Team Syntegrity 2017
How civil society can help to renew our democracies 1
Contents Introduction and process .................................. 3 Participants ....................................................... 5 Recommendations per topic ............................. 9 Religion and secularism ................................ 9 Biosphere politics ........................................ 10 Money and funding civil society ................. 10 Racism and the far right .............................. 10 Education for global citizens ....................... 11 Reinventing politics ..................................... 12 Transform and rebuild the left.................... 13 Revolution ................................................... 13 Communication and media ......................... 14 Internet ....................................................... 14 Creating safe, inclusive spaces in society ... 15 Parenting the planet ................................... 16 Quotes from the independent evaluator ....... 17 Feedback and exit interviews ......................... 19 The Impact of Team Syntegrity 2017, so far… 22 12 recommendations: the journey so far ... 22 Conclusion ....................................................... 30
Organisers openDemocracy (oD) hosts: Rosemary Bechler, Alex Sakalis, oD/Can Europe make it? and Armine Ishkanian, LSE and oD/openMovements.
Delivery team Lead facilitator: Allenna Leonard, was Stafford Beer’s partner and has continued to work with his models and processes ever since. She is a former president of the American Society for Cybernetics and the International Society for System Science. Facilitators: Joe Truss, also from Toronto, Canada, is the Development Director of Team Syntegrity International and a geometrician; Rosemary Bechler (qualified TS facilitator), and Alex Sakalis. Operations and facilitation: Leonie Solomons, from Australia and Sri Lanka where she now lives, was a research student of Stafford’s; Cameron Thibos, tripod cameraman, oD/Beyond trafficking and slavery; Sunny Hundal, timekeeper, oD/social media advisor. Lead Operations: Eva Lange, lead operator for Malik Management, Zurich, Switzerland. Malik management has the license for the commercial delivery of syntegrations, and they also do government and non-profit sector work. Independent evaluator: Cecilia Milesi, is a Latin American analyst of peace policies and facilitator of change processes, www.ceciliamilesi.com. Tweets @MilesiCeci Our thanks go to our Barcelona hosts, OSIFE, to the Robert Bosch Foundation, and the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung for seeing this unique event as the opportunity and experiment that it is and for supporting us.
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Introduction and process Over five days, June 18 – 22, 2017, we organised a non-hierarchical conference for 30 people in the Artchimboldi venue in Barcelona, to discuss how, ‘in the context of several major interconnected global crises, civil society can help to renew our democracies to rise to that challenge…?’ Since the subject was the renewal of democracy, the choice of Team Syntegrity – a cybernetic process designed by Stafford Beer to take a comprehensive fresh look at a complex topic, by exploring multiple perspectives and integrating the ideas that arise – had several advantages. Firstly the underlying criterion for choice of participant is ‘requisite variety’ to address the complexity of the problem. Our participants were in large part European, but we ensured a wide range of backgrounds, political roles and perspectives. We were not successful at persuading rightwing participants to join us as originally planned. But we did have a number of people who held out little hope for political change alongside passionately committed activists. We did have an age range, people came from different parts of Europe, also one participant from Chile, New Zealand and Canada. So the event itself plays out an important feature of modern democracies where the more complex societies become, the more difficult it is for governance to be accomplished by vertical relationships. Higher variety means that mass society with its one-size-fits all prescriptions is being replaced by an identity society in which directions are negotiated. Communications technology and widespread literacy accelerate the distribution of control, or governance, to both individuals and a larger number of the organizations comprising civil society. But, self-regulation can lead to fragmentation. So a balance between autonomy and cohesion is required. Team Syntegrity achieves this by a series of overlapping group conversations that accumulate over three and a half days a very high level of shared knowledge and ideas as well as considerable bonding between participants. Another important feature of the protocol is that it provides a highly organised, non-hierarchical, space in which self-organising can occur. The participants select the 12 topics they wish to discuss, and the format ensures that all participants are given an equivalent opportunity to contribute freely and to share with others in the outcomes and benefits that result from their collaboration. For example, the gap between those who were confident speakers in public, and the others, in particular between those who had the advantage of being fluent in English and those who were language-constrained, took many different forms in this short event. But the non-hierarchical format ensured that these differences were registered, worried over and complained about, and that to some extent and in different ways, they had to be addressed. The rotating roles of group member, critic and observer help to ensure that groups do not get mired in their own stories and opinions, and facilitate the generation of creative, innovative ideas. Each individual is responsible with four other members for the recommendation coming out of two topic teams; they act as one of five critics in two more, and may observe a further two discussions. Team members are responsible to the group for preparing a statement at the end of each meeting that 3
communicates the essence of their discussions and conclusions to the others. It is common for an idea to reverberate around the structure and pop up again in an altered state in the team where it originated. People share their perspectives and come to at least a partial understanding of the frames of reference of other members of the group. They learn to trust that conflict can be managed within the group, and that the ideas they share with other members serve to enhance the outcomes for the whole group. Very heterogeneous groups often stay together during meals and informal time. We would recommend that anyone interested in how the process works browses the exit interviews published online. Another revealing aspect of the process is the progress over the three days from a series of individual speeches to real conversation, ‘I’ to ‘we’ that we chart on the same webpage (bottom left). After three meetings of each topic team, they come together in a plenary session to present their results to the full group (see the three presentation videos published online). This is a high point, in that everyone gets to see how the pattern of their statements comes together to make a whole. In Artchimboldi this June, there were a lot of wondering statements about how much people felt they had overcome their reservations and doubts, and achieved new and important relationships and ideas in such a short time. This report maps their progress. We begin with the twelve topic recommendations, interspersed with some of the participants’ most noteworthy comments on process, and then report back on what we have found out since the event: what do the participants feel they learned and how have they built on their own experiences and recommendations? Rosemary Bechler, Alex Sakalis
