This paper was done for the
Anna-Lindh Foundations “1001 Actions” campaign
proposal when preparing for the UN
AMR 2008. Please also see these background papers.
Transcultural
Dialog and Peace-Making
Roundtable
learning from experience during the last 40 years and new ideas
Looking into
35+ years of efforts into inter-cultural dialogues make obvious that there are
some stumbling-blocks hindering us and inhibiting searching co-creatively
commons and develop shared alternatives without neglecting the “other” position
and perspective.
Stumbling blocks preventing true dialog,
peace-making, and reconciliation:
1) we fight over words but do not
check the meaning,
2) we do not question and compare the
values attached to statements and attitudes,
3) we do not contextualize and embody
concepts and meaning, do not check the sectors, regions, scales, proportions
and consequences of alternative actions,
4) we do not give voice, empower,
listen, cherish and cultivate difference or variety in dialog and decision
making,
5) Disorientation and dumbing-down in Cyberculture and
a misadministered and misunderstood, intangible “Globalisation”: Where we get overloaded by
communication noise (sign/symbol melange) and media demagogy which means: no
trust and fidelity in the statements and no ways and means to check the
credibility and impact/relevance, and get lost between the scales, brackets,
and sectors.
6) The above incompatibility and
incomparability opens the door for over-claims and oversimplifications. Leaders
use intangible jargon (plastic-words), neglect impacts and avoid instead of
exploring differences and alternatives.
As the
topic and target: Transcultural Dialog and Peace-Making is a star-high
goal naturally further experience and successful approaches need to be
gathered. The authors can think about reconciling the inner and the outer,
senses and aesthetics, models and orientations, and move to assemble 5-7
“movers and differences makers” from the Edge of peace making and
reconciliation.
The
original organizers: Alexander Christakis, Farah Lenser and Heiner Benking have
dedicated most of their professional life (for decades) to work on the above
critical thresholds and leverage points.
The idea is
to include more “original” movers in the scene and allow an exchange of
experience to be shared with a wide public via interactive teleconferencing.
The idea is
not to share experience and learning from mistakes and successes. An idea of
the format shows in this gathering of system sciences pioneers which
unfortunately has not been recorded: http://open-forum.de/re-invent-democracy2001.html
http://open-forum.de/Dialogue_toward_Unity_in_Diversity.htm
The location
proposed is either
While
preparing this concept and reviewing and revisiting milestones and the
contributions already in for “1001 ACTIONS FOR DIALOG” it became obvious that a
lot of interesting activities are in already bringing together a lot of
exciting and different projects and stakeholders, but bringing together unique developments and achievements, actions, mishaps
and successes to learn from is missing!
A matrix of
key-contributors and areas as given above and invited contributors will be
provided to see how areas overlap and connect ! According to the
magic-roundtable rules (see Lenser below) the imagined roundtables will include
surprise and honorary guests coming only last minute to augment the list of
candidates.
This
“embryonic” proposal for one action can therefore be seen stakeholders and risk-takers,
policy makers and facilitators to help the learning curve of good practices. A
lot more that the ½ dozen possible contributors are around. To bring them
together some physically, some virtually is therefore the main idea and
objective of this proposal. Experience with telematics
since the word was coined in 1980 and distance learning and global conferences
in the internet during the last 10 years will be “harvested” to bring together
the best and brightest ideas for Peace and Dialog.
Alexander Christakis
Is a
pioneer in global problem solving and conflict resolution, was in the original
team to establish the Club of Rome in the late 60ies, worked with modern and
indigenous cultures, and presently focuses beside other projects on the Cyprus
Peace dialogues.
The
achievements and work done around Doxiadis, The Club
of Rome, the US OTA, and Society for Contemporary Problems fill books which are
worth recommending.
For more
please see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Christakis
http://globalagoras.org/co_dem.html
http://www.harnessingcollectivewisdom.com/
Work areas:
1, 2 above.
