Radio Utopistan Elisabeth Weydt

Today we go into art and meditation. In collaboration with different institutions we set up a big exhibition about nature and justice in Hamburg. It is starting today and called “Akut – Should Trees have Standing?”. I curated and organized it together with my friend and artist Sam Gora. Within this exhibition I have the honor to present something myself. This episode will give you the audio of the sound installation "23 minutes, 15 Seconds". The title comes from a study.

The University of California came to the conclusion that people generally need 23 minutes and 15 seconds to return to full concentration on a task after an interruption. Constant interruptions also lead to an increased level of stress and high blood pressure. And other studies show that attention spans have become shorter and shorter in recent decades.

If we now assume that it is true what many indigenous peoples say, which is that the task of humans on this planet is to take care of a balanced interplay and interconnection between the different living beings, then "23 minutes, 15 seconds" is an attempt to bring us back to this task.

It is some kind of a meditation with sounds from different ecosystems and the voices of indigenous people explaining their view of the world.

Enjoy the journey

Ireland is the only place in Europe that was once a colony. Because of this experience the Irish people have a very special connection to their land and to decolonial struggles around the world, says Peter Doran.

Peter is a senior lecturer at the school of law at Queens University in Belfast and has been involved in the struggle for justice on the island of Ireland since many years. Within the peace process after a long violent conflict and within the environmental movement. He is one of the authors and activists behind the proposal that wants Ireland to recognize Rights of Nature on a constitutional level.

Ireland is very close to becoming the first country in Europe to implement this legal revolution on a constitutional level. The citizen assembly (a highly respected democratic instrument in Ireland) proposed to the government to make a constitutional referendum on RoN. A real breakthrough, says Peter.

We talk about his background story growing up in Derry, a center of the “the troubles”, the violent conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted almost 30 years and killed 3.500 people.

“I am a born radical. I inherited a radical perspective. I am being true and faithful to my heritage. As an Irish man who grew up on the streets of Derry where we have a long history of asking difficult questions of the status quo and confronting injustice on our doorstep and across the world.”

He sees the local struggles, the local attempts to transform the world in front of your doorstep, connected to the struggles in the world. “We are always acting in solidarity with other peoples and with the earth as well.”

“The Irish identify with Europe, they see EU as a peace process. But they are also a people who have been colonized. For hundreds of years the colonial process subjugated our land, our people and our language. There is an intuitive sense that in reaching for the Rights of Nature discourse and the underlying world views that we challenge this notion that the world is simply an object there for the taking.”

“The RoN project is a process of recalling a deep memory, deep practices, recalling that there are others ways of being in the world, outside of the European modern experience.”

About the Commons:
“A notion that the real value that we generate today comes not from competition, not from private claims on things but from our ability to bring and support and cultivate the genius that arises from connection, from sharing, from caring. And from understanding that all that we value, that all things come from our relationships. That everything is preceded by relationship and the quality of our relationships.”

About Palestine:
“In the Gaza scenario, what we are seeing there is an acceleration of the deep settler colonial violence that has been part of our history as a Western privileged people. What we are seeing there is a microcosm, an acceleration of a feature of the world that has been experienced by many people through the times of empires and colonialism.”

The Los Cedros case is evidence that a more just future is possible. It is a constructive story in times when we almost only get dystopian news about the world we live in. It is a story humans need to not lose hope in democracy and civil engagement. It shows us how powerful and transforming civil society can be. How human rights and nature rights are interconnected and how justice can be implemented.

The cloud forest of Los Cedros in Ecuador was the first case in which a court clearly and irretrievable recognized the Rights of Nature. It ruled in favor of the forest and against an open pit copper mine and against its own government. This was only possible because a strong social movement fought for it.

The Rights of Nature movement and within it the Los Cedros case are the beginning of a revolution. They have the power to change everything. It means to respect nature as a subject, as a being, as a partner and not as an object, a commodity or a servant we can exploit and use as we like. It is a world view. If we live by it it would change how we organize our economy, our food supply, our transportation system, our housing, everything.

In this episode we visit the cloud forest and talk to biologist Elisa Levy-Ortiz who is a research coordinator in the Los Cedros nature reserve and was part of the group that started the legal case and the social movement around Los Cedros.

