Gaia Community: Albert 's Blog

Germany: Nov 9th 1989 - Nov 9th 2009

http://voyager.gaia.com — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:33:49 GMT

Today Gemany Germany is celebrating 20 years after fall of the wall.

Berlin Celebrates the Day the Wall Fell

Instead of expressing my joy in a new post I am presenting a compilation of all 84 entries from 2006- 2009 I wrote here at Gaia:
Germany 1
Germany 2
Germany 3
Germany 4

The rest can be followed via the links at the bottom of the pages.

Its a good day for feeling the relevance o fhealthy national idendity in a global world. And, regarding Germany, to enter a new chapter of postive history after 20 years after fall of the wall and nearly 65 years after WW 2.

And therefore for even more and deeper integration of Europe too.

Tags: Germany, Europe, wall, re-unification, Berlin

First Weeks, Milestones and more

http://voyager.gaia.com — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 07:20:49 GMT

I did read the blog entry from Jon Twigge, Center for human emergence UK:

The First Week - A MIlestone

The" Right to be be" blog is associated with the newly launched Centre for Human Emergence (UK.

I consider this pioneering effort in communication very relevant. As it is about an integrated approach of real world projects in innovative communication style. Yes, in its babysteps, but this baby will grow and demonstrate a potential not seen up to now.

I commented below Jons entry these considerations(Slightly modified)

"The dynamics of creating momentum in this medium and online-spaces certainly require at least 100 days for a minimum.

So called Alfa bloggers like Instapundit (f.) reach over 10.000 visits per day.

An integrated f2f/online strategy and communication approach is always more, far more than only connecting the dots.

Its about permanently igniting an inspired field of inspired connection and action. As Otto Scharmer recently put in a paper.

Its not replacable by any marketing, or or some YouTube videos and single blogs.

There is soul in it. I like how Howard Bloom is summarizing lots of it on last pages of his new book “The Genius of the Beast”. Collective intelligence is far more than ANY concept about it has revealed up to now..

Its not only about multiplication of efforts , announcements and some content communication.

It has the potential of memetic innovation. Right now the tipping point for such accelerated momentum has not been reached. The unique strength of such dynamics will be in the vibrant and fast paced interaction of individual and collective too.

However mass communication AND change needs to put into new equations with the meshworking concepts.

This will be pioneering work for the next decade(s).

The cross-effects here in inter-continental and infracultural, intercultural and subcultural convergence and emergence is basically dark matter for the moment.

I am absolutely confident that new discoveries will be made next years. Remember the innovation jam IBM did with tens of thousands in Beijing in 2006?

This was only a beginning. I will engage with strong confidence and appetite for adventure and a new journey in this endvor for German speaking countries.

Very best, have a great time! Once more, thanks for your initiative to get it started!

Albert

Tags: Human Emergence, UK

We have no time to loose

http://voyager.gaia.com — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:32:06 GMT

SPIEGEL ONLINE presents the transscript of German Chancellor`s Angela Merkel speech before the US Congress. I aggree nearly completely with the chancellor and support the complex partnership in leadership constellation with USA.

We have no time to loose

In her speech before the US Congress on Tuesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel thanked the Americans for their decades-long support of Germany and for their role in helping to end the Cold War. She also reminded US politicians that the world will be looking to America and Europe in December for leadership in forging a global climate change agreement.

Editor's note: This is the official German government translation of the speech given by Chancellor Angela Merkel before the US Congress on Nov. 3, 2009.

Madam Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Distinguished Members of Congress,

I would like to thank you for the great honor and privilege to address you today, shortly before the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

I am the second German Chancellor on whom this honor has been bestowed. The first was Konrad Adenauer when he addressed both Houses of Congress in 1957, albeit one after the other.

Our lives could not have been more different. In 1957 I was just a small child of three years. I lived with my parents in Brandenburg, a region that belonged to the German Democratic Republic (GDR), the part of Germany that was not free. My father was a Protestant pastor. My mother, who had studied English and Latin to become a teacher, was not allowed to work in her chosen profession in the GDR.

In 1957 Konrad Adenauer was already 81 years old. He had lived through the German Empire, the First World War, the Weimar Republic and the Second World War. The National Socialists ousted him from his position as mayor of the city of Cologne. After the war, he was among the men and women who helped build up the free, democratic Federal Republic of Germany.

Nothing is more symbolic of the Federal Republic of Germany than its constitution..

