Tag Archives: system

2012 EVT – New Government, New Opposition, Last Hope (Panglossy)

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Last weeks’ summary: In 2012 EVT, Everstate (the ideal-type corresponding to our very real countries created to foresee the future of governance and of the modern nation-state) knows a rising dissatisfaction of its population. Alarmed by the rising difficulties and widespread discontent, the governing authorities decide to do something when new elections start. Dependent upon programmes created to face efficiently past challenges, prisoners of entrenched political groupings, comforted in their vision by the BRICS’ success and renewed optimism, the major parties campaign to come back to the order ante. As a result, habits and the existing system, once the new national representatives are elected and the new government starts ruling, are even more entrenched, almost ossified.

(The reader can click on each picture to see a larger version in a new tab - a navigating map of posts is available to ease reading).

Yet, something unexpected, dismissed or rather minimised by observers, is also happening during the months leading to the election: the rise of small and sometimes polarised parties, accompanied by an increase in the political mobilisation outside currently eligible parties. In this, Everstate is just exemplifying what is happening all over the Western world.

For example, in May 2012, in Germany in North Rhine-Westphalia, the new Pirate Party again fares very well. In France, the results of the first round of the Presidential elections shows a strong rise of parties on the extreme left and right of the political spectrum. In Greece, thirty-two parties compete during the first May elections, and seven, including those positioned at the extreme, win seats in Parliament. Meanwhile, the Occupy and Democracia Real Ya! – also known as Indignados – movements, born out of Spain’s mobilisation a year before, show their continuing presence, with various protests staged on May Day, then between 12 and 15 May, with varying participation rates. Signs of polarisation can also be found here. #Anonymous, in general, backs those movements from and in the virtual world, besides other operations, and represent a political force and not a criminal activity as some would like to interpret it.

Indeed free association, free speech and free assembly, enhanced by the new technological means of communication and mobilization, added to the general dissatisfaction while security is still being sought, create new extra-parliamentary organisations and mobilizations because the programmes of the classical parties and existing parliamentary groupings do not answer anymore the needs of the citizens and of the nations. The fluidity of the situation, the diversity of the types of organisations and the various stages of polarisation are symptoms of systems trying to evolve and redesign themselves, of the need for radically new programmes, which are in the making, as the underlying socio-political model are outmoded and do not offer any easy efficient solution.

As far as Occupy Everstate is concerned, they have to face some very difficult issues. What gave them their strength and made them truly representative, notably in terms of concerns and identification of crucial issues for the overall security of the nation, their faith in a fully democratic process, also constitutes an impediment as it slows and even sometimes block their decision process. Their main means of action, peaceful protests and sit-ins, so far has not allowed seeing their demands satisfied. Their successes are however far from negligible as they are now part of the political landscape, and are thus heard, when one year ago they were systematically ignored, and as they have succeeded in raising awareness to the plight of the many. Yet, the old ideas and habits they fight are as pregnant, powerful and ruling as ever.

Some groups within the movement are getting tired of obtaining nothing, of seeing the status quo continuing, while they start meeting difficulties to mobilise people. They are following the American debate existing over the “diversity of tactics.” Should they move away from the essential original non-violence – including the respect of laws and of property – of the movements to the “diversity of tactics” which includes also “property damage and armed retaliation against the police” but NOT “extremist tactics such as planting bombs and armed insurrection? (Bramhall, March 2012). True to the democratic foundation of the movement, the general answer is to convene a General Assembly to vote. However, lengthy debates have now been going on for days and nothing is solved. Furthermore the example of the Pirate Party also tempts Occupy Everstate. Should they register formally? This would allow them, maybe, entering parliament and developing their programme, and more important, getting things done (for the leadership and organisation debate going on in Spain, see Tremlett, May 2012). Yet, would they not also loose part of their soul, of their raison d’être? The tension is growing within the movement, while some actions abiding to the “diversity of tactics” start, still very rare, but yet, they happen.

The result of the new elections seems to freeze the contractions that agitate Occupy Everstate. Could this new government, maybe, bring Everstate back to where it was before life became so hard, before unfairness became unbearable, before the only way forward seemed to go to the streets to be heard or even worse? Nobody wants to sleep in the street, to be poor, to be condemned to unemployment, and even less to fight and risk one’s life. This hope, this last hope, isn’t it worth giving it a chance?

To be continued…

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References

Stuart Jeanne Bramhall in “Debating Violence in the Occupy Movement,” Take The Square, 3 March 2012.

Giles Tremlett, “Spain’s indignado protesters face anniversary crackdown,” Guardian.co.uk, 11 May 2012.

