Alternative Editorial: Together We Stand Alone
In week 156 of The Shift, two recurring conflicts made the headlines. The first the growing tension on the Northern Ireland border as the impact of Brexit is felt. The second, the Arab / Israeli conflict erupting once again into violence.
In both cases it was difficult for a general reader to be able to understand the full complexity of the situation. Instead the headlines in each paper quickly indicated a strong bias between seeing Israeli citizens as victims of Palestinian terrorists, or Palestinian citizens as victims of the Israeli army.
Almost without exception journalists described an aggressor and a victim, as if there were only two parties involved in each case. Any analysis which showed the role of the neighbouring Middle Eastern countries, the US, UK and Russia, within a history that included the foundation of Israel and World War Two, was generally buried deeper in the paper.
In Northern Ireland, citizens are living under a new protocol that maintains some of the pre-Brexit relationships with Europe and therefore puts renewed pressure on the Irish border. This was generally reported as the growing resentment of the Unionists against the UK government. However, there was little explanation of the historic divide which kept the Irish at war for 30 years but was resolved through the Anglo-Irish Peace Agreement.
While the emphasis on division might seem inevitable given the violence, there is rarely an equal emphasis on the extensive work being done all the time to bring people together. Those that lived through ‘the Troubles’ will remember that it was the initiative of the community level peace builders – led by women - that significantly paved the way to the Northern Ireland Peace Agreement.
We Are the World was a massive hit in 1985
In both cases, the headlines report division as deep and enduring, giving readers the impression that we will always need ‘strong politicians’ and the army to keep us safe. Whereas it is worth considering if the opposite might equally be the case: the decisions of self-serving national governments, themselves working with oppositional party-political cultures and structures, only get deeply invested in conflicts that they are capable of solving. Often those solutions spring from heavy investment in a military industrial complex that remains vital to the growth economy.
Either way, the mainstream news feeds on division to the extent that the more violent an altercation is, the more likely it is to make the front pages: if it bleeds it leads. While we may find ourselves entranced by the drama, people yearn for peace but find it hard to imagine.
In election after election, we continue to choose those parties that offer us most protection from each other, or can show strength in the international field of potential conflict. How can we begin to reimagine ourselves as deeply connected citizens – human beings – that have the capacity for relationships and trust?
Modern connectedness is a subtle and complex thing
On a Zoom call this week, we found ourselves in a room with 30 people - largely in their mid 30s - grappling with the possibilities of global governance. A confident, articulate Englishman led us in a breathing exercise to help us move into resonance with each other before a Middle Eastern woman led a discussion on the tragedy of our disconnectedness.
It took us quite a few rounds of dialogue before it became obvious to us that we had somehow managed to discount the miracle of our connectivity, in this moment. Thirty people who barely knew each other, sharing an intimate virtual space, breathing in sync. Then deliberating, with feeling, on the possibilities of a more profound global structure. Could our parents have ever imagined such a thing?
And if you immediately jump on the privilege of those elected to be in that room, on the strength of their cultural capital, don’t forget the hundreds of millions who spend even more hours in global spaces playing games. It’s not uncommon for teens with only a mobile phone to boast of international communities of friends, who they gained by signing into a game App on a daily basis. Together they share breakthroughs in method and strategies for winning – all the while enjoying the banter between them.
At the same time, complaints about disconnection are not misinformed. While radical connectivity is possible, it is largely being exploited by the tech giants, as they enable these first contacts and the sharing of information and opinion. Deeper relationships are harder to develop on-line; they take a long-term investment of quality attention. Equally, there is plenty of evidence that on the ground, bodies alongside other bodies, we live very separate lives and increasingly so as the 21st century has progressed – a trend that Covid both mirrored and accelerated.
And yet and yet… The growth of community engagement and organising is well-documented on our pages. It’s not only visible through the long term neighbourhood networks and co-operatives that have held fragile communities together throughout the challenges of the previous century.
But much more recently, we see it in the mutual-aid self-help groups that sprung up in their thousands across the UK, Europe and the US, responding to the pandemic. These are simulations of the kinds of social networks much more common throughout Asia and Africa, where family and community never went out of fashion.
It’s one of the phenomena of our time that the more we connect to each other, the more we understand how disconnected we have been in the public space – and then how connected we are in the more private spaces of our lives. For some this is a major problem, for others a blessed relief – depending largely upon how much control over your own experience of the public or private space you feel you have.
A new media system that helps us believe in each other
For example, the mainstream narrative about the pervasiveness of social media and its ability to confuse and disorientate us is objectively discernible. If we are giving a large proportion of our attention, minute by minute, hour by hour, to twitter or tik-tok, we would feel both deeply engaged and mentally turbulent.
Worse, we might be constantly triggered by challenges to our world view and status in the debate. Enjoying this level of connection has an addictive quality: every little dopamine hit we experience – whether one of our own making or a new stream discovered - has us coming back for more.
On the other hand, if we consciously limit our engagement, we can use the connection possibilities of these extraordinary technologies for more considered goals. Not just mobilization, but learning, sharing and building new bits of social architecture, providing resilience before the crises we face.
However, unless these two worlds of connection speeds and experiences move into relationship with each other, real change cannot happen. Gamers live in a different word from civic organisers or artists. This is where the place-based communities become so important – helping the huge diversity of different kinds of agency move into relationship on terms that are familiar to all.
People meeting in public squares, markets, festivals, schools and sports clubs become familiar with each other in ways that make them feel at home. This becomes the bedrock for more general trust to develop and collaboration to happen – which then occurs on multiple levels in the town or city you live in. Groups of people setting up initiatives – food, energy, learning projects – or gatherings for dance, craft, debate.
Yet where can you consistently and reliably read about the fruits of these collaborations in ways that generate a positive new story about the town or city? Our blog this week describes the few great reports of the success of independent councilors who have chosen to stand outside the party political divide to represent the whole of their communities – but they are few. Too many local papers run on fear and division agendas as a business model, leaving positive stories of local enterprise to the margins.
We need a new media system: one that allows people to see their connectedness reflected in the stories they read about themselves.
We don’t mean simply a new newspaper title sharing ‘the good news’ – but a new structure within which people can offer up their own stories of endeavour and collaboration and see them shape the future. This could take the form of future-orientated news gathering, offering not only innovations and initiatives generated locally, but also tools, practices and opportunities to join in. Like a Daily Alternative for every town, city or region?
Imagine if every town had such a news service – and that they were also linked together to become a vast commons of resources stretching across the country?
How long would it take for people to begin to think of themselves and each other, not only as connected, but as creative, generous and worth believing in?
Artist Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay | Photo: Alex Giegold