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Participants Marley Morris, London I’m hoping to leave this event with new ideas, connections, and methods of collaboration Simona Levi, Barcelona I’m hoping this event will lead to organized groups for direct non-violent actions on the parliamentarian and judicial level. An end to Podemos mythology. Felix Weth, Hamburg I’m hoping to leave this event with new friends and new ideas on how and with whom to promote real democracy. Birgitta Jónsdóttir, Reykjavik I’m hoping to find some things I can take back home and also a chance to express ideas in the right place to express them and to see them taken forward. Pavlos Georgiadis, Alexandroupoli I am expecting to meet leaders in open and social innovation, to discuss democratising processes related to citizens’ everyday lives. My particular focus is on collective and commons mapping and management of environmental/agricultural/food resources; urban-rural connections and food democracy. Wiebke Hansen, Hamburg I’m hoping to leave this event with: 1) Pragmatic ideas how I can contribute to stabilize democratic and humane values in my sphere of action now and in the long-run. 2) A message to bring to all people I meet who are engaged for democracy, climate and environmental protection or a humane and justice society. 3) Hope & Motivation. 4) New contacts. 5) At best: being part of an international movement for democracy Rui Tavares, Lisbon I’m hoping to leave this event knowing more how cosmopolitan democracy could solve the tension between globalization and national sovereignty. Ana Segovia, Madrid I’m hoping to leave this event with effective optimism and new ideas
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Michael Chessum, London I’m hoping to leave this event with a perspective that is broader than my own as a UK-based political activist. Vanessa Kisuule, Bristol I’m hoping to leave this event with some concrete ideas as to how I can be a part of effective change back home. Richard Bartlett, Wellington I’m hoping to leave this event with maybe some ideas for the next stage of Loomio to work at much bigger scale. Emma Avilés Thurlow, Barcelona I’m hoping to leave this event with energy and ideas to collaborate with many actors to change narratives and political energies in Europe. Ashish Ghadiali, London I’m hoping to leave this event with new friends, new skills, more knowledge Agnieszka Wiśniewska, Warsaw I’m hoping to leave this event with new contacts, knowledge about how we can change Europe Luis Martín, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria I’m hoping to leave this event with insight gained from other participants’ knowledge and experiences + continuing our conversation in the future. Kate Farrell, Berlin I’m hoping to leave this event with a better idea of how euro-descendent intellectuals can help to build and participate as equals within a many-worlds dialogue where the complex existential task of simultaneously making and making sense of the place of humanity within The Anthropocene is spoken, regarded and constructively engaged. Nikos Odubitan, Athens We need room and we need space to learn from each other. Armine Ishkanian, London I’m hoping to leave this event having learned more about how to take ideas into practise.
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Rebecca Fitzgerald, London I’m hoping to leave this event with a better understanding of the world and less of a sense of powerlessness in the face of current events. Noam Titelman, Santiago I’m hoping to leave this event with new ideas on how to understand the political and social challenges, especially with the emergence of new populist movements, the fall of many traditional parties, the effect of massive migrations on political and social structures. Aya Haidar, London I’m hoping to leave this event with broader insights on how others view democracy (in real terms not just theoretical), engage in active dialogue with a variety of people from various backgrounds on common themes and, in these critical global sociopolitical times, look towards the future critically and proactively. Andreas Karitzis, Athens I’m hoping to leave this event with expand my grasp on the ideas and innovations regarding democracy and collective practices that are emerging today in various areas of human activity – test and fertilize my own thoughts and beliefs of these issues. Rhiannon White, Cardiff I’m hoping to leave this event with an insight into a wider perspective of where we are in the world, who we are and how we can come together in a time of fear, uncertainty and isolationism. A sharing of information - that can reignite the fire in the belly. Joan Pedro-Carañana, Valencia I hope to learn from an innovative, participatory process for generating knowledge that can be useful for the democratisation of societies. Lofa Ullah, Swansea I’m hoping to leave this event having shared information and ideas on education, equality and how to tackle racism. Michael Weatherhead, Malaga I’m hoping to leave this event with an experience of new format for idea development and learning others’ views on the topic Magdalena Malińska, Warsaw I’m hoping to leave this event with a bunch of great ideas how to change the world to be a safer place for all of us. 7
David Stefanoski, Prilep I’m hoping to leave this event with new friends, new ideas, new perspectives. Markha Valenta, Amsterdam I’m hoping to leave this event with concrete ideas for how we can effectively move from the national to the global level when thinking about how to achieve full social and legal equality for individuals, groups & countries (at all levels, from the street up) – i.e. the possibility of formalizing and normalizing global citizenship for all, while making political leaders accountable to all (including beyond national borders). Am most interested in question of long-term revolution as complement to short-term reform: toward what alternatives to global systems of consumer capitalism and nation-state shall we work? How can one create multi-moral (pluralist) social systems – within cities, states, national and global institutions? David Mallery, Toronto I’m hoping to leave this event having had exposure to a variety of new perspectives on how to navigate complex social, ecological and economic problems.
