Gaia: Integral action in the world - Spiral Dynamics Integral in Israel/Palestine

A Growing Spiral Dynamics Influence in the Middle East

http://voyager.gaia.com — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 07:51:06 GMT

A new blog entry from Keith E. Rice. Che-UK:

A Growing Spiral Dynamics Influence in the Middle East

Why aren't Arab Universities Excelling?

http://voyager.gaia.com — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 09:21:17 GMT

In the newest blog entry from

www.che-mideast.org

Nafiz Rifae is asking:

Why aren't Arab Universities Excelling?Why aren't they on the list of the Top 500 Univ. in the Wolrd?"

I asked Nafiz for an English translation of his article for Al-Quds newspaper in Jerusalem and here it is, including the introduction on the blog:

Bethlehem University celebrates its 35th anniversary with an initiative to establish a Prize for Excellence

Re: SDi in Politics & Corporate Fascism

http://my-head.gaia.com — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 12:07:01 GMT

Lets simply do what accords best to our best understanding.
Again and again..now and now… everybody in his/her own way.
Without stardom and collective leadership.
With comittment to hard and real and demanding work ...

ABSOLUTELY

Re: SDi in Politics & Corporate Fascism

http://voyager.gaia.com — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 11:50:22 GMT

As European I have no way to indicate something to these guys.

Focusing on thing which can be leveraged here.-

I know that some of Dons colleagues are very active in the Obama Camp. aD thats promising. AS SDi if far ahead in dealing with real problems, global perspectives and actionable blueprints.

Obama will face big problems next year. If he will be choosed. As much as McCain. And while Europeans like to think about new perspectives with Obama that will learn about tough love.

I am only saying:

Afghanistan

And some painful considerations in transatlantic communication- in integral ones too!..are coming up.

I see no "WE" in integral camps. Depending on professional hab itats and thinking styles lots of tunnels can be build. The mosdt promising approach is the meshwork approach practiced in SDi.
Connected to local nodes of excellence in different countries.

The integral camp has to end with too much chatter and pretention. 70 percent of world population is less than blue. And in the existing 30 percent of developed worlds strong blue, conservative foundations need cultivation. Appreciation and the readiness somehow invisibly behind the lines and scenes.

Some entering of global spheres would be useful in my eyes. Like what journalists like Fareed Zakaria, Parag Khanna, Roger Cohen, Mark Leonard, Gabor Steingart et al are already doing.

But who is paying for this function? Who is setting up professional standards?

Jean Houston is confirming that Sdi is far ahead in this game. So the best way- in my eyes is to support and collaborate with national nodes of Center for Human Emergence. And to align ones own professional endevors with this constellation.

But even this will express in hundreds of personal fingerprints. Give 100 cooks one recept and you will get 100 different meals.):) lol

Lets simply do what accords best to our best understanding. Again and again..now and now.....everybody in his/her own way. Without stardom and collective leadership. With comittement to hard and real and demanding work.

Always upping the downside too as Spiral coach MIke Jay says. And internalizing what Steve McIntosh said:

"Question: How could this collective coming together of leaders be most instrumental in bringing public awareness to the great shift that is occurring?

Answer: First, we could demythologize the idea of "the great shift", recognizing that there is not just one shift, there are actually many shifts in consciousness going on simultaneously in the world-a shift from pre-traditional to traditional in Africa, a shift from traditional to modern in Asia, and in America, and ongoing shift from modern to postmodern, as well as the beginning of a shift from postmodern to integral.

We could also be more discerning about the nature and behavior of cultural evolution, and recognize the fallaciousness of the wishful thinking that expects that the world is going to "wake up" and suddenly become "cultural creative" in a miraculous transformation. "

SDi in Politics & Corporate Fascism

http://profundity.gaia.com — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 11:04:05 GMT

You may be wondering what this is doing in Spiral Dynamics integral in Israel/Palestine but you will notice why half-way through the post (plus, I did not see anywhere better to put it).

Jesse wrote:

Integral Life has a forum discussing the very topic right now. Check it out. http://IntegralLife.com

Obama's integral message isn't quite hitting home with pre-orange and green altitudes, in my opinion. This is why the Republican ticket has any support in the first place. This leads me to believe that his center of developmental gravity is green. if he were to fully embrace lower developmental structures, and integral inclination, then his language would be more appealing to them.

We, as integral thinkers, need to do everything we can to get in touch with our own lower levels of development values and listen for what it is that we are needing to hear. Then we can more effectively meet the frustrations of those levels in our communications with them.

