English
ItalianWhat is Tamera?
“Real dialogue isn’t about talking to people who believe the same things as you.”
Zygmunt Bauman
I’ve been to Tamera – one of most important ecovillages in Europe – at the end of April of this current year. I spent 3 days there. It has been an interesting experience, even if I don’t agree with more than one aspect of Tamera’s approach, inspired by the taught of Dieter Duhm.
Nevertheless I’ve appreciated the ecological work and the commitment in global peace field. Even three days of vegan food has been a nice discovery.
With Monika Alleweldt, publisher of Verlag Meiga and member of Tamera, we decided to “mildly” cooperate. Indeed, I’m convinced the big challenge of dialogue, as was asserting Zygmunt Bauman, is to be able to talk with people whose point of view is more or less different.
Of course it is easy to have a dialog with people of same faith, same political view, etc. but the real art of dialogue is realized being able to talk with people having a different approach on crucial issues and to cooperate in those fields where there is a common view, despite the differences.
I asked to Monika to give me a presentation of original experience of Tamera to share in the network of Viverealtrimenti.
Of course, everybody is free to do his own evaluation. In absence of critics (within the frame of an urbane dialogue ), we seriously risk to succumb to authoritarian drifts. It is dangerous to fully agree with somebody else…
Enjoy your reading
Manuel Olivares
What is Tamera?
The Tamera Peace Research Centre was founded in 1995 by Dr Dieter Duhm (psychoanalyst and PhD sociology) Sabine Lichtenfels (theologian) and Charly Rainer Ehrenpreis (physicist) to develop a new model for comprehensive answers to the urgent human and environmental crisis of our times.
Today Tamera has about 170 co-workers, students, youths and children who are living and working here.
In the first years the work was strongly focused on building a resilient community. Over time, various projects have developed in ecology (Water Retention Landscapes, permaculture, peace gardens), technology (the Solar Village), the Animal Project, the Children’s Republic, the Youth Place, the Guest House, the Education Program, the Art Department, the Love School, the Political Ashram, the Institute for Global Peace work and more. The Global Campus was established with cooperation partners in Israel-Palestine, Colombia, Mexico, Brazil and India. An international network links Tamera with projects and individuals in Europe, North America, Russia, Australia, and most recently also in Kenya and Bolivia.
Basic thoughts
Just as any new prototype is first developed in a laboratory, the idea behind Tamera is to first build the desired non-violent and peaceful society in a model before it can be applied on a large scale. We call these models “Healing Biotopes” or “Model Universities”. The “Planetary Theory” by Dieter Duhm outlines why only a few such centers worldwide will have a strong impact on changing the existing “informational field” of war and violence towards peace, cooperation and trust.
In a future culture of peace, the global problems which lead today to war all over the world are solved or are in a process of solution. Healing Biotopes are therefore places where these solutions are prepared. The results must be generalizable and available to everyone who looks for them. Healing Biotopes are organized so that the various solutions can be linked to each other until the image of the overall solution becomes visible.
The overall solution can be divided into different aspects:
- The material basis of life
- The social basis of life
- The mental-spiritual basis of life
Humankind needs new responses in all three of these areas to be able to initiate a non-violent future.
The problem of the material basis of life is expressed in the global lack of water, food and energy and in their inequitable distribution. Desertification, famine and mismanagement of oil are just some aspects of this lack, which arise as a result of the fundamentally wrong way in which the human being deals with the earth, water and nature. The necessary correction consists of creating human-made systems compatible with the inexhaustible systems and energy sources of nature and Creation.
Specifically, the solution lies in the implementation of decentralized, regionally self-sufficient, water-rich and sustainable centers where up to several thousand people can live. With the help of Water Retention Landscapes, permaculture and peace gardens, and new energy technologies working according to the laws of life, in appropriate numbers these centers will be able within a few decades to supply all of humanity with sufficient food, energy and fresh drinking water. At the same time they heal all of nature’s ecosystems and living beings. The contradiction between economic growth and the protection of nature is overcome.
The new energy technologies are no longer based on breaking resistances, but follow a ‘line of tension’. They connect the new centers with the everlasting energy sources of the sun and the universe. The fight for resources is over.
The social basis of life in all societies has been destroyed. Human beings have lost the ability to live together in peace. Fear, alienation and mistrust lead to irresolvable conflicts in all systems, from the smallest systems of marriage and family all the way to the global crisis areas and wars. The latent readiness for violence can break out at any time and be used for wars and the cruellest clashes.
Healing Biotopes show how cooperation and trust can be permanently and structurally developed by creating new living environments. The change does not happen (only) through individual therapy or admonitions. It is the social being that determines consciousness. A new type of socialization is the higher level of order at which previously unsolvable conflicts can be solved. The human beings in these new communities support and help each other and their fellow creatures not because they follow an external moral commandment, but because they have recognized that all that lives is part of the great family of life, to which they themselves also belong.
Central to building trust is the reconciliation of the sexes. There can be no peace on Earth as long as there is war in love. The patriarchal society dominated by men must be transformed into a form of life in which women and men reconnect with their sensual knowledge and apply it for a future culture of partnership between men and women.
The fight against the mental-spiritual basis of life proceeds today in such a subtle and encompassing way that it is hardly perceived. We only notice its consequences, such as religious wars, structures of domination and subordination, psychological deprivation and blocked anger reaching all the way to self-destruction. Humanity has lost its authentic religious and ethical anchor.
To return from this “exile” requires a new worldview and the studying of a theory of primal trust that is able to open the human heart again. Autonomous, independently thinking human beings will evolve out of this learning process – people who no longer submit themselves to punishing authorities. Such people have developed a strong humane core and are therefore incorruptible. They make life itself their sacred authority and protect it, wherever they are. Healing Biotopes are spiritual training centers for this kind of human being, for “Adam Kadmon”, the “Christ nature” or “Marian nature”.
More information: www.tamera.org