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Recommendations per topic Religion and secularism This statement is a work in progress, an invitation to more development: The issue of religion and society is very complex. It has impacts at different scales: from the interpersonal (how I behave with you), up to our collectives, organizations, neighbourhoods, and cities and countries. The instinct in our team was to focus on the small scale and then move up and out to larger scales. We agreed we want to live in a pluralist society. This requires some minimum consensus, like “people shouldn’t kill each other”, and much more room for autonomy, agency, and respect for difference than we usually get to enjoy. Our attitudes to difference can be incompatible with our desire to be pluralistic, but attitudes do change. We as organized citizens, can host carefully designed spaces where we encounter difference in a way that shifts our attitudes. Difference provokes big feelings in people. You might believe abortion is about women’s freedom, whereas someone else might believe abortion is about killing babies. Those are big differences that create big feelings. But small differences can create big feelings too: entire religious communities have split over a difference of interpretation of one line of scripture. The aim of these “spaces of encounter” is for people’s feelings to build a bridge of empathy for the other, rather than a canyon of mistrust or dismissal. We have opportunities to provoke people to grow towards more pluralistic attitudes, at many scales. We could find many examples: As an individual, you can replace demands with requests. When you tell me that I “should” do something, it implies you know what is best for me. If you tell me I “could” do it, that emphasizes my freedom of choice, my agency. These small linguistic changes may help to shift my attitude, but they won’t resolve urgent social crises. In our neighborhoods, we can do things like hosting social events, offering free food, games or dancing. Events like these can help a neighborhood of diverse residents to become much more harmonious, as they exchange stories and discover similarities they value more than their differences. Some cities and countries are hosting deliberations, where people practice this skill of finding agreement despite their differences. See for instance the story of how taxi drivers, Uber drivers, city officials, and citizens collaboratively wrote the new transport legislation for Taiwan. 9
Across all these scales, we notice people’s personal, unpolished stories make a big difference. When I hear you tell your own story, in your own voice, when I hear the full nuance of your experience, with both your observations and your sensations, then I am invited to empathize. I and they become “we”.
Biosphere politics We need to have a massive and concurrent response from different actors, to stop environmental degradation, natural resource appropriation and land rights violation. The development of commons-based systems of collective ownership and management of resources needs to be considered when constructing political, social and market narratives, which should be based on the notions of transparency and social justice. All economic flows should respect the balance within our societies as part of the biosphere. We need to get politicians involved through transparency and fighting corruption.
Money and funding civil society We believe a flourishing civil society is vital to a functioning economic and social system. We recognize available time is a key resource alongside political freedom, passion and motivation. As such we believe that civil society can support democracy through resourcing approaches that encourage co-production, co-ownership and broader and inclusive participation in itself. These approaches include innovative models of ‘share’ ownership and resource diversification.
Racism and the far right To tackle the far right we need to:
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develop new spaces for group contact / engagement
recognize support for these parties is structural and systemic, not simply based on ignorance and selfishness
address issues of identity and self-confidence
language: politicians have taken over the ‘language’ of populists and how to reach them
fighting is between the poor and not-so-poor to maintain privileges
parents’ experiences drive the generation that follows
extremism and misinformation and role of the media
interaction with the young to influence
racism exists within the same race / community and amongst them
the role and recognition of institutionalized racism
Addressing the politics of: 1) goodness 2) anger 3) power requires:
inclusive patriotism
grass-roots action, and
these solutions must not involve building a wall.
Education for global citizens Our discussion is about reclaiming globalisation through education. One of the core issues is the question of what is a realistic goal that you would want to invest in as a target, and what is unrealistic. The current curriculum needs to be addressed by having human rights, race and gender embedded as curriculum subjects; as well as the consequences of living on a limited planet; and the global economy. Access to education is important to us – we are concerned that young citizens require sufficient nutrition and schoolbooks alike. The promoting of best practice at the local level combatting exploitation is key. Then we have a proposal for a Global Social Service when you are eighteen years old, a two year service somewhere else in the world. This was much discussed, including whether it could be mandatory, or would be ecologically unsound, what age would be best for candidates, whether universal human rights could be a core part of that project, and how realistic it was, on which scale. 11
None of this was fully resolved in the short time allotted. But the criticism helped us narrow the project more and more in a way that has strengthened it. So we ended up with the idea of a pilot project which for the first year would be in place for 100 people from all over the world, based on a Charter, on a legal basis that would provide visas for these people in the countries and municipalities that would be signatories to this Charter. It would collect resources from multiple sources, but to give you an idea it would cost 30 million euros per year, which is not out of reach for two or three foundations. But we wanted to think a little bit further than this about how it should be in the future. So one of the ideas that we have had is that this should be funded at some point – not as a pilot project for 100 people, but when it could service many thousands or perhaps hundreds of thousands, or, who knows, millions – by a carbon tax, a global tax that could thereby offset the footprint of the project. NGO’s and local authorities and groups would devise local projects which they would send to the main database to be chosen by young people. There would be a lottery so that there is no advantage or privilege attached to having many connections or much money in this programme. There would also be a stipend (already budgeted for in the 30 million euros calculated for 100 people.) But of course, this deliverable, reached via criticism, must not forget the core of the project. And the core is the idea that ‘global citizenship’ is a bit of a pleonasm, in the sense that being a citizen is having certain inherent rights that should not be interrupted just because you cross a border, or that should already be there even if you are born in an unlucky place that is at war… So citizenship should immediately be understood as global citizenship and the qualifier should more and more be when we talk about ‘national citizenship’ in fact – as a local qualifier. We want people to learn that by experiencing that. We have seen it happen in many privileged parts of the world that have these kinds of exchange programmes. But we think that the cause of ‘citizenship’ which is ‘global citizenship’ could be very well advanced by a programme that would be there for everybody, everywhere, as ‘citizenship’ could or should be!
