Walking alongside to create change

Two inspirational men I've been fortunate enough to spend small bits of time with over the last couple of years are Satish Kumar of Resurgence Magazine and Andy Middleton of The Do Lectures. I want to discuss something they've both taught me about creating change.

I'm reading 'No Destination', Kumar's autobiography. I was very lucky to share a meal with him in Cheltenham last year. I'm on chapter three, which describes the time he spent walking around India with Vinoba Bhave, a student of, and successor to, Ghandi. What Vinoba taught Kumar about creating changes to land ownership resonated with something Middleton explained to me about inspiring sustainable lifestyles and made me think about how we're reacting to Rupert Murdoch right now.

It was 1957, Vinoba was seeking to revolutionarise land ownership in India in the years after the Ghandi inspired removal of British rule. Vinoba wanted the land to be more fairly distributed to help the poor, he was seeking to create this change through peaceful persuasion, it was a lengthy process. Kumar was asking Vinoba why he wasn't calling for a radical civil disobediance campaign. Why wasn't he trying to force the landlords to adopt the principle of community ownership of land or force the government to change the laws of private ownership? Vinoba replied:

'Gandhi used civil disobedience successfully against the British only because the British government was not an elected government but an imposed authority. The situation is different now. We are living in a democratic set-up. The people have elected the government. If we want a change in government we should convince the voters, who, after all, are the masters. It is no good going to the government which is a servant of the people. My task is to create revolutionary consciousness in the minds of the people.'

According to Kumar, Vinoba believed that 'to overcome landlordism, we should not resist the landlords but assist them to act rightly.' Vinoba did not believe in 'opposition' arguing that it reduces the chances of a change of heart. 'It creates insecurity through which a man is drawn to defend himself just at the point when he should be taking a new impartial look at society.'

I spent time with Andy Middleton while doing my PhD, he told me something similar that has guided my approach to conversations and education around sustainability ever since: 'if you want to create change don't square up to those you want to change, don't confront them face to face. Instead walk alongside them, find common ground and try to guide them along a different pathway.'

Vinoba used an analogy to illustrate this to Kumar: 'Take the example of a house. You want to enter the house, but it has high walls around it. You go to the wall and fight to get past [through] it. You can not. What happens? Your head is broken. But if you find a small door, you can get into the house and go wherever you want. But you have to find the door. Like that, when I meet a landlord he has many faults and shortcomings, and his egotism is like a wall. But he has a little door. If you are prepared to find this door, it means you have risen above your own egotism and you can enter his heart. Don't worry about his faults, only try to find the door. I am in search of that little door in every capatalist landlord. If sometimes I can't find the door, it is my fault, my fault that I am banging my head against his shortcomings.' Vinoba successfully managed to encourage thousands of landlords across India to donate a total of over four million acres of land to the poor to create villages with communal ownership of land, the gramdan.

If we want to change the behaviour of Rupert Murdoch should we square up to him, attack him with accusations of selfishness, greed and corruption? Or, should we open those small doors he has offered us, get alongside him, applaud his public apologies and his promises of reform? Will this, rather than knife twisting, encourage him, News International and the rest of the free press to change the way they operate?

The role of Government

I had a big row via email with my friend Adam on Sunday morning, it started off as a debate about the public sector pensions row and then veered off into a general argument about the role of Government. I think we both ended up with sour tasting cornflakes, sorry Ad! Today I came across the Henry David Thoreau's essay: 'On the duty of civil disobedience' the first few lines of which express (far more neatly than I managed) how I feel about the role of government:

"I HEARTILY accept the motto,—“That government is best which

governs least;” and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly

and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which

also I believe,—“That government is best which governs not at

all;” and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of

government which they will have."

I've been criticized before for thinking like this. The argument I get back is that if I think like this then surely I am arrogantly arguing for strong government NOW because I don't think that the men and women of Britain are currently prepared for a government 'which governs not at all'. Therefore, by extension, I'm also arrogantly arguing that men and women will not be prepared for this until they all think like me! Or, until they can be trusted! Hands up, against these accusations I am at least partly guilty [apart from the bit about everyone having to think like me - we are already far too samey, I adore diversity, long may it blossom and widen].

With all its slashing and cutting of the public sector and public services our current hyper neo-liberal Government is hurtling along a path to becoming one that 'governs not at all'. Right now this genuinely terrifies me. It seems to me from reading, watching and listening to our contemporary daily news that we continue to mistreat our fellow human beings both in the UK and abroad daily and horrifically. We also continue, through our actions, to mistreat the natural world; we're definitely not ready to be left to our own devices, if we were there'd be no need for BBC Panorama.

For me Governments are there to temper and actively discourage our most damaging behaviours. They are to do this by incentivising and rewarding good behaviours while enforcing laws that prevent us from harming each other and the natural world. But, I believe that Governments should temper our behaviour only so much as is absolutely necessary and not a tiny bit more; acting like a good nurturant parent who allows their offspring to push boundaries, learn from mistakes, mature and take responsibility for themselves. As opposed to the strict parent whose child is only capable of following orders and remains unable in adult life to decide, independently, how to behave maturely. Eventually, probably, public moral norms would have shifted far enough that it would have become totally socially unacceptable to smoke in confined public spaces. The smoking ban that the Government introduced would not then have been necessary, we would have self-governed ourselves into the exact same scenario, restaurant by restaurant, pub by pub. We were being nurtured towards this as we matured as a society, the introduction of the smoking ban in 2007 was simply our nuturent parent getting a little strict on us by saying 'right I'm introducing a new ground rule'. This effectively speeded up the process. The fact that there were not too many tantrums, or too much kicking and screaming demonstrated how well timed its introduction was.

So, in summary, I believe that Governments should allow us as much freedom to self govern as possible, without giving us so much freedom that we cause intolerable harm to others and the natural environment. That is, not so much freedom that we are able to compromise the freedom of others. It is an incredibly hard balance to strike, but right now, this Government seems to be making it too easy for those who are inclined to oppress others and harm the environment for their own gain, to do exactly that. As a parent it is being too hands off.

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