Arrival at Ecotopia

After having worked for a week in Germany, visited interesting cities near Berlin for another week, and travelled to Lyon for another week, I finally reached the original purpose of my trip, to go bike camping with Ecotopia.

I arrived in the morning when people were starting to get up, and our campground looked somewhat like what I expected it to look like, a bunch of tents and bikes with bags attached to them.

What was someone unexpected was the house located on the campground.

Squat

Apparently in France it is very hard to legally evict someone living in a property. If someone resides in a property for 48 hours, then the residents are legally recognised as squatters, and are eligible for squatters rights. Those right include things like not being evicted in the winter, or not being evicted if a child lives there.

In order to help homeless people in France, there is an organisation that monitors buildings throughout the country. If a home is found that looks like it hasn’t been inspected for a few days, the organisation gets in contact with a group of homeless people (presumably including a child) and helps them settle in that place.

While Ecotopia was in Lyon they stayed at a place called Maison Sans Souci. That is a huge building (4 stories, about 4 large rooms on each floor, kitchen and bathroom) that is currently squatted by around 40 people (including a kid) who mostly illegal immigrants from Guinea. Those people were homeless for about a year, but organised to form a group that helps each other. They had periodic meetings to form decisions and made sure to only look for places that could support all of them. Then, two years ago, the squat finding organisation told them that they found a squat for them. Since then the municipality has bought the building from the previous owner and has been trying to convince the residents to move to free apartments that the city would give them. However, until now the city has not offered them something that they thought would be acceptable, so they continue to reside in the squat.

What surprised me a lot was that the place was very clean and organised. You could tell that in the past it must have been even more magnificent, with carpets and decorations. But at its current state it looked cleaner than many college dorms I have visited. They continue to live as a community and take turns cooking and taking care of security.

The backyard and kitchen had quite a few rats, but they didn’t seem to like people, so other than when they were running away, they didn’t get close to people. The residents were also raising chickens, so we had to share the backyard with chickens, rats, dogs (from Ecotopians) and a few more critters. Luckily they were all friendly (with the exception of the mosquitoes), so that was okay.

I tried talking with them, but they only speak French and some African languages, so I couldn’t do much more than introduce myself, and thank them for hosting me. However, from what I understood from the other Ecotopians staying there, the residents really liked hosting us. Since the residents are illegal immigrants living in a not so legal place, they feel like they are on the edge of society. However, when “normal” people like Ecotopians stay and interact with them, it makes them feel more like a part of society.

Fun with Ecotopia

While in Lyon, there were several activities that we partook in. We visited an anarchist library. That is a library with books dedicated to Anarchist ideology, so a lot of books by pre-Soviet philosopher like Karl Marx and modern commentary in support of them. As a side note, Karl Marx was not an anarchist but rather was highly against Bakunin, the philosopher who thought of anarchism.

We visited a bike workshop that is meant to help teach people how to maintain and fix their bikes.

The idea is that if you have an issue with your bike, you can go to the workshop and use their tools (from simple cables and wrenches to expensive power tools and welding tools). I volunteer at a similar one in Jerusalem, but this one is much larger and has a large variety of tools that can be used. Since my bike is new I didn’t need to service my bike, so I helped others with their bikes.

Friday Night Meal

After going to the Grande synagogue de Lyon for Ma’ariv, I went to the encampment. There the residents organized a meal for everyone. One of the Ecotopians brought a mixer that hooks up to a bike, so if you fill the mixer with fruits, milk and ice, you can make a shake by peddling on the bike. Since the food wasn’t Kosher, and the bike shake was (probably?) not allowed on Shabbat, I ate food that my German friend and I prepared and we heard the story of the squatters (translated by a French speaking Ecotopian).

Anarchist Assembly

Every few days, Ecotopia holds a “circle”. That is a meeting where everyone discusses the future plans and proposes actions for the group. They even have a very specific rules of order. I heard of Robert’s Rules of Order and software engineering’s equivalent form (eg. Scrum meetings). In Ecotopia the rules involve a very specific set of hand signs. Every meeting has a leader that runs the meeting. There is a list of topics that he goes over. If someone wants to speak, they raise one finger. If others raised fingers, then they raise the max fingers plus 1. That way the leader knows who to call on to talk. If you want to cut in line, because you have something knowledgeable about the topic under discussion you open and close your fist or you oscillate your pointers. If there is something urgent to say (the example given is, our camp fire is spreading to a wildfire) then you make a T sight (I would assume that in such a case you just shout, but I guess that is not what they do). Finally, if the topic under discussion is disturbing you, and you would prefer that no one discusses the issue, you form a triangle with your fingers.

As my friend said after the first meeting, “there sure are a lot of rules for anarchists”.

What is Anarchy

One of the subjects that I was troubled with was what exactly is anarchy. In common modern English usage it is the lack of order. But historically it meant something different. It was the idea that there was no leadership. Many of the ideologies were similar to socialism, but where socialism may have votes, council members and specialists, with anarchism, everyone decides on everything together.

Since such a consensus is required, decisions are made very slowly. In Ecotopia, it is a small group of people, visiting for a short amount of time, and most of the decisions are inconsequential. So it works well, but I’m not sure how such a form of government could work for a nation of more than a thousand citizens, making decisions like whether to go to war against your enemies.

Since anarchy (under the original definition) is not a natural political system, Ecotopians have to make an active effort to preserve anarchist meetings. I noticed that people were very reluctant to take initiatives and that many proposals were of the form “Maybe we should do X, but I don’t know”.

Nevertheless, it was nice to see a system of anarchy work.

Food in Lyon

I was surprised to find this, but there are many Kosher paces in Lyon. There are several Kosher restaurants and Kosher supermarkets, mostly located in the area of Villeurbanne. The most important food in France is the Baguette. In France, Baguettes that come from bakeries are regulated in such a way that makes them Kosher (if you eat פת עכו”ם). So I made sure to put a Baguette contraption on my bike.

Conclusion

Ecotopia is biking to the next stop southwards on Shabbat, so my friend and I plan on staying in Lyon until Sunday. I’ll update how the next location goes in the next post.

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