October 2009 Integral leadership Review

http://voyager.gaia.com — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:56:17 GMT

Its out . The new:

October 2009 IntegralL leadership Review

Leadership Quote: Mary Parker Follett
Leading Comments: This Issue and More!
Leadership Coaching Tip: Responsibility, Accountability and Leadership, Russ Volckmann
Dialogue: Integral Leadership, Part II, Wendelin Kupers and Russ Volckmann
A Fresh Perspective: An Interview with Annie McKee—Emotional Intelligence and Leadership
Article: Predrag Cicovacki, Transdisciplinarity As An Interactive Method: A Critical Reflection On The Three Pillars Of Transdisciplinarity
Review: Regina Schulte-Ladbeck, High-Altitude Leadership: What the World’s Most Forbidding Peaks Teach Us About Success
Article: Michael Ben-Eli, The Cybernetics of Crisis and the Challenge of Sustainability, including an interview with the author
Article: Mariana Bozesan, The Power of One: How Influential Business Executives Transform and Lead into a Sustainable Future
Article: Yene Assegid, What Sets True Leaders Apart?
Article: Elza S. Maalouf, Emerging Patterns in the Middle East: The Thirty Year Itch for Lebanon and Iraq
Article: Otto Laske, On Change and Crisis
Article: Theo Dawson and Katie Heikkinen, Identifying Within-Level Differences in Leadership Decision Making Developmental Testing Service
Article: Kristoffer Nelson, It’s Time for the Bottom Line to Get a Little Bigger
Leadership Cartoon: Mark Hill
Notes from the Field
• Gary Hawke, Integral Leadership in Action Conference
• Erik Möller, Integral Leadership for Sustainability
• Terri O'Fallon, A Gathering of Developmentalists
• Raquel Torrent, Publication of Integral Evolution
• Ichak Adizes Brief Interview

Announcements: UK, Finland, US, Canada
Leadership Emerging
• Dalai Lama andLaurens Van Den Muyzenberg, The Leader's Way
• Leigh Zimmerman Gilchrist, A Snapshot in Philosophical Practice: How Executives Frame Openness in Public Higher Education (Reviewed by Dan Jenkins)
• David Cottrell, Leadership Energy
• John Pisapia, The Strategic Leader

Coda: Attending the the Collective, including attention to
• Alan Briskin et al, Collective Wisdom and the
Trap of Collective Folly.

Now available.

Now Available

Tags: Integral leadership Review, Russ Volckmann, Wendelin Kuepers, Elza Maalouf, Keith Belamy, Annie McKee, Mariana Bozesan, Yene Assegid, Otto Laske

Highlights: 2009 Conscious Capitalism Conference

http://voyager.gaia.com — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:11:14 GMT

Forewarded from Cindy Wigglesworth.

Highlights from 2009 Conscious Capitalism Conference:

Highlights: 2009 C3 Summit

Tags: Conscious Capitalism

A Taste of India

http://voyager.gaia.com — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 17:29:38 GMT

next month, in November, India will see at least 2 great, global forums.

A Taste of India is the TEDIndia conference in Mysore.

And world economic forum is having his summit in New Delhi:

Indias Next Generation of Growth

The greatest English speaking democracy of the world has moved forewards in large steps since the days of independence via Gandhi and others. The community of expats and intelligent great people outside this country is making history worldwide too.

This culture, full of ancient wisdom, beeing the origin of the worlds greates spiritual teachings and figures, is on the way into modernity. Within the next 50 years India will be without doubt one of the global superpowers. its location on the IIndian subcontinent has geocultural realtions to the Mideast a well as to Asia.

And as part of former British commonwealth India is well connected for a long time already to the English speaking universe.

It has some Bollywoods and lots of Nigerias.As Fareed Zakrai said. And, as Nandan Nilekani in imaginingindia.com says there are parts living in the 17th century, the 18th century as much as ones living in 20th century and 21st century. So to speak time zones measured in degrees of devlopmental dynamics.

My congratulations to all Indian friends here on Gaia and those who live in neigbourhood to India and were born there.

Namaste!

The Great Inidian Novel goes into a new big round and a new chapter:):)

Tags: India, TedIndia, World Economic Forum. Mysore, New Delhi

Wotan

http://voyager.gaia.com — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 07:42:48 GMT

Crossposting here something from the MUlti-Lingual Pod. Its about the power of mythological in the unconscious. Especially if and as much not felt and expressed in the developed and developing person. And of course in collective identity too.

This is an article from Carl Gustav Jung . Published in 1936. And an ecellent complimentary source to Heinrich Heines text Rat eines Traeumers presented here in Multi-lingual Pod too earlier.

Jung is referring precisely to the psychic side and the collective unconsciousness in German culture. Though this dimension is to be integrally broadened it nevertheless is abolutely crucial for any understanding .

And I am writing about it not simply as intellectual excercise. Its an existential endevor. And it was an even brutal experience within myself last 40 years.

Its clear that Nietzsche-as quoted here by C.G: Jung -felt and sensed this same psycho-physical force. He was the most lucid author from last 150 years in Germany. He ended as broken soul.

Its a fantastic and tough challenge at once to finally tame and galvanize Wotan for the 21st century

. Wotan

"...