Most likely, we can do this through shadow work. What happens when we do shadow work with Republicanism. I did this, and came upon some astonishing insights. That got me thinking about all sorts of issues in less charged ways.

One thing I thought of that would be super cool would be if Obama invited McCain to serve on his cabinet during a debate. This would serve the purpose of helping Obama to understand the right wing better as he governs. He would be able to take that perspective into consideration much more accurately by having a right wing advisor close to him. Keep your enemies close as they say.

Basically, though, the biggest question I have in my mind is this: When we're in touch with the consciousness in our lower levels of development and we listen to Obama, what are we not hearing that leaves us frustrated? If we can answer this question, then we can help Obama and his campaign and our Dem ticket pushing communicate to the on-the-fense voters out there.

Hope this helps, and looking forward to fleshing out this idea with you all.

Jesse

Thank you to Jesse (from the Integral Obama mail-list) for the http://IntegralLife.com link, that was very helpful. However, a link to the specific part of the website that you were referring to in regard to an Integral Obama message would be greatly appreciated as all but one of the Google search results for Obama on IntegralLife.com were negatively-oriented (like, "Is Obama the Anti-Christ?"). If I missed any integral concepts or issues below please do not hesitate to point them out to me, either publicly or privately. I tend to take a more practical approach to my explanations of things but I try to use integral languaging where it seems most appropriate. I did find value in watching this video that attempts to begin to explain Integral Political Challenges.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQRUu_4W2j8

One of the main serious issues as I see it is the need to communicate exactly WHY a homogenized mostly non-essential-activity-based society is being FORCED upon the majority of people by the so-called globalists who sincerely want a one-world frame of perspective as a means of providing an overall peaceful environment. However, in this pursuit they seek to bring a lowest-common-denominator mentality to the masses which appears to be effectively neutering or otherwise rendering impotent people who are or may become potential enlightened individuals. Turquoise and above conscious awareness has no practical application of such awareness in a "dumbed-down" paradigm, i.e. no useful language to communicate such an awareness. Such an awareness exists in and of itself in each individual who happens to develop it, mostly by accident or at best by extremely rare syncronicity. Those such self-identified individuals of us need to figure out how to communicate integral concepts in non-integral languaging which kind of seems like a paradox to me.

I understand that in order to have peace that you need to speak in a style of language that the majority of people can understand. However, the very process of attempting to communicate in such a green language appears to be forcing people to be green people and hence adopt an actual green mentality or way of thinking. At that point such people are virtually lost until they somehow find a way to wake up again.

Obama tends to speak so intelligently that the Republicans/Neocons are able to make fun of him in the media and therefore lessen his inspirational messages.

How can "we" as integral communicators assist Obama in understanding this challenging dynamic and still have him help Americans do the right thing?

Clare Graves, Don Beck, and Ken Wilber did a great job of defining and effectively communicating the challenge in a useful manner/language/semantics however it is up to ALL of us to figure out the soulution.

Sometimes it is depressing knowing how things really work but being unable to communicate with people who really need to know how things really work (i.e. the truth about life/nature). Is it any wonder why some powerful (ADHD/Bi-Polar/Borderline?) people give up attempting to communicate and simply treat the green majority as sheeple? Psychological awareness began around 3,000 B.C. as philosophy however the so-called science of psychology only began about 200 years ago. What does that tell you about hidden psychology (esoteric wisdom) and how long certain groups of people who understood this wisdom have been actively shepherding virtually the whole of humanity by utilizing the principle of psychological leverage from the essential beginning of time? So, how do we as the new enlightenment deal with such a long-term force? The saying of, "May The Force Be With You" begins to take on a whole new meaning in regard to the hidden yet human forces for good.

We do it by having the Obama Campaign attempt to communicate with that ancient wisdom tradition/force by explaining our understanding of certain key principles openly in the media. This is quite literally a prayer to "G" (not necessarily THE God but a wide range of groups of people literally and effectively acting as gods on Earth or "The Force").