Reinventing politics We need a way to humanize the state that breaks apart existing power structure and enables inclusive democratic participation through a subsidiarity structure that encourages local engagement. This structure needs to involve everybody living in the jurisdiction, beginning with giving everyone a right to vote as a universal international standard, and ensuring legally enforceable access to participation at different levels by disadvantaged persons like wheelchair users. For this we must elaborate further on: • Mobilizing for the right to vote for everyone 12
• Bringing democracy into the economy • Ensuring access to democracy • Exploring the practise of communing We are creating a wiki to collect best practices of participatory, decentralized and more inclusive political processes and institutions. This is to evolve into a charter to empower citizens in a way that is universally and equally accessible.
Transform and rebuild the left We are in a crisis of political representation. New political actors and practices are rising (distributed, more horizontal, inclusive). We embrace the constructive tensions between political platforms and movements. Language and connection with the people is key: openness, listening, empowering and putting dignity at the centre.
Revolution A definition of revolution. TIME: Revolution is a process with explosive moments. It is dynamic and not unidirectional. MEANS: It’s not the means that define the revolution, but the objective. We think that the means must be prefigurative of the objectives – that means that there are certain red lines which cannot be crossed. OBJECTIVE: If you cannot stand the current situation, you do not care what will happen the next day OR a non-normative radical change from the status quo.
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Communication and media Our focus:
What laws to protect fundamental human rights and democracy in the digital age are best practice?
What is best practice in the use of language and communications for social transformation.
We need:
Strong laws to protect our content and our historical records.
Digital rights are human rights, such as privacy.
To communicate and engage in a conversation with people . To empower with narratives that build a culture of democracy and hope.
Alternative media bundles where you can opt in so users can select up to 10 with one wild card media. (e.G. Set up like humble bundle).
Laws on who owns corporate media.
Laws on limiting cross-ownership of corporate media.
Whistle blower protection - local and global.
Training journalists with focus on investigative journalism
Training civil society in communication, the use of tools, and security and source protection.
Feed the wolf of love!
Internet We need to reclaim the internet as a common good that is accessible to everyone in order to insure: 1. A fundamental right to privacy 2. The right to be forgotten 3. Transparency for governments and corporations and privacy for individuals 4. Whistle blower/journalist and source protection 14
5. Protect net neutrality 6. Digital sovereignty with common, cooperative and public ownership of a platform 7. Protect workers’ rights on the internet 8. Promotion of digital/media education 9. Acknowledge the environmental and social aspects of the internet
We propose a participatory global constituent process that develops a Charter based on these principles and creates a global body to preserve these principles and oversee their implementation. We also encourage the establishment of a public bank of software and code.
Creating safe, inclusive spaces in society First iteration Create an autonomous, bottom up inclusive space to promote networks of differences and commonalities.
Second iteration Civil society can renew democracy through the creation and preservation of safe and inclusive spaces.
Third iteration Safe and inclusive social spaces fundamentally preserve and empower civil society. These valued spaces are grassroots, bottom up, collective efforts, whose beneficiaries own an equal stake in it. This poem was put together by Rhiannon White based on contributions to the safe spaces final presentation.
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Parenting the planet First iteration We need a new economy based on feminization of politics, deprofitisation of war, valuing invisible labour and demarketisation of environment and caring.
Second iteration It would be strategic to create feeling spaces where we can explore the masculine experience of patriarchy. Real democracy now!
Third iteration I’m not having my needs met. We can’t achieve change until we learn to live the life we want to see. Nip it in the bud – change the tree before it grows rigid. To have feelings and be able to express is more than a privilege – it is a miracle. We can use that capability in our favor, but politics start when we use it to be able to think what would other people, other beings, other objects feel. There is a self-reinforcing relationship between extractive capitalism, war profiteering and violence against women. We must teach men to recognize expressions of patriarchy on every scale. To intervene, we must address the social, cultural, and economic institutions that validate and perpetuate the cycle.
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Quotes from the independent evaluator “One of the most striking features of the methodology is the belief in the power of participants/citizens to generate their own ways of engaging and deliberating around one common question and a number of co-created themes.” “From my observations, I feel I can confidently conclude that this is a formative and powerful experientiallearning protocol, useful for the development of the skills required for democracy regeneration.” “In general, what was observable was a shared sense of responsibility for the common process and output.” “For example, some groups discovered huge discrepancies and differences among themselves. I would mention those who categorised themselves as fitting with the description of the ‘old left’ (i.e.: patriarchal, vertical, etc.) and those categorised within the ‘new left’ (i.e. horizontal grassroots organisations and participants openly committed to the feminisation of politics). Notably, representatives of both “sides” ended presenting their conclusions side by side, showing the respectful and mutual learning results from the process. The power of the approach was confirmed, as the groups created joint arguments beyond differences.” “The TS initiative opened an important space for sharing personal stories. Because of this, it was an opportunity to increase synergy, heal and remember, preconditions for resilient activism and work for change.” 17
“The TS experience was a small-scale space, presenting what our daily lives might look like in renewed democracies.” “The conversational exercise proposed by TS is a tool, among many others, helpful to reinvigorate citizens’ ability to maintain rich, necessary and difficult conversations.” “Everyone simply faced ‘the other’ humanity, beyond labels.” “Critics acknowledged that critiquing was a means to support those in conversation, rather than a moment to make their personal points and/or ‘big statements’.” “In the groups, many argued that ‘new politics’ and ‘better democracies’ are about openness and responsiveness to peoples’ needs. The methodology was an exercise in learning what democracy may look like if we focus on caring or groups’ and peoples’ needs, using basic dialogical skills as the pre-condition to creating a people-centred political project…. In conclusion, the encounter was a chance to practice this transformation on a small scale.” “TS was a small-scale exercise in people power, where focusing on the process is as important as a concrete result in the form of a ‘solution’.” “It seems that each group in particular – and the group as a whole – ended with a sense of synergy and took home multiple and unexpected lessons. A number of participants mentioned that they might concretise multiple actions, while also supporting openDemocracy as a platform enabling the communication of progressive, democratic and alternative messages for social change.”
