The Shore

The Shore

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Palestinians, Fighting Poverty, Bill C-354 and thoughts on Cuba

This week the Human Rights Committee, of the U.N. made public their paper on the May 2010 attack on the Flotilla trying to take aid to Gaza, and the murders on the Mavi Marmara.

The draft paper which will be presented to the committee on Monday,  called:
Report of the international fact-finding mission to investigate violations of international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law, resulting from the Israeli attacks on the flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian assistance.

They say in the summary that:
This report was prepared by the fact-finding mission established by the Human Rights Council in resolution A/HRC/RES/14/1 of 2 June 2010 to investigate violations of international law, including international humanitarian law and human rights law,  resulting from the interception by Israeli forces of the humanitarian aid flotilla bound for  Gaza on 31 May 2010 during which nine people were killed and many others injured. . .
             . . .
The report contains a legal analysis of facts as determined by the Mission with a view to determining whether violations of international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law, took place.
The fact-finding mission concluded that a series of violations of international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law, were committed by the Israeli forces during the interception of the flotilla and during the detention of passengers in  Israel prior to deportation.
 The whole report is rather damning, although most media coverage in Israel writes it off suggesting that the committee was "biased from the beginning" and that the U.N. is generally biased toward Israel.

The report suggests that Israel's boarding of the Mavi Marmara (and others in the flotilla) in International Waters, was illegal and that they have broken the 4th Geneva Convention and that some people could face criminal charges, as there is "clear evidence to support prosecutions."  There are many more conclusions and recommendations - from paying compensation to victims to returning the property that Israel seized from passengers.

Part of the recommendation which also includes a statement that there IS, in fact, a humanitarian crisis in Gaza,  says:
The Mission considers that several violations and offences have been committed. It
is not satisfied that, in the time available, it can say that it has been able to compile a
comprehensive list of all offences. However, there is clear evidence to support prosecutions of the following crimes within the terms of article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention:
• wilful killing;
• torture or inhuman treatment;
• wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health.

The Mission also considers that a series of violations of Israel’s obligations under
international human rights law have taken place, including:
• right to life (article 6, ICCPR);
• torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (article 7,
ICCPR; CAT);
• right to liberty and security of the person and freedom from arbitrary arrest or detention (article 9, ICCPR);
• right of detainees to be treated with humanity and respect for the inherent dignity of
the human person (article 10, ICCPR);
• freedom of expression (article 19, ICCPR).
The right to an effective remedy should be guaranteed to all victims. The mission must not
be understood to be saying that this is a comprehensive list by any means.

A Canadian boat to Gaza is planned for another Int'l Contingent - - to assist or donate see more at:
http://canadaboatgaza.org/cms/sites/cbg/en/statement.aspx

Another interesting development in the Middle East - there is now an IPhone app created by Americans for Peace Now  re: "facts on the ground" in the occupied territories.   It is quite a WOW sounding app - though I have not had a chance to try it.   The story says that:
Settlements are symbolized by little blue houses on the map. Clicking once on the icon gives its land area. A second click brings up a window with more details: the year it was established, population, ideology (or lack of), character (secular or religious), amount of 'private Palestinian land' it occupies, and a graph that tracks its population growth.
iPhone users can also zoom in on outposts marked in red. The map includes the route of the Green Line, Jerusalem's municipal boundaries, and the various zones under different security arrangements, Area A and Area B.
__________________________________________________________________________________

Also today - some (I think) good news from Cuba.


A story today,  following on the announcement that they are laying off a lot of government workers says:

Cuban authorities will issue licences to open small private businesses starting next month in 138 different areas of economic activity, as well as to rent out homes, Cuban state media reported Friday.
The move follows Cuba's announcement earlier this month of plans to eliminate 500,000 jobs in its sprawling government sector by the first quarter of 2011.
The Cuban Communist Party daily Granma published a list of trades that will be allowed to engage in self-employment, including masons, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, massage therapists, typists, hairdressers, computer programmers, domestic personnel, driving instructors and flower salesmen.
'Those who are registered as self-employed and those who join them will have the obligation to pay taxes on personal income, on sales, on public services and on the use of labour force, beyond contributing to social security,' Granma said.

