Awra Amba RJ 300612 EN - Contacter un comité local d'Attac

Conclusion
Awra Amba has developed by attacking both the power of religion and the patriarchal power, during
a severe fight. This fight is part of the fight of all those deprived of power and gaining power step by
step by attacking the structure of existing power, religious and patriarchal in this case. Thus, the
Awra Amba community participates to the transformation of the society, to the empowerment of
men and women.
The fight and the community are founded on values such as honesty, equality, solidarity, rationalism
– which include gender equality, respect of children and the elderly, work, peace and harmony.
These values have been those of the social movement inspired by socialist and libertarian theories
worldwide for several centuries. They could seem simple and naïve since they are not very original
for Westerner. They have nonetheless modified a community from top to bottom, in one of the
poorest and most isolated countries of the world. All the community members are well fed and
housed, whatever their age, while there is a large number of homeless people and beggars in
Ethiopia. It makes Awra Amba an exemplary society for all those defending these values worldwide,
values their own societies are very far to comply with, although these values are usually written on
top of their respective constitutions. Therefore, Awra Amba is through many aspects a living
example for the neighbouring communities, for Ethiopia, and beyond for the empowerment of
citizens and peoples, whatever their level of development, including in Europe.
The most innovative and original aspect is without any doubt the importance given to honesty,
explicitly proclaimed and applied. Although this value belongs to the moral basis of all societies, it is
not often claimed by the social and political movements and even less implemented in the political
life.
The critical thinking is fundamental, since it allowed the founder and his followers to challenge the
social organization of their society and to track its contradictions (especially between the humanist
values claimed by religions and the social organization they support). It is always claimed, in order
to allow each one to make proposals aimed at improving the situation.
The Awra Amba experiment is part of the revival of what we called the Third world at the beginning
of the 21 st century. It is to some extent the twilight of the era president H. Truman ushered in 1949,
by characterizing for the first time the inhabitants of half of the world as "underdeveloped", i.e. poor,
pauper, malnourished, sick, primitive; according to this ideology of development, their fulfilment
and their prosperity should be identified to the economic growth produced by Western investments
(Truman, 1949). Since, and especially since the beginning of this century, many countries of Latin
America not only became widely emancipated from the control of their big Northern neighbour, but
also above all enriched our toolbox of concepts by adapting to the ongoing issues some of the
traditional Indian concepts. We think for instance of the "good living" or sumak kawsay of Bolivia's
constitution, the meeting point between human rights and nature rights, but also between ecology and
economy. The revival of the so-called underdeveloped countries is also observed through the rise of
the power of many of them, and not only of big countries like China, India, Brazil or South Africa.
More modestly, the Awra Amba experiment contributes to this movement.
The Awra Amba experiment was especially built on the refusal of constraints imposed by religions,
which are in contradiction with well-being and harmony and often with the values they claim. From
that perspective, it is close to the secular even atheistic movement, which is a fundamental
component of socialist or libertarian movements. This component is not much claimed today, in
Western societies already largely atheistic. We observe even in many countries the comeback of
religious utopia, putting the society to a large extent under the influence of revealed truths –
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