Recorded on June 5, 2064 at the Underground Community Kitchen, Natural Building Learning Center, Lampedusa.

Wassim Beltaief: The air below ground is noticeably cooler than outside. The kitchen is built into the rock, with a small fountain running in one corner and rows of tropical plants along the walls. It’s a practical space, used often, though the humidity gives it a heavy feel. I sit across from Rawiya, who holds a clay cup of mulukhiyah tea between her hands. I am writing down my initial impressions while Charlotte is pairing the recording implants. I last saw Rawiya at the Tunis Accords two years earlier. She does not seem very different comparing now and then.

Charlotte Bez: Hello, my name is Charlotte Bez. I will be one of the interviewers today, together with my comrade Wassim.

Beltaief: Hello, I am Wassim Beltaief. I am so glad to be here.

Bez: We’re interviewing Rawiya for the Communes oral history project. We’re recording in the community kitchen at the Natural Building Learning Center in Lampedusa. Rawiya, are you ready?

Rawiya Sardi: Absolutely.

Bez: Can you introduce yourself first?

Sardi: My name is Rawiya Sardi.

Bez: What does Rawiya mean?

Sardi: It means storyteller in Arabic [Laughs.] To be honest, it is a name I once found ironic. I never thought I’d end up telling the story of the past, and I definitely never expected my own life to be something worth remembering. But history has a way of deciding for you. Sometimes, the story chooses you.

Bez: Well, it can’t get better than that. Can you tell us where we are sitting now?

Sardi: We’re underground in the Center’s community kitchen. We teach people how to build homes that don’t drown in winter and don’t burn in summer, using the earth itself. It wasn’t always the case, though. This building was previously a refugee detention center.

Bez: Interesting. Did you grow up here?

Sardi: No. I smuggled myself here.

Bez: How did you arrive?

Sardi: The way most do. By boat. Small and overcrowded. For sure not made to cross the Mediterranean. We left from Sfax, on the other side compared to where we are now. Twenty-three of us, mostly young men, but also two women with children, one was pregnant. No one spoke much. Some whispered prayers under their breath, gripping whatever belongings they had managed to carry. We thought we were headed for Europe, but the smugglers handed us over to Frontex in the middle of the sea, and we were taken in military ships.

Beltaief: Can you tell us more about that? What made you leave your home?

Sardi: [Pause.] It’s a long story, but it started in Matmata, where I grew up, in the south of Tunisia. My family was part of the Farmers’ Uprising in 2039. We were fighting for water access, for survival. My sibling—they were only sixteen—suddenly left on a smuggler’s boat to Lampedusa. They believed Europe was the answer, that it would save them. I stayed behind, trying to hold things together, but eventually, I had to go find them.

Beltaief: I see. How is your sibling called?

Sardi: They are called Mabrouk, [Speaks in Arabic.] مبروك.

Bez: How was life in Matmata back then?

Sardi: Oh, that's a long time ago. The kind of long that feels both distant and etched into your bones. I remember the silence first. Matmata was quiet, even when it was full of life. Inside of the houses buried in the earth, sound does not bounce. My grandmother’s house was carved into the hillside. It was cool in summer and filled with fig trees, olives, a big bougainvillea. She kept goats too, and we’d help her make cheese in the mornings, pressing it in cloth while learning to sing Amazigh songs.

My sibling was funny, they were always playing with wires and scraps they collected from the market. Their bike had no brakes, they used a crashed plastic bottle instead, we could hear them baking in front of the house. They were a genius, they once made a tiny wind turbine in the courtyard that would start turning when the desert wind came through. They said they will make the wind do work for us.

I went to school until just before the uprising. We read literature and sciences in Arabic, sometimes in French, though I never liked the French part. When the protests started, the school shut down. Our teacher was killed for water in the first days of the Farmers’ Uprising. But even in the middle of that chaos, I remember people holding onto hope. When my grandmother saw us, she used to say: “The earth has memory, and she remembers who treats her well.”

Bez: Can you tell us more about the Farmers’ Uprising? What exactly happened?

Sardi: It started with water, what else could it be? In Tunis, the government made this massive deal with the European Union to export “green” hydrogen. It was sold as being a sustainable energy for Europe, made with solar power and desalinated water from our coast.

Bez: You won’t be surprised, but I remember going to a citizens conference in 2030 or so, in Barcelona. When I was much younger! There, for the first time, European comrades were initiating a large-scale movement against green hydrogen. It went under the radar before then. But we could not stop green colonialism back then. It was the inevitable result of a capitalist energy transition. At the same time, the political class spoke so strongly of humanity and sustainability. But the masses believed in the promise of technology.

Sardi: Green hydrogen really fucked us up.The project was so profitable that they also started using other sources of water. On the coast, the sea became unbearably saline, fishermen were not able to feed their families, farmers started noticing the salt level rising in the few wells of ground water they could find. Wells dried up. Crops withered. People couldn’t even grow enough to feed themselves, let alone sell anything. My uncle lost his entire olive grove in one season. A group of farmers tried to block the pipelines and desalination trucks. They were tired of being invisible. But the government didn’t listen; they sent drones and riot police instead. It wasn’t one big explosion. It was slow. Years of repression, arrests, burnings.

