ICSA 2001 Conference at ZEGG

Bill Metcalf, outgoing ICSA president (center), with the organization team; Rueder Stanke, Christa Falcon Stone, Christiane Mrozek and Robert Hees. (from the left)

At Christmas 1998 when it became clear that the International Communal Studies Association (ICSA) intended to hold their next conference in June 2001 at ZEGG hardly anyone in the community could guess how moving this assembly of and with scholars around the world would become. Beyond an international conference much more came out of it like respect and recognition for ZEGG´s experimental work in community building, like moving moments of reconciliation between people from Germany and Israel and cordial contacts with guests from all over the world. Prior to the conference some of the participants were very distrustfull concerning ZEGG´s issues around love and sexuality and some negative media reputation. Some of the Jewish participants saw it impossible to cross the bounderies and step on German soil for the first time in their lives.

Beginning of the final meal on the Campus

The ICSA was founded in 1985 out of the cooperation of the US based "Communal Studies Association" and the "Kibbutz Studies Center" in Israel. It sees itself as an association that supports research about communal ways of living and organization on a global scale. Parts of those are communes, religious communities, ecovillages, Kibbutzim, Cohousing communities or so-called intentional communities like ZEGG. The ICSA also supports the exchange of information between scholars of social studies mainly working from within Universities and community members. Every three years the ICSA organizes a study conference. This time for the first time it happened outside of Universities. By choosing ZEGG as a venue they took a step inside one of their objects of research, which is special for such a scientific organization.

ICSA guests: Jan Bang from Norway

After ZEGG applied for the conference, Bill Metcalf from Australia visited for ten days during the Summercamp 1998 on behalf of the ICSA. He became an outspoken intercessor for ZEGG as a venue in 2001. In the book "Lived visions - communities around the globe" which he edited he writes: "ZEGG is a challenge with the guaranty to provoke us and challenge our beliefs in various ways." The ISCA director professor Yaacov Oved from Israel was very concerned in the beginning about ZEGG as a venue being in Germany. In the end he gave thanks for Bill Metcalf's strong intercession on behalf of ZEGG.

This time around 180 participants from almost 20 nations came to the scientific symposium. During the two and a half days they could choose among more then 70 events, among them strictly scientific research as well as many presentations by traditional

Agnieszka Komoch from Poland, secretary of the Global Ecovillage network

and recent community projects around the globe. Among familiar faces from german and european communities were also special guests like a University teacher form the Fiji Islands in the Pacific and a man and a woman from the Hutterite communities in the US and Canada. To get to the conference they entered a plane for the first time in their lives. For them it was a special step, as many Hutterite deny some of the

Manitonquat from the USA

modern features of the so-called technical progress of the last 150 years.

Thanks to a warm summer there were plenty of opportunities for informal talks during coffee brakes on the Campus and during warm nights on the village place. The conference language was English which brought a flood of bilingual signs to the buildings of ZEGG.

Professor Yaacov Oved from Israel, ICSA Director

We thank the organization of the ICSA for providing much place for an intense presentation of ZEGG. Right at the opening day there was space for a podium talk about the inner aims and ideas of ZEGG. It started with a song from "Canto General" by Pablo Neruda and Mikis Theodorakis. Twice the participants of the ICSA had the opportunity to witness and participate in a ZEGG Forum. During one of them one ZEGG member formulated his insight that peace in Palestine will only be possible once the inner wounds from the Holocaust will have healed and reconciliation between

John Stahl, member of the Hutterer USA

jewish and german people is allowed to take place. He had witnessed the historic hurt in many of the Jews that had come from different countries even when they were born after 1945. Without reaching this inner peace with Germany they were not able to create peace in Israel. This statement was perceived greatfully and led to intense and moving moments with the guests from Israel, who shared their stories and experiences with Germany in the protected space of trust of the Forum. During the following days they gave us great gifts as some shared deep felt feelings and jewish rituals on our (german) ground. They were deeply touched from the happyness of this new experience of a different Germany this time.

and Silke Hagmaier from the "Seven Lime Trees" community in Germany

About 50 participants stayed on after the ICSA and took the opportunity to join the Post Conference Tour to three other big intentional communities (Ufa-Fabrik, Kommune Niederkaufungen and Ökodorf 7 Linden) and to Berlin. Some of the participants stayed on for the International Community Meeting.

Christa Falkenstein, a main organizer concluded after the end of the conference: "ZEGG now has become visible as a serious community on an international level. -any of the participants knew little about it when they came. By their personal experience they found respect for what we do here.

I think that many of the new contacts will turn into invitations in the future to present our community idea and the Forum work. Students interested in alternative life styles will be able to come and experience us in the context of existing field study programs. Maybe we could give new energy even to the Kibbuzim in Israel, an old and respected community movement who presently are stuck by an existential crisis due to inner conflicts and state intervention. Participants from Israel had spoken about the spark of hope they had seen that the idea of community living will survive."

ZEGG