A thousand trees

..."It only takes one tree to make a thousand matches,
it only takes one match to burn a thousand tress. " ....

A Thousand Trees, written & performed by the Stereophonics, in the album "Word Gets Around".

Got me thinking about responsibility, and my understanding of that word.
My paradigm about responsibility comes from one of my most impactful experiences ever. Let's rewind, step by step, back to that meaningful moment:

2008 is a year to remember for many reasons, on a global perspective.
Personally, it was the first year in which I took the time to reflect on what moments had been critical for me, in my life until now, and what they meant, why they had happened the way they did, and is there something I should do about it if I ever find the answer to all my questions.

In the course of that thiking, I remembered one of the most impactful moments of my life; one which set me out on the Sustainable Development path and were I made to myself the commitment to care about the environmental consequences of my actions.

Looking back, it could have set me on a lot of other courses.

It happened in Aiesec.
Fall 2004, I’m in my LCP term at LC INT (now IT-SudParis), and I decide to attend EuroCo, the very first edition of this pan-european conference for LCPs. So, 121 LCPs from all the cities, from Lisbon (Protugal) to Iasi (Romania), and from Milan to Stockholm. 121 students from all over the continent, ages ranging from 19 to 26. On the 3d or 4th day of the conference, after a mind-blowing Outdoor Day where I truly understood the word “team building” and the challenge of facilitating a session, we went into a different kind of simulation.
A current-state-of-the-world reproduction, on a smaller scale.

Here is exactly how it happened.
As we entered the plenary room, each LCP was given a small piece of colored paper. Soon we found that there were different colors, and not all in the same quantity.
I was in the white group, the largest of all. In fact, I think we were almost 50 people in there. We had to split into 5 10-people groups. We were advised to all sit on the ground. The pink group, with 30 people, split as well in 3 smaller groups. the blue, green, and yellow, were accordingly getting smaller and smaller. In fact, the Yellow “group” was just one girl, from the Netherlands or Denmark maybe.
Then each group was given the details of its current situation, and of the situation of others. To sum it up, the largest, white group, represented countries with the most difficult socio-economico-political situation.
- We did not have stable politics ensuring the development, roll-out, and improvement of national policies
- our people did not have permanent access to education, even for children
- we did not represent a market significant enough that foreign investments would come fortify our economy: only international grants & donations were coming in
- possibly, we would undergo civil unrest and/or war, environmental pressure from flood and earthquakes, disease epidemics…
- women were being discriminated at all stages of the society, starting from school
- etc.
you get the picture.

For each group between us and the yellow group, the situation was increasingly better, so that this girl sitting on her chair, alone, represented what I could call the modern, western society:
- higher education available for the large majority of the population
- political stability and strong diplomatic relations with other well established nations
- public service for basic survival needs (housing, water, existing healthcare system)
- economy providing at least 80% of the population with jobs
- research & education running and cooperating with peers in other countries

After we read what we had, the facilitator (Caroline Gertsch from Switzerland, if memory serves) gave us our task:
- identify what you, as a country, can OFFER to and RECEIVE from countries that would be in the groups just “above” and just “below” your own.
- for the bottom group (49 people and me), we could only look “up”
- for the top group (the girl alone), she could only look “down”

We had 25 minutes to discuss in my group of 10 people what we could find to offer to any country, to attract investment. It was probably an intense discussion, full of interesting thoughts and remarks. It may as well have been dull. I don’t remember it. But I remember the conclusion. I can let you think about it if you want. You can take 5 minutes now, to think about what you would have said in our situation.


If you don’t want to spend this time now, I give the answer now, and you can do it later, by imagining, say, the second group (pink) and thinking about what they can offer and what they can receive from countries with relatively close situations.
Basically, all we had to offer were :
- our arms & legs for working
- our natural resources, scarce or hard to mine ourselves, due to lack of know-how and equipment.
And what we could expect from other countries:
- everything…

To be more specific, the first needs identified (my memory seems weak on this point)
- support for building infrastructure
- support for stabilizing the political society
- international help on meeting basic water & food demand
- funding for child education & support for creating quality higher education

That moment has impacted me up ot today, and will continue to do so: I don’t even have a clue how many countries in our actual word are part of that huge group so much in need of help.

I think I saw more the other end of the issue: the girl at the top of this giant pyramid of needs, the only one, closest to the top, had everyone to help. And she was really alone. She had everything the others did not even know they could want and have. I do not believe that this will happen by itself if we just let time pass. The top countries had a blank page and enough ink to write their way to the stars and back. Now the planet is crowded ("hot, flat & crowded" as some would put it) and we are "consuming" the environment faster than it renews itself. (see latest studies from Science & Vie in France, or your local science magazine, about the ratio between population and 'minimum required space of earth"-per-person... well, it doesn't look good right now, and its still going down).

A famous french writer wrote "if you dont do it, who will do it? if not now, when?" (André Gide, in Les Faux Monnayeurs).

That is the sense of responsibility that I got from that cold day of october 2004, in the middle of a room full of students I never imagined meeting one week before.

Last week, at the Winter National Conference, in my closing speech I mentionned the idea of "connecting oneself" to the world, and how aiesec helps you to do that, when you go through the full @Experience.

I felt connected to the world, and I saw myself sitting at the top of it and doing nothing but eating it away and not even knowing the consequences of my way of life and my actions.

I hope I made my experience understandable for you. If not, I'd like you to leave me a comment, and we can talk about it more in detail.

It's really ironic that we make matches from trees. We have to be careful with each match.

Goodnight world.