Allowing Cubans to have small businesses, and to hire other workers is new - here's hoping that it is of assistance, and that once the economy is a little less controlled, perhaps the controls on civil society will be lessened, although I do not want to see Cuba become another poor Caribbean nation with huge income disparities. . .   as well as an example of civil society and Trade Union repression.    My own experiences in Cuba (but I do not speak Spanish well enough to have a political discussion) are that people don;t like the system but think it is "fair".  They are reasonably happy with  the fact that incomes are pretty fairly allocated and they do not see a big difference.  They are, though, rather unhappy to be prohibited from leaving the country "on holiday", and some people complained about lack of access to medicine even though they had money.  In Havana that was the most common complaint from hospitality workers who can amass the cash (from tips) but cannot take a trip (money cannot leave the country frivolously I guess. . . )

_________________________________________________________________________________

When I attended the Civicus Congress  this year, I learned a bit about fighting  against poverty and for Human rights.  One of the people I interviewed was Sylvia Borren, the co-chair of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (Whiteband) Campaign.   She spoke at length about how we, in the north,  have laws that protect the children and women (and men, of course) in our countries from gross exploitation.    If a company was to use child labour in Canada they would face stiff penalties, especially if there was trafficking involved. . . .  But, if a Canadian company is using child labour in India or China, or some other country, there are no such penalties.  Now NDP member of the House of Commons Peter Julien has introduced a Private members Bill - Bill 354  to support international protection of human rights - not just in Canada,  anymore.

There is a conference on Parliament hill tomorrow that I wish I could attend on this topic.  There is a Rabble story about it - but what you can do if you cannot attend the conference is help Peter push the Bill by printing out and signing the petition at:
http://peterjulian.ndp.ca/sites/default/files/Petition- A call to support Bill C-354_The international promotion and protection of human rights act. ENG.pdf

Wouldn't it be meaningful if we could force Canadian companies to act with ethics, considering human rights and non-exploitation everywhere they worked/invested/manufactured etc.   I do not expect the Bill to pass -- there are too many people in Ottawa beholden to or too friendly with international corporations/finance,  but it is dream that I support, and that I think would/could be supported by most working Canadians.  Bravo Peter J.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Democracy, "free markets" and a "free press".

A month or so ago, I wrote a post about Economic Justice and it has caused some questions - but one of the main ones is about the relationship of economics to democracy.

Can you have democracy without a free press, or a free market?   What is a free press or a free market?  What is democracy,  anyway?
 Even if a consensus on precise definitions has proved elusive, most observers today would agree that, at a minimum, the fundamental features of a democracy include government based on majority rule and the consent of the governed, the existence of free and fair elections, the protection of minorities and respect for basic human rights. Democracy presupposes equality before the law, due process and political pluralism. Is reference to these basic features sufficient for a satisfactory concept of democracy?

That definition from the Economist's, Democracy Index, is,  I think,  OK with me.  Too often though there is conflation of the concept of democracy with unfettered markets.   In my view, the words free press and free market generally mean a society where one can purchase and invest without limitations,  in which one can purchase a press/media/access to an audience and run it unencumbered - these days even by promoting insurrection or an overthrow of the government, if you happen to be in a State that wants a non-American model. (Cuba and Venezuela and China come to mind, though obviously Cuba takes the worst of the criticism,  then Venezuela and then China,  even though Venezuela has free and independent elections and China has none.)  But, we do have a lot of trade with China (they make it, we buy it) and they are not expected to part with their "state" oil, whereas small South American countries are expected to make it available, cheaply to U.S. interests or they are "dictatorships" - like Venezuela which, in fact, has had free elections with int'l observers.



