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Humanizing China

October 19, 2007 By Practice 2 Comments

china fruit vendor.jpg

I have been absorbed lately in a series of photographs about China form an online exhibit called “Humanizing China.”   The exhibit is divided into three subject areas: Survival, Relationships and Desires.   I have all three loaded into permanenty open tabs in my browser and I spend a few minutes at a time reflecting on these photos.   It is like a little mindfulness meditation and a good practice of seeing to just be with these images and reflect on the multitude of untold stories that lie beneath these moments captured with light.

End Canada’s war in Afghanistan now

October 18, 2007 By Uncategorized One Comment

End+Afghan+War.jpg

Our federal government announced in it’s throne speech yesterday that it was intending to extend Canada’s mission in Afghanistan to 2011. I have written before about my thoughts on the war there, and our role in it. Now, I’m adding my voice to a number of other bloggers who are demanding that we end our role in this conflict. Here are my reasons why:

  1. We are in a combat mission in Afghanistan. In other words we are a fighting force participating in a war. This is not a peacekeeping mission. It bears remembering that we went to Afghanistan, and we remain there, as a part of a NATO combat force, not a UN peacekeeping force. We went there originally to unseat the Taliban government and to do our part to fight terrorism 9whatever that means). The Taliban government was unseated in 2002, we were there as a new government took office (although it’s not exactly a DEMOCRATIC government). We are now working for THAT government, fighting a civil war against people who don’t agree with their government.
  2. I don’t believe that we have a role to play by taking sides in a civil war. Afghanistan now has its own government, and the people there need to figure out how to run their affairs. Having NATO doing the dirty work in the Afghan civil war provides no incentive for Afghans to create their own security infrastructure.
  3. To those who object to this line of thinking by saying that we shouldn’t abandon Afghans until there is some stability I will agree with this. We should therefore have a conversation within Canada about changing our role from a combat force to a peacekeeping force under the auspices of the United Nations. Of course, we have been at war in Afghanistan since 2001 and our leaders and their friends have been on record saying that we can’t negotiate with the Taliban, so perhaps we are not in a position to take a neutral peacekeeping role. I think we have lost that chance.
  4. Darfur is calling. We are unable to respond. I would like our country to be in a position to help in the world where we can be needed.
  5. Our commitments to the first and second world wars lasted 10 years combined. Our commitment to the uncertain outcomes of the Afghanistan civil war wlll stretch this far by the end of the current government’s proposed mandate. The outcomes are uncertain, the conditions for victory are unclear and unattainable. Therefore, we should leave now rather than later.
  6. Just to say it again, I believe that we have debased ourselves by using our armed forces to take sides in a civil war. We helped oust the Taliban, we chose not to be peacekeepers after that event. We have no right to be there any longer.

So, I am for Canada ending the mission there post-haste, regrouping our armed forces and redeploying to Darfur where we can do good.

[tags]canada, war, afghanistan, stephen harper[/tags]

Art of Engagement Live: join us!

October 11, 2007 By Art of Harvesting, Open Space 2 Comments

Tomorrow I am facilitating the Open Space portion of the “Live in Public:the Art of Engagement” gathering in Open Space.   In addition to the event running in meatspace, there is a live site on which you can follow along and play.   The site is the primary harvest point for all that is happening at the conference and is a great example of a real time harvest.

See you there, either in person, or online!

Sometimes our best efforts do not go amiss

October 7, 2007 By Being, Poetry 3 Comments

Battle Creek, Michigan, USA
I’m reading a marvellous little book called “Dispatches from the Global Village” by my friend Derek Evans. Derek is a remarkable individual, having most notable served two terms as the Deputy Secretary General of Amnesty International. He now lives in the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia and is the spouse of my long time homeopath, Pat Deacon.

What I really like about Derek is that he embodies a certain tempered optimism that the human species is capable of great things despite it also being capable of unimaginable acts. Derek has assembled a book out of a series of columns he wrote for his neighbours in Naramata, BC. THe column are the musings and reflections of an internationally important peacemaker. There are many gems in the book, which I’ll share over the next couple of days, but I offer this one tonight to those who are despairing at the moment that we might just have it all wrong.

This is a poem that Derek spotted on the London Underground several years ago by Sheenagh Pugh:

Sometimes things don’t go after all,
from bad to worse. Some years muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives;the crops don’t fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war;
elect an honest man; decide they care
enough, that they can’t leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best efforts do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.

This poem reminds me of a line that escaped my lips earlier this year when I was juggling with friends Tenneson Woolf and Roq Garreau. I said that I though juggling is so compelling because “there is always the possibility that a ball might not drop.”

[tags]derek evans, sheehangh pugh, hope[/tags]

Happy birthday to wood s lot

October 7, 2007 By Uncategorized

The National Capital Freenet in Ottawa was the host of my first email address.   It’s most famous web page may well be the amazing   wood s lot.   Today, Mark Woods’ blog turned seven.

Happy Birthday!