The Forest of Hope

 

Arbaro de Espero means the Forest of Hope in Esperanto. 

Esperanto is not the official language of any country. It is a tongue that was created to gather people, instead of dividing them. 

It is the idea and the concept behind Esperanto that interests us: instead of speaking English, Russian, or Chinese, that are the languages of countries that always tried to dominate the world, imposing their wrong worldviews over billions of human beings, we chose to give to this project a name in Esperanto, as it better reflects our mindset. 

For now, we do not speak Esperanto unfortunately, and therefore, this blog will be in English to reach to more people. 

The idea behind Arbaro de Espero is simple and complex at the same time. The world right now is stuck into many negative patterns. And unfortunately, as human beings, we are stuck within these patterns, sometimes against our will.

We need to daily survive, and to do so we need money. To earn money, we need to belong to the system, in a way or another. That is the reason for which, there are so many people from all around the world who are not entirely happy with what they are doing right now. They perhaps do not express it. Yet so many people feel their lives lack a true meaning. 

There are many local initiatives in each country of the world that try to sow a bit more fairness all around. There are many people who choose to start belonging to these local initiatives in order to find more meaning in their lives, on a small scale.

And yet, the scope of these local initiatives is usually limited. There is no global direction, no global organization that succeeds in sowing more peace, fairness, and social/environmental justice in the world. 

Everything is tainted with money, or with politics, or with both. And when organizations are tainted with money / politics / interests of the powerful, necessarily, they won't reach their aim.

Arbaro de Espero is just an idea for now. It is not yet an organization, and perhaps will never become one. It is more like a dream, or a concept, and a place of reflection. 

One day in a distant future, Arbaro de Espero could become a country without geographical borders, and give citizenships to all the idealist persons who live in this world. How, and for what purpose, we have not yet explored.

We go from the principle that States do not represent us any longer. In the sense that traditional political parties, everywhere across the world, are failing to represent the real needs of citizens, and the real needs of the Earth. And yet, alternative political parties are failing too. Everything that touches politics becomes corrupted, unfortunately.

Therefore what we propose is a non-traditional solution that has nothing to do with politics, or with money.

For that reason, Arbaro de Espero will never raise funds, and it will never become a political party. Because, unfortunately, money and politics corrupt everything that comes in their contact. 

It is Erik Zakhia who is behind the idea, the concept and the ideal represented by Arbaro de Espero. Twelve years ago, in 2012, Erik was the President of the "green-peace" club of the American University of Beirut, and he had also founded two initiatives called "Blue AUB" and "Blue Lebanon". At the time, Erik was well-appreciated by all the volunteers who had joined those initiatives and recognized for being an innovative, clever and determined leader, who also had a unique, global vision of all the subjects related to environmental sustainability. The only limits to the projects of the "green-peace AUB club" was the slow and tedious bureaucracy of the university itself. Twelve years later, newspaper articles of the time still remember the carpooling website that was launched, the tree planting that was organized in the streets of Beirut, and the campaigns about energy saving and recycling.

Because of all the bureaucratic limitations, that experience ended after one year. And, for long, Erik did not know what to make with his ideals, sadly discovering that having too many ideals, and too many principles, is a real handicap in the world as it is currently designed. 

For long, Erik had this feeling everything had become hopeless. The tunnel to go through was long, and particularly dark. At the end however, Erik never lost his faith, and he continued to firmly believe in his dream of a fairer world. For him, forests incarnate hope, and beauty. Nothing compares to the majestic and solemn beauty of trees. It is trees and plants that sustain the life of human beings on Earth.

This is how the idea of Arbaro de Espero was born. 

Erik, for long, has lived in an isolated and remote countryside of the Mounts of Lebanon. And, for now, he does not imagine living anywhere else. However, the interweb is a tool that can connect all the people who are currently dissatisfied with the affairs of the world, all over the globe. Erik in the past had many friends in many different countries of the world. And he is sure that his friends, even if they could perhaps better adapt to the system than he did, are dissatisfied with how the world is currently managed and ruled. 

Therefore, Arbaro de Espero proposes another way to all those who dream of a fairer world. For now, it is not a concrete project, but more like a seed, or several seeds, that are slowly sprouting. Those who are interested by these ideas can subscribe to this blog. Those who have ideas themselves, as long as they have nothing to do with money, or politics, are most welcome to submit them, publicly, or privately. 

Erik will share some of his learnings with agriculture, but not only, giving tools to his readers to learn how to plant, and to produce many things home instead of buying them. Because, the first step of reaching the aim of a fairer world, is to consume locally instead of buying goods that come from far away. And if we can produce our own goods (sea salt, dry fruits, baskets, vegetables, grains, fruits, eggs, etc.) that is even better. However, it is really hard to produce our own goods, because we often do not have the tools or the knowledge to. Therefore, each reader and subscriber of this blog are invited to write about their own experience, related to sustainability, producing things with their own hands or seeing others do so. In this first stage, those will be the aims of Arbaro de Espero: brainstorming, and sharing personal positive, and inspiring, experiences. 

Arbaro de Espero will for now stay away from traditional social media, as most of people no longer have the patience nor the time to read long texts. Those who choose to visit this blog know and accept the fact that there is some reading involved.

Please, write down your thoughts underneath in the comments section. All those who feel they have something to say can be given the right to write posts on Arbaro de Espero, as long as they are coherent with the philosophy and the ideals of this project. After all it is on purpose we called this project Arbaro de Espero and not Arbo de Espero. Arbo means tree, while Arbaro means forest. In reality, many trees, many human beings, are needed to constitute a forest.