Is there life before death? Pierre Rabhi at TEDxParis 2011

Pierre Rabhi, a farmer, a philosopher, a writer, and a French thinker of Algerian origin is one of the pioneers of organic agriculture and the inventor of the “Oasis in all places.”
He defends a form of moderate society that is more respectful of people and earth and supports the development of agricultural practices accessible to all.

I've been thinking about what to tell you
for a while.

And sure enough, I have reviewed
extremely interesting things

that have brought me a lot.

I don't have any pictures to show you,

so I'm simply inviting you
to picture a vast desert.

A desert of sand, rocks, very big,

what I call a "horizontal abyss",

infinity and silence,

and in the middle of this
infinity and silence,

a small green spot,

a small biotope,
a small ecosystem called oasis.

It's in one of these man-made oasis,

in the driest zones, that I was born.

So, the silence, the minaret,
the five daily prayers,

and you'd say this duct in the middle
of the desert is there to stay forever,

and since the beginning of life.

Everything was fine.

My father was a blacksmith,
a poet, and a musician,

who would charm people with his music,

and at the same time, all day long,
he would forge metal

and make the anvil drum.

The anvil drums in the city,
people come and sit, they converse.

That city was created in the 17th century
by a sufi thaumaturge

whose teaching was about non-violence.

He had understood that violence
only brought on violence.

Then suddenly, a great upheaval.

That country happened to become
a French colony.

Then geologists, or some people,

find coal.

On finding coal, of course, a great shift
happened: modernity emerged.

So the whole population changes
into paid workers,

miners; that dark matter is unearthed,

that was under our feet, unknown to us.

Then, my own father becomes unemployed,

since the people he worked for,
forged tools for,

do not consult him anymore,

so he himself has to become a miner.

As a result, the anvil's song
comes to an end.

I see my father,
who had a certain nobility,

coming home every night covered in coal,

which I deeply felt

as him being sort of humiliated by fate.

modernity was here.

It so happens that about the same time
my mother dies,

my father wonders about the future
and finally says,

"The rules of the game
are no longer in our hands."

So he leaves me in a French couple's care
- an engineer and a school teacher -

who had migrated to this country
for the work in the mines.

So, at the age of five, I enter modernity,
not having known my mother.

I enter this modernity,
eventually, where I go,

I jump from tradition into modernity,

from Islam into Christianity,

from fire in the middle of the room
to the toothbrush, etc.

And I get caught, so to speak,
between these two cultures,

except these two cultures
have converging elements

that don't converge much,

and diverge a lot

in their vision, their ways
and their culture.

I come to terms with that,
and finally, it takes me aback.

I go to school, I'm an average pupil
to please my parents,

but I wonder about my true identity.

Who am I?

Which is right?

Is it the traditional population?
The modern population?

With this contradictory discourse,
I begin wondering,

and of course, instead of being brilliant
at chemistry

and maths and the rest,
I associated a lot

with philosophers,

therefore those who, eventually,
deeply wonder about the fate,

and the meaning that mankind may have.

The Algerian war takes place,
I leave Algeria,

not that I had made a choice,

but simply because
I had to come over here.

You have to remember
that when I was taught,

I was taught that my ancestors
were Gauls.

You just have to look at me
to see how obvious it is,

unless I'm the only Gaul.

(Laughter)

So what does it mean?

It means conditioning,
it means assimilation,

it means the integration
of a person into an ideology.

I arrive in Paris,
excluded from both cultures,

and I realize, well,
I was looking for a job,

and I realize that I hadn't acquired
any qualification.

Perhaps I could write a good essay
about Socrates, whom I loved,

but my employer didn't seem
so interested in that.

So I become what the French call an O.S.,

"Specialized Worker".

Why is it called specialized worker?

Because it's the one who is actually
an unskilled worker.

Even though I was
on a second-level salary.

So I am in this work microcosme,
and I try,

as I was much into the philosophy
of history, of anthropology, etc,

I try to give a configuration
to this system I was in,

and it was always
the big pyramid dominating.

There are some important people
at the top of the pyramid,

and unimportant people at the bottom.

There's a hierarchy: the CEO,

the general manager, the top executives,

the not so top executives,

and you get down to us,
the unskilled workers,

who, to quote Fernand Reynaud,

didn't have anybody to offend,
so here you are,

we were the lowest layer.

