Indeed my hope for Parliament reflects a mirror of the diversity of Asgardia.
The responsibility of Asgardian Parliament should be one of civility, strong leadership and a good moral scope should be the interest of all our elected leadership — and we also want to see men stand up for a new kind of safe politics.
The hard work of all leaders is to set the tone and work towards culture change. Many of us need to do significant work to think not just about the places of power and privilege that our political leaders occupy, but how we can share these in more democratic, fair and equitable ways.
That Asgardians should feel safe to issues and that we can write all our new institutions to live up to the promise and potential that we hope for them.
This work to truly modernize how all of our public and private institutions operate is a long-game and must be done with all of us acknowledging the need for this change. It means that both men and women will have to give up their entitlement and expectations that they will be the dominant voice and perspective and that step into leadership alongside other voices.
On a level playing field we should see the humanity in our people, authentically acknowledged, embraced with enthusiasm, and celebrated with passion. We should see young Asgardians nurtured by hope, which cultivate their strengths and excellence and encouraged them to pursue their dreams, no matter how lofty they seemed. We should see Asgardian leadership working together in an elite and honorable, high expectations relationship.
There are three things we can do to develop a perfect correlation among Asgardian society.
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Acknowledge, embrace and celebrate the humanity of Asgardian
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Bring policy approaches that nurture hope and optimism rather than entrench despair
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Doing things with the people, not to people!
ACKNOWLEDGE, EMBRACE AND CELEBRATE THE HUMANITY OF ASGARDIAN
It is always hurtful challenge to reflect on the past in such a way that we learn from the awful tragedies of our shared history, without letting it define us in an unproductive way that can stifle our quest for shared liberation into an honourable future. The truth is there have been, and continue to be, many very clear and graphic examples of where the humanity is either not embraced and acknowledged. It is also true that in some communities we observe what might be described as ‘second class human’ behaviours. At the risk of rendering some gross misbehaving and poor choice-making individuals not guilty for some despicable behaviours, I would argue quite strongly that when we treat individuals as though they are second class human, then second class human behaviours are likely to emerge.
We should learn the culture of embracing our opponents and each other together with their families.
My simple point, as strange as this may sound, is this:
Our humanity exists!
Our humanity exists and it must be acknowledged. It is worth embracing and celebrating. Our humanity has existed for decades on this land we now share, and it continues to exist proudly, despite the efforts of post-colonial governments to smash us and smash us and smash us. This is not an invitation to smash us even more, but rather an opportunity for us to understand that such efforts are futile and our humanity cannot ever be assimilated, nor destroyed. Nor should you want it to be because as we share ancient land, we share humanity.
When we embrace and celebrate the humanity of others, we embrace and celebrate our own humanity, because it is our humanity that we share at our core.
Bhaskar discusses the concept of the ‘concrete universal’ which has four dimensions. At its base is the notion of a ‘core universal human nature’. We are all of the human race and this should ensure unquestionable grounds for human rights.
At a higher level this basic core is acted upon or mediated through a variety of ‘differentiae’ such as gender, sexuality, age, ethnicity or culture et cetera. The core and the mediation result in a ‘concretely singularised individual’. The fourth dimension to this concept is that of ‘processuality’ or the rhythms of time in action.
The key to understanding the importance of the concept of the concrete universal is that it is part of a stratified insight into our sense of being. Put simply, each of us has layers or stratification of being. As well, the notion of processuality allows one to recognise that at differing times in the life of the individual, the mediation or the individuality upon the core humanity can be of greater or less salience. If we can accept the terms of Bhaskar’s insights here, then we have hope of being liberated from those toxic dynamics that are
exemplary
to the binary of ‘mainstream’ and ‘other’, whereby mainstream is somehow ‘superior’.
Put simply, all of us are set free from the pressures of being one or the other as it becomes the case that we can be content with who we actually are, knowing that at some times we actually can have strong resonance with a sense of being mainstream, and at other times in other contexts, we can have equally as strong resonance with a sense of being ‘other’. How?
Acknowledging, embracing and celebrating our humanity means we will never let our communities continue to be neglected.
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Acknowledging, embracing and celebrating our humanity means we will never establish Racial Discrimination legislation especially to inflict policy approaches on the people in a way that will never be inflicted upon others. It means we will acknowledge the people as the original custodians in our new nation’s Constitution.
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Acknowledging, embracing and celebrating our humanity means we will find the courage to contemplate some form of a treaty, a document upon which we both agree, no matter how long or complex this task is.
BRING US POLICY APPROACHES THAT NURTURE HOPE AND OPTIMISM RATHER THAN ENTRENCH DESPAIR
I have witnessed excellence manifestation borne out of the seeds of hope, sown many years earlier from our youths in different games and activities. I get to see very solid young men and women, playing football league for their countries at the elite level, knowing that at some stage many years earlier, they dreamed of being a success. These dreams can only manifest when they are nurtured by hope.
If our leaders and other policy makers operate from a philosophical basis that acknowledges and embraces the humanity of Asgardian, there would be for policy approaches and programs to nurture hope and optimism rather than entrench despair.
When it comes to constructively aligning people, philosophy, policy and programs, we must understand that ultimately we are dealing with a relationship. The relationship is of course the one between members of parliament, the people and other policy makers. Both parties have a responsibility to tend that relationship and to ensure that it is healthy and a source of mutual benefit.
