New Planning, New Man

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30983, 12 February 1966, Page 4

New Planning, New Man

A New World in the Making. By Danilo Dolci. Mac Gibbon and Kee. 327 pp.

There will be no peace while poverty exists, for un-der-privilege is itself a form of conflict. This, is the conviction of Danilo Dolci, known throughout the world as a champion of the poor and unemployed. In three earlier books Dolci described the causes and effects of poverty in Sicily. Now he considers the problem in the wider context of East Europe and West Africa. The citizen of the world, Dolci declares, has no encouragement to behave as such. He feels powerless to understand and influence the course of events and withiraws his affairs from those

of others. How then are men to plan and overcome their total social problems and find meaning and fulfilment? How are men to • visualise humanity as a unity and life as unified? What machinery is there for building a new united world? These are the questions with which Dolci wrestles. These are the questions which he took with him on his travels in Soviet Russia and Jugoslavia, Senegal and Ghana. In these countries he visited slums and centres of social planning much as the ardent tourist normally visits cathedrals and art galleries.

Dolci does not ask questions only, he offers a solution and illustrates its possibilities from the activities of the Study Centre in Partinico. His hopes lie in the activities of small voluntary groups planning and working for the betterment of society; groups which enable individuals to find a new meaning in life, a new relationship to others and a new power to influence events. The new man will arise from the new planning activities of new groups. Dolci turns to the construction of the new Jato Dam to illustrate the problem and the possibilities of his solution. The dam will irrigate nearly 25,000 acres of land and make it possible to replant 1600 acres of forest. It will provide work for men building the dam and irrigation channels and enable the yield from the land to be trebled and even quadrupled. The dam will provide new conditions essential to the growth of the area. People will be given the chance to live as a democratic group; to organise and see how trade unions, citizens’ committees, irrigation consortiums and other groups can work together. On the other hand, if the Mafia succeeds in diverting the money invested in the dam into the usual channels, the situation will only be altered superficially and much of the evil in old local traditions will be consolidated. Vigilance and well-thought-out action will be needed to avoid this possibility. The new climate of hope and faith must be used and step' by step genuine people’s committees must be formed to study the problems and bring their findings to the notice of the authorities. Action must come from below. But how is one to secure the involvement and participation of people in schemes for their betterment when they are demoralised by ignorance, disease, unemployment and exploitation? In all of this, Dolci confronts the most difficult human problems facing all aid schemes to eliminate poverty and its associated evils.