In Germany shall divers sects arise,

Coming very near to happy paganism.

The heart captivated and small receivings

Shall open the gate to pay the true tithe.”

- Prophecies of Nostradamus, 1555

...

Itis above all the Germans who have an opportunity, perhaps unique in history, to look into their own hearts and to learn what those perils of the soul were from which Christianity tried to rescue mankind.Germany is a land of spiritual catastrophes, where nature never makes more than a pretense of peace with the world-ruling reason. The disturber of the peace is a wind that blows into Europe from Asia’svastness, sweeping in on a wide front from Thrace to the Baltic,scattering the nations before it like dry leaves, or inspiring thoughts that shake the world to its foundations...."

read more…

Tags: Wotan, Jung, Germany, Asia, Nietzsche, Mythology

Believing in Britian -Crisis of British Identity

http://voyager.gaia.com — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:26:32 GMT

An excellent blog entry from Rachel Castagne. At the newly launched "Right to be" blog which is asscociated with British Centre for Human Emergence. Once again the power of identity awareness in a national frame is integrally demonstrated. Congratulations Rachel! I could not agree more.

Beeing on the German side I see the theme here too. As I often mentioned here on Gaia last years.

Believing in Britain -Crisis of British Identity

A guest post by Rachel Castagne.

Rachel Castagne

I am reading Ian Bradley’s book on ‘Believing in Britain’. I used to think it was ‘just me’ or that I was in a minority when I didn’t consider myself British (being born in Trinidad gave me the perfect excuse!) or want to, was in fact ‘ashamed’ of being British; when my daughter came home from school a few months ago and said she was ashamed of being British, I wondered if I had ‘passed on’ the sentiment, like a hereditary gene, although I knew she hadn’t always felt that way, she’s become aware of ‘Britishness’ as a national identity in her adolescence, turns out, its not ‘cool’ to be Brit, turns out she’s not the only teen that feels that way…

In fact Bradley reports some interesting stats:
2005 Social Attitudes Survey found 44% of the population said ‘British’ was the ‘best’ or only way of describing their national identity, as against 52% ten years earlier.
Amongst those in Scotland 14% described themselves as British compared with 70% who described themselves as Scottish
Wales: 35% and even England only 48% of the population considered themselves British, 15% fewer than in 1992.

The 2001 census was the first in which the majority in England marked their nationality as English as opposed to British

read more..

See also, earlier this year:

A Summit and a Meetup in London about Britishness

Tags: UK, Britain, Rachel Castagne, Identity

Controversy as Frankfurt Book Fair Fetes Beijing

http://voyager.gaia.com — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:34:53 GMT

Today the worlds largest book fair will be opened in Frankfurt, Germany. For me a great event to showcase the full spectrum of global opportunites and chances in the fields of creative friction and poltical, cultural tensions and values differences. its god to have a pragmatic view on this.

Chancellor Angela Merkel will give the opening speech and certainly adress some points the Chinese polticians are not so amuzed about. However honoring, and hosting and presenting the literature and culture of this great , rich and fascinating country.

Controversy as Frankfurt Book Fair Fetes Beijing

By Wolfgang Höbel and Andreas Lorenz

China, which bans hundreds of books every year, was a controversial choice as the guest of honor at this year's Frankfurt Book Fair. But some of the Chinese authors appearing at the fair, which begins Wednesday, have managed to slip political works past the censors.

A striking woman in an elegant black blouse sits in a bulky chair in the lobby of the Beijing Kempinski Hotel. Her name is Tie Ning and she is the chairwoman of the Chinese Writers' Association, which means that she represents a total of 8,920 state-supported authors.

"Censorship?" she says. "What censorship? Artists enjoy great liberties in China." She adds: "We are enthusiastically looking forward to the open exchange of opinions that will take place in Frankfurt."

This could be a merry book party indeed. With an official delegation of exactly 100 authors, along with over 1,000 functionaries and publishing managers, the Chinese are appearing at the world's largest book fair as this year's guest of honor. Organizers in Frankfurt are promising a "critical dialogue" at the event.

In Beijing, says the stern-looking Tie, who has apparently never heard that approximately 600 books are banned in China each year, "one must comply with the laws and regulations. It is not allowed, for example, to offend national minorities. That is all." Then Tie straightens her back, adjusts the large silver brooch on her blouse, and shows a rigid smile.

Igniting a field of inspired connection and action

http://voyager.gaia.com — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:04:23 GMT

I bookmarked a paper from Otto Scharmer prepared for a Round Table Meeting on Leadership for development impact. It contains lots of elements how to reach out deeply in to the fields and constelllations of a given culture, city, country or community

: Leadership development is not about filling a gap but about igniting a field of inspired connection and action

I agree with lots of points. Especially- as Otto elaborated in his online community at Ning - about going beyond any masterplan fantasies.

