| Number 380 | July 31, 2007 |
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This Week: Improving Our Democracy Skills
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Greetings, I hesitated getting into this part of the Democracy Series. There are so many ways to begin the process of getting better at doing Democracy—on the personal level—that it can be overwhelming at first. And it's also true, in a small newsletter like Nygaard Notes, that I can only point to a tiny, tiny fraction of the starting points that people might find useful. Still, the important message for those interested in becoming more skilled at "Democracy-doing" is that there ARE starting places, no matter where you are starting from. Well, I did it again. Last week I wrote that "next week I'll talk about what policies and practices deserve the support of people who love Democracy and the values of Solidarity, Community, Compassion, Respect, Trust, and Altruism that are at its foundation." As you can see, this week's Part 4 is actually about personal skills-development. So, NEXT week, in the fifth and final part of the Democracy Series, I'll talk about policies and practices. I apologize for this misleading and false promise. I'll try to avoid this in the future. Until next week, Nygaard |
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I don't know if this offering is really a "Quote" of the Week, as it's really several "quotes." But this is Nygaard Notes, and I am Nygaard, so here it is... On July 26th, Cuba's Vice President Raúl Castro Ruz addressed the country's traditional National Revolutionary Day ceremony in Camagüey, Cuba, on the 54th Anniversary of the attack on the Moncada Barracks that started that country's revolution. Many news services ran a story on the event. Here is the opening sentence of the story that appeared in The New York Times: "For the first time, Raúl Castro, the acting president, gave the traditional revolutionary speech during Cuba's most important national holiday on Thursday, deepening the widespread feeling that his brother Fidel has slipped into semi-retirement and is unlikely to return." My local newspaper, the Star Tribune, ran what was supposed to be a reprint of that story (the byline read "By James C. McKinley, New York Times.") Here's the lead sentence from the Star Tribune's "reprint" (note the interesting editing): "For the first time, Raul Castro, the acting president, gave the traditional revolutionary harangue during Cuba's most important national holiday, deepening the widespread feeling that his brother Fidel is unlikely to return." Now here's a comment on the same speech from the French news agency Agence France Presse: "‘If the new US administration once and for all can set aside its overbearing nature and talk in a civilized fashion, that will be most welcome,' Castro told an estimated crowd of 100,000, in a speech broadcast nationwide. As expected, the Bush administration quickly rejected Raul's offer." Does that excerpt sound like it comes from a "speech," which is defined as "a form of communication in spoken language, made by a speaker before an audience for a given purpose"? Or does it sound like it comes from a "harangue," which my dictionary says is "a scolding or a long or intense verbal attack; diatribe"? Having read the actual address, I would be hard-pressed to call it a "harangue." But you can judge for yourself if you like. The transcript can be found online.
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On June 27th the Pew Global Attitudes Project released the results of a huge international opinion poll. (And when I say "huge" I mean 47 countries and more than 45,000 respondents.) Any survey should be taken with a grain of salt, since survey methods vary so widely, the answers are easily manipulated, they oversimplify complex issues, and so forth. Still, this was such a gigantimongous survey that it's worth noting a few comments from the report. Let's start with this one, from the section headed "Less Enthusiasm for American-Style Democracy": "In nearly all countries where trends are available, people are less inclined to say they like American ideas about democracy than they were in 2002, and in many countries the declines are quite large... "Much of the skepticism regarding American ideas about democracy may be tied to the perception that U.S. foreign policy is inconsistent in its democracy promotion efforts. Majorities or pluralities in nearly every country surveyed [Every country except Nigeria, in fact. Ed.] say the U.S. promotes democracy where it serves its interests, rather than wherever it can. In the U.S., 63% say their country promotes democracy mostly when it serves the national interest." The people who did the survey point out that this is the "largest global survey Pew has conducted since 2002" and it "provides a broad perspective on anti-Americanism, documenting the nature and breadth of negative perceptions of the U.S." The survey indicates that this "anti-Americanism" is not a visceral "hatred," but rather seems tied to a perception that the most powerful nation in the world tends to act "unilaterally." That is, not only does the U.S. often decline to use its power to establish and support democratic structures on the international level, it typically acts without regard to existing international democratic structures. As the survey says, "Among key U.S. allies in Western Europe, the view that the U.S. acts unilaterally is an opinion that has tracked closely with America's overall image over the past five years. Ironically, the belief that the United States does not take into account the interests of other countries in formulating its foreign policy is extensive among the publics of several close U.S. allies. No fewer than 89% of the French, 83% of Canadians and 74% of the British express this opinion." In addition, "In much of the world there is broad and deepening dislike of American values and a global backlash against the spread of American ideas and customs. Majorities or pluralities in most countries surveyed say they dislike American ideas about democracy—and this sentiment has increased in most regions since 2002." The survey never defined what it calls "American values" or "American ideas about democracy," but it's likely this "deepening dislike" is tied to what the survey calls the "increasing disapproval of the cornerstones of U.S. foreign policy." That is, the military occupations of Iraq and (along with NATO) Afghanistan. "Another major source of discontent with the U.S. is the perception that American policies increase the gap between rich and poor countries. In 32 of 47 countries, at least 50% of respondents believe that the U.S. contributes to the rich-poor divide. ... Even in the U.S., nearly four-in-ten (38%) think their country adds to global inequality." A lot of people around the world seem to understand that inequality has a corrosive effect on Democracy—this is where the problem with "American values" comes in—and it seems that more in this country are starting to get this point, too. I'll discuss this relationship between inequality and Democracy at some length in a future Nygaard Notes. |