There is an aspect of socialism, or the needs and desires of the many, that can not be ignored as well as an aspect of corporate fascism, the needs and desires of the powerfully-intelligent few, that also can not be ignored (a case of rocks and hard places or unstoppable forces and immovable objects). This is why we have ONLY two major political parties in the United States. These two yin-yang / green-red elements are so immense that they have BOTH chosen to make a bargain, one very obvious demonstration of which was Democratic Majority Leader Pelosi agreeing NOT to impeach President Bush for OBVIOUS legal infractions (both the 9/11 events as well as the Iraq events and subverting both the people as well as the Constitution of the United States). EACH side needs to get some of its way from time to time in order for there to be a balance-of-power. Both are both so-called good and evil depending upon which side you choose to be on. This dynamic has also resulted in both the U.S. and Great Britain being friends with both Israel as well as Arabia, a partial history of which can be found here:

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hp/hparabian.htm

So, there is an inherent inability for the Democratic (as well as Republican) Party to be as honest and upfront as they would like to be. Due to this balance-of-power Obama is literally prohibited from providing actual solutions that seem obvious for those of us who are paying close attention to what is actually going on. Money is NOT the issue because money can either be printed or debts otherwise forgiven to create it. Plus, with the advent of electronic currency and credit money does not even need to be printed anymore. Who to THEY think that THEY are fooling? Who do WE as integral-minded people actually communicate with to say, "HEY! ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!" (loud, NOT angry). There was enough money for an absurdly-expensive Iraq war but NOT enough money to deal with the environment that would cost a lot LESS money to deal with?!

Hopefully one of you reading this will forward this message to one of the secret few who will actually know who to advise about such issues and this prayer will ultimately reach one of the ancient wisdom gods here on Earth who has the power to actually do something that actually makes sense.

Thank you.

P.S. Here is a response from someone who read the above message outside of GAIA.com...

Forwarded message...

Purple People Power, I very much enjoyed your synopsis of the challenges of communicating an integral perspective in everyday language. We were inspired to follow an inspired vision and create an integral multimedia thoughtform combining positive music and Obama's powerful message of self responsibility "it's about you!" to promote the "YES WE CAN" movement. Please check it out and pass it on if you feel so moved.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OK1LZ_eILSA

What do you think?

Re: Seed: : New Palestine and global change:

http://voyager.gaia.com — Sun, 04 May 2008 07:27:35 GMT

Thx Neri!

A wonderful letter! It makes clear once again...how much it takes to connect in a muscular manner the thousands of already existing efforts and initiatives. The Nexus of it all. The real time connectivity. A GPS System of high-speed navigation for all edge projects is needed.

Please check out next issue of Kosmos Journal. Second week of May. The issue will cover exactly this theme.

Will contact Wael Al Saad and I am happy to find a Palestinian living and working in North Rhine Westfalia - in Germany - where I was born.

Albert

Seed: : New Palestine and global change:

http://neri-bar-on.gaia.com — Sun, 04 May 2008 07:13:10 GMT

Please visit:
http://internettime.ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=656824%3ABlogPost%3A18855

Wael Al Saad is a Palestinian engineer live in Düsseldorf.

He writes:
----------------------
* This letter, I wrote to Elza Maalouf from http://www.humanemergencemiddleeast.org/ It is so amazing how so many things fits together today. The change has been very complex but in the same times, its pattern are getting clearer.. It is amazing how the world is emerging ONE conversation getting more and more shape. It is import to knock all doors of consciousness to move forward on searchin...

I know others friends are trying similar efforts. It is very challenging to bring them together.

....

----------------------

Finding him throgh this post on the web filled me hope and joy.

Neri

Update from CHE Middle East

http://yeshe.gaia.com — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 19:34:53 GMT

Dear Friends of the CHE Mideast:

The Build Palestine Initiative that was started by Dr. Beck and Ms.
Maalouf in 2005 has become an unstoppable movement that's giving
justified hope and pride to all who come in touch with it. What
started as an exploratory concept 3 years ago became – in the words of
one Palestinian leader "an earthquake that shook the ground in
Palestine on 2-2-08. We must now deal with the crucial "after shocks"
that will propel the Palestinian people towards true Nationhood.

The event on 2-2-08 laid down the foundation for our organization to
start "Large Scale" transformation of the Palestinian Territories.
Since none of our pioneering work is tied to any governmental or
institutional source of funding, the level of our achievements on the
ground in Palestine is directly tied to our level of donor funding
from private foundations, groups and individuals who believe that
building capacities in people and their respective societies is the
best way to facilitate human emergence.

Dr. Beck and Ms. Maalouf continue to volunteer their time and efforts,
for the fourth straight year, as we continue to give this movement the
indigenous character that it must have. We will conduct as many
conferences and training sessions as possible lead by our Palestinian
partners in the newly formed CHE Palestine. These training sessions
must happen prior to Fatah's historic "Sixth Convention" that
President Bush is insisting upon. The higher the number of
participants in our seminars the more noticed we become by the
leadership. PM's Fayad's circle has inquired about "The Spiral People"
several times. It is our goal to send the highest number of delegates
possible to the Sixth Convention. These delegates will be proficient
in our methodologies to start the "Top-Down" transformation that will
lead to a sustainable Palestinian State.