Most definitions seem to assume that a free press is just one which runs encumbered by the State and it's regulations - where the state does not regulate the press in any way.  But is this really a "free" press?  Those governments that have more planned economies, promote legislation to help the poor, and/or that do not have completely open "markets" where rich Americans (primarily) cannot just come in and take the resources and flee, or exploit the labour and flee, and who regulate the press, to try and educate people and resist the attempts of trans-national corporations and their lies  - can they have a "free" press?  How would we measure it?  Hopefully,  not by following the resistance to hate speech, and calling it a failure of free speech, as the so-called "International Free Press Society" does.

Too often I hear people talk about democracy related to "free markets".  Free markets generally means an unencumbered, even unregulated market - one where people are less important than profit; one where corporations have the same rights as people,  and where you have more "rights" when you have more money.  As soon as a society starts to regulate, to make society "fairer", more "just" -  at that point - corporations, and people with lots of money,  start crying foul because they cannot make a profit from your labour, or by exploiting our common resources, without paying a fee/royalties or taxes, or just being outright prevented from their aims.

There is a difference between democracy and a free market.  One can vote for leadership, at the neighbourhood, district, region, province/state or national level.  If the votes are fair and no one is banned from voting,  (there is total suffrage),  if the system is fair (probably a system of proportional representation) and if votes cannot be purchased either directly or through media buys, there is a level of human rights, and no oppression of minorities,  then one has a democracy, I think.   But if, as in the U.S., there is no control over who can fund, or how much one can fund a political campaign, and no regulation of what you can say once you buy the time to broadcast or deliver in print, then it becomes, in my analysis, less democratic.

Now, what about the so-called "free press" - what makes it free?  Is it access for all?  Is it a fair distribution of paper and the airways?   No - it is a so-called "free press" when it can be purchased and when you can say anything that you like with that purchased access to an audience.   Is it really a "free press" when it is only available to those with the money to purchase national media?  Again, my analysis would suggest that this is not in fact a "free press".  This is a press available to the highest bidder, or the one with cronies in the business, or who controls a large corporation that can make a media buy like the recent purchase of CTV by BCE Inc.

I simply cannot understand why universally, people are not constantly asking questions about this democracy, free press, free market set of false notions.   No one (well not on the TV news, or in the national/mainstream press) calls Saudi Arabia a dictatorship, or an authoritarian regime, or worries that it is undemocratic, no one sends me petitions to sign about the position of women in Saudi, no one talks about press censorship in Saudi or any of the related Arab states. . . (OK occasionally there is news that a Canadian or U.S. national is going to be "put to death" or "flogged' for some  - by our standards - insignificant crime, but this tends to be short lived) Why?  Because although they are extreme and undemocratic - they have "free markets", and a press friendly to a capitalist economic system, unfettered markets and foreign investment.   In Saudi Arabia, only males over 21 may vote, there are few ballots, and, according to The Economist's Democracy Index, the Saudi government is the seventh most authoritarian regime from among the 167 countries rated.  It is also according to the World Bank - the 13th easiest country in the world in which to do business. . . and really,  they seem to ask - what could be more important?  I am having a "go" at Saudi because they are not democratic, bad on Human Rights and yet they are considered a good, easy place to do business and so we seldom see them maligned in the "free press".   Iran on the other hand - also with Sharia law, with actually more freedom for women, and which ranks higher on the democracy scale (for authoritarian regimes mind you) is constantly maligned in the press (not that I am suggesting that it should not be) and although higher on the democracy scale than Saudi, is 137th in ease of doing business, compared to Saudi's 13th. Also, Saudi Arabia is the world's leading country in the case of torture-by-flogging , public beheadings and publically crucifying condemned prisoners.  But Iran as we know, is far more vilified.