Full independent evaluation (online) →
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Feedback and exit interviews There were nineteen evaluation forms.
“How well did you get to know other participants?” Most participants said they had got to know the other participants very well, though some, like Richard Bartlett, made the point that while he got to know some participants intimately, others he barely got to know at all. Nonetheless, many participants were struck by the closeness they achieved with the others, exemplified by David Stefanoski’s comment that “I couldn’t forget you guys if I wanted to.”
“What do you think about the selection of the 12 topics?” Nearly all participants marked on their comment forms that the topics were highly representative of global and local issues. One notable exception was Pavlos, who wrote that “there was a large part of 21st century/future thinking missing i.e digital rights, robot rights and automation.” Marley Morris noted that the combining of certain topics, such as gender and the war machine, caused unnecessary confusion. Felix Weth suggested fewer topics would have produced more meaningful results.
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David Stefanoski highlighted the ex nihilo nature of the process, saying during his exit interview that “I don’t think we realise the magnitude of what we just accomplished. We made something from scratch.”
“How would you judge the definition of the goal of this workshop?” Most comment forms marked this question roughly halfway between confusing and clear, although some stated they felt the definition of the goal was entirely transparent. Ana: “I was quite confused about the possibility of a focused goal. It surprised me how quickly issues were chosen. Some topics went in completely different directions than I expected, but all of them produced positive outcomes and experiences. Some were more concrete goal-oriented and produced actual/real projects that I find interesting and necessary.”
“How did you feel during the Syntegration?” Most participants stated that they felt “very good”, although Magda noted that her mood changed with each day. Some participants felt quite tired, especially going into the final day. “I can understand why it was designed for 5 days rather then 3.5,” wrote Michael Weatherhead.
“Is Syntegration a suitable method to solve complex problems?” Michael Weatherhead: “I will certainly consider it for future events I think it could benefit.” David, in email mentioned that he would try to adapt it for his political activism back in Macedonia. Birgitta, MP and co-founder of the Icelandic Pirate Party, after the Syntegration, emailed us to say, “I am deeply impressed by the method and the incredible mix of people you managed to gather. I intent to use Syntegrity in my party and hopefully elsewhere.” Pavlos, an organic farming activist from the north of Greece, said that the Team Syntegrity model “has motivated me to experiment with applications in various contexts, mainly in the context of parallel payment systems in local food economies.”
“Did the sessions produce good results?” Nearly all participants said that the third iteration produced the best results. However, many also thought that the second iteration produced the least good results. David Stefanoski described the evolution of the sessions thusly: “We started with exposition mostly, a few short speeches by everyone, speech after speech, but as the sessions progressed, we moved onto direct, actual conversation, which brought us substantial results.”
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“Did you learn something about yourself in this Syntegration?” All participants said Yes. Magda: “I became more aware of my role in these kinds of decision-making processes.” Aya wrote that, “On a personal level, I feel I have achieved a lot,” before going on to describe how engaging intellectually with others during this process allowed her to reassess her notions of the role of motherhood (Aya was a new mother, and came with her young baby).
The full infoset of Team Syntegrity 2017 waiting to get started in Artchimboldi 21
The Impact of Team Syntegrity 2017, so far… It is not easy to track the impact of Team Syntegrity on 30 participants, not least all the possible combinations of influence people may have on each other, individually and collectively, over time. (Several of the recommendations from one memorable such event on the future of UK trade unions in Ruskin College, Oxford in the 1990’s were spotted by TUC members surfacing for up to a decade afterwards.) But the initial phase has its own interest in terms of gauging how urgent it is for participants to follow up on their recommendations, how they are setting about doing this once they have returned to their home contexts, how important it is to them to keep in touch with each other, and also in touch with their hosts, the openDemocracy organisers, as we created a new hub featuring Team Syntegrity 2017 on our site. See here, here and here. After leaving a decent interval over the summer for participants to resume their daily lives and replenish their energies, we have chosen two methods for tracking these results. Firstly, with the help of the participants we are preparing follow-up newsletters on each of their 12 recommendations, approximately one a month. These are at their disposal for sending out to their own networks of contacts as well as to openDemocracy reader lists. Participants have contributed everything from quick postcards to extended essays on their themes, pursuing them in their further travels and explorations or in report-backs from subsequent events. So far with their help, we have produced and sent out three such newsletters, on Parenting the planet; Reinventing politics; and Safe Spaces. The second follow-up mechanism that we’re deploying is to contact everyone by phone in turn over a period of time. We have had phonecalls with six of the 30 participants so far, using this as an opportunity to catch up on what they’ve been doing, finding out who if anyone they’ve been in touch with among the other participants, and any other ‘evidence’ of the fruitfulness of Team Syntegrity 2017. Thanks to our very willing subjects, these follow-up interviews are proving to be a particularly rich way of tracking the less obvious types and filiations of impact.
