Given the political, economic and cultural earthquakes of 2016, the year ahead could look pretty terrifying and uncertain. We may feel anxious. We may have visions of moving to a remote island where we could block out the worry and anger about the increasingly unattractive western world.

But there is another option. Resilience. With a big dollop of hope.

Raymond Williams said that “to be truly radical is to make hope possible, rather than despair convincing”. Resilience is our best antidote to fear, anxiety and withdrawal.

There are four types of resilience (psychological, political, economic and spiritual), and we’ll need to draw on them all in the year to come.

Psychological resilience

Resilience is one element of psychological capital – practices that we can use and hone to keep us strong in the face of the biggest blows:

• Self-efficacy – how confident and self-assured we are when faced with a difficult task;
• Optimism – how positive we are about doing well now and in the future;
• Hope – how determined we are to strategise and work hard towards a goal; and
• Resilience – the extent to which we can bounce back from something tough (like losing a job or a contract).

While hope and optimism might feel tough right now, these are tools that we should draw on every day to keep us focussed and unafraid. We’ve got them on the wall in our ‘thought centre’ (our office) for good measure.

Political resilience

There are lots of people working on political resilience. For example, the Compass report, Secure and Free, highlights affordable, feasible, gradualist and sustainable proposals from a range of people and groups to build resilience through policy and politics:

1. Make above inflation increases in the national minimum wage the norm in periods of economic growth (Centre for Social Justice), and make improving productivity and improving the quality of employment mutually reinforcing policy objectives (Smith Institute).
2. Develop a state-supported house building programme designed to the highest environmental standards (The Good Right), improve security for home-owners through a ‘right to sell’ and a ‘right to stay’, so that those who can no longer meet mortgage repayments can sell their properties but remain as tenants paying fair rents (Friends of the Earth), and curb future rent growth to improve security for tenants (Civitas).
3. Unleash the power of the social sector (Centre for Social Justice) and implement non- financial help for families and relationship support (various).
4. Make early childhood education and care a specific and distinct element of the universal care and education system, free at the point of delivery (various) and create significant real increases to child benefit (Fabian Society and Sir Tony Atkinson).
5. Build agreement around a shift from welfare for some, to social security for all, right through to older age (Compass).

While advocating for these political changes we can also achieve political resilience through the time-honoured practice of resistance and the emerging practice of collective impact. Both start with collaboration and deny that we’re powerless in the face of the political and cultural forces we face. We are all one part of the mosaic working for change, and collectively we are a force for political resilience in the face of fear, xenophobia and hate.

Economic resilience

The key components of economic resilience have been around for a while – think locally act globally – but are still important. Rethinking the way we live at a local level will ultimately impact the wider world.

We become citizens of the world by becoming citizens of healthy communities. Understanding the principles reflected in local planning can give insights into the principles reflected in the world community. Local solutions can provide an effective alternative to globalisation structured by highly centralised organisations pursuing interests in ways that are destructive to healthy communities.

Locality is one organisation that models and supports community-led self-sustaining initiatives that tackle the forces of centralisation and globalisation that have alienated and disappointed so many. As George Monbiot writes, “it’s time to champion new approaches to politics, economics and social change. There is no going back, no comfort in old certainties. We must rethink the world from first principles … The market alone cannot meet our needs; nor can the state … There is one element conspicuously absent from the dominant ideologies: the commons”. Communities owning and running their own places and spaces will help make then stronger and feel more in control.

New forms of community and social enterprise that are locally focussed (not the hyped up social enterprise blah-blah that has become so prominent in recent years, and is really just private enterprise by another name) can produce economic resilience and change at the local level, and also have global outcomes. One example is the city of Marinaleda in the province of Seville in Spain. It’s a self-identified social-democratic and cooperative municipality of 2,700 people, where poverty has been eradicated and where there is no police, no crime, little unemployment and the freedom to build your own home on communal land.

Sound unrealistic? Combining psychological, political and economic resilience is at the heart of the story of Marinaleda.

Spiritual resilience

And finally – or perhaps foremost – is spiritual resilience. In the face of religious beliefs that promote oppression and fear we suggest spiritual resilience begins with a fundamental commitment – the rejection of religious fundamentalism in all its forms and the recognition of otherness and the freedom to be at peace with yourself. Other than that we have no prescription – just an invitation to reject the fear and oppression of fundamentalism and embrace freedom.

