Alain Lipietz, spokesman of the French Green Party, adresses his warmest regards to the meeting of your party and to you willingness to promote the creation of a Japanees Green Party.
The European experience of Green parties is now some 20 years old, yet the French party was founded in 1984 only and some european parties are still in the process of national unification.
Today, green ministers participate to the government of Finland, Italy and France, and in many local governments.
This experience allows me to point out some key conditions to success.
The first key condition is the ability of a Green Party to present a general program to society. To be sure, environment is a specific issue that other parties would not take as a central issue. But the risk is to isolate this issue from other issues shapping our human life and the fate of the planet. Behind the defence of natural environment, political ecology seeks a model of sustainable devlopment and promotes the ethical values of solidarity, autonomy, accountability and democracy. As a result, the concern of any Green party encompasses such issues as social justice, self-management, feminism, pacifism, solidarity towards third world and ethic minorities.
The second key issue is the assesment of the autonomy of political ecology, that is its indepencance from classical political parties. Political ecology opposes both to the economic liberalism and political authoritarianism of the right, and to the productivism and the statism of the traditionnal left. Hence the necessity to create an independant Green party.
The third key condition is the ability to make alliances. First of all,of course, alliances should be built with social movements and organizations defending at least part of the above values. But eventually, when the Green party is aknowledged as representing an alternative vision of human progress, it will have to make contractual alliances with traditionnal progressive parties.
Dear friends, you are now at the first steps of that long process. You will have to be patient and modest. But, considering the importance of Japan, the fate of our little planete and the future of our chidren will depend on your success.
All my best wishes to you.