Eco-democracy 101: How we get there from here

The core questions raised by the reflections on The Road from Empire to Eco-democracy are: How do we get beyond empire? How do we move toward eco-democracy? What are effective strategies for accomplishing this transition?

Visionary clarifications from parts 1, 2, and 3 undergird the above questions, but knowing where we are and where we want to go is only the beginning. We need to inquire into how our experience (not reliance on expert-written manuals) gives us a sense of what could be a plausible path toward this huge and radical change. And who among us are willing to stake a sector and facilitate this glocal movement (toward critical mass for some, against recalcitrants for others) toward this ardent and arduous journey for change?

It is the practices, strategies of action, not the thoughtful intent, that matter. As an old saying goes, “Action removes the doubt that theory cannot solve.” Vision is valuable when there are warm bodies who embody it in themselves as a living and moving mission! As the moon shots showed, the persons going to the moon did not have a mission-they were the mission!

We need a big strategic picture in order to locate ourselves in the master drama of change to actually get there from here. A plausible vision is our hope for a viable alternative future lest we fall into sheer denial or debilitating despair.

Getting there from here requires the building within and amongst us a down-to-earth, practical, flexible, hopeful, connected networks of minds. Here lies the most basic of strategies, that we sustain authentic practices of hope in networks of trust and small circles of relationships year after year until the task is done. Such hope building is a core power within our species. When we choose to exercise this power to guide our decisions, it becomes a personal choice of fulfillment and corporate responsibility of efficacy.

We begin with affirming the plausibility of radical change, as has occurred in and of us, regardless of how we deny that “change is constant in human existence.” We only need to locate ourselves with the forces of transformation (v. defense and reaction) that already exist in our world. Forces of deconstruction of the archaic and the no-longer-viable systems and structures abound, and forces of transformation eager to penetrate the domain of the unknown live in our neighborhoods, if not residents of our homes. We just need to locate and form small circles with them.

Of one thing we are lucid, it is the role and limits of the electoral process. We need not stray away from the CNMI to see this; Japan is already into its sixth PM in the last five years, nor would we need to close our eyes to the devastation, and promise of the Jasmine remonstrations in the Middle East, which even shudders the Politburo in Beijing. The U.S. and many nation-states are showing failures to govern, and we need not get into finger pointing or blame seeking, for clearly the situation requires a restructuring of the systems of governance itself. New glocal structures need to be built.

Three directions need to be affirmed. One is the validity of nonviolent noncooperation particularly in highly centralized, if not oppressive regimes. We saw its efficacy in the application of the same, e.g., in India (Gandhi), the U.S. (MLK), South Africa (Mandela), and the Philippines (Aquinos). Noncooperation is strengthened by cooperation in small circles that understand the strategic importance of local empowerment. The challenge of radically distinguishing between self-serving ego and assertive selfhood, between the styles of coercive versus facilitative leading, is not unknown in our time.

Reshaping global institutions comes as a high Main Street priority if we are to counter the illusory phantom wealth created by the Wall Streets of the world. Anyone who has watched the entrenched bureaucracies in such institutions as the UN, the World Bank, ADB, G-this & the other, et al, will understand how the institutions move at snail’s pace, and how their priorities serve more the captains of commercial, corporate and consumer enterprises who only read the health of the bottom line.

It is in our tactics that we lay our lives. Step-by-step strategy is a necessity of the perpetual revolutionary. Writing manifestos no longer kick-start the engine of change, concerted acts of courage include nonviolent disruption of organized oligarchy when boards and agencies are unresponsive to local sentiments. But the onus of responsibility is on small cadres, cells, and circles willing to see society whole and as a whole. They tackle the ever-unfolding task of recreating a vision, confronting existing contradictions, laying out practical strategies, and initiating tactical catalytic actions.

We might have been a bit pedantic in our treatment of eco-democracy, even as the entire book, The Road from Empire to Eco-democracy, may be too brief for huge topics that can easily focus 50 research projects of university doctoral thesis, but it provides an inclusive outline for the necessary dialogue (feedback welcome: jrvergarajr@aol.com), thinking, and action that ordinary glocal citizens need if we are to recreate our common humanity and gain back a healthy planet Earth in Century 21. A colleague’s parting shot: “In the end, I’m not as interested in what you have to tell or sell as in how you choose to live and give.”