This will be short. My nurse is here and I'm on my IV and typing is a challenge. But, I wanted to report in about last night's GA at #OccupyBoston.
Due to other obligations, I couldn't make it for the Facilitation Working Group's GA preparation meeting. I was able, for the first time in a while, to have no facilitation role and to be a regular assembly participant. So much more relaxing! Also, I brought a friend down and gave her a tour of the camp.
The GA had a moment of high exhilaration followed by some frustrating tedium. I'll explain....
The GA started with it's usual opening statements about the purpose of a GA and the processes used. It then moved to working group announcements and individual announcements before heading into proposals.
The highlight of the evening was consenting to endorse this statement from the group "United for Global Democracy":
The Statement: United for Global Democracy
(IMPORTANT: DO NOT PUBLISH THIS STATEMENT IN INDY MEDIA, MASS MEDIA OR ON THE INTERNET BEORE OCTOBER 1TH, 00.01 AM, LONDON TIME)
On 15th October, 2011, united in our diversity, united for global change, we demand global democracy, global governance by the people, for the people, inspired by our sisters and brothers in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Bahrain, New York, Palestine-Israel, Spain and Greece, we too call for a regime change: a global regime change. In the words of Vandana Shiva, the Indian activist, today we demand replacing the G8 with the whole of humanity - the G 7,000,000,000.
Undemocratic international institutions are our global Mubarak, our global Assad, our global Gaddafi. These include: the IMF, the WTO, global markets, multinational banks, the G8/20, the European Central Bank and the UN Security Council. Like Mubarak and Assad, these institutions must not be allowed to run people's lives without their consent. We are all born equal, rich or poor, woman or man. Every African and Asian is equal to every European and American. Our global institutions must reflect this, or be overturned.
Today, more than ever before, global forces shape people's lives. Our jobs, health, housing, education and pensions are controlled by global banks, markets, tax-havens, corporations and financial crises. Our environment is being destroyed by pollution in other continents. Our safety is determined by international wars and international trade in arms, drugs and natural resources. We are losing control over our lives. This must stop. This will stop. The citizens of the world must get control over the decisions that influence them in all levels - from global to local. That is global democracy. That is what we demand today.
Today, like the Mexican Zapatistas, we say, "! Ya basta! Aqui el pueblo manda y el gobierno obedece." Enough! here the people command and global institutions obey! Like the Spanish Tomalaplaza, we say, "Democracia real Ya" True global democracy now! today we call the citizens of the world: let us globalise Tahrir Square! Let us globalise Puerta del Sol!"
Follow on Facebook from October 14th: http://www.facebook.com/...
Discuss it on Twitter with the hashtag #globaldemocracy
Endorsements:
Noam Chomsky
Vandana Shiva
Eduardo Galeano
Michael Hardt
Naomi Klein
Tim Gee
Nicola Vallinoto - Council of the World Federalist Movement
ATTAC Spain
ATTAC France
Egality London
Egality Berlin
War on Want - London
Globalise Resistance - London
Uncut UK
Uncut Italy
DRY International
Gaia Foundation
Democracia Real - Argentina
General Assembly Puerta del Sol - Madrid
General Assembly London
General Assembly Buenos Aires
General Assembly Sao Paolo
General Assembly Manchester
General Assembly Occupy Boston
It is being discussed by Wall St Occupation General Assembly Santiago (Chile), Student Unions of Egypt, DRY Denmark, the revolutionary council of Tunisia, and the General Assembly of Athens.
We went through the full consensus process to decide to officially endorse this statement. It had it's challenges. The proposal was to endorse a statement written by someone else. When we were at the stage of taking amendments people wanted to edit the statement. If you edit the statement, it's no longer the statement you've been asked to endorse. That seemed to be lost on some. I kept waiting to see if someone would actually amend the proposal with something like, "We endorse the statement, but want to add this qualifier." That didn't seem to occur to anyone.
It was heartening to hear the statements of support. I gave one and I had hoped to find the video of it, but I'm not seeing any video up for last night's GA. I'll update if I find it.
