"I had a dream... the voice said, Gather the Women" ...
Leymah Gbowee, peace activist and Nobel prize winner, speaks in the first of three short films by Errol Morris
A link to the films is here: Three Films About Peace Errol Morris
I watched the film in the dead of night, unable to sleep.
After watching, I was too moved and too inspired to sleep.
What can we see in this story?
It works as a human story on so many levels: politics, leadership, courage, gender, transformation, achievement ...
From a place of utter despair in 1990, follwing a slaughter in a church in the depths of a civil war, questioning her faith in herself and god, Leymah Gbowee found anger. Facing Charles Taylor's brutal regime, her dream told her to "gather the women". Initially 7 women gathered around a table, with $10 between them.
Occupying a soccer field in the center of town, their protest began. Gradually 2500 women came to sit on the field. Charles Taylor has to pass the field twice a day. Eventually the women gained a meeting.
"We are tired of warWe are tired of beggingWe are tired of our children being rapedPlease tell this to the President of Liberia"
Leymah said, to Taylor's protocol officer.
"I was angry" she said, but not violent. "Come at them with non-violence and they don't know what to do. We spoke truth to power without saying a negative word against him"
The protest led to Taylor agreeing to attend a peace conference, and the women traveled with him, camping outside as "the conscience" of the talks to "do the right thing".
The peace talks dragged on: weeks became months and the women ran out of money and food. At the same time the violence increased. Leymah questioned her faith in non-violence, doubting its effectiveness in the face of the mounting brutality and carnage. She sent for more women, four bus loads, and began a sit-in outside the talks, refusing to move, until peace was agreed.The security forces arrived, threatening her arrest. She said:
"I will make it very easy for you ...I will strip naked so you can arrest me ... And they ran away" she recalled.
In a country where rape had become commonplace, this was a powerful re-framing and taking of power.
"When you are raped ...people tear off your clothes..use force to make you submit ... but when you are so desperate for peace that you take off your clothes ...stripped of all of my beliefs ...you've taken it all, I'm giving you the last bit of my pride ...finally they listened"
This short film in which Leymah tells her story speaks to so many of the challenges of ecological and social justice faced around the world right now. There is much to learn here:
First, it speaks deeply about using different kinds of power. Using the terminology of VeneKlasen & Miller (2002) one sees how the women used "power with" (that is power enabled by coming together in a common interest) to challenge "power over" (the formal power of the military leadership). As well as this, Leymah's energy and anger, and her willingness to act, seems to be "power within", which the authors see as a claim to power arising from "the common human search for dignity and fulfillment" - the power to hope. Finally woven through the story is "power to": Leymah's individual power, which when linked to others fed into "power with" .... I have attached a link describing the work of VeneKlasen and Miller, and providing other resources on power and transformation here
Secondly, the story speaks about power in another way. It makes me think of John Gaventa's work on "Finding the space for change: a power analysis". Gaventa places value on finding and using "spaces" for power. Spaces can mean physical spaces, but also "opportunities, moments and channels where citizens can act to potentially affect policies, discourses, decisions and relationships that affect their lives and interests" (2006)
In Leymah's case such spaces included the table where the first seven women gathered, the soccer field, the meeting space where the 2500 confronted Taylor, the buses to the peace conference, and the corridor where the women mounted their sit in and threatened to strip naked.Space "is a social product" : it is not merely "there". So when Leymah threatens to strip naked, she creates a new kind of space, shifting a boundary. Taking the notion of a boundary from Foucault, Hayward sees power as "the network of social boundaries that delimit fields of possible action". Leymah's story is a story of creative boundary shifting that creates freedom through "shaping the social limits that define what is possible" (Hayward, 1998)
Thirdly, the story is filled with examples of re-framing and shifting strategic position. For me this is a rich illustration of Bill Torbert's "Four Territories of Experience", a note on which I have included below. The ability to go beyond merely shifting action, into shifts of strategic "points of intervention" in-and-on a system is an essential part of systemic transformation. In making such shifts a great dwal of "re-framing" occurs: shifting the deep and usually unspoken assumptions about roles, power, rights, conversations and so on, and changing the language in which such conversations occur.
There is, I am sure, much more that can be learned from the short film and this rich story. But for now I have focused on power, framing and strategic positions within the system, as one set of sources of systemic intervention and transformation.
Chris Nichols (October 2014)
A Supplementary Note on Bill Torbert's Four Territories of Experience
This framework offers a genuinely useful and powerful
insight into the levels of learning and an aid to reflection to allow creative
action.
The Four Territories of Experience are illustrated below:
We use it like this:
First, pay attention to the First Loop of learning (single
loop learning), which is the relationship between Action-behaviours and
Outcomes-results. It is useful and
important in first person inquiry to be curious about how our behaviours result
in outcomes: what do we do and how do we do it? And how does this serve us, or
not serve us, in influencing the world in ways we desire? If we are not getting
the kind of outcomes we seek, what flexibility do we have to make changes,
subtle or otherwise, in our actions and behaviours?
This is where having good peer support is useful, and
keeping a journal matters a great deal. Being systematic about noticing actions
and outcomes and taking time to make sense of what happened and why ….
This is
right at the heart of first person inquiry. And observing these relationships
as they move, as you experiment and achieve (or do not achieve), all of this is
Single Loop learning and is powerful. It is also where most traditional management / leadership
courses stop and it is not the full picture.
Second, pay attention to the role you place in the system
you are seeking to influence: these might be formal roles, informal roles or
ways of playing roles. Your choice of role is “strategic” and can often be
flexed. In the life of Nelson Mandela, for example the move between politically
disinterested lawyer, political activist in the peace movement, freedom fighter
in the military campaign of the ANC, prisoner, negotiator, Presidential
candidate and Statesman were each different roles he played within the system
at different times. Sometimes strategic
roles are played simultaneously (ANC leader AND negotiator AND prisoner for
example.
Noticing the roles you play in a system and noticing the
flexibility you have to occupy different roles is a massively creative act in
developing potential narratives of yourself in a system. Each role creates the
potential of a different range of legitimate behaviours and with it the
possibility of different outcomes.
It is very likely that in your work you will bump against the barriers of your existing strategic roles and will
work to expand or change these, and you may as a result experiment with
occupying different strategic positions as you seek to influence systems and
processes. Again peer support and journaling is a very important part of being
effective in this Double Loop learning.
Third, you will notice the relationship between all of the
above and your deeper intentions, values and purposes. Sometimes being clear on your purpose will
provide a source of strength to endure the difficulties of playing a strategic
role when this might be costly. At other times it may explain a reluctance or
weariness in a role, because either your purpose isn’t being served or because
you have purposes that conflict and undermine your action.
Paying attention to purpose is therefore important a
difficult Triple Loop learning. This can
be the most personal, most demanding reflection loop. The support of trusted
friends and colleagues on the journey, including learning group tutors, is very
valuable here.
If you want to pursue this more deeply you might consider
these Bill Torbert, et al, sources:
Sources:
VeneKlasen L & Miller V, (2002), A New Weave of Power
http://www.powercube.net/other-forms-of-power/expressions-of-power/
Gaventa J, (2006), Finding the space for change: a power analysis, IDA Bulletin, Vol 37, No 6, November 2006, downloaded from link below:
http://www.powercube.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/finding_spaces_for_change.pdf
Hayward C R, (1998) De-facing Power, cited in Gaventa (2006)
