At 11:45 PM 4/14/2002 -0400, you wrote:
Reading your posts the last few weeks and watching the news, I am struck by what seems to be going on: leaders looking for ways to keep the fight going, while the people want peace.
Unfortunately, I think you are right, although at this point I suspect Arafat is getting tired of the whole affair. But in the case of Sharon it is all he has got -- and historically it seems it is all he has ever had.
Is it reasonable to think that if enough regular people got together in some sort of self-organizing fashion, even the hate of centuries could be overcome by love in the latest hour? Could the U.S. be wasting its breath on Arafat and Sharon when if they sponsored "peace talks" by ordinary citizens, something worthwhile might be born?
I am not sure that US sponsorship would be the best thing, at least directly, but the idea you are suggesting is essentially the strategy my Israeli and Palestinian colleagues were working from. A negotiated settlement, such as Powell is attempting at the moment, is possible only when the conditions are right -- and the establishment of those conditions is infinitely more complex than the creation of a cease fire. The mind boggling complexity of The Middle East at the moment (as indeed any conflicted "organizational" setting) is such that the rational, linear mind just cannot compute, and even when we seem to have an accurate picture, all that changes radically in an instant with some small disturbance in the system. Which is exactly what you would you would expect in any open, living system -- or self organizing system. I would go further and say that the only power that is sufficient to deal with such a monster of fast changing complexity is the phenomenon of Self-organization itself. We find a similar scenario when we face our own illness. We will often say -- I must go to the Doctor and be cured, but the truth of the matter is that the best (and in the vast majority of cases, the only) thing that the Doctor can do is give the body a little help so that it can cure itself (or not). To the extent that our bodies are self-organizing systems (which I take as a given) what the Doctor does is open a little space so that the natural powers of self-organization can get back to work. I think the same logic applies in the body politic. We expect the Powells and Presidents of this world to "fix" the ills of the world, on the mistaken assumption that they are the only folks who have the power to do so. My read is that their power is infinitely more limited, in fact it is quite marginal. I would not suggest that they can do nothing, even as I would not suggest that Doctors do nothing... BUT the real power, and therefore the real hope lies in the Body Politic itself, and in it totality as a self-organizing system. After a number of years wandering around in Open Space, wondering why it works, I have come to the conclusion (as doubtless I have said ad nauseum) that the magic is self-organization. And from there I would propose that the real gift of Open Space is that it allows us to intentionally and consciously "re-start" the process of self-organization. And once started (if it starts -- and some things are just dead) we witness the natural fruits of self-organization such as appropriate leadership, self-managed work groups, -- and most important -- those essential qualities of any healthy community, Trust, Respect, and Hope. One of the more interesting things about Open Space (indeed any time you open space by whatever means) is that the effects mentioned above (Hope, Trust, etc) seem to happen REGARDLESS of the subject or theme. So if some group had "passion" for better pencils -- they would probably get better pencils AND all the additional benefits. And so the essential strategy -- Open Space wherever, however, and whenever -- which is what Tova, Avner, and co are doing... Who knows, it might just work. Harrison
Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Drive Potomac, MD 20854 USA phone 301-365-2093 Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org Personal website http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hhowen/index.htm osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html