http://funredes.org/mistica

MISTICA: CMSI: Representatividad

From: D. Williams ([email protected])
Date: jue jun 26 2003 - 20:01:31 AST

This is either a very good idea or absolute nonsense.

Problem: find an equitable way of selecting representatives of civil
society for consultation.

Procedure: identify a "place" where civil society representation occurs
naturally. Then try to find a manifestation of this type of group which
recurs across the Caribbean.

Solution: ??
For the last 5 years or so, since it began, I have been associated with a
very unusual group in St Lucia - the St Lucia Writers Forum. There was a
poetry reading at the library in Castries, our capital - perhaps fo
Library Week - and afterwards people said "We must do that again". So I
said "Set a date", and we did.

In the beginning meetings were once a month, now they are every week. The
members are young to old 7-70 (literally), and from rastas to policemen (in
St Lucia that makes a second axis) Overall there may be as many as 120
members, a meeting may have 2 people or 60 people. The people who attend
planning meetings are the "executive committee" on that day. The group has
consistently refused to be given a formal structure of any sort. They have
arranged readings, collected an anthology of members' work, and have had
writing workshops funded from outside. It is an extremely peaceful group -
no quarrels, no power struggles. There are now two "children" - one at the
Community College, one in Vieux Fort at the other end of the island. I
think they arrived by immaculate conception, or perhaps like mushrooms
coming out of the earth :-) The glue is common interest, and it is superglue!

So there is a group representative of civil society. But how to replicate
it with something found everywhere? A group bound by common interest, and
with a hint of altruism, or at least a dominant absence of competition.
Then I wondered, what about the Disaster people? In St Lucia we have a
central committee and a network of sub-committees, representing civil
society, which work together for the common good in the event of a disaster
- hurricane, earthquake, flood, volcanic eruption. By definition it must
represent everyone, or the interests of everyone. Could not the disaster
committees, from their makeup, provide "civil society" profiles that could
be used for the consultations? They have a strong interest in information
and communications although that is not their primary focus. Each country
will have selected its own group to reflect the needs of its own society so
the pattern exists already.

My apologies, but I'm having difficulty explaining myself in English
tonight, let alone in "dictionary" Spanish.

Best wishes
Deirdre

Nota de la moderaci�n: Apreciamos a su noble valor los esfuerzos de Deirdre
por asumir la lengua mayoritaria en la lista. Recordamos que Mistica es
una lista multilingual donde cada uno es libre para utilizar la lengua
que desea (preferiblemente castellano, franc�s, ingl�s o portugu�s, pero
no es una obligaci�n y la moderaci�n, por principio, pasaria igual una
nota en Aymara o creole haitien). Las personas que desean una ayuda a la
intercomprehensi�n de las 4 lenguas oficiales pueden suscribirse a la lista
Mistica-t la cual ofrece "traducciones" automaticas.

Este archivo fue generado por hypermail 2.1.3 : lun may 24 2004 - 12:50:46 AST