disaster to put it mildly
I wish you every success
Nadya
Scanning the young past of Palestinian society (fragmented communities without self-governance ever) we find out that indigenous social structure is build on social inter-dependencies in harmony with ecosystem in rural areas.
This is the culture where my father and grandfather are coming from. If you explore the new teaching of cultivating resilient and sustainable rural communities, you will see we are very good candidate to use our roots in order to build trust to establish the new type of business making and community development.
I am not gene-scientist, but when such a culture is many thousands of years old, it become part of the "human race". Even the majority are involved in modern industrialized gray selfish-society, missing the ingeniousness, they will re-construct their habits and way of living very fast, when new alternative is build.
One note: Many would think thinking about economy this way would be socialism or communism, which is not! It is new sort of free market. It is new alternative to live in freedom with healthy economic
Nice to hear about all this, Wael. It sounds wonderful, and your passion is very contagious. Many people are willing to give lots of time and energy for Palestine, non-Palestinians too, but doesn´t this all clash against the occupation? I´d love to hear more about how can the project escape the always suffocating Israeli government´s hands, their boicot against every step Palestinians take towards development.
I´m very connected with the Palestinian community in Spain (I have Syrian origin mysefl), and their different initiatives, so if I can be any help… count me in!
Thanks for your positive energy, which is very much needed :)
Leila
hmm i tend to agree with you the indigenous structure and economics of Palestine was I believe characterised by many of these features ;
"Equity and direct ownership of complete system of production:
Re-invest in community, a diverse community
Ecological stewardship:
Social, economic and political construction
Green-Business-Products:
Agriculture, Farming: Food, beauty and care, Botanicals. herbal medicine, Ecotourism and wellness (local and foreign), Indigenous handicraft, Green industry (evolving):
Water Conservation and Management, housing and construction, Consulting and Solutions"
so you do, as you state, have a great wealth of knowledge to draw from.
Good luck, this project is inspiring.
Nadya
@Leila –
Laila @all,
i wrote you about a page in the comment box which is gone according to wrong key combination :(
The Palestinian issue is very very complicated. It made of me a young spiritual-integral thinker, a creative Generalist and socio-psycho-analyzer.
The meaning of being Palestine has r-evolutionary changed my life ~
I see the Palestinian issue as a projection of most of our global issues and challenging the word- (dis)"order"! To stand in the bulk-eye of the hurricane smashing our humanity is being Palestinian.
Today we touch new quality of our human existence, how much interconnected we are and how our thinking and action are interdependence, so that the manifestation of the fact that we all responsible for the reality taking place is larger.
Taking the self-enrollment, self-awareness aside and focusing on the blaming and denying is consciousness-killing. Looking for links and constructive interdependencies is very hard road but very much excited and beautiful, because it is combined with holistic emergence in our interconnected world/ecosystem.
If you think social-justice is to get through the world we know, than it is wrong. A world lead by Power-execution-culture will not develop solution with formulas that has created the issues! Radical innovation must take other roles, other path, but starting from where we are.
Which world we want and how to get their? What is the different between what we want and what we have? Are we thinking in reality or naïve reality driven by wishful-thinking, others are responsible? Do you know really why things are like what they ARE? Do we understand enough to predict next innovated actions, which will evolve sustain process of TRANSFOMRAITON?
What we predict, the next point of transformation is very essential. Time is now means, there is actually no next. But there is an imagination of real future and prediction is now. To focus on history as reference will not bring us to any better FUTURE for all of us.
It is wrong to limit the occupation on one dimension in relation to Zionist-occupation.. this will not set our minds-free to develop new innovative paths for a real struggle for better life ! Couple of years a go I have started to write about the dimensions of occupation, saying that Palestine should not be re-occupied. Occupation in our Power-world is a complex-matrix with many dimensions reaching ourselves.
You may ask what all this has to do with my project. Well, if we really build Palestine and our nation from inside our influence on the reality will emerge. The transformation process will take place. All of you must come and see deeply what kind of social-economic life conditions we have in Westbank. Destructive chaos and criminality is daily business. Many young people are without work. Hundreds from Jenin for example immigrated to Norway. Thousands form villages immigrated to Ramallah to get their living ..
Time is now. And now we must develop the communities in Palestine. This is possible under occupation and with in/formal international support and Oslo accords. Please take in consideration that I am one of who was damming Oslo and calling for dissolving PA for years. I was all of the time questioning PLO as representative and Israel’s legality. Now I think with my idea there is something better I can do. So lets talk about Building Palestine NOW without bending our development with Israel.
BTW: Check what I wrote about border-less Palestine. The majority still see Palestine with colonial boundaries from early last century.
http://www.palestinianmothers.com/forum/topics/building-new-palestine-what-is
To think about the past is easy, but to build something to create new realities in the future is not. When I think about the future I see Palestine is bigger than any borders.