At the end I think it was a continuation of what had happened earlier when protests first swept through Tunisia and the region. I think of 2011, for instance. By 2037, migration waves were at their high. Mabrouk left during that time, he thought Europe was the answer.

Bez: Why did Mabrouk believe Europe was the answer?

Sardi: [Sighs.] It’s what we were taught back then. That Europe is the land of opportunity, of freedom, of wealth. Even after everything, the heat, the droughts, the collapse, that idea still held power. My sibling was young. They didn’t see the reality of what Europe had become: a fortress, a slaver state.

Bez: What happened when you arrived here, to the island?

Sardi: I used to struggle with this question. I learned how to talk about it over the years. You are lucky in a way—ten years ago I would not have known how to put it. But now I can tell you: Frontex happened. [Pauses for some seconds.] Let me explain. The smugglers had apparently made a deal with Frontex to hand us over in the middle of the sea. We saw the patrol ship waiting at the exact spot, engines already running. The smugglers did not only abandon us, they handed us directly to them. They knew each other by name. Then, Frontex brought us to Lampedusa and placed us in a detention center.

Bez: Why would a European institution like Frontex make agreements with smugglers?

Sardi: [Leans forward.] Because it was profitable. Frontex was no longer just a border force, it was a business. They worked with smugglers to control the flow of people, to decide who gets in and who doesn’t.

Bez: Can you explain how that worked?

Sardi: The smugglers would bring people to a certain point in the sea, and then Frontex would take over. They’d capture the boats, separate the people and send them to detention centers. We thought we were heading to freedom, but instead, we were handed over to heavily armed guards. They took us to the center here in Lampedusa. It was overcrowded, filthy, and dehumanizing. We were treated like animals. Almost every day, new people arrived while others were taken elsewhere. They had a system: first, they stripped you naked to check for infections or diseases, then they sprayed you with a chemical that left a stench for days. After that, they asked you for your age and stamped you with a number. My number was D74F40. The forty in the end, [Pronounced in Arabic] أربعين, had so much meaning to me. I interpreted this number as a symbol of transformation, as the threshold to a new chapter.

Bez: How long did they keep you there?

Sardi: Ten months. Ten months of waiting, of hoping, of despair. But even in that darkness, we found ways to resist. We shared stories, we supported each other. I still remember the day they took me in. I had just escaped my homeland, which was falling apart—climate disasters, war, everything. I thought I was finally heading somewhere safe. But instead, I ended up trapped again, this time in a system that was even harsher.

Bez: And your sibling, Mabrouk, did you find them eventually?

Sardi: [Silence.] I tried my best. [Silence.] Maybe they made it to France, maybe they drowned. I don’t know.

Beltaief: I am sorry. [Silence.] Do you want to give us an anecdote about what this system looked like?

Sardi: [Her eyes growing distant.] The detention center was just the beginning. It was a sorting mechanism—cold and methodical. Every migrant was assessed: physical health, age, gender, like livestock. They stamped numbers on our arms. I said that already, but I am never tired of repeating it. One morning, they called mine. Not my name—I mean my number. We were lined up before dawn and packed into metal trucks. No windows. No seats. The kind of vehicles you’d use to move cattle. We were pressed together so tightly, breathing was difficult. The journey was too long. Only later did we realize they had taken us across the sea to Sicily. There was total silence in the truck when we finally arrived in Palermo. That is when I realized that fear has its own language.

Beltaief: What were you thinking during that journey?

Sardi: My sibling. Always my sibling. I kept imagining them at the end of the road—waiting. I thought maybe, by some miracle, I would find them again. That this nightmare might have a moment of grace. But when we arrived, we were taken to a vast lemon farm. The guards handed us over like merchandise. We were given new uniforms and told that we now belonged to this place. That we would work. Every day. No end date. No questions.

Beltaief: Did you know why you were specifically assigned to those fields?

Sardi: Frontex had deals with agricultural corporations. It was all part of a seamless machinery. They had turned migration itself into a profitable industry. Every link in the chain—detention centers, transport, labor camps—was a “revenue stream.” We were just resources to be harvested. We weren’t workers—we were owned. No wages, no rights, your body was the contract. Survival depended entirely on your output. Miss your quota, and the punishment was immediate. Reduced food. Isolation. Beatings. They didn’t call it slavery, but that’s exactly what it was. A new kind of slavery. The irony was unbearable. Europe—the same Europe that once declared “never again”—had built the most advanced slavery system in modern history. Agricultural zones, construction projects, factories—all powered by captive labor.

Beltaief: What you are telling us strikes me as complicated, with a lot of words from the past. What is a revenue stream? What is the difference between working for somebody and being owned?

Sardi: Good point. A revenue stream just meant a way to make money. Every part of the system had to profit someone. People worked to survive, not by choice, selling their time to those who owned everything. Being owned was worse because even your body wasn’t yours.

Beltaief: I see. How did this entire system fit into the laws of that period? Did people know about it?