Again, according to the Economist Democracy Index -
The principle of the protection of basic human rights is widely accepted.
It is embodied in constitutions throughout the world as well as in the UN Charter and international agreements such as the Helsinki Final Act. Basic human rights include
freedom of speech, expression and the press; freedom of religion; freedom of assembly and association;  and the right to due judicial process. All democracies are systems in which citizens freely make political decisions by majority rule. But rule by the majority is not necessarily democratic. In a democracy majority rule must be combined with guarantees of individual human rights and the rights of minorities.
Sept. 12, 2010 - this morning there is also this story at Rabble -
As a hunger strike by over 30 Mapuche political prisoners in Chile reaches a critical stage, international media attention is growing for their demands for an end to the anti-terrorist laws under which they were tried and convicted. These regressive laws remain on the books from the era of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, and have been routinely used against leaders of the Mapuche's struggle to defend their land and autonomy.
The hunger strike began on July 12, and many of the prisoners are now in very precarious health, having lost up to 18 kg.
The Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada website does not include a word about the Mapuche hunger strike. In contrast, over the past two months the Canadian government has issued five press releases concerning human rights in Iran.[my bolding]

So why don't our "democratic" countries speak out for the rights of others,  in these countries, even the ones that are "easy to do business in".  We would not allow someone to procure children for sexual slavery or trafficking of their labour in our own country,  but we do not condemn it or allow charges against those of our own citizens who do this in other countries,  and,  although there is at least some outcry about individual child sexual abusers (even if it happens in Thailand) there is no outcry when corporations with a "head office", or  with substantial interests here, in Canada, use child labour in other countries.   There is no demand that there be open disclosure from corporations about where and how they source their products and the conditions of work and the workers who make,  or pick,  or sew the products in question.   Why not?  If there is democracy here, and we consider it of value, why shouldn't there be democracy everywhere and why should we not demand it/insist on it -  at least with our purchasing power,  and of those corporations who want to have the right of a citizen here - then have the responsibility of a citizen of a democracy -  everywhere. 

In the meantime, how do you define democracy?  Is the Economist Index helpful, does it measure the right things?  Are capitalism and so-called "free markets" related to democracy or does democracy mean something different to you?  What would democracy at work, look like?

For me,  democracy should mean that everyone has access to citizen participation tools and organizations that can improve economic justice, the environment, relative poverty and improved distribution of income, everyone has equal access to the opportunities in the society, and no class or gender or race or religion, or ability or lack of it,  holds you back from participating in making things better for yourself, your family, your community and the world.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

CEO's, charities and private members' bills

A couple of days ago,  there was an unbelievable post in the Globe and Mail.   I am sputtering with a kind of rage after reading it, although daily the mainstream press does make me rage or cry.

The Globe piece was written in response to a private member's bill that sets out to limit the salaries of CEO's of charities.  I don't know what drove the member to introduce the bill, but it seems reasonable to me, although it might have been good to include something about minimum salaries because too many people in the sector make way too little money!

It is the case that everyone pays a portion of these salaries since charities pay NO taxes - so there does need to be a public good in the work that they do, and the public should be benefiting from their work.  The federal government registers charities and gives them numbers so that they can in turn, give out charitable receipts for the donations,  so that people do NOT pay taxes on the money that they donate (or at least it has a tax benefit - not $1 -$1 depending on how much you donate and your income.)

So the federal government on behalf of Canadians, gives out the numbers and set out rules for charities about how much you can spend on administration,  and how you have to report,  and how quickly you must spend the donated money etc.  (It is a complex system and people without MBA's and law degrees figure it out every year. )   Anyway the private members bill, for good reason wants to limit the salaries of charities to no more than $250,000 per year.  Now given that amount  is 5X the average salary of a Canadian that seems like it should attract sufficient "talent". . .   As far as I can see, to make big money,  you just have to not care - and to take the lesser dollars one has to care about the work and not the income.   I mean $100,000 a year is in the top 5% of income earners in this country - 250,0000 is in the top 1-2% . . . we really cannot find the talent to run a charity (even a big one) in 95-98% of the working population?

