I'm not quite sure what to make of this story yet. I spend a lot of time arguing that the best way to build a better planet is to bring everything we have to the table--technology, urban planning, architecture, education and entertainment--in an all-out effort to help us make village style connections across a globe-sized space. My reasoning is that we have minds that are predisposed to separate our own little spheres of life from the rest of the planet, even though we live now, more than ever before, with gigantic geographic footprints that are quickly rendering the very idea of place as an archaic and almost meaningless notion.
And then along comes an activist village chief, Silvino Moreyra, desperate to turn around the lives of a group of indigenous Argentinians whose life histories tell a story that is all too familiar to a Canadian -- a spiral of depression, substance abuse, suicide. Moreyra declares a 60 day quarantine, effectively cutting off the Guarani from the rest of the world. The quarantine is so popular that the Guarani vote to extend it for another 60 days. All signs suggest that they will want to make the isolation permanent. At present, the barricade between the Guarani village and the rest of the world is a bit artificial -- Argentinian social services deliver food to sustain the community. But if Moreyra has his way, this will be a temporary measure. His aim is isolation, independence, and self-sustainability.
Other villages are paying attention and considering similar measures. What I like about it is that, in a case such as this one, the villagers are being encouraged to pay attention to each other, to their own precious piece of real estate and to how their own plot of the planet can be coaxed to give them life. But what bothers me is that the wider world continues around them. The air heats up, the fresh water dwindles, biodiversity collapses. Erecting walls might serve as an effective stopgap solution in a case like this, but it's hard to see it as a promising general approach. I hope things go well for the Guarani, but I think the rest of us will have to think of something different.
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