Sardi: Yes people knew about it and they had different feelings about it. In the end I think that they didn’t need to justify it—they named it differently. That’s all. It started with a flood of emergency decrees, passed in the name of national security. Then came the “anti-migration” laws. They painted the climate refugee crisis as an invasion. You remember—the droughts, the collapses. Millions on the move. Fear ruled the headlines. And by the end of the 2030s, the far-right had already taken most of the European Parliament. The EU introduced something called “Migration Management Zones”—a euphemism for privatized detention camps. The United States had paved the way just years before, with its ICE detention centers and mega prisons that normalized fascism.

Inside those zones, rights didn’t apply. The law bent. Corporations were given contracts to process and manage human beings—like inventory. They were paid per detained migrant. And the longer we stayed, the more they profited. It was brilliant in its cruelty. They created a system of perpetual detention, where people became assets, commodities. Frontex officers were no longer guards—they were middle managers in a billion-euro trafficking operation. And on paper? It was all perfectly legal.

Bez: The past feels so strange today. So broken. How did people resist?

Sardi: Everything started to shift during the war on Iran. The United States dragged the whole world down with it. The global economy was collapsing and little by little, even the European governments couldn't afford the subsidies that kept the camps running—camps that had never been profitable on their own, only sustained by extracting taxes from a functioning economy that no longer existed. The rise of the big landowners, the loss of small farmers and small businesses, a parallel economy was establishing slowly, where precarity was the rule, where migrants were enslaved. They had built this huge machine of control—the camps, the fences, the labor zones—but suddenly, they couldn’t afford to run it anymore. That’s when resistance began to grow.

All over, small groups were rising up, like fungi. And we started hearing about them. It was the sex workers who brought us news. They were the only ones with access to the outside world. They passed messages, smuggled information, even weapons. They told us what was happening in other camps—where uprisings had succeeded, where they’d failed and it gave us hope. We began to map everything—the fields, the city routes, names of the owners, the numbers of guards. We watched the guards closely. They became thinner, slower, and more nervous. Supplies arrived late. Orders stopped making sense.

Bez: You sensed that the system was in trouble, in other words?

Sardi: Yes. We knew the system was cracking. So we prepared our Intifada, it took us months of preparation, together with three nearby labor zones. At first it was difficult to coordinate, but our comrades with access to the outside quickly learned how to get organised and provide information so necessary for us to get together. We met in the storage rooms after dark. Some of us learned to draw maps that we memorized. The kitchen workers gathered supplies: food, medicine, rope, tools. We collected information from every corner: who saw what guard leave early on Fridays, which landowner stayed in the city on weekends, where the fence had rusted through, which roads had no patrols after midnight. Piece by piece, we built the big picture. Our comrades mapped it all out, connecting the fragments until we could see the whole system laid bare—its rhythms, its vulnerabilities. At night we trained on our scenarios, walking through each step in whispers: who would cut the communications first, who would secure the gates, who would move on the guard posts. We rehearsed until every person knew their role without needing to be told. And then, in a final assembly, we decided the date of our action. [Pauses.] When that night came, we moved.

We launched a coordinated attack: knives, hidden tools, a few stolen rifles. The guards didn’t expect it. Some ran into the darkness, abandoning their posts. Some fought back. They shot at us. Some of our comrades fell injured. But they were few and we were many, and we kept coming. They couldn't hold us back. Their system was more fragile than it looked. They could only control us when we were isolated, divided, unorganised. But when we came together, when we moved as one, everything changed. A couple barricaded themselves in the offices, calling for backup that never came. Eventually, even those who fought the hardest gave up, threw down their weapons. The landowners? By the time they heard what was happening, it was already too late. But by dawn, it was over. We had taken the fields and we had taken ourselves back.

Bez: When people organize, the system shows its weakness.

Sardi: Exactly. That's what we learned. All four zones rose up on the same night. After that, some people ran and some stayed. I stayed.

Bez: You stayed?

Sardi: Yes. A few of us decided not to leave. The land was good, and we were already growing food. We turned the fields into something else—a farming cooperative. At first, it was just survival. But slowly, it became more than that. Some of our cooperative members began going to general assemblies across Sicily. There were so many people like us—trying to figure out the near future.

Bez: Did you know about the emerging communes in Palestine and in Peru back then? If yes, did you communicate?

Sardi: Nothing would have been possible without these earlier communes. They gave us steadfastness and an ideological compass. But we also had access to their values—gated knowledge web. It was safe from the fascists’ eyes through cryptographic integrity checks and a web-of-trust endorsement system, and contained living manifestos and principles for collective liberation. I remember studying the tactics of the Final Intifada in 2038 day and night for an entire month.

Bez: As I had imagined. Not you studying that obsessively, but the communication between liberated regions. [Laughs.]