The article says in part:
But what if, in fact, we’re actually hurting the needy by restricting charity salaries? What if it is the case – as it is with most of the rest of the economic world – that when you increase the amount of money you are willing to pay, you can recruit from a better talent pool, and if you recruit from a better talent pool, you can get leaders who can increase the amount of money being raised for the needy?
What we don’t realize is that the kinds of restrictions being proposed have a powerful negative effect. They create stark, mutually exclusive choices between doing well and doing good for the brightest young minds coming out of our best universities, law schools and business schools. As a result, tens of thousands of them – any one of whom might have made an enormous difference fighting social problems – march directly into the for-profit sector each year without even considering a career in charity, because they are unwilling to make the kind of lifelong economic sacrifice that the charity ethic requires of them. Their talents are lost to the needy forever and gained for a lifetime by the marketers of Budweiser, BMW and Botox. How is that smart? 
 Because I can see the heads nodding, I felt compelled to explain why this is so misguided.

I would like to see data, applying to non-profits and charities that suggests that "when you increase the amount of money you are willing to pay, you can recruit from a better talent pool, and if you recruit from a better talent pool, you can get leaders who can increase the amount of money being raised for the needy?"

All those people that are only out for their own benefit, who go where their income can be maximized, they are a better talent pool for the charity sector?  This may be great for the "Capital Casino" that  these folks normally work in, and they may be smart enough to run a charity, but I fail to see the connection.  There is some magic about $250,000 to get the best and most committed?   If you get more talent, you get better leaders?   Of course being a talented money maker/manager makes you great at running a charity because it is just like the "capital casino" - it is just like the captains of industry to want to "increase the amount of money raised for the "needy"!  For the Needy?   What year is this? This smacks of improving life for those in the poor house.   You know what else? Those charities that pay the big bucks - hospitals and universities are at the top of the list are hardly for the needy -- charities for the so-called needy - we are talking the Elizabeth Fry and John Howard Societies, the drop in's for the mentally ill, the Oxfam's and Care and Service Canada. . . for the 70% of the world even worse off than poor Canadians.    Will increasing their CEO's salary really get better talent that can raise more money?   Maybe,  but only because they are better connected to the money already!  And I will take THAT into consideration,  (always hire rich people to raise money as they can make their rich friends donate in larger numbers than I can) but more "talent"? - not on your life.

Imagine the talent that it takes to run an operation on a shoe strong, so that all the money can go to "clients and services";  where you have to worry about the number of photocopies that you are using; or making sure that you keep enough money in the bank,  after providing service,  to make payroll every two weeks; where you have to worry about your administration costs as a percentage of your income,  because you don't have an organization like a University or a hospital that has a separate "foundation" that raises the money so that all that University and hospital admin is covered not by the charity dollars but by the hospital or university. . .  yup we really need those financial cowboys to be running the charities of the country.

Last thing about salaries - somehow the author of this article keeps stating that people shouldn't have to make "financial sacrifices" in order to do charitable work -  and I agree - but let's lift all those folks making $25-45,000 per year up - let's have them earn in the $60-80,000 range - CEO's? they can make up to $100,000 or,  as the Bill's author suggests - $250,000.   Who, is making a financial sacrifice at $250,000/year?  More than double, nearly triple,  the average family income in Canada.

You know what else, there is more that is wrong with "charities". . . the charities in this country were once advocates for the poor,  and if you like,  "needy" - but that is no longer allowed.  If you want to advocate for the poor, a change in legislation, an increase in benefit,  or a change in taxes - you better not be doing it as a charity.  So, these days my money  goes to organizations that advocate and educate but cannot get charitable status - the CCPA, the Media Coop(The Dominion), Rabble and Straight Goods, Greenpeace.    (Well OK I gave money for Pakistan, and a couple of friends were raising money for the Stephen Lewis Foundation and N.S. Gambia and well OK - I am loose with my bucks, and I carry change to give away on the street)  I certainly don't think that immediately, everyone should do this - especially when it comes to charities that work on Int'l Development but. . .

I have a suggestion - lets not have this discussion about how much to pay the Charity CEO's - lets have a progressive tax system where the rich and the corporations pay their share; lets have a decent guaranteed annual income, use tax dollars to provide needed services,  and use our charity dollars to try and eliminate the $2.00 divide. (70%+ of the world lives on less than $2.00 a day)  That will eliminate a need for six figure salaries for those running "charities" altogether, we can just eliminate the need for the work.