So as we move out of 16 into 17 we invite everyone to embrace resilience in a way that challenges, informs and transforms fearlessly.

Do not ever give up – or in!

The post 2017: the year for resilience appeared first on The Dragonfly Collective.

We throw our hands in the air in despair and disbelief and ask why? How is it possible that when we ask the public what they want, they choose Trump and Brexit?

But they didn’t choose Trump and Brexit – they chose ‘not this’. Not more of what I have now, because it’s not working for me. They voted for change.

And that offer of change was sold using very simple stories, based on deep emotional truths.

Both the Trump and Brexit campaigns used very clever communication.

US citizens were told they could “take our country back” and UK citizens told that they could “take back control”. And those ideas held huge appeal, because they were a) simple and easy to understand, and b) spoke directly to the lived experience of people who feel left out and left behind.

What voters bought was an offer of more control over the things that matter most to them, even if that offer came without a plan.

Trump picked one feeling and played to it: fear. The Brexiteers picked one feeling too: disempowerment.

Trump’s narrative was simple – good versus evil (or should we say heroes versus “bad dudes”). His solutions were also simple – build a wall, lock ‘them’ up, deport ‘them’, ban ‘them’ from entering the country at all. He spoke about incredibly complex issues in black and white.

Now, the real problem may be that 35 years of neoliberal politics (led by the the very political parties now proclaiming they can save people from the problems they created in the first place) has created an enormous divide between the haves and the have-nots. Inequality is increasing everywhere. But here’s what matters – that’s not the conversation that people are interested in.

It’s not facts or logic that engage. These kinds of choices are made using emotion – what people feel is right and just and fair. Voters feel more than they think.

Those on the other side of the argument watch on in various combinations of horror, despair, anger and shock as ill-thought-out appeals to basic human emotions win the day. And then there is talk that the people who made these choices are uneducated. It’s clearly that they’re not smart enough to understand the ramifications of their choices.

This talk leads to suggestions like reforming the education system, so people can learn about politics and neoliberalism and world affairs. Yes! Let’s teach people to think!

But we don’t have time to make that our preferred solution. Here’s where it’s us who need to stop and think.

We can lament all we like that ‘uneducated’ people are making bad choices, but what does it say about ‘educated’ people if we can’t effectively articulate our point of view? If we can’t give them something to really believe in? People should not need a university degree to understand what the hell we’re talking about.

This is a communications challenge.

The Trump and Brexit votes prove two things again – people are fed up and want more control over the things that matter to them, and the left is terrible at communications.

The left is far too theoretical and analytical. We talk about the complexities of poverty and inequality, suggesting we can’t improve education without improving housing, and that we can’t get people into decent housing without creating more jobs, and that we can’t do any of that unless we start with improving children’s experiences before age five. We do research and we write reports and we look at causal analysis and produce theories of change.

The work we’re doing is all necessary (now more than ever), but while we’re busy making everything as complicated as possible (because in reality, it is), the right gets up on a pedestal and says, “take back control”, and they win.

This is a challenge shared by the third sector more broadly. Too often we use different words (mostly jargon) to describe exactly the same thing.

Take volunteering for example. We could call it ‘volunteering’. And sometimes we do. But we also call it impact volunteering, community action, social activism, civil engagement or charity work. And we argue with each other about which word is most appropriate.

And then we wonder why everyone has stopped listening.

And the other thing we do really well in the third sector is continuously talk to ourselves. The third sector is great at sharing its woes and its ideas with itself.

We need a new narrative, for a much wider audience, that appeals to the heart. We need a simple emotional truth that resonates. It should be about people, told using stories. It should tap into deeply held values and beliefs.

It’s communications 101.

The right are already doing it terrifyingly well – whether deliberate or not – and they’re changing the shape of our world in the process.

So here’s the challenge for everyone on the opposite side of the political spectrum: we must find a way to do the same (as counterintuitive as it might feel). We most definitely need analysis and plans and evidence and new policies and lots of fresh and radical ideas. But we also need a much better story if we’re going to create the critical mass we need.

And our story must turn the narrative of fear on its head. Ultimately what ‘taking back control’ is about is feeling valued, feeling heard and having opportunities.

