The Festivals of Co-operation were held at the Tauhara Centre in Taupo, New Zealand from 1985-1988. These gatherings sought to “… celebrate the ways that New Zealanders can work together”.
These were the mid-80s when many community activists throughout New Zealand were trying to get to grips with the Great Betrayal of the Labour Party, and the consequences of neoliberal Rogernomics. Suddenly, our communities were facing growing unemployment and a widening gap between rich and poor. And there were worsening environmental issues that we needed to address.
Roger Douglas and Maggie Thatcher, and the other political leaders of the time, had a slogan of "There is No Alternative" (or TINA, for short). Ours was "There are Many Alternatives" (or TAMA). In gatherings such as these Festivals, we wanted to shine a light on the many other possibilities for community action and regeneration that we were also trying to create.
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The aim of our gathering was to bring together the scattered threads of an emerging co-operative movement in New Zealand, share our stories and skills, and "celebrate and affirm the spiritual and philosophical roots of co-operation".
Participants were variously involved in worker co-operatives, food co-ops, consumer co-ops, housing co-ops, co-operative banking and co-operative schools.
There was an emphasis on the philosophies of the British Economist E.F.Schumacher, author of "Small is Beautiful", who was proposing an economics "...as if people mattered".
The Festivals of Co-operation also held training sessions on how groups could become more effective. Popular workshop titles included "Ground Rules for Group Life", "Running Co-operative Meetings" and "How to Fight and Still Be Friends".
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We adopted the Rainbow flag as a symbol for our gatherings, because the international co-operative symbol at that time was the rainbow, as it had been since 1925. The colours represented the co-operative principles of this international movement, and it was also a visual symbol of "unity within diversity". (San Francisco gay activists adopted a similar rainbow symbol for their Pride flags in 1978, which quickly became more prominent in the media and public consciousness).
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After four years of Co-op gatherings, many of the core people involved in organising these festivals went on to create Heart Politics, another series of gatherings which were also held at the Tauhara Centre every six months for the next twenty years. Heart Politics also brought together a very diverse community of active citizens who have been working throughout New Zealand in social, economic, environmental and cultural fields.
