MEMORANDUM
TO: THOSE WHO VOTED FOR BARACK OBAMA
FR: SHARIF ABDULLAH
DT: TODAY
RE: CREATING AN “OBAMA MOVEMENT”: THE TASK IS NOT YET DONE.
Congratulations. With your vote, you have achieved something that has never been done before in history (on multiple levels). Next week, on January 20th, take a moment to savor this truly transformative moment in history.
Then, on January 21st, stop savoring. You’ve got more work to do.
I believe that you voted for Barack Obama because you truly wanted change in our society. I believe Obama when he said that YOU, that each of us, is responsible for making this change happen.
So, let’s get started.
We can wait for Obama to get around to thinking about societal transformation, or we can act on our own collective vision. (I personally think that “The Boss” is going to have his hands full for a long while. I think the financial collapse/ transformation is going to take up a lot more of his attention than most of us realize right now. I believe this crisis is MUCH WORSE than anyone is letting on right now.)
So, it’s time to act on our vision. But, first, we need to HAVE a collective vision.
What is the vision of our society, as we enter the 21st Century? Where will that vision come from? The Left? The Right? Or, will the vision be forged in a heart-felt dialog of the whole?
Most of us haven’t taken the time to think about a vision and comprehensive, sustainable strategy. We rely on outmoded concepts of decades (or even centuries) ago. We get all worked up over concepts like “Progressive” or “Conservative” – the men (!) who came up with those concepts never experienced life in the 21st Century.
Narrow Issues or Broad Vision?
I am frankly disappointed by what some Obama supporters have been putting up on the Obama website (www.change.gov). He has been asking for ideas and input to the “Citizen’s Briefing Book”. Some of the ideas are “good”, many are “mediocre” and almost none are “visionary” or “transformative”. Going through scores of comments, most of them were about “gay marriage” or “legalizing marijuana”. Regardless of my personal feelings on either subject, neither of these narrow issues will get us to a society that works for all.
I am also less than interested in supporting or opposing any particular legislative agenda or bill. Congress is not going to solve our problems… we are. I am not concerned about “Health Care” or “Transportation” or “Social Security”. I am concerned about the values, vision and direction of our society.
We’re not going to LEGISLATE our way to a transformed society. We are not going to float to safety on a raft woven together out of narrow “Progressive” (or “Conservative”) issues. We need a broad, inclusive vision. In the words of Lincoln: “As our cause is new, we must now think anew and act anew”.
Our Beginning…
It’s time for us to develop a vision for our future. It’s time for some follow-through. In this time of new beginnings, it is time for YOU to begin.
So, what do you do, starting on 21 January? Here are three steps (a nice easy number to start with).
1. Let Go
2. Search for a Common Vision
3. Dialogs for a Common Future
1. LET GO.
You can’t reach the far shore by holding on to the familiar. Letting go of the familiar can feel frightening, but it can also feel exhilarating. Not letting go means that you are trapped within the bars of your own prison.
In some tropical societies, people eat monkeys. They trap them by cutting a small hole into a gourd, dropping in a piece of fruit, staking the gourd to the ground, and waiting. A monkey will come by, stick its hand in for the fruit and try to withdraw both its hand and the fruit. The trapper simply walks up, sticks the squealing, struggling monkey into a bag, then off to the stew-pot. At any time, the monkey can escape by simply letting go of the piece of fruit. It is not trapped by the gourd – it is trapped by its greed and desires. The monkey is trapped by its inability to let go.
What traps you? Where do you need to “let go”? Here are 2 suggestions:
a. Let go of “Progressive” and “Conservative” labels
b. Let go of “Normal”
a. Let go of “Progressive” and “Conservative” labels.
These labels represent old thinking that Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson would be comfortable with. These figments of our imagination used to carry meaning and weight – now, they are just lazy ways of thinking. These labels of separation provide a false identity and an equally false sense of community. They get in the way of us figuring out what we need to do, together, as we face this turbulent 21st Century. Having a nice sounding, convenient “lazy” label means that you don’t have to answer the difficult questions:
• What the key values that you hold in common?
• What is your common vision of a sustainable future that works for all (including people who don’t like you)?
• What are you willing to sacrifice to realize this envisioned future?
I am neither “Progressive” nor “Conservative”. (I’m also not a Whig, nor a Tory, nor any other outmoded conceptual label.) I am a MENDER. What does that mean? It means that I am committed to catalyzing a society with INCLUSIVITY as our highest value. I am committed to working with EVERYONE ELSE who shares this value. I am committed to working FOR all other beings – whether or not they share my values or my vision. I am committed to fixing this Mess – regardless of who created it.
I am committed to a world that works for all.