Actually I am not politician and you see my free writing is average. Without the help of the great friends I have I won’t be able to publish the article. But still I do my best to find new way of thinking to challenge the Reality.
Something else about the article: you may like to translate into Spanish.
The latest version is placed here: http://globalpalestine.blogspot.com/
Innovative broad model for Green Business is not an easy job. I think in Basque region there are good models for developing rural communities based on economy-
I would be glad to have any support, especially to be in the near-hood of the idea to keep it growing.
Thanks and sorry for the long reflection
Please check the links bellow to follow up on this topic
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=80604545221
http://www.wiserearth.org/resource/view/f529bcd0176bb10a8898c78188534d71
http://palestine1network.ning.com
This is very exciting, Wael Al Saad!
"It is wrong to limit the occupation on one dimension in relation to Zionist-occupation.. this will not set our minds-free to develop new innovative paths for a real struggle for better life !"
I can only imagine that your project will give many a new sense of direction, and hopefully eventually eliminate the need to spend a further ounce of energy on anything other than what brings *Palestine* forward.
"When I think about the future I see Palestine is bigger than any borders."
This is exquisite thinking. — If you can't beat 'em, do even better than that :-)
________
It appears that people in Gaza are already beginning to take things into their hands. I came across a youtube clip, the other day, of a group that was busy raising walls of adobe [clay] brick. Super! No sense in waiting for the Zionist entity to let cement in.
Others, in the absence of cooking fuel, have built clay ovens. And I'm sure there's much more innovation going on than just these examples.
I'm going to follow all your links and your blog, closely. It's been so uplifting to learn of your project.
.
@Dana –
thanks Dana .. u really cheer me up. To think out-of-the-box, or actually to leave the box is not easy and let you feel lonely. My way of thinking is "unwelcome" in the mainstream and though have no audience. More problematic, that I can not do every thing by my own, for example good writing, good Internet performance, ..
I love co-creation and sharing ~
It is actually all in all a psychology struggle for emerging the self. If we keep only pointing on others this will NEVER happen.
The other speciallity and unique thing is the Palestinian-Mind. We are all leaders and have so much capacity to lead our-lives, so that we our PRIDE do not let us listen to each-other. The last years I was thinking how to manage such character and came to many BIG ideas deals with meta-intelligentsia technical solutions to run the whole dynamic so that we all lead.
The issue with the classical leadership as model people used to. Those have the position of power which are used to execute their individual way of thinking which influence the lives of Millions should revise the whole system of governance by innovated system..
In the new system, no one have to be excluded. We need also PLO leaders within and give them the credits they honor ~ a balanced met-intelligence works for all , for life ~
I would be glad to have Dialouge with any one about these things .. pls add me to your skype wael.alsaad
Thanks
Wael
PS: most of what I have been thinking for Palestine google has implemented part of http://wave.google.com/
I wrote in Arabic about "Palestine Brain Application" http://sites.google.com/site/palestinebrain/
@Wael –
In the new system, no one have to be excluded.
This is the essence of the beauty of your project, Walid.
Very pleased to read your response to my comment.
I must say, you taught me an important lesson, yesterday, which is that my heavy heart over the daily tragedies in Palestine isn't doing, nor never will do, Palestinians any good. My distress won't bring back the 250 olive trees that were carted off from the Negev, last week, nor will it restore the burnt wheat fields, shattered limbs, lives and minds in Gaza and the WB.
There are constructive things can be done, now. I shall inform the Association France Palestine*, a lively group in France, of your initiative and encourage everyone to contribute in any capacity possible. ie, generally spread the word.
I will remain on stand-by, looking out for the forums you set up.
Your Palestine Brain Project is an excellent statement of purpose.
Bravo to you for your efforts to shatter static mind sets and for providing an essential platform for an organized return to sanity.
Best regards,
Dana
*http://www.france-palestine.org/
@Dana –
Dana, your words touch deeply my hart .. and wet my eyes .. I am very thankful for the supportive strength feeling you gave me. Please drop an email to globalpalestine@gmail.com
You can help in French translating ..
other note: If there is only one true thing about indigenous "Palestinity" is that we has been as we want rooted deeply in our lands since birth of human civilization. Today carrying Palestine every where deep in our harts. And here is basic concept for Global Palestine will change the face of the world. We should only tell every Palestinian "Be what YOU ARE", which is the fundament of mental freedom, which no one can take ..
They can put us in boxes, but not our minds. Inside every one of us there is an unending book to read and levels of awareness to discover. Free Palestinians have so much capacity for "REALISTIC" global change. We must be cautious not to be our own occupier!