It’s about belonging. Belonging in a community where every member of that community is valued.

And that’s a narrative we can use. It’s simple, and has emotional appeal.

We need to say it boldly. And proudly. And most importantly, as one.

This is the narrative that belongs to the left – and we must claim it before the right beat us to it again.

Theresa May has already promised “a country that works for everyone” while Donald Trump has named himself a “President for all Americans”. That story should not be theirs to own.

We’ve had two major blows in short succession this year. At this point we can choose to despair. Or curl up in a ball in defeat. Or move to Australia. But now, more than ever, we need to fight back. Now more than ever, we need to work together (using models like collective impact as we’ve suggested) and create communities where people belong and where everyone has what they need to live a decent life.

And we have to share this ambition and all the work we’re already doing using simple, emotional stories.

There’s no time to waste. Let’s get going right now.

The post Post Trump & Brexit: the communications challenge appeared first on The Dragonfly Collective.

We watched the debate over Brexit with complete dismay. It has been utterly breathtaking to watch people eat up the propaganda then ask for a second helping, and respond to empty slogans and lies with cheers and standing ovations.

People are disaffected. They feel resentment and alienation and have very real and legitimate anxieties about access to public services, affordable housing and secure jobs.

The Leave campaign tapped directly into that fear and anxiety, and it did it beautifully. It used clear and simple messages that had little (if anything) to do with facts and everything to do with the loss of control that the majority of British people feel over their own lives. The vote to ‘take back control’ was not about Europe (evident in the spike in Google searches for ‘what is the EU’ after the vote), but about people feeling completely disempowered.

So then we must ask, what bigger agenda is at play here.  This is what George Monbiot calls this ‘the zombie doctrine’.

While the original definition of a zombie was ‘a corpse said to be revived by witchcraft’, today it’s used to describe a creature capable of movement, but not of rational thought. In popular fiction, a zombie is a person who is or appears lifeless, apathetic, or completely unresponsive to their surroundings and who devours human flesh.

There is indeed something zombie like about the way many of us are far too quick to allow bite size, emotionally-charged propaganda to cloud the facts.

Take the views of Dover residents as one small example. A poll showed they believe their town is overrun with migrants, who appear to be responsible for every conceivable local woe – taking local jobs, cluttering up the NHS, and of course living on benefits while they work at the jobs they have stolen from the locals. But the fact is that 93% of Dover’s population were born in the UK. Immigration becomes a useful scapegoat for local people’s frustrations, and in the face of clear facts a completely different story is created (a story that resonates powerfully because it cleverly speaks directly to people’s experience of disempowerment).

We live in a time characterised by enormous challenges – the devastation of the natural world, a crisis of inequality, an obsession with growth and profit, financial meltdowns and an increasing decline in the quantity and quality of the political debate about how to respond.

And yet we don’t (or can’t) name the philosophy on which this situation is built – the underlying drivers remain unnamed in popular culture. We name communism and socialism as the evils of past history and assume we are safe in the hands of capitalism.

The real ideology remains nameless and faceless. This is the ideology that has produced the middle class aspiration for wealth, but ultimately rewards only those who are already wealthy with more and rips the welfare state from under everyone else’s feet. The ideology that promises abundance, but leaves the majority living with the shambles of crushed expectations, broken dreams or still in an original place of poverty. The ideology that turns those broken dreams into fear and resentment, resulting in standing ovations to destructive messages about ‘taking back control’ or a ‘British Independence Day’  by those holding their crumbled expectations in their hands.

The ideology we are naming here is of course neoliberalism, a doctrine that has become pervasive but is seldom recognised. This ideology shapes the very fabric of our society so that we unconsciously accept what was once unacceptable, even if we are the losers. As George Monboit notes:

“Inequality is recast as virtuous: a reward for utility and a generator of wealth, which trickles down to enrich everyone. Efforts to create a more equal society are both counterproductive and morally corrosive. The market ensures that everyone gets what they deserve.

We internalise and reproduce its creeds. The rich persuade themselves that they acquired their wealth through merit, ignoring the advantages – such as education, inheritance and class – that may have helped to secure it. The poor begin to blame themselves for their failures, even when they can do little to change their circumstances.

