Reconciliation is the Opposite of War

The secret is out

2006-08-25T23:03:00.000-07:00

The point is not about inclusion or exclusion. It is not about neo-Nazis nor communists nor fundamentalists nor progressives nor any other stupifying names.

The point is dialogue understood as deeply as we can ...and with unlikely (for
us) people.

This dialogue cannot be contained in a building on a Sunday. It is not simply about
words being exchanged. It is much more than these and very different than these.

It is - the secret is out - life lived in all its fullness.

This dialogue, this meeting, in which we feel blessed and can bless ... is a gift.
It is not earned. And this dialogue, these meetings, extends beyond all sentient
beings to the Universe, to All that is known and All that is unknown.

If I am right about this - and I believe I am - then Church has almost nothing to
do with 'the church'. It is not static or physical or intellectual or 'spiritual'
in some agreed upon definition.

The Body of God is always found in relationship - not feigned relationships
nor those 'relationships' where nothing is risked - but in true relationship,
God's friendship, which is not only lovely and great, but is also scarey and
anger-filled and risky and full of miscommunications - like any true relationship.

Here we have only two jobs - to stay open to the reality of the connection of All
and to stay ready to meet in all our fullness every particularity,every person,
everything, all that is known and unknown, in all THEIR fullness, as a speck of
God, as some energy of God, as God Herself.

If we know this we cannot kill. Augustine is wrong. Killing - and I know this
deeply - kills a piece of yourself EVERY TIME. And it does not do this killing
only in face-to-face battle. It kills you even at a distance, even as we are indecisive,love distraction, and are only 'indirectly' involved.

Thus, the work is to engage in dialogue, yes, but it is also to be full and alive,
which means to seek out those relationships that seem unlikely and to build work
and family and community with PARTICULARLY these others we truly meet, that we take
risks to meet. The work is not towards war and destruction and insularity and prejudice and more than/less than. It is never this. This is sin. We all slip into sin,which my mentor called 'moving away from God', and we can all change directions.
Sin is simply misdirection and distraction for the most part, even in the most 'evil'
of others.

Our work as people who are waking up is compassion and reconciliation and, yes, ... peace. The rest - the buildings, the camaraderie, the office and conventional politics, even blogs like this - are nothing compared to the truly full life. To be truly and fully alive is to be truly engaged. Half measures avail us nothing, less than nothing, ... they add to the dross of life. How do we add to peace? Risk. Have compassion. Seek out 'difficult' relationships. Listen very carefully. Work as consciously as possible for peace and reconciliation.

And never give up.

yours, in Peace,

Lee

Help more people feel less helpless

2006-08-11T15:03:00.000-07:00

Namby-pamby in war zones gets you killed and others around you killed, too. I try to be committed.

Here's what I think: Bush is up for WWIII ... he's the neo-Wilsonian-con who seems to enjoy vicarious killing. Remember: he set the death penalty record while governor of Texas. The guy is a head case who sees no reason to recover from anything or admit to anything serious. Cheney is a fascist and Rumsfield is a proud authoritarian ... Conni projects the softer side, but they're all into this up to their eyebrows ... they are making waaay dumb moves together. Their kind of ego is almost immeasureable.

They have no strategy. They have sound bites and tactics to get through the hour or the day or the week. That's it. They draw terrorists towards us like magnets.

Even the Saudis are getting nervous. Imagine that: the Saudi rulers - who own a major part of American assets - are getting nervous? The Venezuelans have said they'd squeeze their oil off if we get too stupid in relation to the Iranians. What if the Saudis and Russians (who haven't ruled out the energy card) get nervous, too? What is Bush's strategy then? HE HAS NO STRATEGY.

And of course we have to take into account the oil companies. Each major oil company's budget and assets are bigger than those of about 1/4 of the countries in the world. The oil companies are running their computer model projections to see how they can wring the last penny out of us ... given the moment's projections of the end of oil and various price points projected over time.

Imagine these companies together and you get a lot of conglomerated power.

These guys may help save the day, but don't count on it. It is more likely they will get caught with their pants down. When has a giant multinational saved anything? Gates Foundation does quite a bit of good work. Microsoft charitable money is all given for corporate reasons - sell more gadgets and software - effect the bottom line. This is actually what corporations are supposed to do and the leadership of companies like Microsoft and like the oil companies do not turn on a dime. They lumber.

