Dear all,
Well, the big news is that spring is here—a great life-giving cause for celebration. Two deaths in my wide circle of loved ones have been hard, even as they remind me of the importance of tending our connections to the living. Similarly, amidst corrosive bad news in our country and the world, I am grateful for signs of new life—the Sunrise Movement (I just signed up to stay in touch at https://actionnetwork.org/forms/join-us-112?source=direct_link&), the Green New Deal, the growing interest in public management of our common wealth. I’m reminded of a song I love to sing, The World Is Always Turning Toward the Morning.
Love,
Pamela
Crossing borders
The trauma of border crossing has been much in the news—and in our hearts—as more and more people flee war, poverty and oppression, seeking safety and opportunity across national lines. Unexpectedly, I have found my attention drawn to the less discussed issue of crossing borders the other way—from places of more rank and privilege to less.
After our trip to Uganda this winter, I was asked a question whose essence was “How could I travel as a white person to Africa and not fall into the trap of perpetuating colonialism?”
I can’t say for sure that I haven’t, but I do know some of the signs. Years ago, a group of U.S. high schools found out about the school in Northern Uganda that a dear friend of ours had founded, and jumped in to provide scholarships. In their enthusiasm, they raised lots of money—and kept needing more and more from the school to support their help. No one doubted their good intentions, and the money was certainly welcome, but their growing feeling of ownership of the school began to be perceived by folks on the ground as problematic.
We watched with dismay. Our approach seemed so different. When Abitimo asked us to do something, we just did it. When she died a couple of years ago, not only did we grieve, but we were caught off balance. What should be our relationship to the school without her at the center? Fortunately, her son, whom we had known for decades as a lovely, quiet, behind-the-scenes kind of guy, stepped up—and we started following him.
We learned that many of the school’s systems, which this other group had complained about loudly before ultimately bailing out, were, indeed, badly in need of change. Yet, rather than making our own judgments, we followed our friend. When he decided there needed to be new school leadership, we backed him to make the hard calls. We listened and supported, took dictation, joined him in meetings, kept track of the things he said he needed to do, and rejoiced in his every success.
Considering what makes such border crossings go well for everybody, love is the best medium, and relationships are critical. When I’m approaching a border, if people who belong there can say “She’s with us”, a legitimate place is made for me. This is how we found ourselves invited, at home, and able to be of real use among a group of South Sudanese refugees in northwest Uganda; a series of loving friendships opened the way.
It also helps a lot if we are okay with who we are, in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, class. If our interest in border crossing is to become somebody else, to have another’s identity rub off on us, something will always be a little off balance. We end up having neither who we are nor who we want to be.
Home from Africa, I read a book describing the joys of crossing a border that few of us ever contemplate—that of species. What would it mean to set aside our human assumptions and put energy into being fully present to the life and reality of a foreign-seeming species? There are big barriers to connection, and therefore perhaps to love, but the opportunities for wonder are great, and we can always stand in open-hearted respect.
We can also learn from all the mistakes humans make with other humans—our unaware assumptions about what’s “normal”, and all the ways we cast others in the role of lesser beings, from captivity, anthropological study and voyeurism to seeing others only in their relationship to us.
Our connections with others through our shared DNA and shared home are real, regardless of the borders of nation, ethnicity or species that separate us. The rewards of such border crossing are great. Is there anything more hopeful and reassuring than finding a bond of commonality across differences that may have seemed unbridgeable? By being willing to find our way across those borders, our own lives are immeasurably enriched.
Bookends
Winter morning
east to work
rising sun catches the trees from below
bathes them in a glow
of golden pink.
West that night
thinnest sliver of a crescent moon
breaks through the clouds
for a shining moment.
A day
framed in grace.
Dare to Imagine: A New Economy is Possible!
Indigenous Cooperative
The southern state of Puebla, Mexico, is home to a network of cooperatives, Tosepan Titataniske or “United We Will Overcome”, which has been working for 40 years to build up a parallel solidarity economy among largely Nahua and Tutunaku indigenous communities. It encompasses some 35,000 members across 430 villages in 29 municipalities.
Based on the premises of democracy, fair economic participation, self-reliance, autonomy, compromise, gender equality and cooperation, it aims to provide a healthy diet and profitable businesses while employing the community members, preserving culture, and working within a sustainable framework. Activities include: the creation of an eco-friendly hotel; organic pepper, coffee and honey production; a women’s livelihood association; education in marketable skills and local sociopolitical/ethnic/environmental issues.
https://library.iated.org/view/MORALESPAREDES2014TOS https://www.localfutures.org/tosepan-resistance-and-renewal-in-mexico/
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
The youth-led Sunrise Movement that is changing the conversation in the US on climate change (and I know and love some of them).
https://www.sunrisemovement.org/
A California federal judge who ruled to eliminate cash bail for those who are awaiting arraignment in San Francisco, finding that it is an unconstitutional "get out of jail" card for those who can afford it.
https://www.courttrax.com/cash-bail-system-ended-in-san-francisco-by-federal-judge/
The governor of a county in Kenya who refused to participate in the usual corruption, despite extreme pressure, and was able to use the unlooted funds to benefit the community.
http://davidzarembka.com/2019/02/28/541-ending-corruption-is-possible-a-positive-example/
A lobby day for public banking in Philadelphia, where City Council people were eager to support the idea of keeping our public money out of the big banks and under local control, to be invested and reinvested to meet common needs. https://www.facebook.com/PhiladelphiaPublicBankCoalition/ and www.publicbankinginstitute.org
Resources
Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8
Money and Soul
A transcript of a keynote address I delivered at a Quaker conference in New Mexico, June 2017
https://westernfriend.org/media/money-and-soul-unabridged
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.org
Resource from my friend Daniel Hunter, Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide
Posts on other web/blog sites:
In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.
http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust
http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: https://www.trainingforchange.org/publications/muscle-building-peace-and-justice-nonviolent-workout-routine-21st-century (or just google the title)
