My Dynamic Engagement (Part 2)

I thank Ethan Zuckerman for the drop-by and for his kind thoughts on my last post. A good segue to what I'm driving at, and I now have a feeling I may have driven my point badly. The best way to produce people of cultural openness and tolerance and thus good bridges of understanding may take so much more than simply getting on a plane and living somewhere. That is certainly one way. But more than that, I feel that cultural openness and understanding must have "a place to begin". There must be that opportunity for such openness to be carved deeply into the soul of as many people as possible. I believe it will be shaped by experiences as well as by good beginnings. An early start that makes possible the creation of a space -- where one can become a person of compassion, and tolerance and wisdom.

I have never lived long enough in any part of the world other than my country to feel like I might know what it’s really like to dwell among other people or understand and embrace them. But even before I hopped on planes, I knew this space within me where I can begin. There is this place inside where I am capable and ready for what they call dynamic engagement. By this, I mean a predisposition to understand, a creativity to redefine based on a new understanding. So much so that I could bite my tongue and withold my judgement and keep emotions in check that I may open my heart to co-create new meanings other than my own. How then, can that predisposition be created and duplicated? I can only speak from experience. (to be continued...)

My Dynamic Engagement (Part 1)

Has it only been over a year? Feels like twenty. I refer to my life and work in Singapore. In a company that has become trans-national spanning various countries, I am the only Filipino. That made it a bit tough for the first few months. Everywhere else in this cosmopolitan, multi-racial society, there have been countless moments that really put my claim to cultural tolerance to the test. I have had to think twice, or bite my tongue to not engage in skirmishes most of which have cultural underpinnings.

I had that in mind while I was checking on my RSS feeds, been sooo long since I had the chance to read up. Interestingly, I found a couple of posts (ancient posts by internet time) by Ethan Zuckerman about xenophiles, homophily, serendipity. Ethan has this theory that xenophiles will be very influential in the future. Who are they? Someone like Zuckerman himself perhaps? Where do they breed? I have an idea. And when will they rise up and create another renaissance? I am clueless.

I certainly cannot lay claim to being one. Xenophiles are said to be people who have this excitement and openess about the world and being almost wired as such, can be good bridge figures for building conversations that allows us to make a breakthrough towards cross-cultural understanding.

As always, following Ethan's voice randomly, I feel enriched by his knowledge and at times, exhausted by the complexities. From my very basic understanding, I know how inability to bridge cultural gaps is at the heart of conflict and can never be separated from it. So what does it take for genuine cross-cultural understanding to take place? Do you need to mass-produce xenophiles? Ethan had this suggestion that cracked me up: marry into other cultures. Quite absurd one might think for a moment but hey, he has a point. Who else can drive you to understand other cultures than your 'alien of a husband or wife' whom you must learn to live with with such understanding and intimate knowing. But of course, that's not how marriages are forged nor can we force it by legislation. And he meant that for laughs.

I believe the predisposition towards embracing other cultures including conflict resolution is deep-seated and complex and cannot happen without understanding cultural underpinnings and definitely without becoming completely fluent in your own. Indeed, it can happen in the most wonderful of situations, but not often, without conscious effort, or perhaps a struggle. (To be continued...)

Hail to the New Chief !

Barack Obama, silhouetted. Photo courtesy of the The Big Picture (AP Photo)

He is more than a new Chief to the word's superpower lately losing grip. In an op-ed I wrote for a local business paper in Singapore a few weeks back, I pointed out how an American President means as much to America as it does to the world-- inextricably linked as we are to this nation in nearly all aspects of life.

How symbolic it is -- the new global Chief is of a magnificent heritage --African-American, an emancipated black man in every way, with roots in Kenya and early footprints as a child growing up in South East Asia. He inspires the world coming together and gives the much needed boost to a floundering American image. Crisis is the best context for charismatic leadership, and it is during these times 'poetic figures' do arise to unleash hope.

Barack Obama, 76 days before his inauguration as the 44th President of the United States of America. With glee, I have just added his name to my 'little childhood talent' of knowing which American President ruled when. You can quiz me on that !

Liberty Once Lost.

No matter how busy I am, I find time for my readings and studies -- a nerdy side to my personality (some friends find this strange, I find them weird) otherwise balanced by an all-too-silly kind of humor. But yes, I do try to keep pace mentally. Thanks to the internet, I can read the NY Times and Washington Post Daily. I make sure to read Philippine Daily Inquirer. I got BBC news, CNN, Guardian and Huffington Post. I have a hundred or so sites on my google reader. And I buy bestseller books on occasion. Are you ok? I know this is not commonplace.