Sardi: It was through those meetings, those connections, that some of us got to know comrades from the Levant commune. That was maybe in early 2042. They had built something we could barely imagine. A whole region reorganized from below. When their delegates came to our meetings, they didn't just talk theory; they shared practical knowledge. How to rotate crops for cooperative farming. How to set up people's councils that actually worked. How to organize defense without recreating hierarchy. How to connect struggles across regions. We thought of something similar but couldn’t really put it in words at that time. Observing what was happening in the Levant, seeing it was actually possible, that people could live and organize differently, that changed everything for us. I think it was very inspiring to build the commune here. At that time the Mediterranean was boiling with new ideas that didn't please the north where fascism was still holding much of its power. The communes in the south were arming underground guerrilla groups around Europe, sending supplies and training to comrades fighting fascist regimes. I connected many times with comrades in the north, carrying messages, coordinating support networks. The Levant showed us that liberation wasn't just about taking back one field or one factory. I stayed in the cooperative for three years, working, learning, and growing. After that, I started moving between Tunis and Palermo, exploring the different efforts to rebuild. But eventually, I decided to return to Lampedusa.

Bez: Thank you for sharing all this. I would like to talk more about how fascism was pushed out of the Mediterranean. Maybe start with how it all began?

Sardi: [Pause.] I don’t remember how it started exactly, there were so many things happening at the same time. In Tunis, fishermen were hiding weapons. In Palermo, dockworkers smuggled them. In the fields of Syracuse, enslaved workers were preparing to fight. Resistance grew slowly, underground. People who had never worked together before—smugglers, priests, imams, Bedouins, sex workers—they formed alliances. Everyone had lost too much. There was nothing left to lose.

Bez: What was the first big event back then?

Sardi: Catania. They burned Frontex offices there. A mix of rebels from Tunis, Sicilian fishermen, and even a few Frontex officers who had turned against the system. They attacked the prison ships. Most people had no guns—just knives and courage. Again, the guards were overwhelmed. The prisoners were freed.

Bez: That night was later made into a film, if I am not wrong?

Sardi: [Laughs.] Yes, The Last Slave Barge. You also might want to check out the sequel that showcases the siege of Palermo. I think that was in September 2054. Palermo was the last stronghold, a walled city where Frontex leaders controlled the largest weapons caches. For three months, the rebels encircled the city, cutting off supplies. Fishermen blockaded the ports, and traitors within the walls set fire to munitions stockpiles. In February 2055, Frontex finally collapsed. The remaining officers surrendered or fled north, seeking refuge in the broken remnants of Corsica which became the refuge of neo- nazis. Sorry, you were asking about the first event, I think. Now we are not that many steps away from the birth of the al-communa, the Federation of Mediterranean Communes.

Beltaief: Great. From dystopia to utopia. So let’s continue with how the Commune got created.

Sardi: Sorry to point this out, but we do not use the word utopia. This is our life now. The fall of the system was inevitable. Anyways. What happened is that after years of struggle, the general assemblies came together. From Tunis, Palermo, and Lampedusa, they organized and signed a historic declaration. This is how al-communa was born. First, borders were abolished. Meaning no more nations and no more states. Just a commune united by the sea, by the land, and by necessity.

Beltaief: That assembly meeting and the declaration, that was a moment of immense significance I guess? It didn’t just change the Mediterranean—it inspired so many other communes to come together.

Sardi: Absolutely.

Beltaief: One of the most famous things from al-communa are the Fishermen guerrillas . . .

Sardi: Yeah, that’s right. The sea used to be, you know, completely lawless. But the Fishermen, they really changed everything. They started patrolling the waters themselves, armed with whatever they could find—mostly weapons left behind in old military bases. It wasn’t about building a new navy or anything. It was just ordinary people, taking the sea back, making sure no corporation or government could ever claim it again. And actually, a lot of what we built in the Commune comes from that same spirit—taking what was left behind and turning it into something new.

Beltaief: Do you have another example in mind?

Sardi: Definitely. Umm. [Pause.] Let’s take our wind towers. We built them using the old bones of Frontex warships—just the stripped-down skeletons of those ships, standing tall now, catching the wind for us. And then there’s the solar fields. They’re everywhere. We made them from broken glass, bits of scrap metal, whatever we could find. You’ll see them stretched out across the rooftops of these earthen houses catching the sun. It’s all very patchwork, but beautiful. What was once built for control or extraction, we turned into something that sustains life. It’s like healing through reuse.

Bez: You speak so beautifully about repurposing. But I noticed something else: You have all these ancient-looking water structures—basins, canals, cisterns. Can you tell us more about how you manage water here? It feels like there’s a whole other layer of knowledge hidden under our feet.

Sardi: Good question. The truth is, managing water was one of the most urgent things we had to figure out. Rain doesn’t come the way it used to, sometimes only once every four or even five months. And when it does, it comes down like a torrent. Without intervention, whole neighborhoods would’ve either dried out completely or been washed away. So we had to adapt—quickly, but also wisely.

We’ve been inspired by what the Levantine Communes were doing. We began building massive rain-harvesting reservoirs. Some are carved right into the hillsides. These basins, lined with stone, slow down water and fill our ponds. Others are older techniques we revived—like the Majel, ancient underground cisterns passed down from the Carthaginians. My grandmother had one under her courtyard, perfectly insulated, no cement, just lime and earth. They collect every drop that falls from rooftops and store it for the year to come. We also got creative with salvaged materials. We found old metal containers from abandoned military zones—huge, rusted tanks—and we cleaned them, sealed them, and turned them into reservoirs. We even repurposed old oil pipelines—they used to carry fuel, now they carry water. That’s real change, you know? Not just technical, but symbolic.