Images

Official logo of the Swedish Pirate Party (Piratpartiet) by Piratpartiet [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

The OccupyCal General Assembly approves of… something. November 15 2011 by Daniel Parks from Berkeley, United States (Fingers Up) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons. This image was originally posted to Flickr by D.H. Parks at http://flickr.com/photos/8073513@N03/6349212141. It was reviewed on 21 November 2011 by the FlickreviewR robot and confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the cc-by-2.0.

Images to illustrate Complexity Science & Strategic Foresight and Warning

Gallery

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Puzzle by Handige Harry - CC-BY-SA-2.5 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5), via Wikimedia Commons

This gallery contains 13 photos.

Images related to complexity science I found useful in putting together a presentation dealing with Strategic Foresight and Warning and Complexity

A New Opposition Nexus and Why it Matters for our Future: #OccupyWallStreet, Los Indignados, Anonymous and Others

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Human societies are politically organised systems, polities, which are themselves organised within a larger system, the international system (corresponding approximately to the second and third level of analysis of Kenneth Walz). Those systems, the shape they take, their specific socio-political organisation are not static but evolving over time out of various dynamics and underlying processes.

“To the people of the world: You are Anonymous. You are Legion. You are the media. You are the voice of truth. You can not forgive. You can not forget. They should expect us.”

As individuals, we feel rightly those systems as all-powerful, if we are aware of them. They are complex systems, the result of myriads of interactions at various levels that also generate emerging properties, which are then imposed upon each unit according to the level at which it is located. The force of the collective thus animates them. However, as we are also part of the individuals who interact and make the emerging properties, then we are not powerless. It is one of the great strength of Anonymous to have perceived this phenomenon and to spread empowerment in its message. We can also see this at work in the slogan “We are the 99″ used initially for A99 Operation Empire State Building (Video March 2011) and now adopted by Occupy Wall Street, or in the emphasis on democracy European revolution movements started last Spring.

Furthermore, trying to understand how those collective forces evolve and where they are heading are one of the best ways to reduce uncertainty and get better prepared for a future that is already in the making, even if the fine details, if the specifics of the coming unfolding events remain shrouded in mystery. It is necessary to know why, where, when and how to act. This is valid for any actor, from you and me as individuals, to companies or any economic agent, and even more so to governments, present and future.

To make sense of events and anticipate what might happen, we, as human beings, always rely upon a cognitive model, most of the time unconsciously (Epstein, 2008).

The cognitive model that is used here (Lavoix, 2005) considers that as political systems function (more or less efficiently, at least efficiently enough to endure), they allow their corresponding societies to evolve and become more complex. Meanwhile, the political structures and forms of socio-political organisation would also need to adapt accordingly. However, who says human societies and systems, says interests, habits, norms, fears, etc., which are all changing at different pace and according to different dynamics. Hence, adaptation is most often made neither easily nor willingly.

As political systems become increasingly ill-adapted, various movements of protests against the existing system emerge with an increasing frequency, while the whole system moves towards a higher level of tension. Those various movements of protests are the new opposition nexus. Those protests are at once symptoms of the need for change and actor of this change. Indeed, it is out of the interactions between the new opposition nexus and the existing political authorities nexus (that includes all political actors that contributed to create the existing system, the system that needs to be changed) that the new needed socio-political organisation will be progressively created. Meanwhile, both the new opposition and the actors composing the existing political authorities will evolve. Hence, for example, the apparent lack of clear, simple stated goal of the #OccupyWallStreet movement that is often thrown in their face in news articles is not a flaw, but evidence of their belonging to this process. Goals and ideas will evolve, while the apparent confusion may well come from the fact that they are read through old lenses, through the prism of a world that is already fading.

It is in this framework that the various protest movements happening throughout the world are read and understood as part of a new opposition nexus. Observing them, trying to understand them, attempting to decipher if they are part of the new or of the old, or how both old and new can mix and interact, paying attention to their evolution, to their interactions with existing political authorities should give us keys to understand better what is lying ahead, from levels of tension and potential escalations, to the type of socio-political organisation our societies with their specificities, challenges and complexities need to create.

There is no fatality towards success or failure, towards peaceful or violent change. However, if history is to be a guide, then, in the past, most often violence, wars and collapse of systems have also been needed, at one stage, to allow for the emergence of the new. Shall we be wiser?

References

Epstein, Joshua M. “Why Model?” Santa Fe Institute Working Papers, 2008.

Lavoix, Helene, ‘Nationalism’ and ‘genocide’: the construction of nation-ness, authority, and opposition – the case of Cambodia (1861-1979) – PhD Thesis – School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London), 2005.

Waltz, Kenneth Neal, Man, the state, and war: a theoretical analysis, New York: Columbia Press University, 1954, 2001.