One such book I have read is Naomi Wolfe’s The End of America, Letter of Warning to A Young Patriot which landed the NY Times bestseller’s list in the fall of 2007. I do admire the winsome feminist and social critic, but the arguments in her book failed to excite me. And I bet it would lull progressive thinkers in the Philippines to sleep. Most recently, Wolfe penned "Give Me Liberty" as a sequel.

In The End of America, purposely made to look reminiscent of Thomas Paine's pamphleteering, Naomi Wolfe argues that recent history has profound lessons for those in the US today. It outlines how fascist, totalitarian, and other repressive leaders seize and maintain power, in what were once democracies. She points to a predictive blue print that all would-be dictators put to action in order to crush a democracy. She discusses the ten steps here. Now, she is so clever, she speaks and writes beautifully. But her thesis is so old, at least to us in US-neo-colonial Philippines.

For what is so jolting about something that has echoed through history over and over again? And I am really appalled not at the ten steps or that it is now underway in the US -- but that Wolf, a Rhodes scholar who went to post-grad at Oxford shouted eureka on the tactical blueprint only recently, as in, only in the year 2006, in the era of Mark Zuckerberg and Tom of Myspacelandia. Not that she is late. But that it got me into thinking, about how little attention indeed, American society has given to the affairs of nations, even those who "would be brothers".

In the Philippines, thinkers and critics a good many number of whom were educated in my school have so long ago "decoded" the secret codes of despots. No matter if we did not sum it up as ten steps like a "fascist for dummies". But in Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler, Pinochet, Mao Ze Dong -- they were all there, as history begging not to be repeated.

And it is no news to us -- the United States, defender of the Free World is believed to have aided dictatorships in many countries throughout history. What could be more undemocratic than to use the law to subvert the rule of law? But we have seen that happen . The outcry in the Philippines until the dictatorship was toppled in the late 80’s was “down with US-Marcos Fascist Regime”. And I have to say, there was no better student of Mussolini than Marcos. And despite our best and brightest men and women, who sounded the alarm, Ferdinand Marcos -- once thought to be the leader to make our nation great again -- put the Philippines under martial rule thirty-six years ago today, September 21.

America -- bastion of pure democracy where the Founding Fathers, original Philadelphia 76ers have proclaimed liberty not just for the New World but for all nations. Has it been so pampered, so assured of freedom, that it has gotten lazy on the very principles that made it a great nation? Now Naomi Wolf has just shouted "I found it!", on how democracies come crashing down. The blue print is predictive, sure. Though our leaders and thinkers knew all the facts-- were they able to prevent our country from plunging into the dark years of martial law? Surely not, and you tell me why.

Now, they think Bush is doing this? Like he was destined, in a bible -truth sort of way, to be a despot? Truth be told, pure liberty has been tainted long before him. You think a vote for Obama or Mc Cain will prevent the End of America if it is really underway? I make a reference to John Adams who warned -- liberty, once lost, is lost forever. But like anything dear that you've lost, it lives within your heart. And then you bravely go on, and do your best to navigate a complex and perilous world. No, we no longer can restore pure liberty by simply exhorting democratic rethorics, no matter how well-intentioned. It is that proverbial long road with the end nowhere in sight. And whoever has got it figured, go write a good book.

The Founding Fathers have set the principles in place, bless their souls. My country's heroes learned from them. But sadly, all the principles they have laid down to avoid man's abuses were not enough to withstand the complexities of human nature-- of the never-ending tension between good and evil and the supposed triumph of the will.

You wish to continue to ask the wrong questions? Whatever. The question is not: "why is Bush so evil or how could Karl Rove and other criminals in the White House do this to us?" The question is, "since there is a blueprint and yes, we have seen it re-cur throughout history, then why is man so vulnerable to the same attacks again and again?"

During the American Declaration of Independence in 1776, there is a story told of a young American who posed a question t0 John Adams, "Sir, what do we have here? A monarchy, or a republic?" . To which the patriot replied, " A republic. If you can keep it."

