‘How do we keep doing these things to each other that create refugee populations? ’– That is the question posed by poet Naomi Shihab Nye, who grew up in the US, the daughter of a Palestinian refugee who describes her father’s sadness as a ‘land mass under water’.
Right now in Europe, our governments are making decisions that will set us up for many future generations of land masses under water. Our kids will wade in it.
Europe is currently drowning in an unquestioned logic of war, a fascist migration policy and a rearming project on a massive scale that promotes an industrial military complex and wipes out budgets for human development, nature protection and climate action. Each day the headlines push us down a little further into the surface of the water.
So how does this stop?
It stops when we resist, when we say no more, when we ask questions, when we get together and offer alternatives .
How does it start?
When we start acting differently. When we create the conditions for us to be our ‘best selves minus one’ as much as we can (because ‘best self’ is about perfection and we’ve got to get over that ;)).
Last week The Flamingo Collective were invited to run an experiment at the Ideas Festival organised by Full Circle in Brussels.
The experiment – which we are repeating with different groups of people – is about understanding where we seem to really disagree, surfacing the controversial bits, bringing what is not being said above the waterline so that we understand each other and the nuances in the debate. We are basing it on one of the thorniest topics out there at the moment: about peace, whether it is possible and whether we can even talk about it.
Each time we run this experiment, we learn that people have so much more in common than they thought. It turns out that everyone wants peace. And that most people think that peace is possible.
But at times even the definition of ‘peace’ is restricted to an absence of war. Peace- building is perceived as one ‘sector’ among others. That is holding us back. Because to get to peace, more people than the sector have to want it. In fact, as the Vietnamese peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh said decades ago, to get to peace, we must ‘be peace’.
The Flamingo Collective is creating the conditions for people to ‘be peace’. For people to be their best selves, by setting up encounters between humans in a really different way. For organisations to shift their culture in this direction.
What does all this look like in practice?
🦩Just starting a gathering by breathing together can change everything.
🦩Setting up a room in a circle of chairs without tables shifts dynamics.
🦩Leaving the room from time to time and walking in a forest can lead to different discussions and wildly different outcomes.
🦩Starting a gathering by collectively agreeing how to be our best selves minus one – just for the duration of the gathering – can change everything. Manage egos. Allow for brave conversations, open ones, that create relief, not the destruction of people in the room.
🦩Asking people to write down what they feel before they talk shifts discussions.
🦩Exercises to bring people into how something feels in their body before reacting with the head are total game changers (though this is not a game).Â
🦩Giving everyone in the room a chance to speak before anyone speaks a second time sends a message that everyone matters.
🦩Avoiding the tendency for one or two to dominate conversations by agreeing about the need for awareness at the beginning of the gathering changes everythingÂ
🦩And if that really doesn’t work, using terrible commercial dance songs from the early 90s to cut them off also works wonders.
The inspiration for this comes in part from years of learning from brilliant feminist leaders, mostly from Africa, Asia and South America and putting that wisdom into practice with groups here in Europe. Lots of it is inspired by Plum Village and Thich Nhat Hanh on ‘being peace’. Lots of it is simply what Mother Nature is asking us to do. And on our good days, our best selves minus one day, we’re actually listening.Â
We have so much love and respect for those out there who are trying to change things. That is where we get our energy and that is where we chose to put our energy now.
Whether you are planning a campaign or strategy review, a planning session, a public event, a conflict transformation session, a feminist leadership workshop, a team retreat, or a big mad celebration, the Flamingo Collective is there to support you. Contact us here. We’d love to hear from you.