After a few go rounds through the process and hearing out everyone's concerns, there was a fairly unanimous vote to consent. This resulted in long cheers of triumph. It felt so good to have gotten there together and to be standing in solidarity with our global brothers and sisters.
I was standing next to an Iranian man who come to the United States three months ago. He was active in the Green movement and had been in the streets of Iran during the massive protests there. I had said in my statement of support that our movement began in Iran, so he came over to speak to me. He was very touched that we voted to endorse and stand in solidarity.
Later, he told me that he came to United States to see what he could learn and bring back to his people. Until now, he hadn't figured out why he was here and if he had done the right thing. Standing in the assembly that evening, he said, he now knew that he was in the right place. Here was where he would learn about democracy.
The solidarity vote would have been a great moment to end the General Assembly. We had to continue with the agenda, however.
Next up, a young man wanted to propose that we adopt a declaration of universal human rights. He had a document with 26 items - some of which had sub-items - that he wanted to read out loud and have everyone vote on. There was a lot of concern about this.
We had just been through a long consensus process. It's one thing to endorse something written by someone else, it's another to adopt something as our own writing. People need a chance to sit with the words themselves. We suggested that this proposal be posted online and disseminated for people to read ahead of time. There was a temperature check and people were fairly united in this. Still, he insisted on plowing ahead and the facilitators didn't stop him.
He read his very long document. By the time he was done, over half the assembly had wandered off and we no longer had a quorum. He was upset and wanted to insist that we did have a quorum, but it was clear that we didn't. The GA was effectively over. Individual stack continued with people speaking, but most people were done. It was rather sad to have it end that way, after the joyous celebrations earlier.
Here are my notes to the facilitation working group, based on my experiences last night:
I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it today. (Will definitely be there tomorrow at 4pm). So, I wanted to pass along my thoughts to throw into the brainstorming pile:
First, kudos to the facilitators last night. Great job, especially given that you had not done it before. It takes a lot of courage to get up there and you did a solid job. Congratulations.
- It seems that we have not been vigilant about having note takers at the GAs. I think we need to start the meeting with a call for a volunteer, saying that we can't have a GA without a note taker.
- I don't see any updates on the GA page of the web site after Oct 7. So, any decisions taken are not being documented. This is vital, as there was no clarity Thurs evening about what have been decided Wednesday evening vis-a-vis posting proposals ahead of time and this created a lot of confusion when someone stepped up to read out a 26-point (with sub-points) proposal for a vote. Perhaps we can get someone to go through the videos and take minutes retroactively?
- The facilitation team needs to feel empowered enough to stop someone from ploughing ahead when the assembly has made it clear that they do not want that to happen. We lost half the assembly when the gentleman started reading the 26+ point proposal after the assembly had already made it clear that it did not feel prepared to hear it. It was a sad falling apart after the triumphant moment of voting on the international solidarity statement.
- Perhaps the facilitation working group needs to make announcements via the stack process and announce each day that the group needs more people. Ideally there would be 40-50 people regularly involved. Not necessarily coming every day, but as a pool of experienced enough folk to provide a revolving team of 10 to conduct a meeting each day. I think that if we threw that kind of number out there, more people might come, believing that there really is room for them.
- I'd like to discuss how we, as a working group, can manage a dynamic I find very challenging. Or maybe you can all tell me to just get over it. Prepping for a GA properly really takes a full two hours. While we want more and more people to participate, it is very challenging to have people arrive to the meeting at 6:30 with their anxieties and concerns and their ideas of what should happen that night, or even more challenging: their ideas of completely different ways to conduct a GA. At that point in the process, we aren't usually planning what to do, we're working out how to execute the plan we've come up with. It is very disruptive and stressful to entertain new ideas and concerns. Is there some way to communicate this to people so they don't walk up to us at 6:30 or 6:45 wanting to have their concerns addressed? Is it just me that contends with this?