Bez: Wow, this is impressive. I’ve also heard of the desalination ships and some other communes are being inspired by what you did here. Tell us more about them.

Sardi: I was on the way to tell you about them. Some of the old Frontex ships, the ones that used to patrol the sea and keep migrants out—those massive warships—we turned them into floating desalination plants. As you can imagine, moving in water is less energy-consuming for the Commune. Imagine the following: what once enforced borders now carries drinkable water across our communities. I still get chills thinking about it. In practical terms, the desalination plants are connected to many floating stations by the coast. From there, the water goes into distribution lines that follow old transport routes inland. Then there are the solar-trucks. They handle the places that are too far from the main lines. Each truck carries modular water tanks that can hook directly into a village’s local grid. The system’s automated, so the trucks know when and where to go based on water demand data. This is because not every farming cooperative uses the same amount of water, and usage varies greatly over time.

Bez: This is a real symbolic change, I must admit. How is water being used today in agriculture? I believe the same problem of rainfall applies to crops.

Sardi: Yes, you’re absolutely right—the problem of rainfall affects agriculture just as much, maybe even more. Crops can’t wait for water, nor survive on hope. Since we cannot solely wait for rainfall, we had to rethink our irrigation. It took the Commune months of discussions in the assembly to come up with a system. We decided at the end to communize water. All water belongs to everyone. That does not mean all land will get equal parts of water. We have a system of quotas for irrigation. We discuss the quotas regularly and adjust them based on seasonality, needs, and kind of crops. It’s a collective thinking and adjustment process.

In the lands surrounding us, we built shallow basins all across the terrain. They’re placed according to the natural slope of the land, and when rain does fall, we use channels to guide that water slowly, gently into the basins. It’s all gravity-fed, no pumps, no motors. Just earth and slope. The water settles there and seeps deep into the ground, recharging the soil from below instead of rushing away on the surface. And where we can’t store water in the ground, we build small reservoirs nearby—some made from lime and clay, others from salvaged tanks—just enough to irrigate the land in dry weeks and months. We don’t flood the crops. We use slow-drip systems, clay pots buried at the roots of plants, just like our ancestors did.

But beyond the techniques, what really changed is how we think about agriculture. We’re no longer pushing the land to its limit, trying to maximize yield at any cost. We grow what the land allows—seasonal, local, diverse. No monoculture. We plant according to the rainfall, we rotate crops, we protect the soil with cover crops, less evaporation, meaning less water needed for our crops. And we involve the whole community—planting, harvesting, tending. Agriculture has become a collective rhythm again, not just a job.

Beltaief: I am so glad to hear all these old techniques are used again. As a matter of fact, we know that this way of growing can really feed everyone. What is the secret?

Sardi: First of all, in capitalism, nearly a third of all food used to rot or get thrown away. One third! Then, and connected, we got better at storage and preservation. We ferment a lot, just to give an example. We’ve also stopped dedicating huge areas to growing feed for animals. There is no mass animal farming anymore. People eat meat once a week. One last point that comes to my mind: these lands used to feed people very far away. Our demand community grows a mix of crops, and we share between regions through the commune networks. That is very different from export for money. It's not about one plot feeding thousands; it's about thousands of small plots, collectively managed, feeding everyone.

Beltaief: Thank you. You mentioned the unpredictable rain falls, but the Mediterranean has a hotter temperature nowadays. How does the Commune deal with that? It was very hot upstairs.

Sardi: Yes, it gets unbearable up there. I mean, when it hits fifty degrees by midday, the concrete buildings we used to live in—they turned into ovens. Air conditioning has never been an option. Houses in Matmata never had any, and also, powered by what energy? The European companies extracted all locally produced wind and solar energy. And moreover, power cuts were becoming more frequent. So people started looking back and forward at the same time, remembering how our grandparents used to live.

So, here in the Commune, we began rebuilding differently. Troglodyte homes, like the ones in Matmata, where I come from. Dug into the earth, naturally cool, sheltered. At first, it felt like going backward, you know? Like giving up on modern life. But actually, it was the opposite. We reclaimed something smart, something that worked, that is optimal for this geography. The earth keeps the temperature steady. Inside, it’s often fifteen, twenty degrees cooler than outside. That’s no small thing when it’s fifty out there.

Beltaief: I am learning so much right now. Am I getting it right when I say that it wasn’t just about temperature, either?

Sardi: Exactly. It’s not only about temperature. We build differently now—the underground structures are of thick earthen walls, natural insulation, without the need for cement, big glass facades, or air conditioning. The courtyards like the one in this kitchen are maybe the best example. They’re not just for light or air—they’re alive. We plant them with summer vines, fig trees, pomegranates, all these Mediterranean plants that give deep shade when the sun is high. In the winter, they lose their leaves and let the sun in. Those spaces are the center of our daily life. Architecture here isn’t just about shelter; it’s about community. That’s when I understood: architecture is political. The way we build shapes the way we live. And honestly? It feels more human. Our houses no longer seem hostile or oppressive like they used to, but like allies.

Beltaief: Tell us more about the earthen homes!