Igniting these fields -from whatever starting point one may engage - is an art and process of collective intention building not understood in conventional leadership. Its a big integral contribution too in my eyes.

What is missing seems to be a view adressing especially pre-orange worldviews and practices. How to create impact in inner city realities? Afghanistan? Israel/Palestine? West and Eastern Germany? Kosovo? Turkey? London? Prague, Marseilles? ETC. etc..hotspots areas?

Inspired action and connection needs to be in contact with very hard truths. So to breathe belly to belly. And to embrace the total spectrum of individual and collective (as discussed here and elsewhere last months) spirit-in-action.

I will certainly adress it in the emerging German speaking SDi Ning Group. This project will embrace and present diverse fields too and finally put German speaking countries into the integral spotlights and any systemically oriented frameworks too.

I will co-moderate it and engage especially in building bridges from the German speaking countries to the Anglo-American sphere. I am happy to be able to contribute thus to the" notes from the field" section for Integral Leadership Review.):)

And to gather voices, people, developments blueprints and passionate opinion from people who are living and working here. Natives, expats and migrants. In the broadest multicultural sense and values spectrum . With full reference to globalization and a multipolar world.

It should be a great evolutionary adventure:):)

Tags:

Nobel Prize in Economics 2009 for Ostrom and Williamson

http://voyager.gaia.com — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 11:19:21 GMT

Just announced. Most interesting how economic governance, the organization of ccoperation is the ductus. In other words the challenging mastery of the oscillation of individual and collective forces in economy. Congrats to the Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson!

Nobel Prize in Economics 2009

Press Release

12 October 2009The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for 2009 to

Elinor Ostrom
Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA,

"for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons"

and

Oliver E. Williamson
University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA,

"for his analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm"

Economic governance: the organization of cooperation

Elinor Ostrom has demonstrated how common property can be successfully managed by user associations. Oliver Williamson has developed a theory where business firms serve as structures for conflict resolution. Over the last three decades these seminal contributions have advanced economic governance research from the fringe to the forefront of scientific attention.

Economic transactions take place not only in markets, but also within firms, associations, households, and agencies. Whereas economic theory has comprehensively illuminated the virtues and limitations of markets, it has traditionally paid less attention to other institutional arrangements. The research of Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson demonstrates that economic analysis can shed light on most forms of social organization.

Elinor Ostrom has challenged the conventional wisdom that common property is poorly managed and should be either regulated by central authorities or privatized. Based on numerous studies of user-managed fish stocks, pastures, woods, lakes, and groundwater basins, Ostrom concludes that the outcomes are, more often than not, better than predicted by standard theories. She observes that resource users frequently develop sophisticated mechanisms for decision-making and rule enforcement to handle conflicts of interest, and she characterizes the rules that promote successful outcomes.

Oliver Williamson has argued that markets and hierarchical organizations, such as firms, represent alternative governance structures which differ in their approaches to resolving conflicts of interest. The drawback of markets is that they often entail haggling and disagreement. The drawback of firms is that authority, which mitigates contention, can be abused. Competitive markets work relatively well because buyers and sellers can turn to other trading partners in case of dissent. But when market competition is limited, firms are better suited for conflict resolution than markets. A key prediction of Williamson's theory, which has also been supported empirically, is therefore that the propensity of economic agents to conduct their transactions inside the boundaries of a firm increases along with the relationship-specific features of their assets.

Read more about this year's prizeInformation for the Public (pdf) Scientific Background (pdf)
In order to read the text you need Acrobat Reader. Links and Further Reading

Tags: Nobel Prize in Economics, Elinor Ostrom, Oliver Williamson, USA

Tikkun Interview with Richard Goldstone on UN Report of Gaza War

http://voyager.gaia.com — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 13:35:41 GMT

A necessary interview about a controversial report:

Tikkun Interview with Judge Richard Goldstone on his UN Report of the Gaza War

Goldstone, as you will see in this interview, is a Zionist moderate who shares with Tikkun the view that Jewish values should be applied consistently, even if that means critiquing some of the behavior of some people in the Israeli army or even some of the policies of the State of Israel. And like Tikkun, he has been critiqued for being Anti-Semitic. Read this interview carefully and you will see how very cautious and balanced his statements are.

To read the full Goldstone report, go to:

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/specialsession/9/FactFindingMission.htm

Tikkun's Interview with Judge Richard Goldstone

This interview was conducted on October 1st, 2009, with Judge Richard Goldstone, the chair of the UN commission investigating the War in Gaza in 2008 and 2009. In the latter years of Apartheid in South Africa, Goldstone served as chairperson of the South African Standing Commission of Inquiry Regarding Public Violence and Intimidation, later known as the Goldstone Commission. The Commission played a critical role in uncovering and publicizing allegations of grave wrongdoing by the Apartheid-era South African security forces and bringing home to "White" South Africans the extensive violence that was being done in their name. The Commission concluded that most of the violence of those years was being orchestrated by shadowy figures within the Apartheid regime, often through the use of a so-called "third force." The Commission thus provided a first road map for the investigations into security force wrongdoing that, after democratization, were taken up by the country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. After South Africa's first democratic election in April 1994, Goldstone served as a judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, from July 1994 to October 2003. The Court was entrusted with the task of interpreting the new South African Constitution and supervising the country's transition into democracy.

