There are endless calls for “discussion” and “coming together” to solve “our communal problems” and “find harmony again”.
Very well-meaning as they are, all of such nice and heart-warming initiatives will be doomed to fail, as they are exactly what hasn't worked over the past 5 decades: feel-good events that deal with the discomfort on the surface, and completely ignore the very uncomfortable roots of the Aurovillage problem.
The issue is that the feeling of DISCOMFORT that a vast amount of “spiritual” and “new-age” people feel when any form of conflict arises, is and has always been one of the biggest weapons of abusive people in their fight to get what they want: they force a very unjust situation on the population, who are then pushed in the very uncomfortable position of having to REACT in order to get the injustice undone. They are forced to choose between leaving things as they are, or creating a huge conflict. As they are already totally scared and uncomfortable in very tiny conflicts, the choice is quickly made. And some excuse is found in order to not have to deal with the discomfort of facing the truth: they are total cowards.
A friend recently told me “It seems to me if 800 adults aren’t comfortable with what’s happening, there needs to be mediation of some kind”.
By that same logic, please tell all girls and women who are being raped that they need to accept mediation. Because if they simply fight off the rapist, 50% of the people involved aren't comfortable with what's happening.
What on earth is the logic behind defending the discomfort of people who have benefited from an abusive system, and are now forced to stop that? Clearly, the reality of what Aurovillage is, is STILL not seen by many. They still believe in the rosy narratives that the Aurovillagers have been allowed to put out for more than 50 years, and cannot just let go of their beautiful beliefs of all the “good things” that have been created in Auroville.
A bit of a crude comparison, but really, it's the same principle: The “Cinquantenaire” in Brussels, the park created for the 50th anniversary of Belgium in 1880, is a very impressive architectural feat: a site with huge museum “palaces” and very high arches crowned with statues. All built by Leopold II, the Belgian king who owned the Congo as his private property, and with it the whole of the Congolese population as his personal slaves, and who thereby became extremely wealthy (there's a reason why Antwerp is central in the global diamond trade).
He built this Jubilee Park, with the money from the Congo. While in Congo, mountains of cut-off human hands arose, chopped off from the unwilling slaves.
Is it still looking very impressive if you know that extra bit of history? Believe me, no Belgian school informs their students of this fact.
The same goes for Auroville: are the things created here still impressive if one views the whole picture of how the cult appropriated the Mother's project, with nobody being able or allowed to object?
When I say these things, the Aurovillagers and the “neutrals” blame me for being “negative” and “angry” and anyway find that I speak in a not “new-agey” enough way, and purely therefore discard what I say as “energetically not what I consider spirituality and a higher life to be, and thus FALSE, duh”.
Fine, everyone is free to think and consider whatever they want, but actually, how do they assess the state of the world? The Mother had already said from the very start: “For those who are satisfied with the world as it is, Auroville obviously has no reason to exist.”
So if people feel that there's not that much wrong in the world and in Aurovillage, they obviously see no reason for a fierce battle.
But what seems to be much more the case (and almost fully the case with the older generation) is that people very well see the immensely rotten state of the world, feel also that things are not as they seem in Auroville, but also feel completely disheartened and powerless, and, having deep identifications with the childish attitudes of the 60's hippie/flower-power movement, can't see any solution beyond “sitting together and talk it all out”. The fact that that has proved to be a total, utter, complete and full failure for the past 60 years seems not to be an argument they consider: we need somehow to talk "better" or something.
The reason why the hippie movement failed is very simple: no mature understanding of the world they didn't like and wanted to change. It was a very much needed, but childish beginning of an awakening that now is coming to fruition, but in a very different form and with totally different people. The hippie movement was no more than the collective, societal expression of the “spoiled brat” who simply throws a tantrum and says “I doesn't want this”. Immediate gratification and instant solutions were all that was sought, and it never matured out of that kindergarten stage.
The privileged flower-power youth rightly felt and saw that the world was in a very, very bad state and that things were extremely wrong.
But they were too short-sighted, too self-obsessed to be able to understand the real issues, and to look beyond the surface. There are very dark reasons for the fact that we live in endless war, which is called “peace-time”. There are very dark reasons for why we live in a rat-race, have a clique of celebrated billionaires while most of the world lives in dire poverty, and there are very dark reasons for all the fakeness and pretence in our daily lives. In fact, the reason for the state of our western society is the darkest secret one can ever find: it is inconscience and evil itself, it is the refusal and negation of everything that is Divine and Truthful, Beautiful and Loving.
While all of these people can understand all that very well theoretically, they are incapable of then turning that knowledge into action. Because solving this issue requires going down into the cesspit, and clean it up from down there.