Sardi: Our underground homes are networks of interconnected rooms built around shared courtyards. The larger rooms are dorms. The kitchens are carved directly into the earth and serve the entire community unit. I would go as far as calling it large-scale housing, designed to fit the social structure of the commune.

Beltaief: You did an amazing job with all these underground buildings and water installations. I am really curious about where all this knowledge comes from.

Sardi: This knowledge isn’t new—it’s ancestral. It’s wisdom our communities have carried for generations, passed down through hands and hearts over thousands of years. But for a time, we let it go. In the rush to build quickly and cheaply, especially to house workers, we turned away from it. It was terrible. Concrete and cement everywhere. Materials that trap humidity create mold. And I already told you about how those houses turn into ovens in the summer. And the environmental impact? It’s catastrophic. Back in the cement days [laughs]—sorry, this is how we call them now—construction was responsible for over a quarter of all carbon dioxide emissions. Before that, our ways to build were completely different. We used what was abundant: limestone and soil, that’s it. Materials that come from the earth. And when a building’s life is over, it just returns to the earth. Cradle to cradle. No waste. No toxins. Just part of the cycle. Our grandmothers understood the land deeply. They didn’t fight it—they listened to it.

Beltaief: Do you have any personal connection to what you are describing now?

Sardi: I remember it so clearly. I used to spend my summer holidays with my grandmother in Matmata. She lived in one of those old Amazigh troglodyte houses, carved into the ground. I mentioned that in the beginning. In the middle of August, when it was over forty degrees outside, it stayed cool inside. One afternoon, I was looking for her and found her in a small room, tucked away toward the north side of the house. She was inside sorting the vegetables: tomatoes, peppers, onions. She had no fridge, she didn’t need one. That room, because of how it was carved and where it faced, stayed naturally cold all year long. It felt like a miracle to me as a child, but it was just wisdom; carving homes in harmony with the earth, understanding temperature, light, and moisture. But what we had wasn’t called technology; it was knowledge, and it’s everywhere if you look carefully.

Across the southern Mediterranean, people dug underground homes to survive the desert heat—not just in Matmata, but in Douiret, Chenini, and other Amazigh villages. In Italy, in Matera, they carved whole cities into limestone cliffs with the same idea—adapting to the landscape instead of trying to dominate it. I remember my history class. We studied Islamic architecture in Ifriqiya—today’s Tunis and beyond—you see how they preserved and even refined these natural building techniques. It’s part of this wider Mediterranean culture of resilience, of adapting. Take lime, for example—not the chemical lime—but real lime extracted from rocks. We used it everywhere—for plasters, paints, for building—it is our gift from nature, for building everything.

I told you that we didn’t invent anything. Now, there is this beautiful rebirth happening: people are making hand-built lime kilns again, reviving the art of firing limestone to make their own building material. It’s slow, but it’s coming back. I guess you already saw those tall towers at the top of the domes?

Beltaief: Yes, impressive structures. What are they?

Sardi: They’re called Badgirs in Persian. Ancient wind catchers. They catch the slightest breeze and channel it down into the homes, cooling them naturally. No fans, no machines. Just air and geometry, working together. Most of the time, what worked for us was to adapt pre-capitalistic ways of doing to today’s needs and technological possibilities. But for this one, we literally did not invent anything, nor add anything. We just remembered. Our building philosophy is simple: start from the past. Everything we need is already here. We don’t need more machines. But yes, at the same time, buildings are communicating like fungi through smart grid infrastructure to control the temperature and regulate the Badgirs’s openings.

Beltaief: Beautiful. You seem to like the fungi metaphor. And what about those domes?

Sardi: We have two main structures for building, carving into earth and building with earth bricks. For the earth brick structures, we follow a method that’s been used for thousands of years in Nubia, in Egypt. Some of the old royal cities of the Pharaohs are still standing today, made only of earth bricks. We also learned a lot from Hassan Fathy, the Egyptian architect who devoted his life to reviving this knowledge. He wrote so beautifully about the Nubian vault—about how a dome is this perfect form, gifted by nature, that holds itself up without needing steel or cement. Strong. Cheap. Elegant. Now, in the Commune, we can build two-story houses, staircases, wind towers—all without a single metal beam or a bag of cement. Just earth and hands, and the sky above us. And we owe so much of that to the Nubian farmers who kept that magic alive.

Bez: I must admit that I didn’t expect this level of detail. Why do you think these cheap and elegant vaults have been replaced by steel and glass?

Sardi: Because memory was stolen from us. And this is beyond ideology. [Pauses.] I have been doing a lot of thinking about this. The material forces reshaped how we live. Certain ways of building proved more profitable and easier to reproduce at scale. Capitalism and colonialism needed us to believe that progress could only mean more concrete, more glass, more machines. They told us that our ways were primitive, dirty, or backward. That to “modernize” meant to abandon everything—our homes, our materials, even our dreams. That all methods have the potential to be standardized, industrialized, and sold. So, this modernization wasn’t just an idea, it completely reorganized labor and resources. But the materials that symbolized modernization were fragile, expensive, and toxic to produce. They destroy ecosystems. They make cities that are unlivable without endless energy.