He also served as national president of the National Institute of Crime Prevention and the Rehabilitation of In August 1994, Goldstone was named as the first chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which was established by a resolution of the UN Security Council in 1993. When the Security Council established the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in late 1994, he became its chief prosecutor, too. He was a member of the International Panel of the Commission of Enquiry into the Activities of Nazism in Argentina (CEANA) which was established in 1997 to identify Nazi war criminals who had emigrated to Argentina, and transferred victim assets (Nazi gold) there. Goldstone was chairperson of the International Independent Inquiry on Kosovo from August 1999 until December 2001. Goldstone serves on the Board of Directors of several nonprofit organizations that promote justice, including Physicians for Human Rights, the International Center for Transitional Justice, the South African Legal Services Foundation, the Brandeis University Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life, Human Rights Watch, and the Center for Economic and Social Rights. He is a trustee of Hebrew University.

Subsequent to the release of his UN report which criticizes human rights abuses and violations of international law by both Hamas and Israel, and calls for each to conduct an independent and objective investigation, he has been assaulted by various leaders in the Jewish world and described as being anti-Semitic.

This interview was given to Tikkun magazine by Judge Goldstone (herein referred to as RG) and conducted by Rabbi Michael Lerner (ML below), editor of Tikkun magazine and chair of the interfaith organzation The Network of Spiritual Progressives and by Rabbi Brain Walt (BW below), founding chair person of Rabbis for Human Rights (North America) and chair of Ta'anit Tzedeck.

read more..

Tags: Tikkun, Michael Lerner, Richard Goldstone, UN, Israel

Congratulations, President Obama for Nobel Peace Prize 2009

http://voyager.gaia.com — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 10:32:16 GMT

time.com really summarized it the right way. its a surprise that President Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize 2009:

In a Suprise, Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize

"...
Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the committee said. "His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population."

My heartfelt congratulations to him! Since I first heard about senator Obama it was clear for me he whould make a great way. What Barack Obama initiated already is outstanding. Its tough work, smart and hard work all in one.

In a defining moment of history.

Standing ovations from Europe, Mr President!

Tags:

Nobel Prize in Literature for 2009: Herta Müller

http://voyager.gaia.com — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 11:13:55 GMT

The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2009 is awarded to the German author Herta Müller

"who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed".

The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2009 is awarded to the German author Herta Müller

"who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed".

Announcement of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature

Herta Mueller is currently living in Berlin .

For everybody who still endures reading more than 5 minutes at a time:):) here is piece which can be read at Google books:

Travelling on one Leg

Kirkus Reviews wrote:

"The first English translation of an earlier work (published in 1992) from the acclaimed M†ller (The Land of Green Plums, 1996) is a profound story of dislocation: an exile from Romania struggles to find her bearings in Berlin just before the end of the Cold War. Even in her native land, Irene was already something of a stranger, taking long walks by the sea partly because she knew there would be ...
Mehr an old man, waiting in the bushes, who would masturbate while looking at her. A chance encounter on the beach with a young, drunken German provides her with someone she knows when she crosses the border for good, but Franz, fearful of commitment, can't bear to meet her at the airport, sending his friend Stefan to make the connection instead

. While Irene endures the scrutiny of German bureaucrats before receiving relocation aid and citizenship, she also suffers a malaise of the heart brought on by the mixed messages of Franz, Stefan, and, finally Stefan's friend Thomas, who, though the most responsive to her, is also bisexual. Irene settles into a routine in her new Berlin apartment, a routine regularly punctuated by visits to or visits from her men and supplemented by her daily observations of the beer-bellied construction worker who labors on the scaffolding outside her window.

It's a life of waiting, of anomie and despair, but for all that it's the bitterness of such an existence that she keenly feels and sharply observes. Through it all, Irene knows she will endure. With a cool, minimalist style that simulates alienation, this fictional bleakness is not an easy read, but even in its now-dated Cold War milieu, it dramatizes a fact that seems fundamentally human: that, somehow, everyone is alone. "

So, though the book was written some years ago the theme of identity(ies) in a global world seems to be the red thread for Herta Müllers literature. Obviously a continuity for the Nobel Prize in Literature last years.

Orhan Pamuk, Doris Lessing, le Clezio and now Herta Müller.

