Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the death of Communism, the more radical members of green action groups, men such as Christopher Flavin of the Worldwatch Institute, began touting environmentalism as the sole surviving alternative to capitalism. Leftists of all stripes, stripped of long — cherished illusions about the superiority of communism, joined the environmental movement in large numbers. Not surprisingly, in recent years the green movement has taken on a distinctly pinkish hue.
Consider the cult that has grown up around the community of Gaviotas, a small village of some 200 people located in rural Colombia. Environmentalists regard the village as a kind of green Shangri-la. They speak in hushed and mystical tones about “the Gaviotas experience.” What so fascinates radical environmentalists is the village’s combination of green praxis and red organization. For Gaviotas, it turns out, is a people’s commune right out of Chairman Mao’s playbook.
The Reality of Gaviotas
“All adults have [to] work, whether in the various village enterprises that manufacture solar collectors and windmills, in organic and hydrophonic agriculture, or in forestry initiatives,” Worldwatch reports. “Residents pay nothing for meals, medical care, education, and housing” (State of the World: 2004, p. 173). In other words, Gaviotas is not only saving the world through solar power and organic farming, it is organized on the communist principle of “From each according to his abilities; to each according to his need.”
Another less-than-endearing feature of Gaviotan life is a reliance on child labor, to wit; “Gaviotas is known worldwide for its…water pump that village kids work as they ride their seesaw.” Now we think that riding a seesaw for hours on end to pump water for the village is probably not much fun for the kids of Gaviotas.
As in all true people’s communes, family activities — such as taking meals together — are discouraged. “Members work together in village businesses and regularly eat together in the large refectory, even though each home has a kitchen.” Given that meals in the refectory are free, while meals at home cost money, the communal kitchen has an obvious and intended advantage over the home version, which the cadres undoubtedly expect to “wither away” over time.
Neither are the quiet evening hours set aside for family life. Rather, “Music and other cultural events are a regular part of village life,” we are told. One can almost hear the loudspeakers blasting out propaganda, as in the heyday of Maoist China, when the villagers — on pain of punishment — dare not miss the skits of visiting propaganda teams.
Artificial Communities
The natural community of love and life is the family, consisting of a husband, a wife, their natural or adopted children, and others related by blood and marriage. But this natural community, ordained by nature and nature’s God, is too pedestrian, too mundane, too normal for the Left. Having rejected marriage and childbearing, not to mention God Himself, they have no choice but to construct artificial communities based on vague and ethereal principles: in the case of Gaviotas “a strong concern for the quality of village life and for the natural environment.”
That such a community, based on imposed ideologies, is foreign to human nature leaves them untroubled. For they believe as an article of faith that human nature is infinitely plastic. To those who are aware of the totalitarian bent of such utopians, Worldwatch’s statement that the “community norms [of Gaviotas] are set by members and enforced through social pressure” is chilling. Like all hothouse flowers, Gaviotas can only survive in a carefully controlled environment.
“Villagers extract and sell only resin [from the nearby forest], even though logging would be more lucrative.” The villagers do so, we are told, because they “believe that a healthy forest generating modest resources is better than a depleted one that yields a temporary bonanza.” Have they been convinced, perhaps by hidden subsidies from the environmental movement, that it is in their interest to leave the trees alone?
Chinese “model” communes always received generous — and secret — subsidies from the state. Gaviotas may have environmentalist benefactors who want to make sure that their green Shangri-la continues to thrive. After all, if the villagers of Gaviotas commune get hungry, they might start cutting down trees.
The hype surrounding Gaviotas suggests that their real aim is nothing less than a complete restructuring of society along — dare we say it — communist lines.