Friday, September 3, 2010

Corporate and Gov't Internet Control

This was originally written for and posted on the Civicus Blog 

Short but sweet - Just thought I should post a link to a piece in the Economist . . . as it is of interest to those defending a civil society space . . . as an internet - no longer accessible, no longer free and possibly controlled and monitored by states could be an increasing problem.

It shows a graph of country's requests to remove information . . .

[caption id="attachment_276" align="alignnone" width="595" caption="From the Economist"]From the Econmist[/caption]

There is also a full article on controls that governments and corporations are trying to set up to have more "sovereignty" over the information on the web.

It speaks to the "balkanization and possible reduction in "freedom" and free access to and on the internet.

That article says in part:
. . . a decade and a half ago. . . [it was]prophesied [that] a digital paradise in which not only would commerce be frictionless and growth exponential, but democracy would be direct and the nation-state would no longer exist.

. . .

. . . The internet was a wide-open space, a new frontier. For the first time, anyone could communicate electronically with anyone else—globally and essentially free of charge. . .

. . .


Fifteen years after its first manifestation as a global, unifying network, it has entered its second phase: it appears to be balkanising, torn apart by three separate, but related forces.

First, governments are increasingly reasserting their sovereignty. Recently several countries have demanded that their law-enforcement agencies have access to e-mails sent from BlackBerry smart-phones. This week India, which had threatened to cut off BlackBerry service at the end of August, granted RIM, the device’s maker, an extra two months while authorities consider the firm’s proposal to comply. However, it has also said that it is going after other communication-service providers, notably Google and Skype.

Second, big IT companies are building their own digital territories, where they set the rules and control or limit connections to other parts of the internet. Third, network owners would like to treat different types of traffic differently, in effect creating faster and slower lanes on the internet.

It is still too early to say that the internet has fragmented into “internets”, but there is a danger that it may splinter along geographical and commercial boundaries.
Although not mentioned in this article, I have some similar concerns related to the explosion of "cloud" computing. Although storing all of your data, on someone else's hardware may be convenient (accessible from anywhere) it does cede control over the data to a central player/location and make it harder to keep data private. Controls are so much easier in a centralized rather than diffuse network - just another area in which Civil Society needs to be vigilant.

Open Space Technology at Civicus 2010

This blog was written,  by me, for,  and originally posted on,  the Civicus World Assembly Blog.

This year at the Civicus World Assembly, in addition to sessions that involved detailed presentations, there were three days - three afternoons from 2-5 - that were devoted to sessions with very generalized titles and that were conducted using Open Space Technology. This is not "technology" in the sense of computing, phones, tweeting or Web 2.0 generally, but is a very simple democratic facilitation technique (very "low tech" in fact. )

Open Space Technology is a facilitation method that has no structure, within a defined set of rules. I have seen it work amazingly well but I think it did not work well (although it was done very well) at the Civcus Assembly, for a number of reasons. There were three Open Space groups and my experience is based only on one; the other groups may have had more cohesion and better/more satisfying outcomes. . .

According to Open Space World
In Open Space meetings, events and organizations, participants create and manage their own agenda of parallel working sessions around a central theme of strategic importance, such as: What is the strategy, group, organization or community that all stakeholders can support and work together to create?
Usually, in my limited experience, with Open Space, the participants create the agenda, and the questions, based around a shared or mutual interest in the outcome – for instance – every one works for the same organization and wants to maximize profits, or increase impact, or improve service. In my experience, it does not work well when the outcome, that we want to achieve, is a weak or vague vision, or so large that the people in the group cannot take control of the strategies that need to be implemented to achieve the desired outcomes.

So my group was titled: Reconciling economic development, the fight against poverty and climate justice: what and how can civil society contribute?