Nafiz Al-Rifai, President of the newly-formed CHE Palestine is in the
process of finalizing the selection of a 50-member Palestinian think
tank made up of academicians, business and civic leaders from all
political parties across Palestine. Included in the group will be
representative of the four types of NGO's present in Palestine.
Currently there are over 3,200 licensed NGO's in Palestine and lack a
unified strategy on how to achieve their objectives. Dr. Beck and Ms.
Maalouf will officially launch the think tank and offer intensive
training in our methodologies upon their return in June. At the
conclusion of the training committees will be formed to conduct
research activities, issue policy recommendations and perform large
scale assessment of the value systems in Palestine. This will play a
crucial roll in future decisions on Palestinian nationhood.

In addition to the launching of the Palestine think tank, the CHE
Palestine is offering on-going Large-scale training programs for young
men and women to continue the "Bottom-Up" transformation as it meets
the "Top-Down" new leadership being created with special emphasis on
training women political leaders to build up their capacities and
levels of resilience for a new political landscape. CHE Palestine
remains in it's infancy stage and is wholly dependent on us for
funding its activities.

To find out more about our activities or explore sponsorship
opportunities, please visit our website at www.buildpalestine.org

Thank you for choosing to make the world a better place.

Sincerely,

Said E. Dawlabani
Director, CHE Mideast

Re: Call from CHE Middle East for the Fifth Estate:):)

http://voyager.gaia.com — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 09:51:55 GMT

yes....as often..man power is lacking....we all are occuopied in projects, professions...and blogging is very time consuming and energy demanding. I am absolutely at my limit here with free time and attention.

As long as here are no jobs to be created here..it needs the bold, tough and sacrificing engagement of a handful of activists. Yes, a kind of sherpa Service. But if you have already a 26 hours day....::

Rien ne va plus:):) (as the French say...)

Best,

Albert

Re: Call from CHE Middle East for the Fifth Estate:):)

http://coolmel.gaia.com — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 09:44:06 GMT

thanks, Albert! will do my small thing and pass this along :)

"We still need help in getting our work noticed by the political bloggers. Please feel free to forward/post to any list that you're a part of and become a part of the change that's taking place."

couple of suggestions on how to get noticed by political bloggers:

1) set up a blog for Human Emergence and SDi

2) write political op-ed articles on popular newspapers such as Wall Street Journal, NYTimes, etc. Don Beck would be perfect for this :)

my two cents.

~C

Call from CHE Middle East for the Fifth Estate:):)

http://voyager.gaia.com — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 14:07:40 GMT

Call from CHE MIddle East for the Fifth Estate:)

Posted on Feb 16th, 2008 by Albert
This is from Said E. Dawlabani, Director of Center for Human Emrgence Middle East. Posted at SDi Yahoo list. And the request to multiply it from fourth estate of classic media to fifths estate of Bloggosphere ( a CNN Panel with Rebecca McKinnon et al. in 2005 labeled it this way:):) a unique opportunity to show the dynamics of the latter when. I am forewarding myself to:

World Economic Forum,

TED Conference,

3000 Professionals in Middle East,

Cultural Hubs

FOR MEDIA CONTACT: Said E. Dawlabani, Director CHE Mideast (619)
857-8157

to view it : www.humanemergencemiddleeast.org

Dear All:

Below is a press release that went out world wide to print and
television media. We still need help in getting our work noticed by
the political bloggers. Please feel free to forward/post to any list
that you're a part of and become a part of the change that's taking place.

Thank you for making your second-tier presence felt around the world. http://www.mmdnewswire.com/plestinin-nti-building-movement-2953.html

The full list of suggestions is being compiled in a booklet which will
be presented to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Prime Minister
Salam Fayyad, President George W. Bush, Special Envoy to the Middle
East Tony Blair, and the United Nations.

Integral Momentum in Betlehem

http://voyager.gaia.com — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 17:03:18 GMT

Integral momentum in Betlehem

Posted on Feb 10th, 2008 by Albert
This another feedback of Don Beck. A great demonstration what Integral Politics can mean:

Close to 700 Palestinians came together on February 2, in Bethlehem (the city of new beginnings) to plan their future. Those who claim that Palestinians cannot manage themselves are wrong. Let them come to Bethlehem and see for themselves. Palestinians made the presentations on Spiral Dynamics and the MeshWORKS Solutions processes. For those truly interested in "integral politics" you might want to study this model closely, because it reflects the essential elements of a successful initiative that recognizes and honors people based on who they are, and what capacities they possess. The Palestinian leaders who designed and implemented this strategy, based on the natural systemics of their situation, have now reported that a request has now come from top level Fatah leaders to expand the program for 200,000 Palestinians in May.
They are now referring to the dates -- Saturday, February 2, 2008 (08-2-2) as the launch of a major, nation-building movement that will continue to cascade across many domains and generations.

