"Maybe That's What We Need"

Trouillas is an untidy, ramshackle village of 1,100 souls in southern France, not far from the Spanish border. Last week the name of Trouillas was heard round the world. By unanimous vote, the town council passed this resolution: "Considering its ardent desire for peace, in the name of the population of Trouillas, the council decides in unanimity to adhere to the world citizens' pact and to the movement created for a universal federation of peoples for the fight against war. We declare the commune of Trouillas world territory."

Strength for Propaganda. The man who started the crusade in Trouillas is a wispy little bus driver named Joseph Fabregas. Ever since World War I, Fabregas had been thinking about Gandhi and world peace. After Gandhi was murdered, he began thinking about Garry Davis, self-proclaimed citizen of the world, whose movement began to mushroom last year in Paris. Fabregas kept saying to his passengers: "Some people go on hunger strikes to demonstrate their love of peace. We in the Garry Davis movement eat well and drink well and use the resulting strength to make propaganda."

Last month Garry Davis came to Trouillas. Fabregas introduced him to the village's bright-eyed mayor, Gaston Meric. Davis had trouble understanding Meric's Catalan dialect, and Meric had trouble understanding Davis' French; but ideas percolated back & forth. Said the mayor, after Davis had gone: "I felt sure he was a nut. I'm still not sure he isn't. But maybe that's what we need to have peace."

Meric was admitting in his proud CataIan way that he had been converted. When word of this reached the villagers, converts flocked in by the score. The name of Garry Davis began to creep into almost every conversation about the price of grapes and apricots. The mayor dreamed up the idea of declaring Trouillas to be world territory, and sprang it on the council one day when seven of 13 councilors were present. The seven were a quorum, and every one was in favor.

Juridical Complications. The declaration raised certain problems. Trouillas could not yet think of seceding from France. "From a juridical point of view," observed sturdy young Davisite Jean TilIon, "the problem is extremely complicated. The case, after all, has never been presented before. If Trouillas wants to send wine to London, for example, does it have to have a French export license? What if France declares war?"

Said Mayor Meric: "For the moment we are law-abiding Frenchmen. Of course we are against war. If France goes to war and we decide we won't go to war, it's the decision of the whole village. What are they going to do? Put the whole village in jail? And what if the next village and the one after that, and so on, decide not to go to war?"

In Paris, Garry Davis let the Trouillas crusaders in for a dismal anticlimax. In the face of waning public attention, Garry said he was giving up organizational work for a period of study and meditation. "I do not know for how long," he elaborated. "I shall return when I consider myself ready for the second step, whatever that may be."

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