Remember - or maybe you didn't know - my father was an officer in a multinational conglomerate. What i heard growing up was morals were for church. He never really said this - he just giggled about nearly-legally 'fixing' the books and how wonderful it was to sell popcorn (one part of the conglomerate included several theater chains) since the return was so high - something like 2000%. There was only one issue: the bottom line. My father, bless his soul, the Treasurer and before that the Controller, asked: what do you want the bottomline to look like this quarter?

Do you see this mentality? Do you see it getting us out of this mess? This mentality - perverted to perfection by people like Karl Rove - gets us into news cycle thinking and mass manipulation at a level and with the ingenuity that has never before been seen in my lifetime, probably never been seen before ... period.

So where does this leave us?

What we have is integrity. This country is like a dysfunctional family on one level. What changes a dysfunctional family? Nothing really, but what helps is for some family members or some boss or some co-worker or some parishioner to act with integrity and courage, act healthily - WITHOUT DENIAL.

The most important thing not to deny is that WE ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM. Those of us who are Americans know this is our government, this is our military, this is our system. When we don't stand up, we are part of the problem. When we stand up and just shout - f-you, we are part of the problem. When we analyze things to death, we are part of the problem.

What needs to happen is for people to start acting their beliefs so that others see those examples. Starting NOW. Not next week. A church can become a sanctuary for war resisters. A vets group can help the active duty guys speak up and do their bit for sanity and lead coalitions based on local knowledge and national unity. A small company can make a small donation to some nonprofit doing good. A union can educate its members and make changes through the electoral process and in the streets. A women's group can say 'not my daughter or son ... ever' and promote feminist values. Active duty guys can talk with one another and vets and their families and decide what is best for themselves, given all the givens that only they know. A family can come together and speak up. All can do other things, too, of course. And Jhai Foundation can try to help poor people all over the world in rural areas communicate with one another. These are just examples. The points are integrity, building from assets and strengths, and courageous, thoughtful action. The point is acting, now, because history has caught up with us. We must see ourselves as strong.

Once that starts happening and word gets around, things start changing in the sense that ***more people feel less helpless***. And that is the first thing. Do something new. And use your HIGHEST skills, even if it is only one hour day. This means do your life consciously, don't give up yourself and your commitments to your family and community ... AND also use your HIGHEST skills for something that promotes peace. If you are a business person, help a nonprofit do things in a businesslike way by pitching in. If you are an organizer, organize. If you are a bricklayer, help an organizer-friend lay some bricks so she can organize. The time is now.

We in the states now are at Stage Red in terms of 'terror alerts', a new record. What that means to me is that the chance to manipulate people on this basis of fear is very high. Don't get fearful. Do something powerful and moral and brave - with others - and make sure people know about it. Be consciously nonviolent. And - please - be conscious about your integrity, follow your heart, and listen to one another carefully ...and if you pray, pray.

This is a time we can be most easily divided because the fear factor is so high. Don't let this happen. Keep the conversations going, but don't bury yourself in your own words. Do something for peace. We can get stronger. Our country and our world need us. We can definitely make a difference.

yours, in Peace,

Lee

pointing the way with a radish

2006-06-14T06:33:00.000-07:00

I was just talking with Arun Subbiah, formerly a high level library advocate here in India, but for several years, now, volunteering with MS Swaminathan.

He just told me he is writing papers on Open Knowledge.

Not Open source, open design, FOSS.

Open Knowledge.

Not space colonies, as Stephen Hawkings is now advocating.

Just Open Knowledge.

I'm all for it. Why not? How else are you going to find the best conversations for yourself? How else are the rural and remote people going to teach us what they know, despite our earnest efforts to never listen? ;D

Remember this one?

Farmer,

pointing the way

with a radish.

Do you hear the joy in Issa's laughter?

Why not muse?

2006-06-11T05:56:00.000-07:00

I just bought a new book of translations by Ulrich Baer of some of Rainer Maria Rilke's letters. Here's where I landed:

"Revolution would mean for me the simple and pure legitimation of man and of the work that he likes to do and does well. Every program that does not place
this as its end seems as pointless and perspectiveless to me as any of the previous governments and regimes ..."