The focus is on horizontal development and enhancements in the BO-Purple, CP-Red and emerging DQ-Blue value system codes. There was no talk about what Israel had done or how the occupation keeps them oppressed; they realized they must plan their own future(s) and wanted to start now. Once again, as was in the case in South Africa, the Gravesian-Spiral Dynamics conceptual system provided the insights and action steps that shifted their own thinking and will, over time, provide them with a psychological map as a companion piece to the political "road map" that the Bush administration has demanded. We also made presentations within the Ministry of Defense, the Knesset, in several academic institutions, and with a number of very successful business leaders -- all in Israel . We have to deal with the dances both within Israel and Palestine and between the two. We have found the Assimilation-Contrast Effect from the seminal work of Muzafer Sherif (Oklahoma and Penn State) to be very useful in depressing polarization and stereotypes that generate the "Us" vs. "Them" demon finding dynamic. This will all be laid out at the Annual SDi Confab in Dallas in late May ( www.spiraldynamics.net). Those of you who attended an early presentation of Spiral Dynamics should consider returning because the concept has matured in so many different ways, with many, many practical applications on the nature of Change and Transformation. We will have reports on the design of education for the entire country of Mexico; the shifts in Russia into a market-based economy; the actions in the Netherlands, Denmark, UK, and Germany in dealing with the threats from fundamentalism; the strategies being used in Singapore to detect the early warning signs of trouble; and a fresh attempt to assist Iceland through a major transformation. We will also take a careful look at the managerial system in Whole Foods Market, Southwest Airlines, and IBM. Finally, with the American presidential campaign in full bloom, there will be plenty of opportunities to assess the candidates and map out what could be a "Third Way"' politically in this country. We just made contact with Tony Blair at the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem since he represents he Quartet when it comes to Israel-Palestine to describe for him why economic investment must be built on the cultural capacities or the resources will, once again, find their way into corrupt pockets.

For many of those in the so-called "Integral" game, please consider coming down from your conceptual (Third Tier!) high horses and recognize the critical importance of dealing with people at their levels of functioning, and ignite in them the impulses to discover their own futures. Unless we, as global citizens, are able to deal with and defuse the major clash-points in our diverse societies, the efforts to explore the upper ranges of speculative consciousness levels, will be of little value. We have concluded that dialogue, conflict management, negotiation, peace-making and mediation are inferior processes when large developmental gaps exist between elements in the over all context. We have found that the principles and tools within a new body of knowledge -- Natural Designs -- offers the most powerful way to deal with the political and economic realities. Many from the scenarios business (Royal Dutch Shell, World Business Academy) made great claims regarding what they accomplished during the South African transformation in spite of our warnings that the deep divides were being ignored. Their maps simply did not recognize the memetic contours, alleging that the gaps were simply an expression of racism. All of those roosters are now coming home to roost as South Africa is in danger of a major regression, just as we predicted in the book The Crucible: Forging South Africa's Future. In case you don't know the story regarding the failure of ESKOM, the public power company, that had to shut down and limit power because of "poor" planning. The gold mines were losing a billion dollars a year, and worse.

To my knowledge we are the only group that has focused on these comprehensive Bio-Psycho-Social packages with built-in understanding of how large scale systems design and transformation actually has a chance of happening. So many people, today, are talking about and promoting "change." But, what kind of "change?" And, "change" FROM what and TO what" Isn't it time that we answered these questions before asking people to "change." We have learned the hard way that getting rid of what we don't want is not the same thing as getting what we do want. We are open, of course, to alternative views but the advocates of them will need to be well informed as to what is happening "on the ground."

A Personal Note: My partner, Elza Maalouf, who is from Lebanon, is a magic worker in connecting with the Arab mindset and cultural manifestations and the success of this Israel-Palestine Initiative is a tribute to her amazing insights, political skills, and authentic personality. She is greatly loved and respected in Palestine and I am honored to be able to work with her. If you are interested in this emerging story just click on http://www.buildpalestine.org/ and see for yourself. And, those who wish to become a "Integral Woman," I suggest you observe her very closely because she is not afraid to Walk the Integral Talk, and does so with great charm and integrity. She is CEO of the new Center for Human Emergence: Middle East, and is becoming a force in a number of Arab speaking countries and cultures. She will co-train with me at the upcoming SDi series at the Adizes Graduate School program in Santa Barbara, March 10-15.

