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A ‘Community Organizer’ Frame of Mind
The denigration of ‘community organizing’ by
Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin and former New
York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani at the Republican Convention
could become a setback for their party if the American public
came to understand the real lessons of community organizing
about how to deal with recent world events.
For example, community organizers intrinsically know that
successful reconstruction and reconciliation in Iraq and
elsewhere require local community participation and control, and
do not need years of billions of dollars wasted on foreign
contractors and millions of lives made to suffer and so many die
before it is finally implemented to some degree.
Community organizers would know that to rebuild after large
scale humanitarian disasters like Hurricane Katrina, community
meetings are needed to plan reconstruction (with displaced
people, this requires innovative strategies) and that top-down
management will stifle empowerment, ownership, and
opportunities.
Community organizers observe the impact of global events and
trends on local communities and people, and therefore understand
that an essential part of free trade agreements is new and
significant support to address economically dislocated families
(particularly in rural areas), diversify local economies, and
training.
Community organizers would identify that the Palestinian people
need a more self-reliant economy (which would also in the
process build sovereignty) and not an economy that is
excessively dependent on Israel’s to a point of debilitating
Palestinian underdevelopment (e.g., on average 90 percent of
total Palestinian imports and exports go to and from Israel).
Community organizers help to create solutions that satisfy
multiple needs, and therefore would likely reform the White
House faith-based initiative in the direction of Senator Barack
Obama’s proposals for the program: broaden access to an increase
in funds for community initiatives while reducing potential
areas of government-religion impropriety.
Community organizers, who regularly hear people express diverse
and heartfelt interests and beliefs, would be sympathetic to the
Democratic vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden’s view of
abortion: that it is a personal decision to a religious degree
(including when a person believes life begins) and government
should not make the decision for women.
Regarding Joe Biden and Iraq, community organizers would likely
agree that a high degree of federalism - which Biden proposes
and involves autonomy of provinces and regions to manage their
own development and affairs and the central government playing a
supportive role - is necessary for the country to remain whole
and stable.
Community organizers, who help people work through the struggle
to reach common ground and purpose, then sincerely appreciate
that the unified feeling in the world after 911 was a unique
moment that afforded the chance for a new course and make a leap
in a critical area of human life. Instead, the opportunity
of a lifetime was squandered to fulfill a naive obsession with
Iraq.
Community organizers know that public trust is generated in
reaction to the empowerment people feel when their ideas for
projects are implemented and the benefits are tangible; this may
inform, at least in part, the approaches of community organizers
to public diplomacy, the 'war of ideas', and addressing root
causes of terrorism.
Community organizers would herald the incredible contributions
of the Peace Corps to nations of the world, especially to its
own country, which has benefitted in untold ways by the more
than 190,000 Americans who community organized in 139 nations
since the Peace Corps began almost five decades ago by President
John Kennedy.
Community organizers know that their social purpose is 1) as
inseparable to the United States as federalism, which is fused
into its structure, 2) an historic mission carried forward in
the 1800s by the Republican Party and later by projects inspired
by the philosophers Alexis de Tocqueville and John Dewey, and 3)
made contemporary in the 1960s because of urgent needs and fifty
years later being implemented all over the world, by people in
all disciplines, walks of life, and backgrounds due to the
global explosion of civil society.
Suggestions that community organizing is subversive Marxism and
that it seeks a socialist revolution are preposterous and can be
intended to rouse a cultural divide. Community organizing
is cross-ideological, including religions and political
philosophies. Conservatism supports community organizing
because of the more adapting economic environment it creates and
people taking responsibility; liberalism supports it because it
advances democracy and justice.
Community organizing is inclusive in its approach and often
results into cross-sectoral partnerships that include
government. It seeks to reform society through an
evolutionary process of improving social relationships,
advancing socio-economic development, and a healthier natural
environment.
While trying to suggest that community organizing is separate
from the American ideal, Sarah Palin and Rudolph Guiliani may
have distanced themselves and their party from the 'holy grail'
repeatedly found in the fantastic story of the United States.
This was done by radicalizing and speaking down to a profession
that makes real the quintessential American value of individual
and community fulfillment within a democratic framework and a
united and sovereign country.
Yossef Ben-Meir is a sociologist and has dedicated 17 years
to the study and practice of community development. He is
President of the High Atlas Foundation
www.highatlasfoundation.org, a nonprofit organization that
promotes community development in Morocco. He lives in New
Mexico, USA.
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