(Applause)

And in this overactive work,
where finally work has been given --

work is a virtue, they keep repeating
that work is a virtue,

so basically, a hard-working man
is a man of choice in the social system.

And what is this effervescence
within the system?

It is driven by you having to produce
more and more,

that you must be a good worker,

and finally, you end up increasing the GNP,

through that effervescence,

but without the equity
I would have liked to see.

Then, the great proclamation of modernity,

was that progress would somehow

set human beings free.

But as I followed the path
of a human being into modernity,

I found a series of incarcerations.

Rightly or wrongly,
from kindergarten to university,

we get locked in what we call in French
"un bahut", a chest.

Everybody works in boxes,

small boxes, large boxes, etc.

Even to have fun, we say
"aller en boite" (go into a box).

(Laughter)

Of course, you get there in your car,
"une caisse" (box)

(Laughter)

An the last box,
where they store the elderly,

(Applause)

while waiting for the final box,
I'll let you figure it out.

(Laughter)

That's why I ask the question:

"Is there a life before death?"

Because if living means
being incarcerated for life,

until the moment when the system
finally rejects you,

to go into the transition
before you disappear,

well, what does it mean?

Alienation.

Basic alienation of the human being.

So, from there, obviously,

you'll understand that I didn't subscribe
to that at all,

and I said to myself: I must find

another time, another space.

That is to say, reconquer somehow

the freedom to do
what I want to with my life,

not being determined
by an imposed system.

So I returned to the land,

with my wife, in South Ardèche.

That's where I meet with agriculture

and we choose a place,

as if we were stupid,

we choose a place with degraded soil,

hard, no water, no electricity,

no telephone, no nothing.

And the bank I'm borrowing from tells me:

"You are crazy to settle there."

It would be hard for me to explain

that the important factor
behind our choice,

is the beauty of the place,
not just profit.

It's the beauty, we din't want to give up
the beauty of the place.

Now, the second stage: I'm a farmer,

and I learn modern agriculture,

which involves, of course,
chemical fertilizers, pesticides,

you spend your time killing and polluting.

At the same time, in the soil,

you put chemical fertilizers
that deteriorate it,

and that will pollute ground water, etc.

So, subscribing to that logic
was out of the question.

Which lead me to organic farming,

and from that moment, I understood

that you could perfectly expect
the land to feed us

in quantity, in quality
and at the same time,

improve it, improve its quality,

and pass it in a better state
to the next generations

in a better state than before we got it.

So we were performing
some sort of healing act,

an act of responsability,

towards this life.

Then they tell me, "You'll never succeed",

but we did.

We succeeded in raising our five children

who are all musicians, etc.

We haven't been in dire straits,

instead, we found balance again,

that is we must involve life in balance,

that is, if you put too much
excess in life,

that's alienation,
and if we stick to moderation,

that moderation brings things
to our own measure,

and gives us balance, therefore
it gives us the joy of being,

providing, of course, for our basic needs,

and even leaving a very important margin

to what concerns the promotion
of the very human being,

so that life isn't simply

a life of labour, but is also a time,

in which we find fullfilment,

we will have the necessary space

to look after ourselves, our inner selves,

develop skills that aren't just

merchant skills,

or skills indexed on financial value,

but free ourselves
from as much surplus as possible,

to be able to get back the freedom
of a personal development.

In doing so, organic farming proves

its capacity to regenerate soils,

and I am invited in African countries

where I bring organic farming
as an alternative

to farmers who have suffered
disastrous drought,

and who, at the same time,
can no longer feed themselves properly,

since fertilizers are so expensive,

polute the soil, etc.

So, I bring organic farming

by creating the first
organic farming training center,

and today, there are 100,000 farmers
using those methods,

more or less properly,
but anyway, we can say

there are 100,000 farmers
made aware of the principle

that you can perfectly take degraded soil,

regenerate it, make it fertile
and at the same time

provide for your food requirements
in a better way

since they are the basic needs
without which nothing else can exist.

It works, and then the general idea,

the reflexion on ecology
takes a certain dimension,

and indeed, by 2002,

some friends urge me to stand for
the presidential elections,

so you nearly got yourselves an Obama,

(Laughter)

but the point was
not to get into politicking,

in the classical sense, even if I've had
to adopt the scenario,

but the point was to say,
there's an absolute emergency:

to place humans and nature
at the core of our preoccupations,

first and foremost,
dropping everything else,

today, it's about humans and nature.