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The Democracy Series, Part 4: Getting Better at Doing Democracy |
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Here are a few ideas about how to prepare ourselves on a personal level to do Democracy better. Learning to Be a Better Communicator For a good start on some of the communication skills needed to productively participate in the democratic process, I recommend checking out a method called Nonviolent Communication, which is also known as Compassionate Communication, which is the term I prefer. The founder of NVC, Marshall Rosenberg, says "Some people use NVC to respond compassionately to themselves, some to create greater depth in their personal relationships, and still others to build effective relationships at work or in the political arena." The basic introductory book is called "Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life." You can read the introduction to that book online, at the website of The Center for Nonviolent Communication. It's quite succinct, only about 8 pages long. I'm not in a position to say that NVC is the only, or even the "best" method for learning better communication skills, but it's the best one I've found up to this point. If you know of other good ones, please send them along to Nygaard Notes. I'd love to know about them! Social Oppression and Democracy Part of effective communication is being conscious of who we are and how our life experiences shape our understanding of the world, our comfort levels in various settings, our expectations of ourselves, others, and institutions, our sense of community, and many other aspects of the world around us. Many an attempt at democratic organizing founders on the shoals of white supremacy, for instance. That is, a group starts out with a diverse membership, then the "white" members sabotage the group's efforts, often without even realizing what is happening. Then it ends up being an all- or mostly-"white" group. In other variations on this theme, the men in a mixed group can alienate the women, and it ends up as a men's group. Or the educated, middle/upper-class people make the group uncomfortable for the poor and working-class people, and it ends up... Well, you get the picture. There are innumerable ways that the oppressive lessons we learn from the larger culture work their way into our groups—into our minds!—and sabotage our attempts at doing Democracy. If we want to build Democracy, we need to understand how this dynamic operates and figure out ways to actively engage with it. The group dRWORKS (dismantlingRacismWORKS) has produced a little handout called "White Supremacy Culture" by Tema Okun. I recommend it as a succinct "list of characteristics of white supremacy culture that show up in our organizations." The list also transfers in many ways to other supremacies and how they do their damage. The author points out that "Because we all live in a white supremacy culture, these characteristics show up in the attitudes and behaviors of all of us—people of color and white people. Therefore, these attitudes and behaviors can show up in any group or organization, whether it is white-led or predominantly white or people of color-led or predominantly people of color." In other words, we all would benefit from working on this stuff. I particularly like the fact that, for each characteristic she defines, Okun lists some "antidotes" to use in dealing with them. To read the piece, go to the dRWORKS website and click on "White Supremacy Culture handout." (There are other good resources there, too, like a useful reading list.) Running Meetings Democratically Democracy involves meetings, so it's important for each of us to have some skills in actually doing meetings. In the meetings I have attended, I have noticed that it is often the case that no one seems to know the first thing about how to manage a successful meeting. Here are a few of the basic things to think about if you or your group are going to host, or facilitate, a meeting: * Do you have a plan for the meeting? Does everyone know what it is? There's so much more to it! But this is not the place to do training on how to run meetings, that was just to give you an idea of how tricky it really is. Fortunately, there are groups out there that actually do this sort of training, and do it well. One good one is a group called "Training for Change" who do what they call "direct education" which they say "is about liberation and empowerment—going to the direct source of wisdom: the group itself!" It's worth your time to look around their website and read some of what they have to say. If you haven't had much success in facilitating a democratic process
in a meeting (or if you've never tried it before) you can find a basic
outline of some of the things that go into making meetings work: "Running
Effective Meetings." One small book that I have found useful over the years is one called "Building United Judgement: A Handbook for Consensus Decision Making" (You can read a very brief review online.) Although it's about "consensus," the tips and skills in here would help anybody do a better job of participating in meetings, consensus or not. If you're interested, you can buy the book at Amazon.com, but I think it might be better to get it from the Fellowship for Intentional Community. Or, better yet, get it from your local independent bookstore, if there still is one where you live. My experience is with a consensus, small-group process, as the list above makes plain. Of course, there are other traditions and systems and ways of thinking about meetings. However you do it, the main thing is that we spend some time, energy, and thought in making our processes more democratic. I have observed that many groups seem to want to "get to the issues" and not take time to work out a democratic process. The result is often that more things get "done," but fewer people support them. Doing Democracy takes time. But what better way to spend our time than in helping each other to have a say in how our world is run? |