12 recommendations: the journey so far Parenting the Planet Shortly after the Team Syntegrity, Richard contributed an idea to the Goethe Institute on male experiences of patriarchy, directly inspired by this session at our event in Barcelona. His article after a recent tour of the US also speaks about his Team Syntegrity experience. Since then, he has been continuing working on the idea of safe spaces, as demonstrated by these two blog posts, meeting up with Ash and Emma, and is writing a blog post (which might turn into a book) about ideas prompted by his Team Syntegrity experience. Richard's participation in these 3 sessions had a profound effect on the independent evaluator Cecilia Milesi, who later wrote about it on her personal blog.
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Safe spaces Aya Haidar was the first to write, reporting the impact of this and other sessions on her work as an artist in three international arts exhibitions taking place in the Middle East. In particular she mentioned the construction of a safe space for Syrian refugees in the Scottish town in Aberdeen in her current arts residency, in which her role is to support the negotiations between the two communities that enable them to dwell happily side by side to their mutual advantage. There may be no direct link with Vanessa Kisuule’s poem (4.22 – 6.00 mins.), since Aya has long been proud of the place of food in Lebanese society – but food has turned out to be an important bonding factor for this safe space, as she told us in her recent interview. Rhiannon White also wrote in August to share her further thoughts on being working class and the need to create spaces like the Parc and Dare Theatre in Tryorchy, the Rhondda, where people are reminded that the arts are for them. Hotfoot from directing ‘We're still here’ in Port Talbot – a sitespecific performance based on interviews with steelworkers, union representatives and the people of Port Talbot, dynamically staged in the disused Byass Works to celebrate the unique spirit of the town – she took time out to join Ashish Ghadiali in this Arts for Labour event to explore what it means to be a political artist and to ‘get building’ a culture for all. Wiebke Hansen has told us more about her ‘little home' idea.
Internet Joan Pedro-Carañana and Ana Segovia are continuing their dialogue on the internet as a common good and will write for us shortly. So far though we can't see any tangible developments in this group’s Global Charter for all Internet Users.
Communication and media
The use of language and communications for social transformation.
To communicate and engage in a conversation with people to empower them with narratives that build a culture of democracy and hope.
Training civil society in communication
These three goals of the ‘Dark Blue ‘ recommendation are the locus for some intense networking. a) Joan Pedro-Carañana has reported back for us from an October meeting of 25 independent media from across Europe at the Transeuropa festival, who have espoused as their common goals [quote]:
1. Amplify each other’s' work and recontextualise for different national audiences.
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2. Encourage readers to take further interest in news, stories and struggles outside of their home nations, at a European level. 3. Build a healthy ecology of translation between us. 4. Build transnational understanding and solidarity around key themes, (tentatively housing; labour rights; feminism). 5. Explore how decisions in European institutions have different impacts in different places. 6. Use our extended network to further open up the kind of contributors, editors, writers and readers that are in the network. 7. To escape the stereotypes about one another’s national contexts that are perpetuated by mainstream media. 8. To build a space where we can quickly and efficiently find authoritative and trustworthy perspectives on issues as, for example, we did in the case of a video published shortly after the meeting, about Catalonia. b) Barcelona en Comu’ s Fearless Cities media session – see Emma Aviles here (4.58 – 5.58 mins) – is continuing to inspire, with a new proposal for a ‘media container about municipalism worldwide.’ In a reportback on Fearless Media follow-up in late July, the Transnational Institute, who have held a series of conferences exploring cost-saving synergies between independent media, have heard of Birgitta Jónsdóttir’s idea about bundling up independent media at a price ‘you can afford’ on the Humble Bundle principle:
“There is a growing universe of alternative and independent media; however it is hard to find a way to go to the next level. For instance, Video production and TV formats (which are by far the most influential and with broader audiences) require enormous capacity that can only be achieved pooling resources from different organisations. Big challenges lie ahead, in particular, ownership and distribution of content. Some work open source, others have a subscription model that often requires years (or decades) to build and cannot be easily abandoned. New forms of financing should be explored, for instance Humble Bundle, which has worked very well to boost for instance the production of independent video games.” See the Dark Blue presentation on Humble Bundle here: (5.25 - 6.21 mins).
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Education for global citizens Markha Valenta recently wrote: “Earlier in the year, I had proposed a fellowship project for institutionalizing global citizenship in individual countries to the Soros Foundation that was not selected. A big stumbling block was that it sounded too far-fetched, impractical and idealistic. During the course of the workshop in Barcelona, I first narrowed down the focus of my proposal to an even more concrete project by proposing in my working group on education that we find a way to institutionalize mandatory two-year global social service for young people. Many in the room found this too to be too far-fetched and about half the audience was quite critical, while the other half found it a decent to wonderful proposal. Rui Tavares, defending the feasibility of the proposal, quickly sketched out the possibilities for putting together a pilot project for $10,000,000 – a vast sum, but feasible at the international level (for example, possibly through the EU). The ease and clarity with which he did this astounded me and taught me much. I am now beginning to present the project to MEPs for consideration.”