Farah Lenser
Works as
journalist and facilitator, is a social scientist and focuses
intercultural-interreligious qualitative research and practice since the early
90ies. She was in the original team to establish the
Farah was
invited by Anthony Judge to the “
http://farah-lenser.de/openforumopenspace.html
http://open-forum.de/cultures-generations-dialogue.html
http://open-forum.de/agora-fuschl-lenser-benking.htm
Work areas:
2, 4
Heiner Benking
Has a background
in international projects and decision making since the mid 70ies, and
multi-lingual multi-cultural harmonisation since the late 80ies. He “found” the
magic round tables dialog method, was asked to look into Leadership and
Peace-making with Johan Galtung by Panetics Founder Ralph Siu, is
the “brother in co-creation” of Barbara Marx-Hubbard, and founded the
open-forum Dialogues with Farah Lenser. He contributed to the Consultative
Mediation “cook-book” in the early 90ies, collected dialogue and participation
methods for Robert Jungk’s 80ies birthday (1993), and
contributed UNESCO’s Culture of Peace in 1997, the UN’s Dialog of Civilizations
in 2000. Studying the early steps of the Club of Rome in the early 70ies he
helped Ervin Laszlo to establish the Club of Budapest as the outcome of the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Benking - http://benking.de/dialog http://benking.de/cultures http://benking.de/systems selected publications: WORLD FUTURES:
http://open-forum.de/Dialogue_and_DecisionCulture.html, GLOBAL COVENANT 2003 http://benking.de/covenant/,
World Unity Days 2006 http://benking.de/dialog/dialogues-conversations/
see also
Ralph G.H. Siu and Panetics:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Siu
Work areas:
3-6
To be
consulted and invited:
Barabara Marx-Hubbard: helped create: SynCons, Future Studies and Co-creation
She is one of the great elders and visionary
pioneers in the fields of conscious evolution and future
studies. A colleague of many 20th century pioneers like Abraham Maslow
(founder of Humanistic Psychology) and Jonas Salk (creator of the polio
vaccine), for decades she co-founded leading-edge organizations like the
World Future Society and the Association for Global New Thought;
co-produced more than two dozen large conferences to uncover innovative
synergies for whole-society evolution; promoted Soviet-American dialogue;
wrote a number of books including Conscious Evolution, Emergence, and
The Evolutionary Journey; and had her name placed in nomination for US
Vice President on the Democratic ticket in 1984. In the 1970s, Hubbard organized
and co-produced twenty-five 'Syncons' ('synergistic
conferences'), and the multimedia 'Theater For The Future'In the 1970s, Hubbard organized and co-produced
twenty-five 'Syncons' ('synergistic conferences'),
and the multimedia 'Theater For The Future'. http://www.awarenessmag.com/novdec1/ND1_FOREMOST_FUTURIST.HTML
http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/dossier/id367/pg1/index.html
Work areas: 4-6
Anthony Judge, Founding Editor of the International Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential, about
40 years Assistant Secretary‑General. Functional role as Director of
Communications and Research.. See: http://uia.org and
http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/links/webdial.php
http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/bio/cv2002.php
http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/dialog.php
Influenced
by the David Bohm Dialogues he initiated and managed
the
Work areas:
1-6
LaDonna Harris see
also (Jacky below)
Is founder
of Americans for Indian Opportunities (AIO), She collaborated over 10 years
with Alexander Christakis and is part of the original IM team of John Warfield.
Structured dialogue processes provided culturally resonant means through which Indigeneous people have been able to identify and
articulate their core values to broader audiences, especially the four R’s
(Relationship, Responsibility, Reciprocity and Redistribution). These Four R’s
form the core of an emerging concept, Indigeneity.
The dynamic inclusivity of this value cluster has much to contribute to global
discourse as we go about the task of constructing global agoras,
the dialogic spaces of optimal learning of the 21st century.
http://nativeamericanrhymes.com/women/ladonna_harris.htm
http://www.bookrags.com/biography/ladonna-harris/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Donna_Harris
http://www.aio.org/feather.html
http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/american_indian_quarterly/v025/25.1harris.html
see also
the Inerview Christakis/Harris:
http://open-forum.de/dialog/interview-Christakis-LaDonna-Harris-p4-5-Summer%202005.pdf
Work areas:
1,2,4,6
Jacqueline Howell Wasilewski
is a Professor
of Intercultural Communication at the Division of International Studies at the International Christian University (ICU) in
Please see her book, together with H. Ned Seelye,
Between Cultures: Developing Self-Identity in a World of Diversity (McGraw-Hill,
1996). Please see her paper on Interculturalists as Dragon-Riders in the Journal of
Intercultural Communication, SIETAR
http://www.humiliationstudies.org/documents/WasilewskiIndigeneity.pdf
more at: http://www.humiliationstudies.org/whoweare/board04.php
(Jacky brought together Alexander Christakis
and LaDonna Harris (above)
Work areas
2,3
Walter J. Bogan
Walter participated
with Margaret Mead in the World Council of Church's conference in Zurich on
"The Impact or Western Technology on Developing Countries" in 1969 and
represented SIPI as an NGO at the UN in preparation for the Stockholm
Conference in 1972 and was elected chairman of US based NGOs participating in
the Stockholm Conference. In Washington Alexander N. Christakis introduced him
EKISTICS and his work with Hasan Ozbakan
on the first Club of Rome Report and to John Warfield and their work on ISM. We
collaborated on environmental education for over ten years culminating in
Designs for the Future of Environmental Education (USDOE Publication).
In 1980 he left the
Department of Education to join the AAAS where he developed and became Director
of a Center for Education of Global Change just
before
In 2006 he directed
the
http://quergeist.net/Bogan.htm
see also: http://www.gmu.edu/departments/t-iasis/wandwaver/app17.htm
http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/search.php?collectionID=1979
http://www.gmu.edu/departments/t-iasis/wandwaver/app17.htm
Work areas:
1,2,5,6
Johan Galtung (see Benking and Siu above)
….
to be
continued….
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To be completed, expanded and continued
– first to be negotiated estimates by Heiner Benking
The challenge is seen in
bridging differences and going beyond the need to agree towards new forms of
comprehension. For more see the work of Anthony Judge on this.