Filming human Unity
Olivier and Hilde moderated this debate. The participants were B, Basile, Hans and Doudou Diène. The first half of the debate was spent on defining Human Unity whereby every one got to put forth their idea of what they felt Human Unity encompassed. Human Unity they all agreed was a theme that was difficult to pin down. After the round of introductions each participant spoke about what Human Unity was to them.
Doudou Diène quoted two proverbs from his home country Senegal and they went like this: Man is the medicine of Man and In the forest the branches of the trees are fighting while their roots are kissing. He went on to elaborate on these proverbs that all the ills of man can only be cured by man and the tree branches were a metaphor for all the differences in humans while at their root all are equal or the same. This set the tone for the rest of the discussion. He also went on to emphasize that we have to practice human unity on an individual level everyday with absolute commitment to be tolerant and understanding. B shared a story about his interaction with Russian volunteers who came to work at Matrimandir. Due to India’s relations with the erstwhile USSR, some volunteers came to Auroville and through his interactions with them; B discovered their humanity and that they were not enemies as he was lead to believe. In the second half of the debate Hans spoke about how while filming his documentary about the Auroville units realized that there was not enough locals involved and hence his footage did not feature enough of the locals. He then had to film the village action program so that there would be local representation in his film. This made him feel that involving local people in Auroville activities would be a way of practicing Human Unity. Olivier confirmed that since his arrival in Auroville he had enjoyed his interactions with the Tamils he learnt a lot from their culture. Later the audience were allowed to pose questions. Though there were not many questions for the panel members, Marco was asked whether Human Unity will be recurring theme in the festival from now onwards to which he replied that it can be a continuing feature. The debate concluded with Marco commenting ‘If carrots can practice unity why cant we humans?’