The Lifeboat:
Assume that you are in a life boat with 50 people. There’s enough food and water on board for about half that number. It’s leaking. Ten of the folks on the boat are committed “Progressives”. Ten are committed “Conservatives”. And 30 are just watching television, or wondering when someone is going to come along and feed them.
How would you organize the lifeboat for the good of all? What tools will you use? Do your labels of “Progressive” or “Conservative” mean anything in the context of a leaky lifeboat?
If you are sitting in a leaky lifeboat without enough food or water for all the inhabitants, the first thing you work on is NOT “gay marriage” or a “flat tax”. Note: I am not saying that either gay marriage or a flat tax are inherently bad ideas. I’m just saying that, if your house is on fire, you don’t worry about vacuuming the rugs. And, if you are vacuuming the rugs, it’s because you don’t believe that the house is on fire.
b. Let go of “Normal”.
We must let go of concepts like “emergency” and “crisis”. These concepts imply that there is a “normal” we are trying to get back to, once our “emergency” is over. For example: our present financial crisis is not a problem that we need to “fix” and then we can go back to “normal”. We need to see this for what it is: a major collapse and restructuring of our basic economy, a restructuring of how we choose to relate to each other.
Twenty years ago, “Communism” collapsed. It went from being the second most powerful political economy to being an historical footnote. And good riddance.
Now, it’s “Capitalism’s” turn. And good riddance. These man-made structures, based on fundamentally flawed consciousness (“I am separate”) must pass away, if we are to achieve a world that works for all. It’s time for a NEW POLITICAL ECONOMY.
We saw what happened to Communism. We could have spent our time preparing. We had 20 years to put a new economy together, test-drive it, put together seeding experiments… we had 20 years to prepare for a soft landing. We squandered that time. ALL OF US squandered our lead. Many of us wasted time in an orgy of financial gluttony. Others wasted time pointing fingers, blaming others, various conspiracy theories, feeding the fires of fear. And now, we still have the task in front of us… with only a few months to spare.
For the past decade, I have had the honor of working toward a new political economy with Dr. A. T. Ariyaratne and the rest of the Sarvodaya Movement in Sri Lanka. We’ve been working to blend the VISIONARY with the PRACTICAL, for a new direction – beyond war and violence (“Progressive” values) and toward small government and personal/community responsibility (“Conservative” values). (More on this in a subsequent blog.)
2. Search for a Common Vision.
Our Founders articulated a simple but immense Vision: out of the shadows of monarchy and feudalism, the Founders envisioned a society where all humans were equal, and had rights that no human could alienate, because no human provided them. I still find the boldness and straightforwardness of this vision truly amazing.
However, because of their personal shortcomings and weaknesses, the Founders never enacted that vision. Instead, they created a world where the “rights” of humans with different colored skin or different genitalia could be alienated on a whim. A democracy of, by and for privileged white males. The turbulent and often tragic history of the United States has been scarred by their inability to enact their vision.
It’s time to move a collective vision forward again. All of us, together, must start the task of articulating our common vision, common values and common goals. All of us, as humans on this planet, must start the task of articulating a common vision for humanity.
A Vision of the Spirit
Our common vision must be infused with Spirit. (No, I am NOT talking about “religion”, or who gets to utter what prayer at which Inaugural function.)
As an Obama supporter, I know you’ve felt that Spirit. I know you felt the promise of our times in the weeks preceding the election. I know you felt that Spirit on Election Day itself, as we witnessed spontaneous outpourings of joy all across the country and across the world.
And… I know that the last few weeks have been a bit of a let-down, as we watch Obama being slowly gobbled up by the Beltway Bureaucracy. On Tuesday, 20 January, Obama stops being a free agent and starts exercising his Constitutionally mandated (and limited) role. But, remember: WE ARE STILL FREE AGENTS! We can, we must, and we will envision and enact a collective, Spirit driven future. As Obama is the SYMBOL of change; we shall be the AGENTS of change.
3. Dialogs for a Common Future
The dialog movement in America is alive and well. Dialogic processes at the local level are how people have begun to reach out to their neighbors. The role that government, the Church and social organizations played in the past, the dialog movement performs now. Its how people have begun to clarify what is important. Its how people have revived the lost arts of conversation, discourse and finding common ground.
And no, I’m not talking about “talk radio”, the equivalent to shouting into a darkened room.
Now, it’s time we started “dialogs with teeth”. Dialogs with meaning. Dialogs as though our future depended on each other. I see dialogs on:
• Food, Water & Energy Security
• Forging a Common Vision (the precursor to a long overdue Constitutional Convention)
• Elements of a New Economy
• Our universal moral/spiritual principles.
It’s our country. It’s our moment. We sit in the potential of a movement. Let’s get to work! Starting on January 21st, 2009, let’s work to make that potential real!!
Peace,
Sharif
