2009 17th WOSonOS
OPEN SPACE REPORT FORM
Topic Name INTERNATIONAL POLITICS – HOW TO USE OST AND ELECTION CAMPAIGNS TO TRANSFORM POLITICAL ENTRENCHMENTS (IN RUSSIA: “UNITED RUSSIA”, “COMMUNIST” AND “LIBERAL”) (IN TAIWAN, “BLUE” AND “GREEN” CAMPS).
Topic Number
Convenor Steve Chen, Pavel Tsarkov
Participants (including Bumble Bees) Michael Pannwitz, Aquia, Tong, Larry Peterson, Pasang Hsiao, Shu Fang Tsai, Jorie, Laura Hsu, Brian Bainbridge.
Insights, Questions Raised, Possible Actions, Recommendations, etc:
Mostly, OS has been used with political parties – but mostly as an isolated intervention, and it 9OS0 has not really taken on – yet. (Germany).
In Russia, some use of OS in United Russia Party at federal level. But the follow-on was not available – and new programs were prepared but not followed through.
In Taiwan, brought some Canada experience back to Taiwan. Things have improved a bit and “spying” on Taiwan expats in Canada is reducing, it seems. Groups formed in Canada – Taiwan passports were cancelled and many people were effected. Martial law lifted in 1987.
OST seems good for democracy and freedom. It breaks down hierarchies and allows people to shift their position -in the hands off good facilitators who KNOW and really DO OST. Challenge is to train a facilitator to help people change from their experience of “being told what to do”. Listening quality is vital for such a facilitator. Experience (Larry) shows that this works. But leaders find it hard to change – they expect people to stroke their ego. Learning how to “LET GO” is vital and hard. When politicians come to listen to people, people just leave if they find such speaking irrelevant.
Only when there is some kind of “community meeting” do politicians see that they have to change, listen and learn, that their way of being away from people (in parliament, etc) is not the right way. OST can and does help this happen. But it generally changes for a bit and then drops back to the old way of doing things.
(Michael P) Maybe the objective of the OS with the political parties needs greater clarification. “Movements” are more flexible than established political parties; ditto with smaller emerging parties. In Germany, the vision of State administrations is often different from that of the Berlin administration. Traditional parties are likely to always need the support of minor groups in the future. Hence OS training is vital. And training needs to be group focused on the needs of a specific group rather than just “general”.
If there is no follow up, then “Oh dear”.. Leader attitude and involvement is vital. It can easily limit or stop next steps.
Nearly 200 parties in Taiwan, but only two of three majors. DPP is the largest.
Some exploration of Taiwan political structures. Smaller parties may well tie in with Greens who are more flexible right now.
Bureaucracy can often take over when “people” win government – though green issues becoming more embraced generally across all parties.
How can we attract people to learn more about OST? It’s in the “pre-work” time that this matters.
Taiwan has used World Café to get parties together to gather grass roots opinions. It is “work in progress” right now with the next meeting in November. #0 young people were elected at the last election.
Is “Independence” part of the discussion? Pretty much. But!! All depends on where the passion of people is regarding “the future of Taiwan”.
There are many levels of leadership within political parties – lower levels are more readily in touch with people, but upper levels are less open and take longer time to be responsive. Time is needed to allow change to happen and sometimes seems not to be there.
The kind of “order” is changing and the number of political parties change. The nature of influence is and has but it needs to change. Accountability is changing, too. “Control” is one of the most difficult factors and is also changing. People’s ideas are getting attention, and people’s needs (in some places) are starting to be addressed. But what impact on national policy?
Constitution matters – but it needs to reflect the people’s needs. Taiwan’s is largely from and controlled from China.
Germany/East Germany control modes were very messy and off the record – and still are, really. WAVE RIDER (Harrison Owen) addresses this somewhat by underlining how self-organizing just happens and continues to happen. How to help and support that is what we face in the future as we better recognize the self-organization principle.