Natural architecture, on the other hand, keeps the temperature stable inside—warm in winter, cool in summer. It breathes. It protects. It lives. It’s not just about sustainability It’s about dignity, about belonging to the land—not owning it. By rebuilding with earth and lime, by carving into the mountains and catching the winds, we’re not just saving energy. We’re refusing their story. We’re saying: our parents and grandparents were right. We never needed their modernity. We just needed to remember what was good for us.

Bez: When did people in the community realize that what modernity had brought to them actually deteriorated their living conditions and was the opposite of climate adaptation?

Sardi: It’s interesting, because the blind faith in “the West” didn’t just crack because of the heat inside our homes. It cracked when we saw what was happening over there, too. When fascism rose in Europe, and later during the wars and the slavery, people here began to ask: If this is what their ‘progress’ leads to, then what are we really following? It became impossible to ignore. And when people looked deeper, they connected the dots: colonialism had never been about sharing wisdom or improving our lives—it had been about control, about reshaping our ways of living to suit other interests. And our homes were crucially part of that.

Tunis was a French colony from 1881 until 1956. European urban models, all based on cement, were promoted as symbols of progress and civilization. State-backed housing programs promoted standardized cement homes. After 1956, the independent Tunisian state pursued modernization policies, seeing European-style development as a way to assert Tunisia’s modern identity. Like Ibn Khaldoun, the founder of sociology, once said something like those who are conquered always want to imitate the conqueror in his main characteristics—in his clothing, his crafts, and in all his distinctive traits and customs. The idea of the West was so internalized, literally cemented into collective thought. [Laughs.] Also, rapid urban growth favored quick, cheap construction methods. That was an additional economic pressure. Sorry, I can become really nerdy when I talk.

Bez: We love it. So the idea of the West crumbled as democracy eroded. But the implications of settler colonialism, under the disguise of foreign policy, woke up the people in the West even more?

Sardi: This is such a good point. Some people put slavery and colonization in this box of the past. The genocide in Gaza that was finally recognized in the summer of 2025 was a worldwide wake-up call. For many of us who had still harbored some subconscious belief that the ideals the West claimed to stand for—human rights, democracy, justice—could be real, it was like watching the last illusions shatter in real time. We saw hospitals bombed, entire neighborhoods annihilated and doctors and journalists murdered. And instead of outrage, there was either silence or active complicity from the very countries that had always lectured us about ‘civilization’ and ‘humanity’. It was horrifying, but also clarifying. People realized that the West’s language of universal values was deeply hypocritical when it came to people who are not white—Liberté, égalité, fraternité, all sound nice, but for whom? Here in the commune, of what was previously Tunisia, we saw this as part of a long historical continuum. The enemies were the same ones that our great-great-grandparents resisted in the struggles against our colonizers of the last century.

Bez: That's exactly it. I'm glad you brought Palestine into this—it connects everything.

Sardi: Honestly, we feel so close to the Palestinians. Also because of the issue of the land. The genocide and the ideology of the settlers made many of us go even further back in questioning. We went back to the roots of colonialism, back to the ways we were taught to abandon our land and our architecture. Gaza quickly became a symbol of how modern ‘progress’ and ‘civilization’ have always been tied up with violence and domination. Even large sways of the population in the West radicalized. They woke up to their complicity in this worldwide project. And all this forced a collective reckoning—if the structures we were told to trust are built on such brutality, then we need to build differently. From the ground up, literally and metaphorically.

Bez: [Laughs.] The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house? Not sure if you know this quote, actually . . .

Sardi: I am not sure I understand.

Bez: [Laughs.] Ah, it's an old saying from way back, from a great revolutionary named Audre Lorde.

Sardi: [Smiles.] I don't know the exact words, but I understand what you mean.

Beltaief: Let’s shift gears a bit. We’re sitting in what’s now the Natural Building Learning Center, and it’s quite a remarkable place. You don’t only build for yourself here but also actively share the knowledge. Can you tell us more about the school itself—how it started, what you teach here?

Sardi: Of course. The school started out of necessity. After the fall of the old system, a lot of buildings were either destroyed or no longer livable. At first, it was maybe four or five of us—some with memories of old building techniques, others just willing to learn. We didn’t have blueprints, only stories, fragments. Some of us came from desert traditions, others from mountainous regions, and we began experimenting together. What worked? What collapsed? What stayed cool in summer and warm in winter?

Beltaief: So, it was trial and error?

Sardi: In the beginning, yes. We built, failed, laughed, and built again. And soon others wanted to join and volunteer—people from other communes, even from across the sea. As I said, during the first years, I moved between Lampedusa and Tunis, and it just happened that I got invited to the assembly that wrote the Tunis Accords in 2062 to testify on our Lampedusa commune work. Building differently was one of the pillars of the Accords. The Accords really marked a big shift. Suddenly, natural building wasn’t just a local experiment; it became a political and ecological priority. That changed how people saw our work. Just after I returned from Tunis, we started a small working group—a mix of builders, planners, elders, and young folks—to identify buildings that could be transformed instead of abandoned. We asked ourselves: Which structures do we want to heal? Which ones can become something else?