Because my point is to know,

if for example,
some aliens were watching us,

and studying us, they would conclude:

"They are exceptionally gifted,
but they are unintelligent."

Because being exceptionally gifted
with knowledge, etc.

doesn't imply that you organized
the world the way it should be.

In addition, the discrepancies
and tremendous injustice,

when 4/5 of the world's population

can hardly provide for their vital needs,

and the fifth spending,
obviously feasting,

after plundering, by the way,
and continuing to do so,

others' territory.

So this inequity, and this --

how shall I put it,

this disparity seemes to me
the first alternative

that needs to be sorted out.

If we don't sort it out,
women's subordination,

the subordinated woman,

No, women must not be subordinated.

They must be the elment that will allow

the male-female balance
that will give back to our society

another sensibility and balance,

and during my electoral campaign,

of course, I would insist a lot
on the need for education,

the need to get back
to the local economy,

not subordinated to the transport
of foods, etc.

I have little time to explain
all these things to you,

but anyway, they are,
if you will, part of an approach

that is more and more asserted,

and finally, the big question --

I borrowed Dostoievski's sentence:

"Beauty will save the world"

or "Beauty can save the world."

I don't remember exactly,

and I have pondered a lot on this notion
of beauty saving the world.

I thought, well --

We have a lot of music,
a lot of paintings,

a lot of extraordinary monuments,

but does it save the world?

No.

So the question today is:

"What is this beauty
that can save the world?"

It is in us.

The beauty that will save the world
is generosity,

it's sharing, it's compassion,

all these values we think of as outdated,

and yet, where do they lead to?

They lead to a tremendous energy,
the energy of love:

And without love, there can be none.

The other element that leads to this,

I am told, alternatives, okay,

but I tell people,

you can eat organic, recycle your water,
use solar heating,

and exploit your fellow man,
it isn't incompatible.

(Laughter)

alternatives aren't the thing, you see?

(Applause)

So we must be careful not to get lost

in substitutions for something we reject

and forget that the first substitution
that must be done,

must be done from the very human heart,

that is the vision we have of life.

If we don't forge such a vision
for ourselves,

eventually we will disappear.

So, to conclude,

I have wondered a lot about:

"What is the purpose of the human being
on Earth?"

We have a vision, unfortunately,
of a planet that's magnificent,

but we don't perceive it as
an extraordinary destiny gift.

It's after all very small,
lost in a huge sidereal desert.

And all we do, is to treat it

as a resource deposit we have to plunder

until the very last fish,
until the very last tree, etc.

Here is the radical
and deep unintelligence

if we don't reconsider
and change that vision.

So to conclude I will tell you an anecdote
to illustrate what I mean

and I see I'm on zero now.

(Laughter)

OK, now I must --

(Applause)

I am going to transgress a little,

have a teeny-weeny bit more to conclude.

Organic farming has proved
to be a real path,

where we become a little therapist
for the Earth,

where we take care of it.

We feed her, and that's what we need
to develop.

Besides, I will quote an anecdote

I have experienced in Ardèche,
since we had a farm,

our flock of sheep, etc.

And we had built our little freedom,

on actions that were meaningful to us,

and which brought us a lot of happiness,

but based on a principle of sobriety.

The principle of sobriety and moderation

sets you free at once.

Because the problem of the human society
is that

what is essential hasn't been solved,

and what is superfluous has no limit.

Since what's superfluous has no limit,

we are in an exponential economic growth

that imposes itself no limit,
so much so that,

obviously, in my electoral campaign,

I committed blasphemy:
I talked about degrowth.

And what I meant

was not having to regress,

I meant a civilization of moderation.

Because today we are living
a wonderful experience,

of great things that we had gained,

some of which we have mentioned.

But to what use?

From what paradigm do we get
those benefits?

Surely if we don't choose

a civilisation of moderation,

if we don't transform our society
through a change in humans,

if we don't choose
the priceless value of life,

life is so precious, so priceless.

If you put a price tag on it,
you defile it.

If we watch our global behavior
on this magnificent planet,

we can surely conclude

that our species is an accident.

(Applause)