See also an article, translated into English, from signandsight.com:

Securitate is all but name

Tags: Herta Mueller, Nobel Prize in Literature

Is Europe a greater Switzerland?

http://voyager.gaia.com — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 06:57:59 GMT

Fareed Zakarias take on Obama needs a complimentary view. I found two voices who-interestingly-compared and questioned Europe with a greater Switzerland.

The first voice is from UK: Timothy Garton Ash is writing at the Guardian:

Europe must decide if it wants to be more than Greater Switzerland

Now there's a great deal to be said for being Switzerland. Really. (Unless you're Roman Polanski, just at the moment, but that's another story.) The question is: are we Europeans happy to settle for that? Is that all we want to be in the 21st century? I suspect that in their hearts many Europeans will answer "yes". Or perhaps more accurately: they will not be prepared to vote and pay for doing the things that would be required if we wanted to be more than that. So the answer will come by default, rather than explicit choice.

The trouble with this is that, in the longer run, by choosing to be only a Greater Switzerland we will gradually lose the conditions that make it possible to actually be a greater Switzerland. For the point of having a European foreign policy is not power in itself, but the power to protect and advance interests that are increasingly shared between all European countries, and challenged in a world of non-European giants.

read more.

The second voice is one of the most brilliant and provocative thinkers of Asia. Its Kishore Mahbubani. He really likes to play it rough. Interesting that German chancellor Angela Merkel quoted from his new book two days ago when the German Day of Unity was celebrated. European leaders slowly learn what the rise of Asia menas.

Europe is a geopoltical dwarf

"....

But the rising tide of insecurity in European hearts and minds also means that Europe cannot continue to be a giant Switzerland, which Mr Rachman suggested in his column this week it has become. The Swiss can feel secure because they are surrounded by Europe. The Europeans can only feel insecure because they are surrounded by an arc of instability, from north Africa to the Middle East, from the Balkans to the Caucasus. To make matters worse, the age-old Christian obsession with the threat of Islam has become far more acute, with Islamophobia rising to new heights in European cultures....

Given Europe's ability to dominate the world for almost 500 years, it is remarkable how poorly it is responding to new geopolitical....."

Obamas Big Gamble

http://voyager.gaia.com — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 05:26:56 GMT

A new piece from Fareed Zakaria.Its on spot. Its most strongly felt this way in Germany too. And for sure increasingly in Europe in toto.

Keep on going, President Obama! Thats the right stuff. Europeans themselves will have to define and shape more actively, clearly and globally, more powerfully their own roles and often unpleasant resonsibilties in the world.

Not only in their beloved regions, countries and the institutions in Luxembourg and Brussels. Not only only in the geografical edges of Eastern and South Eastern Europe. The Irish people voted with YES yesterday.

But European foreign policy must develop global eyes and muscles in a new way. Not in the old way of expansion in trade, tourism, mediation, diplomacy and crisis management alone.

Obamas Big Gamble

Working with the world, not against it.

By Fareed Zakaria

For more articles by Fareed Zakaria, visit the
At his United Nations debut, Barack Obama urged global cooperation to combat nuclear proliferation, climate change, and other problems that go beyond the borders of any one country. The speech was well received all over the world, except one place—America's right-wing netherworld, which quickly began whipping people into a frenzy. For Michelle Malkin, the speech was evidence that Obama was "the great appeaser," though she then went on to say, "From the sound of it, you'd think you were listening to Thomas Jefferson." (That's bad?) For Rush Limbaugh, Obama's speech was "basically a coup against America." At the National Review's Web site, a debate broke out—an entirely serious debate among serious people—as to whether the speech proved that Obama actually wanted the world's tyrants to win, in the tradition of past intellectuals who admired Mussolini and Hitler. This is the discourse of American conservatism today: Obama is bad because he loves death panels and Hitler.

read more..

Tags: USA, Obama, World, EU

Scenius, Innovation and Epicenters

http://voyager.gaia.com — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 08:22:59 GMT

I am picking up a piece from Alex Steffen - worldchanging.org -where he thinks about Kevin Kelly`s reflections on a concept of Brian Eno. It really resonates in me.

I absolutely agree with Kelly it cannot be created on demand.This is a theme I am now following for decades. The biggest breakthroughs cannot be organized or put in algorithms. They are necessary. Lots of people have examined all kinds of equations. Like the quest for the holy grail.

Today we celebrate in Germany the Day of German Unity. The fall of the wall had chaotic elements as much as organizational intention in Europe, Russia and USA.
its one of the best examples for me.

The permanent oscialltion between personal change and collective change and its interdependency is more an artform than rocket science or engeneering.

