This fall, from Can Pipirimosca we propose workshops and trainings in which to learn, meet and share. We will start with a weekend training on Dismantling Hate Speech.
You can choose between two weekends, September 27-28, or November 8-9.
You will find more information about the Dismantling Hate Speech training in the registration form:
We also continue to organize the Ecology, Consciousness and Activism training, where we will learn and experience the concepts of deep ecology, while doing personal and group work that will help us and recharge our energies to continue doing what takes care of life and the planet.
You will find more information about the ecology retreat in the registration form:
In a society where competition is esteemed above cooperation, it is seen as normal that the adversary, even the enemy, is someone to beat or overtake, not someone to dialogue with, to learn from, to care for or to cooperate with.
Winners are our role models - the example to follow; while losers carry a negative stigma: they are those who have not done well in the best of cases, or those who have failed or even those who are bad.
This way to put it not only pushes us to be winners, but it also does not prepare us to be losers and, what is even worse, it hides the point of view of the loser or enemy from us. We thus have an almost pathological inability to empathize with those we consider to be the bad guys in any story.
And not only that, but we confuse circumstances or actions with the individual, taking it to a personal level and dehumanizing the person we see as different or as an enemy. We all understand that if we want to fight poverty, our enemy is not the poor, but the factors that cause people to be poor, just as in the fight against hunger, our enemies are not the hungry.
In the same way, we could apply this vision to ideologies, attitudes, actions, groups, or even societies, cultures or countries. If we internalize the assumption that our enemies are not people, but rather ideas, actions or attitudes, and we understand that our best ally is precisely the person behind the image of the enemy; if we listen to understand the other side and we come to understand how a human can end up in that situation, we will have dismantled the negative image of the enemy and we will be much closer to resolving the conflict.
We should not be fighting against criminals but against everything that causes people to commit criminal acts. Similarly, we can understand that in sexist, racist, fascist, xenophobic and homophobic people, our focus should be on helping these people relinquish these ideologies that are based on denial, denigration or hatred towards others. It is as simple (or as complicated) as changing fascist or criminal to "person with fascist ideas" and "person who commits criminal acts", and our focus would be on helping that person relinquish those ideas or attitudes. The same can be applied to murderers, abusers, pedophiles and genocidaires. Although if we are emotionally involved in the events, it will be much more complex and we will need support, tools and empathy to be able to travel an uncomfortable and difficult path, full of compassion, empathy, listening without judging, where the damage is revealed and our pain is welcomed: in order to be able to see the humanhood behind the person who caused the wound.
In the collective imagination, both narrative and audiovisual, of the West the image of the enemy remains dehumanized and polarized to unreal extremes. In films, stories and narratives, there is an extreme polarization of good/bad, friend/enemy. The good guys represent “us” and we identify with them. We are shown their humanity and goodness, they have families and are citizens with whom we can identify.
The bad guys represent the “others,” and the plot of the story places them on the side of the enemies, those to be defeated or eliminated. These people are not only shown as perverse, malevolent and tyrannical, lacking feelings and scruples, but they are treated as if they were expendable objects. In fiction, we cry for the wounded soldier who is the protagonist’s companion, but we applaud when a group of people on the side of the enemy are machine-gunned or bombed. They can be dozens or hundreds; just like stones in a wall, they are expendable and eliminable. Enemies have no family, no childhood, no feelings, and their lives have no value.
The problem is that this polarization has not remained in the world of fiction, but has become the norm of how we act and see the world and others. To dismantle this polarization, we must be able to see the evil in the good and the goodness in the bad, in order to ultimately understand that we are all simply human.
The great (and uncomfortable) exercise of humility - of recognizing ourselves on the side of the bad and understanding how the bad can be seen on the side of the good is what can help us dismantle the image of the enemy.
It is something that we humans do: looking for news or information that confirms what we already think and denying those that question it or have the opposite opinion. That is why we tend to consume the stories that make the enemy worse, and not those that humanize it and make it similar to us. It is easier for us to stick to what we already think than to question it and accept the complexity and the great grayscale that is life. It is easier to think in Black/White, Good/Bad, Right/Wrong, denying points of view that question our own and taking for granted those that reinforce it. It is easier than accepting the complexity of every situation and recognizing (and respecting) that there are many different versions of reality and that each person has his own.
It is uncomfortable to realize that our wealth and development are based, in part, on the aggression and plundering of European colonialism. It is uncomfortable and painful to see ourselves genocidal in allowing the drowning of immigrants in the Mediterranean. Even so, we can see the underlying humanity in ourselves.
Ending conflicts and injustices means stopping seeing people as enemies and starting to ask ourselves, understand and face what factors have led a person (or society) to act or think that way, both towards others and towards ourselves. And above all, it means personal work, full of humility and compassion, to see (and respect) the humanity in all people, regardless of their skin colour, origin, religion or ideology, whether they think like us or have opposing beliefs, whether they are friends or enemies.
Because our true enemy is the dehumanisation of others, very visible in hate speech, but not so visible when we apply it to those we consider enemies or those we dislike or label as bad. The dehumanisation of the enemy distances us from being able to understand each other and is a clear sign that in our society we have great shortcomings. And just as I began, I end, talking about losers and failures. Our failures clearly indicate where we can improve. Because being unable to see the human side of the enemy shows the great failure of our empathy.
