Michael writes :
"There, I saw grand opportunities for open space and talked about it
to people."
That's what i do here, although it is not heard so quickly. But i can not
get detached
so quickly from people's struggle.
I agree that self organizing, local resources, their lives and livelyhood
(as Harrison mentions)...their ability to create solutions are
important...very important.
I still think that we ( the ones having more to eat, a shelter, health,
space; who were lucky to get some education, travel, learn
appreciate, enyoy life, so on) can not say "them, their problems, their
struggle, their solutions".
I feel our responsibility is more then that.
Funda
----- Original Message -----
From: "Pannwitz, Michael M" <mmpa...@boscop.de>
To: <osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu>
Sent: Sunday, August 14, 2005 11:00 AM
Subject: Open Space - a minimum?
Dear Funda,
I live in a rich city: Berlin.
My colleagues and I have facilitated about 300 os-events since 1996
in this city alone.
The dark sides of this city have in that same period grown:
unemployment, poverty, homelessness, dismanteling of social services,
cuts in primary education and health care, disentchantment with the
political process....along with the widening gap between poor -
middle income and rich people.
So, whats all this effort led to?
Heaven knows
and
almost every day I get little signs
someone approaching me in a bus, on the street, an email, a telephone
call,
characterized by a smile.
As far as I am concerned, thats pretty much all I need to keep going.
A few days ago I returned from Karachi, Pakistan,
somewhere between 14 and 19 million people,
where Yaari and I lead a training for 26 colleagues from Afghanistan,
Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
There, I saw grand opportunities for open space and talked about it
to people.
That environment with its many challenges invigorated me,
especially those thousands of people I saw while going to the
railroad station, the harbor, the markets, along teeming streets...
all of them, including the tenacious begging children, rising to the
really difficult situation making a go of things,
seemingly at a very high level of "muddling through".
What splendid resources!
And: I dont need to understand their struggle to facilitate an open
space technology event.
And: I am certainly not going to help them to get what they need not
really knowing or being able to understand their need.
Neither in Berlin or in Karachi.
What I can supply, is assistance in getting an os-event set up and to
facilitate it (or, in the case of Karachi, train people to do that)
which will definitely provide the best known framework for
selforganization including the optimal use of whatever resources are
available.
While I was in Karachi, I read the "Dawn" every morning (in fact,
there is hardly a dawn or dusk in Karachi, it seems to go from light
to dark to light within minutes)
and a story about "Karachi 2020" caught my eye.
It described in great detail all the stuff a huge staff of
consultants (foreign) was hired for to "understand" the problem,
about 20 fields of investigation, half a newspaper page full (census,
roads, income distribution, migration patterns.....)
with side remarks about the government scolding the local planners
for not being competent to develope proper plans.
I read it all and at the very end I found a note that after the plans
would all be drawn up,
citizens would be invited to explain the plans to them,
with the possibility to then fine tune them.
Well, what a neglect of local resources!
What an upside down procedure, producing another set of eventually
useless data under the ill fatet belief that this kind of planning
will actually improve Karachi.
Lots of room for open space, though.
Maybe some of my colleagues will get busy on those and other areas
there.
Greetings from Berlin
mmp
On Sat, 13 Aug 2005 13:40:56 +0300, Funda Oral wrote:
Dear John and everybody,
I live in a city where one can see extreme cases ( richness and poorness,
joy and powerty so on...)
in a short distance from each other.
One sees so big problems, and so strong struggle for life
that sometime the word "open space" looks funny, silly and luxury.
I still believe that "opening space", inviting people to
exist, to talk, to express their needs and struggle is
"something", a very small step maybe, but still helpful.
But it's not enough, the ultimate aim is to understand their straggle
and help them to get what they need...we don't need to be poor with the
poor;
sick with the sick ( as Judi beautifully mentions)...the least we can do
is to open space to respect them.... but this is only the minimum.
And i am very worried and sad to see that in many cases all i could
do would be to open space. I am not strong or rich enough to end
struggle.
I guess we need more trembling hearts, more resources and better
cooperation for that.
Funda
----- Original Message -----
From: "john engle" <englej...@hotmail.com>
To: <osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu>
Sent: Thursday, August 11, 2005 10:17 PM
Subject: powerful poem! help me understand it.
hi brendan, kairi and others.
i've never opened space in a prison but i have participated in a
touchstones discussion (http://touchstones.org) with about 25 men
serving
life sentences. the discussion centered around "power" and not
surprisingly, i learned a great deal.
great that you are doing this! i look forward to following developments
as
you work toward opening space in prisons.
on another subject, kairi, thank you for sharing that poem in your
message. i love it! and, i loved being at OSonOS! Judi, you and your
team
did a great job at receiving us and making us feel at home.
while i love the spirit of the poem, i just don't know what to do with
"banish the word struggle from your vocabulary." how do others see this?
removing the word struggle from MY vocabulary seems like it could have
some positive outcomes. at the same time, it's hard for me to think of a
better word that describes daily life for so many people. and, not
acknowledging this seems like i might be missing something as i work
with
folks in circumstances so much different from my own.
i'm in haiti as i write and catching up with friends and colleagues.
there
are at least hundreds of thousands of people here--some estimate in the
millions--that don't consume a meal each day. and when they do, they
don't
know when they'll eat next. i can't begin to imagine what living with so
much uncertainty and discomfort must be like. and i've also learned that
far too often we who live in financially prosperous countries romance
poverty, saying that poor people are happier.
it serves us (people who live in financially prosperous countries) well
to
see things this way and it pains me when i have US American visitors
with
me in Haiti and conclude after a week here that the people are "so
happy."
in many cultures, those in the southern countries included, it is
appropriate to put one's best face forward especially when meeting
visitors. those same Haitians who looked so happy to the visitor might
be
totally stressed out because they're worrying about how they're going to
pay school fees for their kids and get a meal together, etc. when they
speak in their own language to me, "struggle" projects from their facial
expressions, body movement and words.
i would not feel comfortable asking folks who live such realities to
remove "struggle" from their vocabulary.
thanks for your patience as i vent and live emotions connected to being
with friends in extremely difficult situations.
john
http://JohnEngle.net
email: j...@johnengle.net
P.O. Box 337
Hershey, Pennsylvania 17033
tel. 202-236-6532
From: Brendan McKeague <mckea...@iprimus.com.au>
Reply-To: OSLIST <osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu>
To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu
Subject: Re: There is a river flowing now very fast
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2005 08:26:54 +0800
"Banish the word 'struggle' from your attitude and your vocabulary.
All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
aahhh....thank you so much Kairi
What a moment to receive this gift - the start of a brand new
day...beautiful and inspiring...today I will let go a wee bit more...
I am about to depart for a day's 'space-making' in a maximum security
prison with long-term offenders..
I will be present and holding space with individual men - my dream is
that
one day there may be more collective open space within such
confinement...
.
Anyone ever opened space in a prison?
peace to all
Brendan
*
*
==========================================================
osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:
http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
_________________________________________________________________
MSN Messenger : discutez en direct avec vos amis !
http://www.msn.fr/msger/default.asp
*
*
==========================================================
osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:
http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
*
*
==========================================================
osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:
http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
Michael M Pannwitz, boscop eg
Draisweg 1, 12209 Berlin, Germany
++49-30-772 8000
www.boscop.de www.michaelmpannwitz.de
Check out the new Open Space World Map now with 309 resident Open Space
Workers in 57 countries (working in a total of 115 countries worldwide)
www.openspaceworldmap.org
*
*
==========================================================
osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:
http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
*
*
==========================================================
osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:
http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