Transform and rebuild the left Many participants have been actively involved in building leftwing parties, movements, grass roots projects and political think tanks, campaigns and media. From the UK Labour Party, to Razem in Poland, the pan-European DiEM25, Another Europe is possible or a new Alliance for Free Movement, all seem to be noticeably engaging with the different formats and institutions required for inclusive, proactive engagement on the part of citizens, circling around the debate between movements and parties, and all are challenged by overcoming the divide between the middle and working classes that Joan PedroCarañana flags up here, a discussion that also informed the strong friendship (one of many) between Joan Pedro and Lofa. The same discussion is at the crux of Ashish Ghadiali’s development of new forms of debate for the Momentum festival which is attracting so many young people to the Labour Party:
“The plan we laid out initially, interestingly, would have been a lot more anarchic and chaotic. Facilitators posted at four corners of the room, where anyone could go and write things down and speakers would have to compete for attention with some of these. At the same time, you have a room full of people who are actually being encouraged just to meet one another for one minute, three minutes, five minute slots. I probably was influenced by that first market place of ideas session at the Team Syntegrity. Maybe I didn’t communicate the idea I hoped for well enough….” Andreas Karitzis new book: ‘The European Left in Times of Crisis, Lessons from Greece.’ TNI, 2017, published in English and Spanish, argues forcibly that:
“We are living in a period that requires a radical modification and updating of the political imaginary and the organisational principles and methodologies of social and 25
political mobilisation… The party function is the condition of possibility for people without economic power to become an autonomous emancipatory force capable of influencing political, social and economic developments…. But a force that hopes to become an agent for social change cannot overlook social changes under way or be indifferent or hostile to the potential emanating from human activity in many fields today.”
Revolution David Stefanoski write to us from Macedonia:
"The revolution panel was an eye-opener for me because it allowed me to see what the notion of radical change meant in the eyes of my fellow panellists. How each and every one of them perceived the possible turn of radical events with leftist undertones was so much different than what I perceived, which allowed me to broaden my views on the possibilities and impossibilities of my opinions. In regards to my country, I have to say the panel had a very soothing effect on some of my more radical views towards practical action and I think that the change in civil society as a more effective aid in creating revolutionary momentum is impossible under these material circumstances and on such a small level. After the revolution panel, I've come to think that if there ever is (big "if" there) a revolution, it will need to be primarily a financial revolution, secondarily a revolution of identities and their omission and finally, one that will have to happen all over the world, simultaneously. No one country can be the source, instead, change must start both at Wall Street and in the factories, in the ministries of finance and on the fields. Because of this personal conclusion, I believe the revolution panel helped me gain insight as to how possible "the revolution" in the colloquial sense, would be - and my answer is - it's inevitable, after a few hundred years!" Update on Birgitta Jónsdóttir, former poetician/parliamentarian for the Pirate Party in the Icelandic Parliament & chairman for the International Modern Media Institute (IMMI). She announced her retirement from party politics on Facebook on November 11:
"Dear friends and followers. I will no longer be active in political work nor affiliated with any parties. Political parties quickly become like cults and often the pull to become mainstream is too great for all too many. I have learned so much by serving about how the system works and how it might be fixed. I want to use my time and energy building awareness on how people can have real impact through real co-creation and share what 26
I have learned. The quest for power is a dangerous drug, seen way too many people get destroyed by fame and power. I don't want to become like that. Forever thankful for the trust bestowed through the years. Viva the (r)evolution!!!" (Team Syntegrity2017 organisers are not claiming any responsibility for the decisions of this talented poetician – we wish her well in her next incarnations!)
Religion and secularism Markha Valenta:
“When many progressives still often feel awkward or unfamiliar with religion as a topic in relation to civil society, democracy and justice – [it is]important for people to tell their stories, to talk and to share publicly. This seems to me the most important, first step that is vital and essential in order to create public awareness and spaces of possibility for attending to religion in (largely secular?) progressive political settings: just having people tell their personal stories and listen to those of others. The next steps flow from there, but this public story-telling touched me the most and seems to me the most important aspect.”
Biosphere politics Pavlos Georgiadis to Luis Martin at DiEM25:
“I hope you are doing well. I would like to ask you to guide me through the process of starting a thread/topic on issues related to agriculture/environment for DiEM25, in the spirit of what we discussed during the Syntegration in Barcelona. Specifically, I would like to discuss with you the nature of these interventions, style, target audience, aiming to achieve as effective a dialogue as possible.” Pavlos Geogiadis to Rosemary Bechler:
“Regarding DiEM, I think that it would be good to construct positive narratives regarding Europe's agriculture. In my view, if we democratise Europe's food system, then we essentially democratise Europe.” Rosemary Bechler to Luis Martin at DiEM25:
“I don’t know if you remember Wiebke Hansen from the Team Syntegrity, who began her political life working on the German ‘energy revolution’ – but she and her father are both 27
farmers and she would like to be in touch with Pavlos if he gets something going on agriculture for DiEM25 – because she was very impressed by what she heard of his plans .” See here: Wiebke interview.
Money and funding civil society The idea of a co-owning, co-designing, time–banking, online shareholder system of a new type for diverse, democratic individual and organisational financial and non-financial investment only came together at the last minute in the final presentation. We have no reports that it has been put into practice anywhere yet, but it remains a video performance (12.35 – 16.35 mins) on openDemocracy that could inspire many a new Mr.Ember.