Never mind structural unemployment: if you don’t have a job it’s because you are unenterprising. Never mind the impossible costs of housing: if your credit card is maxed out, you’re feckless and improvident. In a world governed by competition, those who fall behind become defined and self-defined as losers.”

Like communism, neoliberalism is the God that failed. It is a zombie doctrine that staggers on anonymously.

In a short essay written in 1946 (today it would have been a blog!) – Why I Write – George Orwell offered the following justification for his relentless commitment to writing: ‘political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind’.

George Orwell saw the need to counter lies with truth. He wanted to unmask the powers, to identify the systems that hid behind their anonymity. He wanted to shake off the zombie doctrine where people passively accept a political system that feeds on their own flesh.

The zombie doctrine of neoliberalism is real. And it flourishes as its proponents grow fat off the system they deliver. Neoliberalism feeds on the poor and the middle classes – people like you and me – even though few of us are aware we are being devoured, or apparently know how to apply an antidote.

The vote to leave the EU is a disastrous example of the power of the zombie doctrine. Now more than ever we need an alternative that unities rather than divides and creates empowerment instead of resentment.

While many people are outraged at the vote to leave the EU, feelings of anger towards those who voted to leave are misplaced (and will only reinforce the deep divisions that led us here in the first place). The real enemy is far bigger than any individual, and it will take all of us working together to counter it. We cannot allow the likes of Nigel Farage or Boris Johnson to continue to gain strength from the zombie doctrine and let it go unnamed and unaccounted for.

We must not give up now. We must use Brexit as a spark that reignites our passion to create a more just world.

It is out of these darkest moments that the energy for change can drive us. Jo Cox MP, who was assassinated last week, said ‘we are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us’.

Let’s regroup and work together in the battles ahead, and show that nothing will stop us.

For inspiration and courage, read some of the messages of solidarity on the Avaaz ‘message of hope’ page.

The post Zombies and Brexit: how on earth did we end up here? appeared first on The Dragonfly Collective.

An unlikely mix that has combined to collaborate on a mosaic peace tree to be installed in a public location in Edgware as a symbol promoting peace and acceptance across a diversity of faiths, worldviews and abilities. We’re sharing it as an example of what can be done on a small scale in a local community to create cohesion.

Like in so many places across the world so to locally in Edgware pockets of social isolation, disengagement and fracturing along religious and ethnic boundaries are evident. We are also aware how this fracturing occurs between people of different abilities.

Suspicion of what is ‘different’ or ‘other’ is hard-wired in some people. Whether it is different abilities, different faiths, different clothes, different languages, different food, different traditions, or something that does not fit with our own ‘tribe’, globally or locally too many fractures between people fester and turn toxic.

While we can’t take on the whole world we can do something locally.

With a grant from the Near Neighbours Fund (http://tinyurl.com/n7ed6k3) we plan to combine people of all ages and abilities from local ethnic, cultural and religious groups in a series of cooperative three hour workshops led by Mosaic artist/psychologist Naomi Selig (http://tinyurl.com/puysx7r).

The real work will be to ensure that we generate a ‘safe space’ to explore difference and otherness, with a mix of people that more often than not are to be found apart rather than together.

Working together participants will cut glass and construct a mosaic peace tree. The design of the mosaic will specifically mix colour and shape together, to identify how diversity can be combined into a cohesive whole.

Each individual leaf will be designed by individuals or groups to identify their ‘uniqueness’ – whether that be ethnic, faith based, abilities based, age, gender or a mix of several of these distinctions. The first set of workshops will both design the individual leaves and the final form of the mosaic under the guidance of the mosaic artist. This will ensure that the final mosaic is a collaborative community design. In the second set of workshops all these individual leaves will combine into the one final mosaic – a strong symbol of peace and cohesion.

The plan is then to install the mosaic in a prominent public space in Edgware. Both the launch of the project and the installation of the final mosaic will bring together members of all the major different people groups in Edgware with a street party and food and a celebration of each others uniqueness and sameness. It will be a collective accomplishment and we anticipate it will in its own unique way generate new understanding between people and heal fractures that exist simply because people don’t know or understand each other’s way of living.

It’s a local example of the power collaboration can have in face of a global challenge. Maybe you could replicate the idea in your context. Please do!

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