The hippie people are too scared to even consider such things, and are, since 60 years, from a place they consider “the moral high-ground”, trying to wave magic wands and use magic spells that should somehow make it all go away without actually having to DO anything.
It obviously never worked, and they grew a serious amount of cognitive dissonance to cover the unhappiness this failure brought about.
Just as with Aurovillage, some superficial minuscule “successes” are blown up to be world-shattering events, and a propagandistic repeating of some feel-good slogans turned the whole affair into some cult-like situation: let's all just confirm each other's rosy narratives about how it's all not so bad, in order to cover up the reality that is REALLY horrifying.
So here I am again, repeating once more: IT IS NOT ONLY THAT BAD, IT IS WORSE. Because we've been lacking the collective courage to actually DO something about it, since forever. So we've been looking away and pretending it isn't all that bad, with the result that it only got worse and worse.
We are held hostage by a group of extremely skilled narcissists and manipulators, who have a natural, deep mastery of psychological abuse. They will make you proud of your own stupidity, and feel sorry for rapists and child-molesters. They will have you as a puppet on a string, and make you do whatever THEY decide. While you still believe it's all your own choice.
If you're still not convinced, let me spell it out for you.
Yes, Auroville has known rapists on the Master List. They have not been dealt with, because Auroville never was a mature society that could deal with injustice. On the contrary, the basis of Auroville's perversion into Aurovillage was exactly thàt, from the start: a big cover-up for selfishness and power-games, for injustice, abuse and criminal activities.
Whenever someone would get upset about some real excesses, there would always be a group who abused the goodness of those people against themselves, so they would literally feel compassionate about rapists, and totally forget the victims and the suffering they have to endure. And have to KEEP enduring, as the process of the ACKNOWLEDGEMENT of the crimes is always aborted or diverted before we get to some real justice situation.
The sad stories of the victims are so old-world, aren't they, and the stories of how the perpetrators are suffering so much more gripping and exciting. It's so much more “new world” to focus on the deeper feelings of rapists than to have to listen to the boring stories of girls and women who are raped.
Can you feel how easily we get into a very dark alley?
Aurovillage is a prime example of how such psychological tricks work. Because while everyone is obsessing over the exciting reasons behind the rapist's urges, nobody is actually SOLVING anything and DOING something about the very urgent and horrible situation of having rapists roaming free here.
Picture the situation clearly: white people in India are still quite revered, and rape is still generally seen as an enormous shame for the girl, more so than for the rapist. Resulting in the Indian girls generally preferring to commit suicide than to file a police complaint. How comfortable do you feel knowing that Auroville doesn't address this issue and lets known western rapists on the loose, free to interact with all the Indian girls that pass through?
And it gets worse: the people who are calling this situation out are being blamed for spreading false rumours or focusing on negativity or having a personal axe to grind. EVERY excuse is good to not actually have to DO something about it. Because nobody wants to be the “bad guy” and take some serious action to make sure Auroville has no rapists.
All of it is constantly brushed away: “he is our brother too”, “he has been here for so long” “he has done so much for Auroville”, “we had a good talk and he understands and says he won't do it anymore”.
Total immaturity. Nothing in the world will ever get better with such an attitude.
Are you still defending the "success" of Auroville?
So what is the solution then? Do you really think the Mother's Dream included rapists? Narcissists who defend rapists? Psychopaths who manipulate your goodwill so that you end up defending rapists?
Is covering up and pretending nothing is really happening going to make all of it go away?
Now that the Government is FORCED to step in and clean up the mess, how do you think THEY are now treated? Oh, what a surprise: now the Government is the bad guy that is suddenly, out of the blue, descending on a totally peaceful Auroville for some very inexplicable reasons, and by doing so, infringing on the Sacred Human Rights of the Aurovillagers! Rapists, predators, manipulators, profiteers, thieves, extorters, abusers, bullies, murderers included. Can't touch them, they're human too!
Even though these narratives make no sense whatsoever when you think about it, aren't they much more pleasant to believe? Isn't it much more comfortable to pretend that I am just exaggerating, spreading false rumours, have a personal axe to grind, and am just a very dark and frustrated person? A lone wolf, a deranged person who for no obvious reason just wants to bring destruction to a beautiful project, to innocent and peaceful people who have been living and working here so diligently since so long, wanting nothing but peace and to be left alone? By the way, why would that “to be left alone” be so important for the Aurovillagers? A very uncomfortable thought no? Better quickly drop it and think something rosy.
Feel free to choose for yourself. Just be ready to own up to the fact that as long as you don't KNOW what happens here, you just MIGHT be defending extremely nasty people.
My advice to everyone who wants to be neutral, “bring back peace and harmony”, and “listen to both sides” is: stop listening to anything. Open your eyes and see the reality. The one that closed eyes allowed to fester here over 50 years. And then DO something about it.
