Dear Friends Here are some of my reflections which you may find helpful. My desire to share this was prompted by the remarkable courage I have noted by people on this list in expressing their feelings.
And by a note from a friend who lives in lower Manhattan and with whom I usually stay whenever visiting New York: please tell everyone i am fine and in grief for the entire situation and hope we do not retaliate in an awful way. Christopher Hitchens, who writes for Vanity Fair, said on our national radio (Australian) this morning that the kind of people who could perpetrate the carnage we have just witnessed are those who hate what the modern world represents. "It is not possible to deal with these people, because they feel so brutalised." (at least this is what I understood him to say). Robert Fisk, writer for The Independent, (and who has also featured prominently on our airwaves over the past few days) recounts his experience of speaking personally with Mr bin Laden and realising how isolated he was from the world around. IS THE WORLD'S FAVOURITE HATE FIGURE TO BLAME? http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=93624 Robert also notes what people who have suffered deep humiliation are capable of: "The wickedness and awesome cruelty of a crushed and humiliated people" http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=93623 Gregory Bateson, in his 'Steps to an Ecology of Mind' (I think), suggested that the conditions imposed on the German people by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 led to their feeling so humiliated that they gave support to Hitler and associated Nazi terror. I believe that Open Space Technology has the deep power to bring people who feel isolated, alienated, humiliated to a place in which their passions are heard and respected. And in which they can become more aware of their common humanity and the responsibilities this entails. For my knowing from experiencing, and very likely many of yours too, is of this fundamental law: 'Whenever we treat each other well nice things happen.' The main way in which we humans treat each other well? Making contact and listening with attention. And the space/place in which people are virtually guaranteed to feel included, listened to? In a gathering - and in a culture - underpinned by the principles and practice of our process. As Peg, Harrison and all of you who have written so personally and poignantly are alluding to, in my understanding, is that we have a critical role and responsibility to promote - and to seek sponsors of - this approach, at every level of society throughout our little planet. And in so doing . ....We look into the face of pain and hold one another. Francesca Wright . - knowing that _noone_ is to be excluded. Who knows what will then emerge? Is there a more life-enhancing way to proceed? Good to converse, with love Alan Adelaide * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected], Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