When hanging out in the forest in some remote village somewhere - what always makes sense is to wait. Have conversations
*with go-betweens in-between,
*and enjoy these chats,
*and try to understand them,
*and try to be patient with yourself when you discover your analysis was entirely incorrect about what is going on
*in fact,
*in essence, and
*in the context,

... and wait.

And wait some more.

Why?

Because what will work in terms of 'understanding' or 'social change' or 'betterment' ... is what is most revolutionary.

What is revolutionary is to listen, wait, get confused, then slowly begin to understand the other ...and if you are lucky ... become friends.

What is in this is legitimation. When the other feels this legitimation - this Thou-ness - as she sees you, you will eventually be lucky enough to a have a moment of 'Jhai'. Roughly translated 'Jhai' means 'heart', and in a social sense it means that moment when those in the space feel and acknowledge that harmony is reached in that moment. Not resolution. Not reconciliation. Harmony. Just this moment's harmony.

And when we in the conversation can acknowledge this ... the revolution has already begun. We are in it. We feel it and know it.

And 'development' begins. Unlikely people are talking together, planning together, and will soon do things together. What they'll do is 'development' that is entirely owned by the people who live in the place being 'developed'.

We Northerners or Southern city middle or higher class people, can only maintain our piece of this 'Jhai' through humility. The fact is we know different things than these folks in the forest. We do not know better things or more things. Just different things. And in this place that is not ours, most of what we know is less important then most of what the owners of this 'house' know.

Perhaps, for example, our new acquaintances - if they are like many, many people I have met - want to keep traditions and yet increase their income. Then you work with that. You communicate around that. You have a respectful conversation around that. And that conversation, believe me, is full of fun for everyone!

What we outsiders dare is to stumble publicly. To laugh. And to work along side of our new acquaintances, sharing our whole selves.

This is not traditional 'development'. "I know; you don't": this is the message from most so-called experts worldwide as it is heard by people with less cash, whether that was what was meant or not. When this is in the air, we poorer people might shuffle, we might jive, we might even say, "I'll take what you have. Thank you so very much." Where does that get us all? No where. We are at zero, stop, nada.

What works is revolutionary in Rilke's sense. It legitimates all of us through very respectful conversations with lots of listening. It leads to cooperation. It leads to building on assets. It leads to a more friendly place where all can do what they do best ... even better.

I discovered in Laos, a place I had helped load bombs that destroyed villages, that I could risk conversations like this with people who had lost their villages to bombing. In fact, I discovered that this was the only kind of conversation I felt worth having. And most importantly, I discovered that people had compassion for me when I honored them with my full attention.

What is the alternative? For a bomb loader to tell people who had lost family members to bombing what to do?

Not likely.

Is this Utopian? No. We at Jhai have done this for eight years - and many local organizations have done this much longer. Do you tell your uncle what he wants or do you ask him? The answer is obvious. So you see, it is not Utopian.

It is revolutionary.

And that ain't bad.

It's good.

10 Principles for Social Change Projects

2006-06-10T06:04:00.000-07:00

I want to try to restate what we almost all know about development.

The best social change projects – everywhere and in every field – follow these principles:

• Best designs happen when you design with the cooperation of real end users for their exact needs.
• Designs must take into account these layers: cultural-religious, socio-economic, political – including regulatory, technical, environmental, internet connectivity, and electrical availability. These layers must be understood in as exact detail as possible, as locally as possible.
• Applications, for example, software applications, are best built as close to end users as possible. The devil is in the detail.
• Working with people in the harshest of circumstance and with the least resources, is ultimately the way of work with least risk. If it works for the poorest people in the harshest conditions, it works for people less at risk of starvation than them.
• When you work on a small scale first, you can find out – then revise (just like in any creative process) – what can work even better for your collaborators … and probably many others down the line.
• It is all about relationships. Management is about relationships and management is the issue, not technology. The only thing you can know about a relationship is its quality. What you do to improve your relationships is golden.
• The best managers live in the culture where their projects take place – they understand the nuances, they can build on their own assets, and they know how local influence networks work.
• You always build on assets. Everyone has assets. The most important assets are closest to the end users.
• Poor people need more money. Solutions should be financially sustainable and employ people.
• Price is always a consideration but it is almost never the only consideration.
• Billions of dollars are wasted in development activities by organizations and people that do not honor these principles.

The question, now, is how to go to scale – not with technical solutions per se – but with development management systems that are effective and efficient and may very well include ICT?

