[An open letter addressed to Occupy Christchurch]
Tena koutou, kia ora koutou, na reira mauri ora tatou katoa.
We’ve been at this for a while now.
I know I haven’t been present very much in the last couple of weeks, but please believe that I am constantly reading, thinking, reading more, feeling things out, reading and thinking again. This movement grips me; I feel like I am a part of it, because I am one of those people who has been waiting, plaintively, for it to happen, for many many years. Now that it is happening, I feel as if I have been preparing for it for my whole life, and I can barely believe that the time has come for us to initiate the change we all know is necessary.
WHERE WE ARE NOW
We began with a Statement of Purpose for Occupy New Zealand. We’ve organised marches, rallies, picnics and free markets.
We’ve spoken to loads of reporters and even the NZ Police. We’ve engaged with countless passers-by on a plethora of issues.
Anyway, yes. We’ve been doing this for almost a month. The media and some members of the public still don’t know what the hell we’re on about, and to an extent, I think it’s not unfair to say that some of us are still a little… uncertain of the details. We all know that the system is broken, because of the blatant fact that there is poverty where there shouldn’t be, and there are rich people hogging all the wealth while these others starve and remain mired in ignorance and poverty.
What I mean is, I don’t think many of us understand the framework of mechanics that has caused this situation to come about. How many of us can sum it up in twenty words or less…?
So, the question begs: What’s next? Are we going to narrow down some discussion topics with which we can engage our community in more well-defined, coherent ways?
SYNTHESIS
Perhaps it’s time to begin better synthesising what we’ve been saying, by identifying and focusing on the main themes of our discussions so far.
This synthesis will not aim to formulate “demands” or “goals” — it’s still far too early for that, yet.
Instead, this synthesis will move to define and weave together the main themes around which we seek to increase the quality of discussion and engagement with the community.
It will result in factual research which is focused around these themes, and will give us something to show people as they ask us what we want, what we are doing, and what we are saying. It will encourage them to engage with us about the Truths of the inequality and injustice which are inherent in the existing New Zealand political and market structures. It will help us to better articulate and describe the challenges we face together as a community, as a nation, and as a world.
This will not provide demands or goals; it will provide a more well-defined direction.
It’s not about a destination — it’s about a journey. If we come up with a solution that fits today, then tomorrow will be a new day with new challenges, and the solutions we came up with yesterday will be irrelevant. So, we need to come up with evolutionary solutions that can change with us.
Where politics and markets are based on nothing but faith and belief which are rooted in ideas of the past, instead we shall uproot ourselves and evolve alongside science, reason, and philosophy, which disciplines learn from that past without becoming mired, stagnant and irrelevant within it.
Where politics and markets are based on combat and competition, we shall base our directions upon collaboration, participation, known facts and best-practices.
So, with this pathway laid out before us, let’s explore the common topics with which we have been, so far, engaging ourselves.
THEMES
- The fractional reserve banking system and the debt-based economy
- Corporate influence on politics and the exercise of financial power over our lives
- Child poverty, and poverty in general, while there are in reality enough resources available to avoid it
- The rising cost of living compared with real wages
- Job security and working conditions
- Gender equality
- Cultural equality
- Crime rates and the prison population, and the reasons behind them
- The futility of armed conflict and the grotesque arms trade that it supports
- The distraction of large sections of the population away from the truly important issues; for example, creating desire and demand through advertising & marketing, and encouraging spending and debt, while other people get sick, starve, and die — hence the slogans, “profit is put before people” and “where there’s a problem, there’s a profit”
- The democratic process
- public participation vs apathy;
- Representative Government not actually being representative;
- Bills passed into Acts under urgency
- Mis-allocation of public funds away from education and health-care, further increasing poverty and illness; Student loans; Pharmocracy; Excessive and anti-democratic powers of CERA
- Police powers to surveil, search, and execute raids
- The wider world: poverty & the gaping rich-poor divide; starvation; sanitation; housing; etc, etc, even while we have enough for everyone
- Children’s’ rights to good parenting and guidance (I think we can move to grab this one a bit more firmly), as this affects their development, and will therefore affect not only their capacity to feel valued and protected, but also their capacity to contribute to making Life better and more beautiful in the future.
This is a fairly extensive list of themes. However, I believe if we take them one at a time, look closely, and follow the current research and compare that to current practise, we can begin to formulate good discussion points with which we engage our communities, and begin moving towards solutions.
TOWARDS SOLUTIONS
This leads us on to another important thing for us to discuss and find some consensus: When will we know it’s the right time to begin actually defining our “solutions”? Will we know because we have reached some kind of critical-mass of people who have contributed to the discussion? Will we know because the General Assembly agrees that we have reached a plausible suggestion or idea for a viable solution? Will we know because we have been able to create a model of consensus that reaches out to everyone in the country?
What we need to begin thinking about is what kind of model we want to use in order to begin finding solutions and goals. We need to begin thinking about how we can describe that model to each other, so that we can then begin to create it.
