[Oe List ...] HOPE for the world

[SVESjaime at aol.com]

This was in the Saipan Tribune Nov. 4 (5 our time).   I took liberties with 
our "Care is Everywhere" song I was with the team that crafted it in Edmonton.

Taotao tasi means people of the sea; taotao tano means people of the land.

http://www.saipantribune.com/newsstory.aspx?newsID=85029&cat=15

The politics of hope

It would seem to be anxiety time in Obama-land and panic time at McCain’s. By 
sundown today, we shall have a good idea of who the 44th President of the 
United States of America is going to be. But of the folks over in a BBC-reported 
Ohio rally for Obama, 70 percent of them were reported to have already voted 
and were there at the rally more to celebrate what is perceived to be a turning 
point in American electoral politics.

That turning point is symbolized by three words in the ubiquitous plastered 
words in huge letters at almost every local organizers’ office of Obama’s 
Ground Game: Respect. Empower. Include. The tide might very well have shifted from 
the traditional politics of conflict and confrontation to the hope-filled 
politics of collaboration and cooperation. “I’ll vote for the Chick,” might be 
popping up in Virginia, but the hardcore gamblers in Vegas are betting 9-1 on 
Obama!

Sixth grade Social Studies at my school focuses on Ancient Civilizations and 
so we trace the evolution of Empire from Sargon the Great of Akkad in 
Mesopotamia in his dissent against the King of Kish, to George W. Bush in his rarefied 
ascent into the heights of American Eagle global supremacy from the dugout of 
the Texas Rangers in Dallas. But, as David Korten chronicles in his, The 
Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community, a grassroots movement is afoot and 
is gaining momentum, locally and globally.

In a recent medical leave trip to Dallas, Texas, a couple of weeks ago, I had 
a chance to visit with colleagues in the area who are involved and active in 
the Obama political campaign. I was amazed at the extent of their 
participation in the getting-out-the-vote process and impressed with the level of 
commitment they exhibited to the creation and sustenance of broad-based ground-level 
local organizations. There was ease over the paradoxes arising from diversity, 
and tolerance over unresolved apparent contradictions.

Colleagues adept and skilled in the technology of participation, honed in 
community organizing as a prerequisite to the delivery of public services, and 
experienced in the lively field of organic organizational development and 
intentional corporate culture backyard gardening, were only too delighted to lend 
their expertise in the practices of empowerment and the sustainable base of 
authentic and care-filled inclusion.

Some of them will be meeting Nov. 17-21, 2008, in Takayama, Japan, when the 
Institute of Cultural Affairs International, along with global partners 
including UNDP Poverty Practice and CIVICUS, will host the 7th quadrennial Global 
Conference on Human Development. Bringing together development practitioners, 
community leaders, policy innovators, government, the private sector, and 
seasoned facilitators, participants will explore our most pressing human development 
challenges-from poverty to disease to ecological sustainability-and identify 
new solutions and design new approaches to resolving them. Through a 
participatory process, the conference will empower participants to share their knowledge 
and experience and directly participate in creating strategies to achieve 
improved human development outcomes.

There is, viewing all the youtube.com reports at the ground level, in this 
U.S. electoral year the heightened sense of an emancipation from the fear-based 
activism of post-9/11, and liberation from the terror-terrorizing apocalyptic 
prophecies of GWB’s eight-year occupancy of the White House. In the ambience 
of the current Obama world, freedom from fear is empowered by the audacity of 
hope, and the shift is into the art and discipline of progressive political 
activism rather than the stale politics of despair.

As has been true in pedagogy that the best way to learn is to teach what you 
learn, the same holds true with community organizing-the best way to follow is 
to lead the way on the method or pathway one is following. To practice 
participatory methods is to embody in our time the politics of hope. We have all 
witnessed the aristocratic disdain over the messiness of the common masses, a 
hubris that our CNMI legislators are known to be afflicted with, for the hoi 
polloi is often untidy, and the wily human factor does not easily lend itself to 
ease of management and simple fiscal control.

The Clintons used the spatial imagery of the Man from Hope, i.e., Hope, 
Arkansas, but Obama gave the sentiment considerable depth with his Audacity of 
Hope. Hope became an operational term, a rather practical set of procedures as 
terms of engagement and participation in the political process.

Now, grassroots organizers are at the helm. Their mantra: Respect. Empower. 
Include.

This would be “respect” of the indicative. It is not respect for what ought 
or should be; it is accepting and affirming just what is, and “just as I am 
without one plea.” Where before, power was shared only by those who belonged, 
the gates of significant discourse and meaningful interaction has since been 
left wide open. Many are responding to the signs of the times, and those who see 
the need, they do the deed!

“Empower” the present assets. Most planning sessions deteriorate into 
whining over the absence of one’s longed for resource rather than adding value to 
the diamond on the rough already at hand. Attend any planning workshop these 
days and if asked what is inhibiting the implementation of a proposal, almost 
invariably, the answer is “lack of funds.” The seasoned facilitator sees through 
this escape from the demand of the required deed, and asks back: “What have 
we got and what can we do with it?” Volunteers to Obama’s campaign are not 
prejudged on their qualifications, but are assessed on present skills and 
knowledge that can contribute to the campaign.

“Include” is allowing the embodiment of one’s current passion. All of one’s 
character traits and virtues, cultural gifts and personal aspirations are 
recognized, affirmed and celebrated. On this, I wax into poetry and song, and 
join the crowing cadres of the politics of hope.

Hope Is Everywhere

Hope is everywhere, I see it
We are all that we can be,
Come on and be it.
Life is given, you receive it.
Come and organize with me.

Open ourselves to the great celebration,
Offer our lives to its joy and pain.
Life bears the fruit of our own creation,
Everything we birth is love sustained.

Taking my cue from the golden cowrie,
All of nature’s gifts there for you and me.
Taotao tasi we have chosen to be,
Taotao tano for humanity.

Circuit the globe like a winged stallion,
Race with the sun to the edge of night.
Wear our tools like a gold medallion,
Dance in the circle of its searing light.

I spent the other day setting my classroom so that the Commission on Election 
can set up their voting booths at my school. Tomorrow, I will teach my 
students my song.

Jaime Vergara
via e-mail


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