India is taking on this challenge of development as a nation: the end of starvation. The answer seems to include – not embody, just include - further democratization of information and increased access to communication, according to Mission 2007 www.mission2007.org , which is now supported by almost all critical sectors of Indian society.

The task is enormous, but it can be done when the goal is noble and work is done by enough ordinary folks – whom we see as just like us.

Socially speaking

2006-06-10T05:50:00.000-07:00

I think it might be useful to look at rural ICT and development from a social perspective. What works from this perspective? What doesn't?

What Jhai does is consulting about processes that are critical parts of economic development for people who have been left out. We are especially concerned about people left out of the opportunity to use information and communication technology tools that might help them increase earnings and deepen their social networks, business relations, and friendships.

"A quantum universe is enacted only in an environment rich in relationships. Nothing happens in the quantum world without something encountering something else. Nothing is independent of relationships that occur. I am constantly creating the world - evoking it, not discovering it - as I participate in all its many interactions. This is a world of process, not a world of things." - Margaret Wheatley, Leadership and the New Science, Barrett-Koehler (pb), 1994, p. 68

Jhai focuses on the quality of our relationships.

I try to spend most of my time listening. I'm quite the lip-flapper, so I only partly succeed. ;-) What I am focused on now is how to help Mission 2007 www.mission2007.org in India gain momentum and succeed in its objective of helping very poor rural Indians earn more money.

One way of looking at what Jhai might contribute in this context is to think of it from three vantagepoints. These are:

* drivers of system change
* new tools
* going beyond financial sustainability

* Drivers of system change

o Reforming (putting in new form) interests - for example, what happens when you feed passions for particular work, like farming rice, with new information and new people of like interests to talk with?

o More money, more money, more money - what happens, for example, if poor people discover new ways to make money that don't take away from old ways of making money, but rather build on them?

o Restructuring - if you add anything that is 'healthy' to an existing system (that is, anything that is found wholesome according to local customs and beliefs and that is not thought of as imposed on people, but rather is invited by them), then the new structure that includes this new wholesome thing is stronger than the old structure. If you add ICT to a community, for example, by choice of the people in the community and with the participation of people in the community - and you do this through dialogue and conversation with relatives and friends, for example - then it builds community and is 'healthy'.

o Healthy opinion change

+ among opinion leaders
+ through natural networks
+ internationally
+ in each case opinion change about new things happens best when the change comes about because local people lead in the change - when the change comes from people in relationship in the local community or in the local community's diaspora. "Experts" are least effective change agents.

o Creating momentum

Momentum is related to denser and denser relationships more than wider ones.
Real momentum is not created by people, it is noticed by people. The trick is to notice it. What we notice when we notice momentum is a different level of connection. What that means in a village is that momentum starts to happen when people who live in that village begin to notice that they themselves have made a change for themselves. This is often connected to the time when 'outsiders' begin to be seen by villagers as relatives with some funny ways. Oddly a good verbal fight between villagers and outsiders is an almost sure sign that the social system is changing and probably healthily. When that happens you have momentum.

* New tools

o Building practices knowledge

For example, in villages helped by MS Swaminathan Research Foundation www.mssrf.org with help from the One World Foundation www.oneworld.net, older people are melding old knowledge about organic farming and local medicines for farm animals with the newest scientific knowledge that is useful for that particular locality in local language databases accessible at Knowledge Centers.

o Building technical knowledge

For example, in villages helped by Datamation Foundation Trust www.datamationfoundation.org local technically interested people who know local languages are designing wifi and hardwired networks for their neighbors and teaching young Muslim women how it is done. This knowledge will be and is put in a local database and is shared on the web and through word-of-mouth with similar villages nearby.

o Building new ways to share information For example, Jhai Foundation has conceived a GIS/Wiki website with these attributes:

+ It starts with the GIS mapping facility developed by the Indian Space Research Organization www.isro.org and enhanced by other Indian government agencies that allows for very local, mapped knowledge of terrain, crops, weather, and electrical grid status.

+ It builds on this GIS searchable mapping facility with work by MS Swaminathan Research Foundation and others to include local knowledge about crops, old methods,and local weather forecasting techniques married to national and international scientific knowledge specific to that mapped region.

