Dispatches from the Future of Eden — Part 1
By: Rudston 'Ravi' Cullen
Tags: Utopia, Dystopia, South Africa, Garden Route, Vision

It’s 2031 and I’m reporting from that part of South Africa previously known as the Eden District Municipal region[1] — more commonly known as the Garden Route — and looking back in time after an absence of 10 years …

The Utopian Vision

Since 2025 people living here have been mobilizing to decide their own future: with astonishing results. Totally disillusioned with the toxic, corrupt and polarizing workings of the party political system, grassroots participation in decision making has become the norm. Throughout the year, randomly selected groups of citizens from all races and classes routinely participate in so-called peoples’ assemblies [2]focusing on a range of issues which the online polls of the local community action networks[3] have shown the local communities find to be needing attention.

All participants in each assembly are required to participate in preparatory training workshops in which they share their stories, learn listening skills and prepare themselves to take part in difficult and challenging conversations: they learn that collective truth-seeking is the goal, not truth-claiming … In the next stage participants are provided with information and opinions from experts on the issues concerned. Over several days the participants working together with the experts decide on the course of action they will be recommending: the municipal councils are then obliged to implement these actions — they are now indeed the servants of the popular will. Now, properly informed on what the citizens of their municipality actually require of them and incentivized to remain in their positions by implementing that, the outcomes are in the interest of all. These decisions also feed into what has become known as participatory budgeting[4], whereby the community is involved in how municipal revenues are spent.

Participants in these assemblies soon discovered how amazing it is to find that they share common ground and values with people from vastly different backgrounds. They have discovered the joys of being engaged citizens determining their collective future together.

Each year in a regional “Vision Summit”, the community presents the results of these assemblies as well as the input from a wide range of participants — ranging from school students, to businesses, to non-profits, to state institutions like the Parks Board — in the annual community vision quest that is the basis of these events. It is an occasion to celebrate what has been achieved, to give voice to the aspirations of all and to call the local councilors to account.

This has long been a region typifying South Africa’s enormous disparities in wealth and income[5], but particularly after shocking unrest and rioting shook the country to its roots in the early 2020s, many of the most privileged have awakened to the fact that these inequities are not sustainable: that if our ship is not to sink with all on board, our mindsets have to change. Some have even come to see that, in fact, letting go of some of their ‘privileges’ can — believe it or not — lead to a better quality of life! They have discovered that paying their staff a living wage can be more rewarding than the latest Ferrari or the luxury skiing trip in the Austrian Alps; that investing their surplus in setting up community hubs fostering trainings in life skills, small business development and social enterprises and providing their fellow community members with the skills they need to thrive in the days of the Fourth Industrial Revolution can be an incredibly rewarding experience: outweighing the mere salving of consciences through “charity” that left the status quo unchanged. In the past 5 years, the Gini coefficient of the region has dropped drastically and with it the crime rate.

Inspired by workshops led by a visiting team from the Mondragon Corporation[6] — a federation of worker cooperatives based in the Basque region of Spain, employing about 80,000 and having revenue of over EUR 12 billion — many employers are aiming to reduce the wage disparities between the top level management and the lowest paid workers in their companies to a maximum factor of 10 …

Many of the guesthouses and enterprises engaged in tourism have signed up with the “Proudly Garden Route Charter”, whereby employees become shareholders and all enterprises are at least carbon neutral and environmentally friendly. Tourism in the region — previously built largely upon exploiting the climate and natural environment that Mother Nature has bequeathed us with little effort on our part, has now taken on a new dimension showcasing progressive social innovation in action.

The area has suffered several droughts and wildfires and few of its residents are not aware that we are now experiencing the climate crisis which was ignored by those in power for far too long. Though it is late in the day, the residents of the region are succeeding to put pressure on their local and national representatives to do what is necessary to counter and mitigate climate change. This is a region famous for its flora and fauna, forests, mountains, lakes and its Indian Ocean shoreline. With the help of regulation combined with educational programs the rich natural legacy of the region is being protected and, where damaged, regenerated. Protecting the incredibly rich Fynbos Plant Kingdom [7] is now seen as way more urgent than building yet more elite golf courses …

After the devastation wrought upon the economy by the Covid19 pandemic which continued through to 2023 this region which has traditionally relied almost entirely on tourism started finally to confront the challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the need to change to alternative energy sources. Large scale intensive adult education programs were rolled out, this time sponsored by big business and totally independent of the now defunct and discredited state controlled and corrupt ‘Setas’. Many previously employed in tourism were able to be retrained. Working remotely had become the norm during the pandemic and this enabled many hi-tech workers to migrate to the Garden Route and to participate in these training programs.

Municipalities tired of being dependent on the centralized, expensive, unreliable and coal-fueled electricity supplied by Eskom radically changed their energy policies and started initiatives to generate their own community-based energy from alternative sources like wind, waves and solar energy.

To be continued in the next Dispatch from the Future of Eden …

P.S. I just can’t bring myself to write the equivalent “Dystopian Vision” at the moment …