by Carla O’Gallchobhair

Preview of Life in Communism 2.1. Organic Belgium. Country of Forests, not of Highways, by Carla O’Gallchobhair. Post-revolutionary reconstruction in Belgium was taken for granted in the French lands. Our comrades, making free decisions in their brigades and assemblies, would drill up the ugly tarmacked streets and highways and replace them by cobble-stone and dirt roads, deconstruct  ugly, unneeded or outright toxic buildings by contained demolition, biological, maybe chemical methods, but mainly careful deconstruction and recycling, and introduce organic agriculture onto the last farm. Yet when Georgette and her mother, agronomist Francine, first re-visit Belgium in Year 7 after a longer absence, they are shocked to find that the revolution has been delayed by the continuation of the conflict between Walloons and Flanders, now under the guise of movements for and against highways and Belgium as a crossroads between France, Germany, and Britain. Later, Georgette will apply her revolutionary theory and practice learnt in Paris and Yvelines to resolve the struggles in her former homeland.