Here to Alex Steffens article from 2008:

Scenius, Innovation and Epicenters

Alex Steffen, 26 Jun 08

Ally Kevin Kelly has a terrific piece up about Brian Eno's concept of scenius:

Brian Eno suggested the word to convey the extreme creativity that groups, places or "scenes" can occasionally generate. His actual definition is: "Scenius stands for the intelligence and the intuition of a whole cultural scene. It is the communal form of the concept of the genius." Individuals immersed in a productive scenius will blossom and produce their best work. When buoyed by scenius, you act like genius. Your like-minded peers, and the entire environment inspire you.

The geography of scenius is nurtured by several factors:

• Mutual appreciation -- Risky moves are applauded by the group, subtlety is appreciated, and friendly competition goads the shy. Scenius can be thought of as the best of peer pressure.
• Rapid exchange of tools and techniques -- As soon as something is invented, it is flaunted and then shared. Ideas flow quickly because they are flowing inside a common language and sensibility.
• Network effects of success -- When a record is broken, a hit happens, or breakthrough erupts, the success is claimed by the entire scene. This empowers the scene to further success.
• Local tolerance for the novelties -- The local "outside" does not push back too hard against the transgressions of the scene. The renegades and mavericks are protected by this buffer zone.

Scenius can erupt almost anywhere, and at different scales: in a corner of a company, in a neighborhood, or in an entire region.

I've been lucky enough to be involved (at least peripherally) in a few really vibrant scenes of communal innovation, and in my experience, the one thing they all have in common is what I've called an epicenter:

[E]very community needs the space where people who do innovative, creative, risky, noble, worldchanging things get together and fuel each other's ardor. Meeting your allies -- shaking hands, sitting down and eating together, talking, laughing, getting to look one another in the eye, getting to know someone in all the rich, primate non-verbal ways which can only happen in actual physical proximity -- is powerful. Epicenters are tools.

Kevin quite rightly points out that scenius is difficult, if not impossible, to create on demand, and the same is true of its epicenters. You can't just open a bar and expect collective genius to erupt. Artists can tell you that the same thing is true of any form of human creativity -- it just doesn't turn on like a tap. But artists can also tell you that while you can't command creativity and innovation, you can create a welcoming space for it and increase the likelihood that it will show up. It can't be commanded, but it can be courted.
The art of courting genius is one that people hoping to solve the world's big problems would do well to learn, because truly worldchanging solutions don't arrive steadily or predictably on schedules as deliverables for rational investment. No, truly worldchanging solutions tend to arrive in unruly clumps, in great non-linear spills of changed thinking.

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Tags: Change, Scenius, Kevin Kelly, Alex Steffen, Brian Eno, Innovation

Right To Be

http://voyager.gaia.com — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 06:22:32 GMT

Here is an entry from the new public blog section of recently launched CHE-UK. Like it very much and congratulate the founders and members of CHE UK for initiating this very relevant project and giving it global momentum from the first moment. Indeed Britain is very rich and complex in values. I always felt a strange affinity to the UK:):))and I see now why.

Fully agree with the statements.

A Personal Agenda

"...

Early on, some months ago, before we even had a CHE UK to speak of, Don Beck showed around 100 people attending an event in London a short film. It was a film that had been created by a bunch of Americans, for Americans, to inspire. It showed people singing and talking about a grand vision of how America could be great again, how it could rekindle common values for a common purpose and pride. Hmmm. Well, some people liked it, some people got it but some people didn't. Some people thought it might work for Americans but here in the UK?, no way.

Britain is a multi cultural, multi valued and multi faceted nation in a way that nowhere else in the world can really come close to.

Realisation

And now for the realisation, which seems totally obvious looking back, especially considering Ken Wilber's four quadrants of any holon. In order to support large scale changes we need to support large numbers of individuals ! Not in the sense of helping them to achieve great spiritual goals but simply to help them realise their full potentials so that they can help others.

Germany Unbound

http://voyager.gaia.com — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:32:46 GMT

Roger Cohen is once again reflecting Germany. After 20 years post fall of the wall.

Lots of good points. Some confusion. The core of the summarized confusions is the emotional identity of this newly emerging country in progress. The nucleus of a fresh self understanding -in alignment to global developments is fragile still.

Cohen says:

"Most Germans favor a withdrawal from Afghanistan, a popular urge the new center-right coalition of the C.D.U. and Free Democratic Party will resist. Germans don't believe the defense of their country starts in the Hindu Kush. They're enjoying the unbearable lightness of being surrounded by allies."

No, they are not enjoying it. it simply is a new experience in history. And a new form of global engagement, perspectivic understanding of stratfied realites is still to be learned. With all responsibilites and opportunties.

Cohen says:

"Indeed, I heard more intellectual excitement over Russia and the broadening German-Russian relationship than over Obama's America. "

Thats simply not true. However Russia is in geopoltical neighborhood. And America intensively communicating with China. Once again geostrategic facts and connectivity is to be taken into account. And while lots of Germans were highly interesed in the Obama elections far less Americans are interested whats going on here in Germany.