You'll learn:

What is the magic behind the Rights of Nature concept, why is it relevant?
How could Rights of Nature dissolve the systems colonialism and patriarchy brought us
What made the social movement around the Los Cedros case so successful
What does it need to implement justice and win a landmark court case
What is the connection between Rights of Nature and Human Rights
What is the connection between nature and justice


More information and connection:


Website of Los Cedros
https://reservaloscedros.org/

OMASNE, Alianza de Organizaciones por los Derechos Humanos y de la Naturaleza del Ecuador
https://www.instagram.com/omasne_ecuador/

CEDEMNA
https://www.instagram.com/cedenma.ec/

GARN, Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature
https://www.instagram.com/garnglobal/

It is now almost six weeks since the horrors in Israel and Palestine started – again, but this time in an unprecedented manner. It has never been so cruel so far. So much has been said about all of it already and it is still happening anyway. People are still getting killed on a daily basis by a huge military apparatus that is supported by the big Western countries of this world. Words don`t seem relevant or powerful enough in the face of this.
The increasingly loud and aggressive discussions about Israel and Palestine seem to create more and more division instead of an understanding and an end to the killing. We took some time to reflect how we could add something constructive to the horrors unfolding. Because especially in those dark and violent times Utopias are needed more than ever.

So in this episode we don`t give you a lecture about “the conflict”. We`ll tell you how we tried to create an Utopian moment in the midst of all the darkness, violence and despair happening. A tiny moment of freedom and justice from Germany for Gaza and for people in Germany that do not feel heard in their pain and disagreement towards what is happening. We`ll talk about:

How we organized a protest with watermelons and for freedom rights for all people
The very special German relation to Israel and Palestine
The difference between antisemitism and criticizing the government of Israel
The importance of freedom rights, especially the right of free speech
The relation between journalism and activism
A Haward study on the success of non-violent protest
A young man from Gaza who is sending messages of comfort to the protesters in Hamburg

More information about context and history of Israel/Palestine:

BOOKS:
The blue between sky and water by Susan Abulhawa
The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities by Simha Flapan
The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017 by Rashid Khalidi
Gaza: An Inquest Into Its Martyrdom by Norman Finkelstein
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappé

FILMS:
The Promise
Omar
5 Broken Cameras
The heart of Jenin

PODCASTS:
in German: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjYxIkjGvQE
in English: recommendations?

PEOPLE/ORGANISATIONS TO FOLLOW
Breaking the silence
B'Tselem
Motaz Azaiza
Noura Erakat
Issa Amro

We are back from a long brake - with even more passion and new tools to interconnect visionary people and bold ideas from around the world. Our mission still is to inspire a more just future through storytelling. Through constructive storytelling. And today Elisabeth will share some insights about the power of constructive storytelling.

You will learn the very basics of:
* what is constructive storytelling and solution journalism
* why humans are always paying attention to the horror stories and how that is affecting our mental health
* three principles + one tiny tool on how to brake the negativity cycle
* the areas where constructive storytelling is working: in your head, your home, society and business
* how constructive stories are used in media
* how Elisabeth came to constructive storytelling and what is her Utopia

You can dive deeper in all of this and more in our masterclasses. We work with you on the role you can play in all of this. How you can apply this power to your personal life, to your community, your movement or your social business. Online or in person. Information on our website: www.radioutopistan.de

Links:
Solution Journalism Network, USA: https://www.solutionsjournalism.org/
Constructive Institute, Denmark: https://constructiveinstitute.org/
Bonn Institute, Germany: https://www.bonn-institute.org/

When she had just become a journalist Ronja went to Afghanistan for almost two years.

There she did reports about the war, about drug addiction, poverty and other really devastating things. Sometimes all the misery left her hopeless and without perspective. So she started to look for the constructive aspects within her stories: for people who are trying to find a way out, for projects that are offering solutions.

This is called constructive journalism or solution journalism. She didn`t know it by then because it is a recent but very much needed version of journalism. It doesn`t mean to ignore the problems and crises but rather to focus on possible solutions.

Now, ten years after her first journey to Afghanistan Ronja wrote a book about constructive storytelling. She finished it last summer while the Taliban were taking over Kabul. On the phone in Germany she helped people escape the deadly regime thousand miles away. So, around her the world was falling apart and inside her head she was thinking about good news.

We talk about what stories and news can do to your mind and mood. How we all are storytellers in our everyday life and how we can turn the negative narratives into constructive ones without ignoring reality. She even has a formula for it. It goes like: Shit + X

Her book is called “How we see the world” in German. It's still not available in English yet, but soon it will be published in Polish, Czech and Korean. Maybe in Arabic.

You can find her here:
https://www.vonwurmbseibel.com/
@ronjavws