On my way home this Friday from participating in the Climate Change strike lead by school children calling on their elders to join them, I was pondering the very thing that got me started on these Newsletters some weeks ago. My mind was on the future of our grandchildren who will necessarily live the future we are creating. As I walked with thousands of others, I thought about the apparent futility of past rousing marches and various demonstrations I have been involved in: Reclaim the Night, Honor the Treaty, Gender Equality - hopeful moments with seemingly so little systemic change. Violence against women, children and men remains evident in disgraceful statistics; institutional racism is recognized as a reality but not addressed; the faces of power in our boardrooms and executive offices become more diverse while overall inequalities exacerbate. I recoil at the system-serving adjustments achieved by the selective co-option of courageous critiques crafted by vilified activists and scholars, harnessed by those who seek to secure their own privilege over the well-being of others. Greta’s courage amplifies the reprimand I hear in my head when the urge to ‘check out’ becomes insistent. Thank you, Greta for holding me to account.
My introductory newsletter explained my determination to not further squander the many years of public investment in my professional development through my intention to continue to explore that which comes Under My Nose and disturbs me. The second posting explained my thought that I, now in a different context, can continue to draw attention to the cracks I notice in the stories that are supposed to satisfy or disturb us, keep us passive or motivated, generate fear or courage and [selective] compliance. They are the stories we accept [enough] to ‘move on’. I want to believe that, in always imperfect situations enacted by necessarily imperfect people, the cracks in our stories are worthy of exploration. The cracks are where the light shines in. Greta exhorts us to prize open the cracks so the slither of light can become a beam to guide radical action. Thank you, Greta.
But I am still dithering. I know I am not unique in this dithering. I see it often in myself and my peers. I have a good understanding of it. It mostly slumbers in my mind. It received a good jolt on my way home from the Climate Change strike march when, at the railway station, I saw a group of young girls in animated conversation. Their placard stood against a pillar. It read:
“…. I am too scared to have children…”
My insides lurched.
Indulging in feelings of shame, guilt, and fear, nurturing a desire to check out, or resting in a romanticized hope in the efforts of the young, are not options. Thank you, Greta for reminding me of that. Thank you for reminding me of how the efforts of so many young activists, elders, and forebears have enriched my life. Their voices have reached me, as mine must ring out even as I do not have your platform. We can amplify your work. We must do our own. I will try to stay alert. I will try to remain ‘on task’.
The cracks in the world I can describe from my vantage point include, in part, what passes for formal management education: the training of functionaries who for decades have complied with the mandate to serve profit over justice, efficiency over effectiveness, and corporate, state and personal goals over a universal right to a dignified life to be lived on a necessarily vibrant planet. My focus on management education is on the overt, implicit, or camouflaged message that the [necessary] freedom of [capitalist] markets is somehow linked to the pursuit of human emancipation and now planetary restoration. What a compelling story this has been in my country, and in so many other places and tasks my professional experience has taken me.
This week past I had been wondering where to start on my next 800 words. I toyed with the idea of exploring the contradiction of our Prime Minister Jacinda’s call for righteousness on the world stage even as she commits us to more ‘free trade’. I hear the voice in my head: “What happened to Fair Trade?” I hear echoes of classes of management students in my past: “Free Trade is Fair Trade”. Sigh. Thank you, Greta. You have flushed me out from my silence on matters I have been tempted ‘let go’. In the face of your call, my concerns may seem mostly small, mundane, venial, or banal. I take courage to notice such from the work of Hanna Arendt whose ideas about the banality of evil I will surely revisit in future posts that call me to explore our part in the expansion of a system that kills.