Coherent change in all continents and cultures requires massive readiness for learning and unlearning stereotypes. Plus in depth understanding of the tectonic vertical constellations in the cultures.

Analysis of the past seldom is sufficient here. The ability to discover perspectives, new dimensions and the complexity of first, second and third person reality is essential. For top journalists on both sides of the Atllantic too.

Germany Unbound

By ROGER COHEN

BERLIN - After two decades, a unified Germany is coming into focus, like some lumbering creature emerging from the mist. Its election result no longer merits a Page 1 story in The New York Times, but it's still the European behemoth. And it's not the Germany we knew.

When I moved to Germany in 1998 there was great excitement over the birth of the "Berlin Republic" and the end of the "Bonn Republic." The capital was moving back to the Prussian plains after a half-century interlude in the unthreatening Rhineland. Bonn had been a retreat from history. Now, as some ministries moved into refurbished former Third Reich buildings, a united Germany came face to face with its specters.

The Berlin Republic - the phrase never quite stuck although Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's center-left coalition liked it - was full of feverish inquiry. Berlin itself was a vast building site of empty spaces that begged the question: What new Germany will fill them?

In that city taking form, a subterranean Germany surfaced from decades of self-imposed silence to ask if it could be proud, if it could speak of its millions of World War II dead, if it had done penance enough for the Holocaust, if it had attained "normality," if its Auschwitz-forged sentence was forever to be an economic giant and a political midget.

Returning to a Berlin now bereft of such probing interrogation to witness Angela Merkel's cruise to victory at the head of her Christian Democratic Union (C.D.U.), and the collapse of the Social Democrats (S.P.D.), I could see that phase was over. The Berlin Republic is now the German Republic. Get used to it.

This Germany is more nationalistic, more evenly poised between Washington and Moscow, cool to the point of disinterest about the European Union, self-absorbed and self-satisfied, dutiful but unenthused about the NATO alliance.

None of this should suggest that Germany will turn its back on the United States, the E.U. or NATO, the three cornerstones of its post-war success story. But they will not have the emotional hold they had

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Tags: Roger Cohen, Germany, USA

What is wrong with Social Democracy?

http://voyager.gaia.com — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 09:55:23 GMT

A take from SPIEGEL about the current poltical crisis of European social democrats. I see it -as I was engaged for the short time of 2 years 35 years ago- in the German SPD- as contribution to new political integral relfections.

While many in USA consider everything left from the center in Europe as socialism -this is plain wrong -it has to be remembered that the so called Third Way which is referred to in the article was a genuine beginning to enter transpartisan poltics. I agree with lots of points Browne, Teixiera and Halpin are making.

However the oscillating polarity between individualism and collective needs in ALL vemetic layers isnt seen.()In spiral terms) I have not examined the other European social democratic devlopments. Right now the German SPD is drifting heavily towards new associations with the DIE LINKE.

That is instead analysing whats really going on in society, culture and poltics old "Come together" relfexes are retriggered slowly.

The second point not adressed suffuiently is the increasing number of non voters. Last sunday in Germany 30 percent of roundabout 62 possible voters did not make their choice.

So, to make it short for the moment:

Quo vadis, European societies? Germany, UK, France? This situation is calling for vertical thinking and acting. For the design of development maps. And transpartisan perspectives. For new understanding of leadership and social innovation as much as for some integral minimum standards.

Heres to the article:

This article is based on a longer paper, "The European Paradox," written by Matt Browne, Ruy Teixiera, and John Halpin which will be presented at a meeting of US and European progressives in Madrid, Spain. It was kindly provided to SPIEGEL ONLINE by the Heinrich Boell Stiftung.

Beyond the Third Way:

What is wrong with Social Democracy?

By Matt Browne, Ruy Teixiera and John Halpin

Germany's Social Democrats are in crisis. And they are not alone. Across Europe, social democratic parties are struggling to connect with a new generation of voters. What's the problem?

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's re-election this weekend confirms what many already knew: Europe's social democratic parties have failed to distill any political benefit from the association between the right's reverence for unfettered markets and the economic crises that grip the continent.

Historically, Europeans turn to conservatives in times of crisis. But today, the situation is more complex. In Germany, Merkel's Christian Democrats also fared worse than in previous elections. Instead, voters opted for the far-left Left Party, the liberal Free Democrats and the Greens. These parties tapped into modernizing demographic trends: the rise of a progressive younger generation, the continuing rise in educational levels, the growth of the professional class, the increasing social weight of single and alternative households and growing religious diversity and secularism. Despite the defeat of the social democrats, then, one can discern the emergence of new constituencies that favor progressives. These trends are repeated across much of Europe.

But why do these groups not vote for the social democrats?

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Tags: Europe, Social Democrats, Conservatism, Third Way