My Journey So Far

At lunchbreak today, I was going through my feed reader and checked out Paul Coelho’s UNESCO keynote address on the radicalization of youth at the crossroad. Well those who know me deeply would understand how I feel for these things. On the other hand, a new acquaintance IM'd me, after checking out my blog, saying that "it truly is fashionable to be espousing social causes like child rights, stop world hunger, ban land mines etc. these days" and hence, is that why I am on it… "trying to keep up with what’s in?" Indeed, the social landscape is changing across the globe but not in the context she meant. As for me, the cause for children is a very personal one. While I had always been actively involved in community work a few years back as a development planner, my work that has to do with programs on the protection of children’s rights truly began in the year 2005 with a project for UNICEF which encourages LGU-UNICEF collaboration on the development of Child-friendly cities in the Philippines. As I had always been involved as a writer for UN-related projects, I thought it was nothing new. For this one, I had the opportunity of working with local leaders and much later with locally-based global children’s organization like Save the Children and Global Fund for Children in Conflict mostly as writer and development planner. It was a way for me to deal with that certain grief of my own and I was then so sure, it was to be the path of change for me.

As I immersed myself in readings on the state of children – reading all I could get my hands on -- first in the Philippines, and then in Asia and then in the world, then I came to know in a personal way -- what I had known ever since -- that change is a long, lonely road. But getting involved in these things has stages. And I was then in a stage where I was too caught up in my own pain to be of any use to others. The problem was overwhelming, I was beginning to see how difficult and frustrating things were, and as Paul Coellho said "the feeling of powerlessness gripped me". Confound it with the fact that I could not make a change that way while I have my own issues and while resources were short even for me.

And so my involvement on this project came to a halt in 2007, along with many other community projects we had on the drawing board. Then one upset after another – a project I was to take on that farther away land was indefinitely shelved after all had seemed set, ready, go. The saddest part of that—and I cannot possibly recount here – is that failed trip failed in another way in terms of my "personal life". Because of that I had lost in the relationship arena by "default" and I had been told as a result of my no-show that I have put someone “on a spot more than he can say”. Restless, I had already been feeling like fish out of water where I was (well, I correct me there, I’m supposed to be a “river”) certain that something awaits me somewhere.

Then a year ago, I caught up with a close friend who was planning on a trip to Singapore. Next thing I found myself was deep in corporate work right here in cosmopolitan Singapore. What’s next for me, time alone can tell. Some really thought-provoking developments have turned up. I am trying to think straight and listen “to the universe” for some things I really have no control over. All I know is that, wherever life leads, I would like to come full circle to the meaningful work that I had once began and still wish to do. It's in my heart all the while.

Why am I sharing this? Because in a blog you are compelled to be honest in a beautiful way -- to process that honesty, stringing words together within context, sometimes with fresh eyes and new understanding, and in a well presented manner -- in case someone might pass by and share in the journey. Then, for myself – a communicator with an almost desperate longing to understand and be understood, you probably will never understand why one has to leave some of her private thoughts out in the open. I don’t have to tell you how often having to elaborate has gotten me into trouble. But for the personal sharing -- how useful and nice that I have something on here, a piece of my mind that I can come back to, a part of me that I sent like a prayer, out there in the random world somewhere.

A World Made New

Nowhere is living on the edge more true than in living after your dreams have died. Yet we all have dreams that have died. The question is how do we respond to unrealized dreams?

Dreams we dreamt for ourselves. Whatever they were, no small deal. We must face them when they are dashed. Understand why that happened. Yet we must also acknowledge that dreams do come from deepest longings known to man. The longing to be loved. To be intimately known. The longing to see a “better tomorrow”. The need to “leave a legacy” -- a part of ourselves to create that "better world".

Some so-called dreams are dreams we build around our imperfect selves in an imperfect world. Then they are broken. Yet you live on. And the irony of that place of brokenness is that it can transform our lives in ways we never could have thought possible. In my favorite Hemingway novel -- A Farewell to Arms, I always quote -- the world breaks everyone, then afterwards, many are strong in all the broken places. That says it well for me. As to dreams, let me keep on having them. If I lose all, so be it as there is nothing I could do with that. But I will not lose my dreams of a world made new. Then with its coming, I suspect -- that all I have lost will be restored to me.

Our World

"If there is no love in the world,
we will make a new world,
and we will give it walls,
and we will furnish it with soft, red interiors,
from the inside out,
and give it a knocker that resonates
like a diamond falling to a jeweller's felt
so that we should never hear it.
Love me, because love doesn't exist,
and I have tried everything that does."

-- Jonathan Safran Foer (Everything is Illuminated: A Novel)