Article author: Pere Vidal - increiblesostenible.org
Article published under CreativeCommons: free use, source must be cited (increiblesostenible.org)and derivatives must also be free and name the author.
Pere is an environmental and social activist, and is currently also a councillor for the CUP in Valls, an anti-capitalist and assembly party. In Valls, Vox ( a far-right party) has a councillor. Since January 2024, Pere has been giving a talk in different towns “a look at the Middle East conflict from empathy and non-violence”, preceded by a documentary about Israeli objectors. In these talks, Pere shares his experience in Israel and the occupied territories as a starting point to focus on the insensitivity of European and Western society to the human suffering of others, as well as the growth of hate speech and racism and colonialism still alive in our society, inviting us to deconstruct the image of the enemy to open the doors to meet ourselves as humans.
Pere also conducts workshops to deconstruct the image of the enemy, inviting a more compassionate and empathetic approach to the other as a basis for deactivating conflicts and dismantling prejudices. If you would like to participate or organize talks or workshops, contact the author.
We all know that the current situation supposes a change in society. What I do not see so clearly is the image that many have of this change and how many people will return to seek the same profit oriented approach as soon as economy and western life style gets active again ... I also wonder how many people thought that we lived in an ideal society that needed no change...
For those of us who have traveled and lived in other cultures and countries and have had the gift of seeing our own culture from outside, the image that many have that we live in an advanced country or first world, is seriously questioned. Of course, we call ourselves advanced because we use only economic and technological criteria.
The question that arises is that if the criteria was how we value care, either to the weak or to the disadvantaged, either to the planet or to ecosystems, if the criteria was how we welcome, integrate and learn from other cultures, how we relate to the neighbours and our abilities for cooperation instead of competition, perhaps we would have a surprise and we'll realize that in many ways we are in the third world and that in these aspects, a jungle tribe is much more advanced than us.
The paradox is that we also live in the third world if we use humility as a criteria, and it is difficult for society to be mature enough to accept that we are less and that we can learn a lot from those people that we allow to drown in the sea. Yes, regarding humanity, we are also in the third world, this society that has resources to end hunger but not only allows people on the planet to starve to death, but also exploits and steals natural resources of the wrongly-named "Poor" countries.
And applying simply these economic / technological criteria to value our environment now turns against us. It is a double edged sword. If we continue to maintain this vision, the situation that we will find in our post-confinement society already looks bleak ... It is but an opportunity to change the criteria that we use to measure society and our own lives. We are in a society that lives ignoring death, when facing death helps us to put real value on things. The most important things in life are not measured in money terms, you don't need to wait to have the breath of death on your nape to think about it. We are in a society where happiness is sought through consumption, putting hope of being happier in buying or consuming, when this has actually led us to constant unhappiness and to planet destruction with excessive and abusive consumption. We are in a society focused to educate consumers and workforce to produce, not conscious mature people with own criteria.... Is it that difficult to see that it is not about having more but being better? To be a good person, you don't need money but humility and many other things not based on money.
If there is anything we can learn from this situation, it is that we can live with less, and we can do lots of meaningfull things without money.
If we change the criteria that we use to measure our life, we can get out of this rich and continue to be rich for the rest of our lives:
Rich in relationships, in growth and personal knowledge, in cooking skills, in cooperating and helping each other, in quality friends ...
Rich in having a less polluted, more fertile nature with more diversity. This spring is the most fertile ever I can remember.
Rich in knowing how to supply ourselves, cultivating, repairing, and living in a more simple way.
Rich in knowing how to use time in a different way, in finding happiness in attitude, not in objects.
Rich in deeper conversations, in less superficiality, in knowing how to listen to others, in humility, wisdom and maturity.
Rich in leaving our planet better than how we found it, in feeling satisfaction of doing what contributes to others and to ourselves.
Rich in knowing that the best wealth is having an environment of friends and people who you love and love you.
Rich in giving meaning to life and knowing that when you face death you will do it calmly, with a smile and with the certainty that your stay in this world has contributed to you and to others, that you have used your time to nourish yourself and at the same time contribute positively arround you.
Let the poor be the ones who accumulate money and dedicate all their time to accumulate more because the criteria that marks their lives is economic profit ... I am saddened when I think that perhaps in the last moments of their lives they will realize that everything they have accumulated in money or belongings is useless to them because life is measured in time and in what we have put time into, and they have dedicated their time to sell it in exchange for money ...
Now what Eduardo Galeano said comes to my mind: "poor people, what would really be called poor people, are those who don't know that they are poor."
And not only that, but we confuse circumstances or actions with the individual, taking it to a personal level and dehumanizing the person we see as different or as an enemy. We all understand that if we want to fight poverty, our enemy is not the poor, but the factors that cause people to be poor, just as in the fight against hunger, our enemies are not the hungry.
The bad guys represent the “others,” and the plot of the story places them on the side of the enemies, those to be defeated or eliminated. These people are not only shown as perverse, malevolent and tyrannical, lacking feelings and scruples, but they are treated as if they were expendable objects. In fiction, we cry for the wounded soldier who is the protagonist’s companion, but we applaud when a group of people on the side of the enemy are machine-gunned or bombed. They can be dozens or hundreds; just like stones in a wall, they are expendable and eliminable. Enemies have no family, no childhood, no feelings, and their lives have no value. 