This could be a topic for another discussion document. For now, I suggest we just hold that idea in our minds and our hearts, and let it mill around for a while.
At this time, we can begin researching and synthesising the above themes. I want to ask you to add to, subtract from, or amend the list above, and begin to form more details around them.
FACILITATING PARTICIPATORY DISCUSSION
We could, for example, create “Discussion Documents” for the General Assembly. This could be a document with basic info and research on one of the themes, brought before the GA on a periodic basis, for further integration of newly discovered information, and also for further discussion around what we can begin to do about the situation of the given theme.
Following on from this, we could then host workshops/hui whakamarama/teach-ins on each theme around the results of our own GA discussions for the wider community, always seeking to encourage participation, collaboration and discussion; never preaching our own ideas or philosophies, but instead leading and guiding the community discussion through the use of our research and fact-finding.
To that end, we must also train ourselves to ALL become efficient facilitators (i.e. not “leaders”), learning to recognise our own very real biases and always being vigilant against bringing them into such a community discussion. NOBODY is unbiased; what is important is “bias management” (to coin a phrase).
“Facilitator Workshops” at the occupation site on a regular and ongoing basis should be instituted in order for us to continually improve our facilitation skills.
Such wider community discussions could be held either at the occupation, or at any other venue we so choose. In order to make the discussions accessible (and therefore, democratic) we should choose venues and environments which are amenable and acceptable to a very wide range of people. One suggestion might be community halls.
Another suggestion might be the establishment of a charitable trust fund, or sponsorship by an existing charity, in order to organise and pay for these hui whakamarama, and enable transparency. Recorders/Secretaries would also be needed to take notes so that working groups can later begin to synthesise all the contributions from the community as we move towards solutions and changes.
This is all very forward-looking, and it may take time. My view is that it takes as long as it takes.
That being said, we cannot simply say that it takes as long as it takes, and then do nothing. We must begin to demonstrate a sense of purpose, direction, and mana.
PERPETUAL SYNERGY
It is my belief that the heart of the matter is not primarily economic, nor political, nor even monetary.
It is my belief that, over the last few thousand years, we have selectively bred ourselves to be a race of people who are so insecure about ourselves and our own self-worth that we absolutely need to feel better about ourselves by acquiring money, power and possessions, and then denying those same to other people in order to feel superior… even though, really, we are not.
Some of us have been in positions to feel so bad about ourselves that we manifest this in severely abusive ways.
In this form, we project our own scarcity of self-worth out into the world by creating scarcity and poverty for others.
Therefore, the only way to change the system is to change the way we, and other people, feel about our lives; and then, to bring that feeling into conscious understanding, so we can then know how to think about it, and about how to transform it.
We can do this by creating an environment of mutual support, mutual encouragement, mutual reassurance, and mutual empowerment.
I call this environment a “Perpetual Synergy.”
We can create this perpetual synergy by reminding people that we are in control of our own lives, and that we have the capacity to transform this defensive insecurity into acceptance and a calm security. We can remind people that we can choose. And, we can choose something completely and utterly different from the structures and systems we have today.
This will take time, and many people will be afraid. They will be scared to even hope that such a transformation is even possible, because they fear the potential pain and disappointment of those hopes being dashed. They are afraid of investing their emotions in something they find so hard to believe.
And what that means is that
we must represent the belief that such a transformation is possible.
We must not simply believe it –
We Must Know It With Every Cell in Our Bodies.
We Must Feel It With Every Spark of Our Neurons.
We Must Exhibit It With Every Work of Our Hands.
WE MUST LEARN TO TRULY ACCEPT AND LOVE OURSELVES.
TRUST
What that means, at the core of it all, is that we have a lot of work to do not only in our world, but on our very selves. We have a lot of soul-searching to do, a lot of self-honesty to discover, and a lot of fear to face, without shame, and overcome.
What we know by this early stage is that we are all here next to each other. Look at the people around you. Search their faces. Realise why you are together, now, at the same time and in the same place.
One person is powerful, yet flawed.
Two people are twice as powerful; and with their respective skills and talents they begin to cancel out each other’s flaws.
Now imagine three people; four people; ten people; twenty; a hundred… a thousand…
Trust yourselves. Trust each other. Value yourselves. Value each other. Open up to each other and connect with each other; be GENUINE. Share openly, talk openly. Be vulnerable, be afraid, be weak: for it will surely reveal your strengths in even more stark relief.
It has been said that “if you wish to make a new friend, let someone do you a favour.”
We are individual parts of a symbiotic and synergistic Whole; and even when we disagree, we learn, grow, and become stronger — but only if we remember our humility, compassion and empathy.
Always follow your anger or frustration at others with compassion and reflection later. Believe in forgiveness no more than you believe in condemnation. Seek always to synthesise instead of compete, because you know the Truth: that
everything is connected.
He mihi aroha ki a koutou katoa — I love you all.
Be well, brothers and sisters.
- Maddock
Nā tō rourou With your food basket
Nā taku rourou And my food basket
Ka ora ai te iwi All the people are nourished