+ And it is meant to include two new mapped elements developed through a wiki process:

# technical data - technical data about new wifi and other radio networking, wireless coverage, landline coverage, satellite availability, and things like access to fiber optics lines and success with each of these in a mapped locality

# social information - like land records, e-government access, socio-economic data, and, most importantly, family and community stories, shared through blogs, rss, FAQs and other accessible formats always first in local language and larger language group s (e.g., Tamil, Hindi) and English, too, always second

+ And it includes access to monthly-to-quarterly machine and human translated national virtual conferences organized around topics of interest as measured by website traffic and searches from the bottom-up

+ Paid for by grants and investments to begin with and eventually by non-intrusive ads and links

+ Again, the notion is to make denser and denser the relationships among people passionate about the same things - a particular crop in a particular place, a language group, right use of ICT ... anything

* Going beyond financial sustainability

o Improve trade profits by beating the first middleman - use ICT to find out, for example, the price the first middleman gets in the market village that day. Use that knowledge to decide whether to trade with the middleman in your village or travel to the market town yourself that day or hold your product until another day

o Make a real business out of village-level ICT-enhanced knowledge centres - This means, for example,

+ to use Jhai tools and methods to research nearby ICT-enhanced business successes,

+ to use state-of-the-art Jhai bookkeeping, business planning, visioning and long-term networking methods.

+ It also means to seek constant improvement of the business model decided upon for that location through self-assessment and networking with similarly situated businesses.

+ It finally means keeping the business and the knowledge centre open for 12-16 hours/day by whatever means necessary, including low-power, alternatively powered computing.

o See the ICT-enhanced knowledge centres as

+ a profit center for the community, no matter who or what owns it

+ a place where other ICT businesses are bred through differentiation by local entrepreneurs of pieces of the original ICT business (for example, computer sales, computer maintenance, printing, photography, outsourced data management, outsourced data input, others) while the original business continues

+ a place where other businesses are bred through the raising of capital through the multiplier effect, due to increased trade locally among people who have taken knowledge or information via the net and from databases that were not available previously (for example, self-help groups, new brokers of new services, others)

o See the ICT-enhanced knowledge centres as a medium that is the message. It is a tool for financial betterment for community members while it helps maintain community language, culture and traditions. Its way is to let innovation conform with conservative community values.

What all this does is build upon a worldview that is dominant in most of the world: the world is built of relationships. If you want to help people get more money what you need to do is help them, if asked, build upon and help make denser their current, safest sea of relationships, always experienced in the context of their shared community values.

(This was originally posted in a slightly different form as a newsletter from Jhai 2.06)

Lee Thorn signing in

2004-10-08T14:54:00.000-07:00

I'm starting this blog so can I can talk freely. I've got things to say.

For the last eight years I've served as the chair of Jhai Foundation, an American nonprofit organization that promotes reconciliation, peace and development. This is my blog, though, not Jhai's. I speak here only for myself.

While working with Jhai we have invented a way of working that results in sustainable projects. Our most famous project is the Jhai PC and communication system that is designed to bring remote villagers the ability to talk on phones and use rugged, low power computers connected to the internet. We have completed an eight month field test of that in the Navajo nation. We are working in India, now, on a number of fronts. I will report on that later.

Jhai has done lots more, including:
* a coffee project that gets farmers four times what they got previously and now has Fair Trade status,
* an internet learning center project that makes money including replacement costs for schools and won the Stockholm Challenge award,
* an event called 'Reconciliation is the opposite of War with folks from Laos, South Africa, and Afghanistan
* and a weaving project that went bust ... so far.

We are not perfect. But our way of work ...well, works.

I have worked with poor people's nonprofits and ngo's for 35 years. I've consulted with and mentored hundreds of organizations. I started in the peace movement working with Vietnam veterans. I helped start Vets for Peace on the West Coast of the U.S. and helped facilitate the merger of that organization with Vietnam Veterans Against the War. I taught at a respected graduate business school and was a management consultant for two decades. I still consult and work with vets working for peace, mostly on the strategic level.

My passions are helping poor people get what they want, peace and reconciliation. My area of work lately has been mostly around IT and development, especially in remote areas of Laos and in the Navajo Nation. I'm married, have three children, and am 63. I take risks and I am not afraid to admit when I'm wrong.

I love to think about how communication means can help poor folks. I like even more asking people what they want and working with them to get exactly what they say they need.

I look forward to hearing from you!