The first day the room was full. I am guessing, perhaps more than 50-60 people were in the room, maybe more (I never thought to count). We had some opening remarks from Kumi Naidoo, Executive Director of Greenpeace International and Past General Secretary of Civicus, that were appropriately directed to the question of how the three things were related and how they intersect. I was excited. I definitely see tensions between these three – not outright hostility just a question of priorities. If you are busy trying to get the world to cut down on carbon, or save the ocean, or get rid of cars, in order to save the planet and eventually improve people's lives, even save them from climate devastation/crisis - your priority may not be working on poverty and social justice/human rights, today. But people are dying and being imprisoned and kept from organizing to improve their lives - today! Not that environmentalists don't care about that, I realize it is just not what they are working on – but everyone cannot be doing big climate change work. . . Although people do not always like the comparisons, I think that the concept is useful: someone has to be building the dam while others are pulling the drowning out of the water. The question - how do we make sure that we are all working together - no point in your diverting the river so that others will flood. . .

I felt that the agenda on day two became one in which direct action on climate change became the priority and the question that was posed and the issues represented in the title were lost by the end of day 2. The agenda was essentially “hi-jacked” buy a focus on the environment. Now I understand all the way, that the south is going to be affected first by climate change and that drought and floods are going to affect the south first, and most extremely. I wrote about it in a previous blog, but I felt that too much time was spent on individual solutions for the north – get rid of cars, use your purchases to buy a new world. . . etc. I wanted to see solutions based on green jobs and technologies for the developing world – how small farms, eco-farming, agroecology, and perma-culture could help and would be good for the environment and people. How does moving to sustainable fishing or farming or manufacturing help the move to improve democracy, human rights, gender equity and civil society space (yup – I love the big questions?)

So although unsatisfied at the end of day two, I was nevertheless interested enough to return, as I wanted to see what kind of action would emerge from some rather “deep” discussion. By Day 3 though, we were a very small group – one of the “rules” of Open Space is that “you let your feet talk” - if you are not getting anything out of your group – move to another group – or go out in the hall, or go home, but don't hang around feeling that you are wasting your time. The other principles are: 1) Whoever comes are the right people, 2) whatever happens is the only thing that could have, 3) when it starts is the right time, 4) when it's over it's over. These aren't prescriptive, according to Open Space World - they are the results of thousands of little experiments.

So none of the actions on Day 3 seemed to include all of the elements of the question – how can civil society contribute to the reconciliation of the fight against poverty, economic development and climate justice. The discussion that came closest – and the one that I worked on - was to create an index against which governments of any economic model, north or south, could be rated against, with data mostly available, and that would measure poverty, human rights and environmental impact/justice. But this action was far too big for anyone in the group to take on, although all of us were willing to work on it. There are many other measures, indexes etc., but they take many people to analyze the data and they are usually based on the OECD only, or on the U.N. development index etc. Another problem with most current indexes is that they use the current economic model of growth as an indicator – this needs to be altered to measure improved sustainability, relative poverty and inequality, and Human Rights. Other groups came up with great projects – plant a million trees in Mozambique, or distribute Diva Cups (reusable menstrual cups)to young women in a country in the global south. . . but they seemed specific and didn't seem to reconcile all three issues at all – but then I was not in those groups – feel free to tell me about your different experience in the same group.

So I enjoyed my time in the space, and think it is a great facilitation technique because it demonstrates what can arise out of an open, free democratic space. Personally, I learned some things and made some friends, but I thought that there was not enough cohesion in the group, to ask harder questions - that the overall question/goal/outcome/ of the group was ignored by the majority (or perhaps everyone was influenced by the more aggressive) in the group. It was a great use of open, democratic space – the group takes control - but a disappointment for me and I expect others. . . since the group went from so large, to so small.

I would use Open Space again for a Civicus Assembly, (though I am not involved in those decisions!) but I would suggest that either the questions be ones that would attract a group of people with a more common goal/outcome (who could debate ways of getting there); that how the actions would be implemented (web based follow up - Civicus as an organization committed to follow up on one or two most promising items?) was clearly outlined, or, alternatively, that the entire Civicus Assembly be involved in creating the agendas, groups and spaces in the first place so that we could follow the group questions to a group facilitator with a specific agenda, that I share, and want to work on. It would be unwieldy with so many people but it could also be magic.