Racism and the far right Lofa (Luthfur Ullah) works for EYST in Swansea, Wales. He brought a wealth of knowledge from working with less privileged kids vulnerable to anger and prejudice to the discussions. But he also took something away listening to arguments about the need to understand what drives people to adopt far right anti-immigrant, racist and xenophobic positions. And, more generally, he went home determined to pursue further academic qualifications – an MA in ‘Youth and employment’ studies at Cardiff University. He also persuaded a colleague to join him with the same intention of improving their articulacy about their own knowledge and expertise. He didn’t ‘feel like a mug’ at Team Syntegrity because people listened to him and explained their own ideas more clearly when asked. But he did feel that he wanted to have a better grasp of the theory, policy positions and the academic knowledge in his field, so that he could have more impact on decision and policy-making.
Reinventing politics Here, as with the Global Charter on the Internet, the proposed ‘wiki’ to collect best practices of participatory, decentralised, and more inclusive political processes and institutions, evolving into a charter that can empower citizens in a way that is universally and equally accessible, is in danger of being closed down due to ‘dormancy’. But this discussion and the principles involved of collecting best practise, sharing and listening – and making politics and life opportunities more accessible across every type of barrier, has permeated a lot of subsequent activity. Our own Team Syntegrity feature incorporates the ‘results’ and ‘people’ pages of the suggested wiki, and our subsequent follow-up shows a lot of ideas that have been shared, and some ‘common projects’ that have been promoted. Two examples:
Ashish Ghadiali says: “I was chatting to Birgitta about how they were doing crowdsourced policy-making in Iceland’s Pirate Party. And so I wrote up notes on that, that week, as the beginning of a methodology. I was thinking that we might start up something similar through a series of consultations. At the same time I was talking to 28
Emma a lot about the experience of 15M, the social movement, the influence of these movements and their relationship with Barcelona en Comu. They coalesced in my mind as something I could take straight back to a discussion about process within the Labour Party’s festival of ideas, The World Transformed…. Totnes is the home of the decidedly non-partisan transition movement. It’s an interesting question whether the political energy of something like the transition movement can find any common ground with a local Labour Party? Should it? How do people best organise themselves.” Michael Weatherhead, International Director of New Economics Foundation (NEF) Consulting writes:
“Post Barcelona, I have discussed with others the possibility of using Team Syntegrity for future events I hope to be organising, and more generally, and looking at other Cybernetics tools/formats.” Birgitta Jónsdóttir wrote to us in July to say:
“I am deeply impressed by the method and the incredible mix of people you managed to gather. I intend to use Syntegrity in my party and hopefully elsewhere.” Add to this Birgitta’s intention to bring TS protocol up to date for the internet age. Watch this space.
Ashish Ghadiali, Barby Asante, Ken Loach, Lowkey and Rhiannon White in The World Transformed ( TWT) session on the role of the political artist in September, 2017 29
Conclusion Team Syntegrity 2017 was a three and half day event that inspired a great many of the participants, frustrating them and empowering them in equal measure as they wrestled with the practice of persuading people with different experiences, languages and cultures to join them in attempting to plan for and begin to build a different kind of world. The degree of consensus on some of the key elements for democratic transformation – new forms of political involvement, new skills in sharing best practice, new forms of accessible communication, new ways of becoming confident about encounters with ‘the other’ and perhaps even more importantly, the confidence-giving satisfaction at reaching an enriched consensus after all the effort, was considerable. As Aya Haidar wrote to us in July:
“For the first time, I see such a model being a solution for the trouble across the Middle East which is so divided in itself… In this exercise, we were forced to sit side by side and face to face and discuss diverse issues reasonably, coherently, and cohesively. It was smart and it was intimate.” The commitment to the process, and the participants’ commitment to each other, was unusually intense even for a syntegration process. The results and outcomes are difficult to track. It is not the case, as the organisers naively perhaps hoped, that everyone would like to stay involved in developing projects around their recommendations and reporting back on them in any concerted fashion. However, as we expected, most of the participants felt that they left with a precious resource of new ideas, new experiences of their own capacity for collaboration, mutual vulnerability and celebration. Many had made valuable new contacts, people they met briefly but so intensively that they left knowing them really well, and some will pursue new life paths as a result of this exchange of ideas. As I concluded in my ‘Diary of an organiser’ – and perhaps this has something to do with the strong sense of the ‘autonomous individual’ that Ashish and Noam and others talk about in relation to their generation:
“Every one of these events I have been involved in has accomplished something of this effect of the rise of a solid icosahedron of connectivity up through the middle and into the space between the participants, linking them and their themes all together. But I don’t think I can remember a group of participants who were so sensitive to that development and so glad not only to see it happen, but to help make it happen.” But let our openMovements co-host and third day participant, Armine Ishkanian from the LSE, have the last comment. She was only able to join in on the last day, sensing and feeling somewhat excluded from the ‘strong connections that had been forged in such a short space of time.’ Nevertheless in her short report back, she is characteristically exercised by the way forward for these ‘movement’ participants:
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“Some participants have already connected and continue to maintain links with others on social media. These are individual connections, but is it really enough to ‘like’, ‘follow’, and ‘retweet’ each other’s posts and updates? Or do we need something more – such as co-produced, collaborative projects or meeting points and connections in our real/daily lives? Yet how could we make this happen when we are so geographically dispersed and immersed in our own work and projects? Obviously, it is up to each of us to maintain the connections and conversations, to seek new collaborations with people we met through Team Syntegrity, and to show solidarity to one another. For me, openDemocracy is that meeting point, albeit a virtual one, through which this can happen and through which the participants of the Barcelona Team Syntegrity conference can stay in touch.”
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