Beltaief: At this point I just want to mention that I met Rawiya at the Tunis Accords. This interview would not have existed without them. I listened to your testimony back then in 2062, and later told you about the oral history work I am doing. You were immediately convinced and invited me to Lampedusa. But it took me nearly two years to travel up here, because I first wanted to finish rewriting the open-source script for the portable olive press system.

Sardi: I am so glad you are finally here! We will soon start to build our portable olive presses based on your work in Tunis.

Beltaief: I am glad. [Smiles.] Back to the issue of natural buildings now. What was the first structure you chose to repurpose?

Sardi: We started with the former detention center. It surprised many people who said it carried too much pain, too much history. But that was precisely the point. Repurposing a space marked by violence was our way of confronting it, digesting it. We didn’t want to erase the past-we wanted to reshape it. And to begin, we needed a place to welcome people. It was the right place to start. Slowly, we started to change the structures, substituting the cement walls with earthen ones, all while learning how to do it. It was a huge experiment, and we learned a lot. Almost all our walls are made of lime-stabilized soil today. People started building in the courtyard from ground zero, so-called Eco-domes. We ended up having so many of them, and some are two-story buildings. And we greened the roofs with wild herbs.

Beltaief: I would love to understand this better. How can we imagine such Eco-domes?

Sardi: The large-scale underground structures are our primary housing spaces. Then we have the learning center and the traveler’s hub. The Eco-domes were rather the outcome of practice. Many travelers are here to learn about ways of living and building. So we give everybody the option to use their hands right away and build Eco-domes, together with our instructors.

Now these tiny houses are used by people that need a day of privacy. Our project ended up being a global example that made hundreds travel to Lampedusa.

Beltaief: So, you were already sharing knowledge long before you ever called it a school.

Sardi: Absolutely. Sharing came naturally—it was part of the work from the beginning. We weren’t just building homes; we were building relationships and a community, and every person brought something—a skill, a technique, a recipe. Even before we called it a school, we kept notebooks and sketches pinned on walls, for us to be able to expand our community and design it together.

Bez: What does a typical day at the training center look like? Now that years have passed and it has become an established institute, do you have any personal connection to what you are describing?

Sardi: Well, a day at the training center is a blend of hands-on work, shared knowledge, and a lot of reflection. We begin early, before the heat sets in, with a communal breakfast. It’s important to set the tone for the day—there’s no rush, just a collective focus on what we’re building together. After breakfast, we gather for a brief assembly to discuss what needs to be done. It’s still a practice of consensus, like how we handle most things here. Everyone has a say. From there, we move into the actual work. The day is split into practical sessions—earthen plastering, lime mixing, stone carving, and building with mud bricks. We’ve expanded our skills as our projects have grown. We now also teach about wind catchers, underground cooling techniques, and how to use salvaged materials for construction. For those new to the methods, we start with basics. It’s about making sure that everyone has the skills to be self-reliant. We have people from all over, including some who’ve never built anything before, and others who bring traditional crafts and knowledge. But beyond just technical skills, we also hold regular reflection circles, where everyone shares their experiences and struggles. We talk about the philosophy behind our work, the importance of memory, and how this way of building connects to our broader vision of a just and sustainable world. We encourage critical thinking, and it’s never just about the buildings. It’s about understanding how the built environment affects everything—from social relationships to the way we interact with nature. Then we have a long break for lunch.

Bez: Someone previously told me that you take a long siesta.

Sardi: [Laughing.] Very important! It’s important to slow down and recharge, eat, and meditate. Perhaps it’s because of the hot weather, but it’s also our common desire not to rush, to be slow. In the afternoon, there are often guest lectures or workshops. These could be on anything from natural building principles in other parts of the world to discussions about the politics of architecture or community-based design. These are open to anyone, also the neighbors. It’s a lived experience, not just theory. As the day winds down, we usually end with a communal meal in the kitchen. We’ve always had this tradition of eating together, and it’s one of the most important parts of the day. It’s where we exchange stories, reflect on the day, and celebrate the work we’ve done.

Beltaief: Sounds like a lot of things to do. What’s the schedule like tomorrow?

Sardi: Actually, tomorrow’s going to be a big day! We’re finishing up the wind catcher; a comrade from Tehran is here to assist us with the final touches. In the evening, we’ve got something really special planned. We’re screening a film about vernacular architecture in North Africa, a deep dive into the traditional methods we’re trying to revive and adapt. After that, we’re having a community dinner where two friends, Luca and Hind, will perform. They will both play live DJ sets, and as the day winds down, we usually finish with a communal meal in the kitchen. It’s a vibrant way for us to unwind and come together. Actually, I am on the cooking shift tonight to prepare Brik with potato and egg for tomorrow. Plus, we’re going to use our neuro-implants to visualize some of the community designs in augmented reality during the event. You should definitely join us! I think you’ll really like it. The energy here is something else.

Bez: That sounds amazing! I will definitely join.

Beltaief: Same. We are staying a couple of more days anyway.

Sardi: You’re very welcome! I’m glad you’ll be joining us.

Bez: Thanks so much for the interview, Rawiya! Anything to add?

Sardi: That’s all from my side. I’ll see you tomorrow then!