Sometimes government leaders collude with and nurture toxic negative stereotype because, bluntly, there is lots of money and power in keeping particular ‘industry’ alive, as they entrench the despair of people while pretending to do otherwise.
These negative stereotyping and collusion consists of slurs, insults, names, sayings, jokes, opinions, metaphors, and slogans. These People believe that they have lots of privileges despite all rational and statistical evidence to the contrary.
My simple point here is that the policy rhetoric, often does more to entrench a sense of hopelessness and despair rather than nurture a sense of hope and optimism.
I am not denying for a moment that toxic and subhuman behaviors exist in some communities and must be flushed out. You will argue that such toxic and subhuman behaviors exist and I will agree with you.
I will then challenge you to wonder about why such behaviors exist and remind you that when you treat people as though they are subhuman, then subhuman behaviors emerge.
What I find grossly offensive is this dynamic in which we home in on extremely toxic and subhuman behaviors and conflates their existence as if all people are behaving in such ways. Briefly, this is the reduction of being or reality to our knowledge of it.
Another way of explaining this is that makers of policy, including government-anointed leaders, do not understand the fundamental importance of a strength-based approach to community and individual transformation. Even those who enjoy choreographed visits to communities cannot fully understand the depth of complexity required to be useful, especially if they listen and observe simply to confirm their own way of thinking, rather than listening and observing to really understand.
Policy makers may be great at spending taxpayers’ money conjuring expensive yet ineffective government programs and quasi-bureaucracies. Yet their unsophisticated, deficit-based elucidations expose them as impotent amidst the profound need for stratified, strength-based approaches to individual and community transformation, and almost completely ignorant amid the profound need for deep and compassionate understanding of the needs of people and their communities.
Leaders can bring on their policies and programs and bash the people and bash the people and bash the people! They will not change. They will not become the people we want them to be. They will submit in some way but in a way that will see them become passive, simply disengage or readjust because they are so accustomed to their smashing them and their communities. I am sure some of you may have seen this passivity and disengagement, without even knowing you have seen it.
Some of you have been tricked into believing that such passivity is the result of welfare, when in fact it is the result of chronic disengagement from a local and vibrant economy. Welfare and a basic social security structure did not cause chronic disengagement from the economy. A lack of desire to invest substantially into innovative and vibrant localized economies entrenches chronic disengagement.
Here is a challenge!
Parliament and policy makers have a choice. They can choose the more expensive and ineffective option of devising policy approaches that will demonize the people and entrench despair. They can bring policy approaches to bash the people. Or they can bring policy approaches that offer hope, and a sense of pride, and a feeling that people can trust and walk with them into what I would call a stronger, smarter, more honorable future, where their liberation is bound up in ours.
DO THINGS WITH THE PEOPLE, NOT TO THE PEOPLE!
A key pillar of the stronger smarter approach is high expectations relationships as opposed to high expectations rhetoric. Sometimes high expectations rhetoric espouses lofty ideals that are often imposed with good intentions from the outside rather than negotiated with the individuals to be affected.
I mentioned earlier the fundamental importance of understanding that as we contemplate the challenges we face together, we are in a relationship in which we must ensure that it is healthy and a source of mutual benefit. The greatest intellectual insight is understanding the profound difference between high expectations
of
the people versus the notion of high expectations
with
the people; high expectations rhetoric versus a high expectations relationship. I can assure you that the people want to be on a journey with their leaders. This journey, however, must be one that enables people to be the best that
we
want to be, not a journey in which they are forced to be who
leaders
want them to be. Let me assure you that people have an interest in being the exceptional people that they can be and often are. None of them aspire to be downtrodden, uneducated, dis-empowered and dysfunctional.
Imagine you and me preparing for an important journey together, standing alongside each other, and calibrating our compasses for a stronger smarter destination. Even just to stand together, we must have purged from our relationship the toxic stench of low expectations, mistrust, and stifled perceptions of each other. From this point we have a chance of getting our compasses aligned.
If you stand beside me well intentioned, but in this relationship feeling sorry for me, as if I have to be rescued, the relationship is contaminated from the start, leaving us a few degrees out from each other and destined to become parted in the long run.
You might come to the relationship assuming that I must change my ways and become ‘like’ you in every way, emulating your way of existing—assimilated if you like. In this circumstance you assume you are superior to me and I am inferior to you. With this as our starting point the relationship is again contaminated and we calibrate our compass in a way that gives us no chance of taking an honorable journey together.
In some ways this parallel explains why some government/organization spends billions on affairs and achieve no appreciable gains.
If, however, we start the relationship in which our strengths and humanity are acknowledged and embraced, and we are convinced of an authentic sense of hope for all, then our hearts can truly beat closely together, and our compasses can be calibrated for an exciting, sometimes bumpy, yet honorable journey into the future.
In a practical sense this means identifying and embracing local community leadership that is proven, rather than anointing leadership that will only tell you what you want to hear.
On the education landscape, if we have the courage, it means acknowledging that parents
do
want the best for their children. It means being bold enough to offer those parents who work in partnership with schools to get their children to school for more than 85 per cent of the school year, it means offering a guaranteed service outcome in the form of a job, a place in training, or a place in a university to all students who complete year 12 with better than 85 per cent school attendance.
It means doing whatever it takes to inject exceptional school leadership into community schools.
This is honoring and embracing humanity. This is offering hope. This is doing things with people not to them.
Conclusion
In some ways the three things I have articulated here can in essence be seen as the triple bottom line for parliament and policy analyses.
