Hello, Paul -- It is hard right now for me to reach this man who did OS in Northern Iraq to ask him how he defines the success of the OS. He is currently off again for his conflict resolution work and it may be a bit hard for me to reach him soon. I cannot answer this question for him.
What I hear in what you are saying are the age-old questions of people who do good work in hard places where people die and suffer is the work I do helping people really or is it just offering a temporary refuge, as you say can what we do make lasting change are we fooling ourselves I will let our colleagues who work and live in Haiti, Russia, the Middle East and other life-challenging places buffeted about by oppression, violence, rage and constant physical danger share their impressions of their own Open Space work and how that affects their own lives and their own communities. I know three things. I know what I have heard; what participants of Open Spaces say. I know what I see and feel. I know how I measure change. I have heard and seen and felt that for even one tiny moment, people felt human. And saw others as human. Felt spirit, and felt others spirit. Felt hope, and felt others hope. Built ideas, conversations, organizations, friendships, networks, pride, faith, heart, courage, conviction felt release, flow, wholeness, wonder. And they remember that moment, and hold that memory, even when things get crazy again. I do not look for a measurement to indicate that a certain Open Space or ongoing Open Spaces created change though I hear that change happens because of this moment of breathing and feeling and witnessing and sharing and co-creating. Behavioral scientists have been struggling for decades to measure what moments create human behavior change and they still struggle knowing that a single intervention or moment does not create change, but rather a network of support, a nutrient-rich environment, access to tools for change, seeing models for change, help in sustaining change and so on all work together. And that change does not flow in one (behavior gets and stays better) direction but moves back and forth on a continuum as life happens. I have been working in the AIDS epidemic since 1985. I have held dying people in my arms far too many times, have made dear friends with amazing activists who know they may be dead within the year and whose whole families have died before them; have an entire AIDS Memorial Quilt in my head. Am I fooling myself to believe what I do in the AIDS epidemic is helping against this amazing tsunami of AIDS? If it or my facilitation in Open Space helps one person it is helping one person more. And it is telling people face to face that someone, somewhere, cares about them and believes in them. That is what I know. - - - Since my early days in AIDS work I have kept close a poem by Marge Piercy that I wish to share with you here: The low road by Marge Piercy What can they do to you? Whatever they want. They can set you up, they can bust you, they can break your fingers, they can burn your brain with electricity, blur you with drugs till you cant walk, cant remember, they can take your child, wall up your lover. They can do anything you cant stop them from doing. How can you stop them? Alone, you can fight, you can refuse, you can take what revenge you can but they roll over you. But two people fighting back to back can cut through a mob, a snake-dancing file can break a cordon, an army can meet an army. Two people can keep each other sane, can give support, conviction, love, massage, hope, sex. Three people are a delegation, a committee, a wedge. With four you can play bridge and start an organization. With six you can rent a whole house, eat pie for dinner with no seconds, and hold a fund raising party. A dozen make a demonstration. A hundred fill a hall. A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter; ten thousand, power and your own paper; a hundred thousand, your own media; ten million, your own country. It goes on one at a time, it starts when you care to act, it starts when you do it again after they said no, it starts when you say We and you know who you mean, and each day you mean one more. ________________________________ L i s a H e f t Consultant, Facilitator, Educator O p e n i n g S p a c e 2325 Oregon Berkeley, California 94705-1106 USA +01 510 548-8449 [email protected] -----Original Message----- From: OSLIST [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2004 6:17 PM In a message dated 3/2/04 9:31:02 AM, [email protected] writes: This fine gentleman of faith and skill and humility reported at our workshop that the Open Space worked marvelously. Lisa, This is probably not a popular question but what does it mean for OS to "work marvelously"? What are the criteria? What are the real results on the ground? Are there any changes in the decisions and the decision-makers, the one's who decide who lives or dies in many areas of the world? Is the surrounding region more prosperous, peaceful or what? Do people have truly better lives or is the OS just an oasis in an otherwise bleak landscape, a temporary refuge from the desperate scenes of their lives?...I'm wondering about Haiti where John Engle has labored mightily to bring some sanity and hope to one of the most intractable, poverty-stricken regions of the world. I presume there were many OS's there. Now, he has had to leave in the face of the complete collapse of any sort of order other than that which grows out of the barrel of a gun. I guess what I am wondering about is can OS make lasting change in un-free societies? Is that a reasonable expectation or are we fooling ourselves and our clients? Or, equally valuable, does it open the door for change but often nobody really ends up walking through because they value their lives, health, etc., in the face of anti-freedom violence. I'm struggling with the whole concept of making or enabling change in the world. Is force the only way for un-free people to become free? It would seem like it because I can't think of a transition from dictatorship or other non-democratic government, especially a repressive one, that hasn't been preceded by violence and force. (I guess the collapse of the Soviet Empire was relatively non-violent, although not entirely so). Or, in which the people didn't slip into abject poverty and degradation first (there was a lot of violence in South Africa before it emerged in a negotiated way from white rule). And is OS really most useful for already-open societies to find out how to work together better to resolve the inevitable collisions of interests and that is its real claim to effectiveness? Is that where we should be focusing our efforts (and it probably already is where most of the OS work is occurring.) Paul Everett * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected], Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
