Bread, Bricks, and Belief: Communities in Charge of Their Future

These tales of troubled communities managing to set themselves right are inspirational, but they lack both analytical depth and the practical advice to serve as a guide for activists. Lean, co-editor of the magazine For a Change and a part of a group called Moral Re-Armament (which ``encourages people to examine their own lives and to seek inspiration from God as a first step in addressing the problems they see around them'') often simplifies things so that change seems sudden and miraculous. Left out is the hard, complicated work of great transformation. Instead, Lean points to religion as a key factor. Each chapter discusses a different case: in the Indian village of Ralegan Siddhi, the cycle of drought and hunger ended because of the work of one charismatic leader who had experienced a spiritual awakening; in Walkerswood, Jamaica, the descendants of landowners formed the Pioneer Club, which acquired a plot and established a cooperative farm to be inhabited only by married people; in Rio de Janeiro, notoriously crooked taxi drivers were reformed when they started cooperatives; in New Zealand, the Maori people took steps to preserve their disappearing language. Racial and sexual politics are disturbingly reduced to a superficial gloss. Photos not seen by PW. (Sept.)