We hope, in the future, to share more with you what we are doing across many different fronts and invite you to join with us in these challenging times.

Re: THE TIME IS NOW

http://voyager.gaia.com — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 10:29:15 GMT

Neri..just one question I asked the CHE Mideast already one year ago:

Is there a European spokesperson who can be adressed? If yes, what are the exact contact details?

In Palestine/Isreal: Who can be adressed?

In Rest of World: Who are the persons of CHE to be contacted in case potential donors show up?

There are lots of forums and people in my personal networks who might be interested. All I need are some persons whom I could shortly introduce them then.

THE TIME IS NOW.

Yes, lets practice the basics of good team work.

I am ready.

Very best,

Albert

THE TIME IS NOW

http://neri-bar-on.gaia.com — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 14:04:22 GMT

Friends who follow this work of Dr. Beck and Elza Maalouf from the distance of Europe and America probably asked themselves how can they support this process, after all this going to impact all of us.

The more it manifested the more it will be recognized that the nature of the human development and the effectiveness of the Natural Design processes are key elements in the development of healthy societies for our children.

Saying all that I invite you to Donate to our Palestinian brothers and sisters who started the journey that will show us a process of how national building can go beyond the process the Israelies achieved.

Please Visit Build Palestine and please Donate to these brave Palestinian, as the process begins they need your small to big private donations for getting their organization functional and thriving to grew our realety

Immediate Wish-List of Urgent Needs

Our Partners in Palestine are launching CHE-Palestine.
CHE-Palestine needs:
- 1 Laptop US$ 700 - US$ 900
- 1 LCD projector US$ 500 - US$ 700
Help Sponsor an SDi Training: US$ 5,000.
We need sponsors to cover costs for 40 Palestinian Women from different cities in the West Bank to attend this training on January 25-26, 2008, covering:
- Transportation
- Hotel Rooms for 2 nights + 3 meals/day
- Conference room for 2 days

THE TIME IS NOW

Re: Latest news from Don

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 18:11:51 GMT

good news week

Re: Latest news from Don

http://voyager.gaia.com — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 17:51:04 GMT

Good to hear. Wishing all the best, Albert

Latest news from Don

http://yeshe.gaia.com — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 17:46:25 GMT

"Elza and I will be leaving the Tel Aviv airport tonight at 11:40 PM for San
Diego and Texas, following one of the most impactful events in my
professional career. More than 700 Palestinians gathered at the Shepard
Hotel in Bethlehem to participate in a day long initiative to determine their
own future. They are all members of Fatah and came from all age groups,
professions, and towns in the West Bank to hear presentations on Spiral
Dynamics by Palestinians and then met in groups of 8 to 10 to fill flip
charts with their own ideas as to what we called Palestine-21st Century.
There was no conversation about Israel, or the occupation, or other
restrictions; they realized it was time for then to determine their own
destiny.

There is now talk of programs for 200,000 leaders. We will send more
details later but just wanted you to know that we are safe and are leaving
the Middle East with a renewed faith and confidence in the power of the
technology we have developed around large scale systems design and
transformation. By using the principles and tools of Natural Design, we can
do what people in the fields of peace-making, or negotiation, or even
mediation can never achieve.

Once again, the key to this extraordinary event that many Palestinians are
now describing as the new beginning for their entire society, is the work of
my partner Elza Maalouf. There is no question in my mind but that she will
become a force in the entire Middle East. We have had the same levels of
interest among various power centers in Israel and see huge potentials in
both societies for fresh thinking, systemic analysis, bold strategic and
tactical efforts, all based on the Spiral Dynamics conceptual model. My late
and dear friend Professor Clare W. Graves would be pleased."

Stay tuned for reports from Elza on the Build Palestine Blog...