- I propose that we, the facilitation working group, make a formal proposal to the assembly about how to have GA proposals flow through the community. The focus would be that, since the people gathered at assembly fluctuates due to the vast numbers of people who have a stake but can't always be there, we need to have proposals disseminated ahead of time and scheduled. This way people can choose to come to the GAs where the topics to be proposed or discussed of are most import to them. Dissemination should include a known online location for upcoming proposals and printed versions available at a set location. Information from the proposers should include: who is making the proposal (an individual or a working group) and meeting times to allow people to provide relevant points of information, asks clarifying questions, make objections and voice concerns, and offer amendments for consideration. This way, the community has had ample opportunity to help build the proposal before it come to GA where a final round of the consensus process - not an early round - is happening. Even if working groups are announcing their meeting times already, there is a compelling aspect to saying, "we're making a proposal on Friday, if you want to have input come to our meeting!" (It sounds like there was some vague agreement that "long" proposals would get posted online, but everyone seemed unclear about whether it was standard operating procedure or optional and what defined "long". That also doesn't address the need for scheduling so people can plan to be there.)
- I wonder if we'd like to propose that GAs happen only a few set times per week, allowing other evenings to be used for working group meetings, so that the general public has more access to that level of participation. Perhaps GAs are Tu, Th and Saturday, with working groups on other eves. Or, even, one night a week for an open mic or entertainment or something. I think this would encourage a larger body of participation in the movement and it would help channel some of the energy at the GA which is better directed at working group level.
- I'm tempted to leave all GAs early for a while, because I don't want to be seen as the repository of all complaints and stresses about the GA. People swarm me with all their anxieties about how this is all going to fall apart if we don't "fix" the GA. I am too strongly perceived as a "leader" and will try to stand back for a bit. We've been hearing the "we're going to lose everyone!" line since day one and we all know it's a process of evolution. I find that I feel personally assaulted, though, when people dump on me and I don't respond well. I hope that we can find a way to instill in the assembly that the ethos of collective thinking is to come to a working group with ideas for solutions and not to just complain and hope someone else fixes things for you. Being part of the solution building helps to see how challenging it can be and to understand more of why things have been constructed the way they have been thus far. Bringing your complaints is just burdening someone else.
- I had an interesting exchange with someone last night. She was near me and told her floor manager that she had a serious concern. The way she expressed it was more of a clarifying question and he told her he would put her on the next round of clarifying questions. She was upset and I wanted to see if I could help. I heard her question and said I may be able to answer it for her. When I did, she was upset with me for "taking away her choice to speak". I insured her that I was not doing that. That if my explanation didn't resolve her concern she most definitely had the right bring it up and that I would help her get on stack to do so. She insisted that I had "silenced" her. I called the floor manager over and asked him to speak to her and get her on stack. She walked away. I clearly didn't handle that well. Frankly, part of me was annoyed that she was using me as an excuse to remain silent. That's my own stuff. But, what I found myself considering this morning is the reality that people who have felt oppressed or traumatized can be triggered into silence without us realizing it. That even though we may want to hear from everyone, we may not realize how we're feeding into their silence inadvertently. At Tuesday evening's GA, during the testimonials we heard predominantly from men until we explicitly called women up to speak. Then there was a long line of women. Why they hadn't put themselves on stack before may be a complex set of answers. But, perhaps, it's not enough to just to do "progressive stack". Perhaps we need to explicitly have a "female-identified stack" and a "non-caucasian stack" and a "non-english speaking stack" and a "LBGT stack" (I'm sure someone can improve on the nomenclature). The point is that we may need to make a clear space for these voices in order for them to feel safe enough step up. With one open stack, even though we say it's progressive, they still may feel like they're contending with the dominant voices they've always had to succumb to.
- I missed the meeting where the decision to add statements of support to the process was added. I like that! Great addition. Really felt more inspiring.
Great work everybody. It's a tall order to bring a random gathering of so many people into a new way of being and working together. From my perspective, the assembly is settling in. More and more people are appreciating and owning the process and I see far less obstructive disruption. That's a huge accomplishment, even if we feel that there is still work to be done.