Great idea m, and what a conversation it would be.
OS has that wonderful capacity to allow all comers to represent themselves.
All are equal in the circle. All have equal rights and potentialities. For
whatever reason some may choose not to avail of their potential and post or
of their rights and use the law. But under OS, all are created equal.
It is often suggested that one of the reasons why people should vote is
that they would have their views represented. Yet it is reasonably clear
that politicians consider it their job to represent their constituents
views. Normally our chief representative, be they president, prime minister
or taoiseach, represent only their constituents at home but claim to
represent all their people abroad. They also lie about the level of support
they actually have for any given policy.
The media is not always to be depended upon either. I'm sure the New York
Times and The Washington Post represent certain viewpoints as does the The
Times of London. I watched the news regarding the handing over of
sovereignty in Iraq and depending on which station you watched, it was
either of great importance or no significance.
The great diversity of opinion expressed in Europe and elsewhere must also
be reflected within Iraq itself. But how do you deal with that level of
complexity. There must be a way. We know OS works with 2000+ individuals. I
wonder what solutions a group of 2000+ individuals doing OS could have come
up with in the months prior to the invasion.
Following on from the half way technology discussion, I am tempted to
wonder what could be done to ask a million people "Given the situation X,
what are the next steps to take?". Can we imagine a technology that would
be used to really get the views of 100 million people, that would be
self-organising and that would deliver to the so called representative's
desk on Monday morning a complete report of the views of the people and an
indication of the most popular courses of action.
Could the 300 or so subscribers to oslist do an on line OS on the global
questions or on a particular current crisis? The population is certainly
diverse enough. Maybe we could develop something that would force our
representatives to represent the collective wisdom and be the forerunner of
an on line system of collective governance. You might find the politicians
lurking about on the list looking for all the really clever ideas that
would emerge.
Maybe, just maybe.
Shay
At 17:50 02/07/2004, you wrote:
in another world i travel through, we have started talking about G-Bay,
a marriage of the eBay marketplace and the google news and adword
functions... a G-iant bulletin board for good, giving projects. it
would seek to make markets as conversations between those who are giving
attention to issues and situations and projects and those who are
looking for what to give attention to. all of which leads me to wonder
what would happen and what could be learned if one or a few people on
this continent somehow came to be in email conversation with some people
in iraq... i wonder what might get unfolded if you were simply in
ongoing email conversation with a few folks in iraq, doug.
infrastructure may be a problem at the moment, but certainly
e-connections will be possible soon if they are not already. seems some
very interesting conversations might be possible about the effects that
powerful leaders can have on countries and the world. wonder if a few
emails couldn't snowball into a stunning sort of online open space
event. wonder where one might find a few folks to begin a conversation
with. wonder if what unfolded couldn't be rolled up into some cluetrain
sort of book. what would that be? renewtrain? i wonder.... m
Chris Corrigan wrote:
One of my learnings from the last year, coinciding with the practice of
peace, is about the contrast of justice and reconciliation. Justice
contains that grasping energy of conflict, a divisive feel to it.
Reconciliation is about opening space and moving forward.
As regards apologies, my personal experience is that they are very
powerful, but they represent a very serious commitment that only
individuals can carry through. In 1998, the federal government issued
an apology to Aboriginal people in Canada who had been affected by the
residential school policies that tore apart families in our communities
for many generations. The residential school system was perhaps the
single most successful vehicle of colonization in this country's
history, in some cases almost completely destroying languages, cultural
practices, traditional life, families and individuals. It was
responsible for multi-generational violence and abuse which has carried
through even to those of us that never set eyes on a residential school.
The federal government apology hit me very personally, and it affected
many people I know the same way. It felt like something unlocked inside
me. The federal government took some responsibility especially for the
physical and sexual abuse that happened in the residential schools,
saying to the victims "it was not your fault." There was a visceral
feeling of something dropping away, perhaps something I didn't even know
was clinging to me. It was a very deep experience.
The problem was that it didn't last because there was no one actually
doing the reconciliation. The federal government promised a new
relationship based on reconciliation, but within two years they were
engaged in a national initiative to remake First Nations governments
which was carried out in such a top heavy and non-consultative way that
it was routinely described by non-Aboriginal people as an alarming
assimilationist policy. This governance initiative, despite the fact
that we actually need to have this conversation, was carried out in such
a way that it increased calls for justice. It helped to create a
situation of confrontational conflict, and the heady days of
reconciliation talk all but disappeared.
The problem of course, as Michael has pointed out, is that the whole
exercise was been removed from the personal. There was no one person
who could actually take on the mantle of reconciliation. It was a
systemic apology for personal pain, and while the apology represented a
profound shift for many of us, the reconciliation process evaporated
into thin air.
The strength of the South African experience was that it was individuals
apologizing for individual acts to other individuals. That helped that
country to move through the apartheid transition because it allowed for
a peaceful way for people to deal with some of the personal hurt they
had experienced both as victims and perpetrators.
So I don't know that the "US" can apologize for anything. As much as I
can respectfully take issue with Paul's list of the results of the war,
I actually agree with his point. To whom to we apologize for and to
what? To which I will add, and what else will we do? The fact remains
that apologies are personal, they need "I" language to work, and they
need to heal direct person to person hurts. Soldiers apologizing for
killing civilians would be very powerful, but having politicians
apologize to whole countries and groups of people is just too diffuse to
be sincere or useful for healing.
Chris
--
CHRIS CORRIGAN
Bowen Island, BC, Canada
(604) 947-9236
Consultation - Facilitation
Open Space Technology
Weblog: http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot
Homepage: http://www.chriscorrigan.com
ch...@chriscorrigan.com
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--
Michael Herman
Michael Herman Associates
300 West North Avenue #1105
Chicago IL 60610 USA
(312) 280-7838
http://www.michaelherman.com - consulting & publications
http://www.globalchicago.net - laboratory & playground
http://www.openspaceworld.org - worldwide open space
...inviting organization into movement
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