News about the upcoming fifth visit to Israel/Palestine

http://yeshe.gaia.com — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 22:01:52 GMT

From Said Dawlabani, Director of the Center for Human Emergence in the Middle East

"Dear All:

As the "rush is on" to find a 2-state solution guided by the same
principals that created Iraq, Don and Elza have quietly been creating
a grass roots network to build sustainable capacities across both the
Palestinian and Israeli cultures. On the upcoming 5th trip to the
region, we expect to have upwards of a thousand key people listening
intently to the framework that was born out of the notion of
empowering the individual and the culture instead of victimizing them.
The road that got us here is all documented on our blog at
www.buildpalestine.org

The highlight of the upcoming trip is a day-long presentation/training
to 500 leaders from Fatah entitled "From Fatah 21 to Palestine 21".
The event will be followed by many presentations and trainings at
universities, to women groups, and business leaders on both sides. It
is anticipated that Shimon Peres, President of Israel will attend one
of the events coordinated by our Israeli partners. (Thank you Neri,
Rafi, Sarah and her team)

We were told by our Palestinian partners that no NGO can make these
events happen for under $500,000 in costs; yet, we have managed to do
it on a donation of less than $47,000. Some small segments of the
trip remain underfunded and if anyone wishes to sponsor an event
(whole or in part), please click on this link.

Thanks to our all-volunteer Dr. Kevin `IT' Kells, we are now able
to accept donations of any size through PayPal.

CHE-PALESTINE
The Center for Human Emergence will inaugurate its newest node in
Palestine in Don's and Elza's presence on this trip. Under the
leadership of Nafiz Rifai who has emerged as a true Arab Integral
thinker and Spiral Wizard, the center is expected to flourish with its
permanent presence in the West Bank. Nafiz needs items that we take
for granted such as a lap top and an LCD projector. Please refer to
our wish list on the website if you wish to contribute towards these
necessities.

Elza will be blogging from the field, if time permits. In any case, we
will keep you informed in a future post on our progress.

Truly, Said
Director, CHE-ME

Purple-red-blue drama: not just in Palestine and Russia...

http://yeshe.gaia.com — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 18:27:47 GMT

I just came across this wonderful contribution from Holly Masturzo, dated 7 March 2007 - it's in response to Elza's report from Palestine. Talk about Integral Action in the world, Holly is walking it in Jacksonville.

"It has been a rich week for me rethinking this post. I am grateful
for the depth of what you shared and emboldened by the stories of
growth and community Don's workshops and your work is helping release
in Palestine.

I'd like to respond briefly, especially to our American readers, to
call for a kind of local-global practice on this red-blue movement.
It is easy to think that a red-blue shift is a Middle East problem or
a 2nd/3rd world problem. I haven't heard this kind of talk of course
on this list serve but know it can exist certainly in our culture.

I am working now as a professor at an all-black college in Florida.
It is a place of many layers of wounding, was founded in 1866 right
after the civil war to educate freed slaves, survived a devastating
fire in the 1920s, and in recent years serious financial theft by
some of the "leaders." There was a clean sweep of the administration
and a wave of new hires from the top to faculty, of which I am a
part. A student-athlete was murdered on campus last year. All the
classrooms are barred and kept locked. A local businessman just
recently posted a sign on one of his unoccupied buildings (painted
bright red) that says "Welcome to Hell." Next door on an abandoned
house is black spraypainting that reads "Crack is Witchcraft."

On a daily basis I am teaching to amazing students without textbooks
in several of my classes and often without paper in the copy machine.
In my class called "The Development of the Novel" we have no novels.
(Students do not buy books but are loaned them by the college...and
there are no novels.) In between checking things out of the library
for them and reading material on line, we have spent some days
working with Spiral Dynamics. It is a class of three African-
American men who have a lot to say and see the world very clearly.
They got the SDi immediately and could diagnose the college and their
neighborhoods as purple-red-blue and a false orange stretch. Their
understanding of the power of life conditions allows them to work
quickly and accurately.

This is a beautiful, truly beautiful place in the world that I work
in, the heart of urban Jacksonville, about 30 miles from St.
Augustine, the site of the beginning of colonization in this country
where the purple wounding began, deepened, and is replayed over and
over. Down the road from the so called "Fountain of Youth" in St.
Augustine and the large Spanish fort is a beautiful old oak tree with
a small plaque describing its history as "The Hanging Tree."

The main square in Jacksonville is created by City Hall, the Public
Library, and the contemporary arts museum facing a small park where
we receive many wintering as well as year-round homeless people. As
I walk by the river that cuts through Jacksonville and opens out to
the Atlantic, the St. Johns which travels up against gravity from the
heart of the Everglades, I see many, many fine boats and yachts I
wonder how so many people can own. There is sensible talk of green
development of the urban core. All the layers are here.

Perhaps many Americans can go through their days feeling they are
living and working in blue-orange-green systems. That "we're making
it." I want to say that everyday I am here it is palpable where the
purple and healthy red has been severed; I feel so many blue and
orange attempts to "move us up" as not fully addressing the deeper
needs at purple and red.

If you are moved, as I know you are, by Don's work in Palestine and
his history with South Africa, as you are touched by Elza's and
Neri's and Oren's and others' work in the Middle East, I invite you
as you support that process, to also look to your immediate
communities to the red-blue challenges we are still facing within our
own culture. This is the work, too, for releasing the whole of the
spiral. I know you know this; I am feeling acutely a call this week
to voice and practice from this reality."

Open Letter to Tony Blair from Young Men and Women of Palestine

http://yeshe.gaia.com — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 06:24:26 GMT

Mirrored from Albert's blog.

Open Letter to Tony Blair from the Young Men and Women of Palestine

“It is Our Future After All!”

Dear Mr. Blair,

We are the young men and women of Palestine.

We write to you from our Palestinian home that is in transition, wanting to seize the moment to co-create a successful Palestinian state.

We are the Future; we wish to participate in shaping our future!

We are young, educated, forward thinking, and globally-minded men and women. We hold advanced degrees in Engineering, Information Technology, Sciences, Law and the Humanities.

We need a partner in the world community who will give us a chance to show our leadership.

We know that you, Mr. Blair, do not subscribe to the perception that all young Palestinians are blinded by ideologies or a limited vision of Palestine.

We are very keen on initiating an international dialogue with an overarching vision and overarching goals.

We want to lead an accelerated process towards peace, one that guarantees for both Palestinians and Israelis their rights and their future.

We extend our invitation to young Israelis to work with us towards the common good, and to build with us the bridge needed for true peace.

We would like to bring to the world's attention that a new generation of young Palestinians has emerged and is connected to the world through Google, yahoo, Facebook, MySpace …

We would like to bring to the world's attention that our worldview represents the majority in Palestine, despite the media and the international community's attention on radical behavior. (For every helpless, angry or misguided Palestinian brother or sister, there are thousands of us who are holding the hands of our fellow Palestinians to forge forward towards a successful Palestine. )

We are ready to serve as a conduit to wide scale change and make positive systemic contributions to our culture, our educational and legal systems, government and social institutions.

We believe in capacity building and empowering Palestinians to move from where they are now to where they need to be.

We can serve as a bridge between Western culture and Arab culture.

We believe in building a Palestinian model for societal development that is culture-appropriate to our Palestinian values and we can deliver the concepts of indigenous democracy in ways that our people can accept and embrace

We can co-lead an international dialogue about Peace. Most importantly our unique contribution will be to translate the outcome of the bi-lateral agreements and accords in a way that our culture can embrace.

We aim to produce positive responses to any accord that focuses on building a healthy Palestinian state. We want to avoid the failures of the the Oslo Accord, where our leaders did not communicate the desired outcome to us and our people. The decisions made unilaterally by a disengaged leadership came as a shock to an unprepared culture that rejected a premature deal.

We are mindful of the breakdown in communication between our leadership and our people, especially with the youth.

We can form that link to translate international decisions into local implementations.

We ask you to deal with new faces and young people. As you interact with our formal leadership, we need you to encourage the inclusion of our positive voices. We will work very well with people in leadership positions whose expertise and strategic thinking are well respected.

We want to be a free Palestine, that is our goal!!

We know that as prerequisites to Palestinian Statehood we need to achieve the following:

Build healthy institutions for a well functioning governement
Build capacity in our people to enable them to take Palestine to the 21st century
Address holistically the psycho-social problems inside the Palestinian communities caused by decades of conflict.
Build sound economic, educational, judiciary, religious and healthcare systems for a well-functioning society. We are dedicated to a democratic Palestine and to an accelerated process leading to true democracy.

We are gathering the hearts and minds of Palestinians towards a common goal and shared values: To build Palestine and make it succeed in the 21 st century

We know that as Palestinians we have a unique opportunity to build bridges, cross over divides, create common purpose and take the leadership role, not just in Palestine but in the entire Middle East, and not just here, but around the world. We want to stand tall, accept the challenge, point the way, challenge others and frame a new Palestine.

WE come from Ramallah, Nablus, al khalil, Bethlehem, Jenin, Gaza, Jerusalem, Jericho, Beit Sahour, Qalquiliya ….WE ARE PALESTINE

It is Our Future After All …. It is the time to give us a chance.

Sincerely,

Palestine Integral Youth
July 1, 2007

You can here:

Support by endorsing the letter

I just did it with great pleasure.