Phil Adams Phil Adams

Citizens by Jon Alexander with Ariane Conrad - book review

A review of CITIZENS by Jon Alexander (with Ariane Conrad). An uplifting book about a vital idea.

Jon Alexander is a kindred spirit for All Hands On. We had a stimulating Zoom call with him when CITIZENS was a twinkle in his eye. We make films about citizens exercising their power directly. He’s written a book about it. Helping people to citizen is his profession, and his passion is infectious. There are lots of things to love about his book.

It is based on a vital idea

Victor Hugo said that there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come. Recognising and acting on our power as Citizens is an idea whose time has surely arrived. Democracy and the institutions of power are broken. And, as the book’s subtitle says, the key to fixing everything is all of us. That’s a great line. Jon and I share a past in advertising, so I appreciate the craft required to load so much meaning into just a few words.

The vital idea is that citizen is not something you are, it is something you do. Citizen is a verb. To citizen is to reclaim your agency over issues that affect you, rather than outsourcing, delegating, or abdicating power to representatives whose interests are seldom aligned with yours. What Jon demonstrates so clearly in his book is that we are all capable of this. We are all naturally gifted Citizens. And given the right circumstances, to citizen is to realise our potential as humans. The book’s core idea is vital in that it oozes vitality. To citizen is life affirming.

We stagger from crisis to crisis, struggling to respond from inside a Consumer Story, which pits us against each other, and indeed against ourselves, even as we most need to care and collaborate. Embracing the citizen story not only gives us the chance of a future, the process itself can be joyful, healing and fulfilling.
— Jon Alexander, CITIZENS
Citizens of Salima, Malawi, dancing at the end of a citizens' assembly to deliberate on constituency funding

The joy of Citizen

Dancing at the end of a citizens’ assembly in Malawi, November 2020.

A still from a work in progress film by All Hands On.

The idea is well framed and well structured

The book is a story of three stories. These stories describe the roles that ordinary people have played in societies past and present, and the role that we need to play henceforth. The Subject Story. The Consumer Story. The Citizen Story. Each story gets a lot of explanation in the book, but they don’t need a lot of explanation here. The clever thing is the story framing. The book explains how deep narratives become embedded in society, or maybe how society becomes embedded in deep narratives. These stories are palpable, in fact the Consumer Story is brazen, and yet they are so omni-present as to be invisible. We don’t think to question them. We need to be jolted out of them. By shining a light on the presence and power of these stories, Jon illustrates the scale of the challenge if we are to shed our Consumer skin and unleash our inner Citizen. But by describing how deep narratives have evolved and been superseded in the past, he demonstrates that this kind of metamorphosis is actually possible. The story framing allows the book to be realistic and optimistic at the same time.

The sources are credible and authentic

Whether he’s talking about individuals, organisations, or institutions, Jon has (mostly, see below) chosen his examples well. We are introduced to a variety of Citizen role models, all of whom have the dirt of direct democracy under their fingernails. Through his work at the New Citizenship Project, Jon knows his stuff and he knows his people.

Jon also pulls off the neat trick of being both suitably detached and suitably involved. It feels entirely appropriate that he features in his book as a protagonist. It was his awakening and his transition from Consumer to Citizen that inspired the book. He’s urging us to follow a path that he has already trodden. And, because of this, Citizens is a well constructed example of Public Narrative. Underpinning the Subject, Consumer, and Citizen stories are a story of self, a story of us, and a story of now. Powerful stuff.

Jon’s passion manifests as a humble form of charisma. His self-awareness and vulnerability sidesteps any danger of zeal or dogma. Hats off to his writing partner, Ariane Conrad, who has done a wonderful job of honing and shaping the language, whilst retaining Jon’s voice.

It would (will?) make a great docuseries

CITIZENS (block capitals) is an emphatic title. It suggests urgency and humanity. It is a promise of great stories. It is a promise of vitality. Flawed protagonists (all anti-heroes) overcoming significant challenges to achieve great things and to find themselves in the process. The pitch to Netflix almost writes itself.

In a strange way, this is what All Hands On has been doing in its own small, not-for-profit way. Our first film was about the Irish Citizens’ Assembly, which receives an honourable mention in the book. We made films for Extinction Rebellion (also mentioned in the book) about the urgent need for a better form of democracy. And our latest film (below), shot in Athens in 2019 against the backdrop of the European Parliament election, is a moving picture demonstration of what happens when ordinary people, the Demos, take power into their own hands.

CITIZENS could be to sociology and anthropology, what Planet Earth was to natural history.

Our film that features the Greek equivalents of Immy, Bianca et al, whose stories are told in CITIZENS

My only gripe

My only gripe is the (qualified) lionisation of Brewdog as an exemplar Citizen Business. I read with interest that the decision to include the Brewdog story was a hotly debated topic for Jon’s editorial team, and the company’s much publicised flaws are openly acknowledged in the book. However, living in Scotland, I’ve been aware of a bad smell coming from Brewdog long before unsavoury behaviour and hypocrisy made the news. I get the appeal, I really do. I was (am) a first wave Equity Punk. They do say that a hero needs to be flawed for a story to work, but the Citizen Story deserves better.

Power to you

The key to fixing everything is all of us. I say again, that is a great line. It’s a bold claim, but Jon’s book lends it credibility. There’s more than a hint of Rob Hopkins in the effect of Jon’s writing. The subtitle to Rob’s book, From What Is to What If, is “unleashing the power of imagination to create the future we want”. That’s an excellent description of the uplifting impact of CITIZENS.

Title page of the book Citizens by Jon Alexander, signed by the author
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The People Vs Climate Change - film review

A review of The People Versus Climate Change, a documentary about the UK’s first Citizens’ Assembly about climate change.

There are a number of stories you can tell about a Citizens’ Assembly. There’s a policy story; how ordinary people will often push for bolder political solutions than professional politicians. There’s a process story; how refreshing it is to shed the binary hostility of politics as usual, in favour of deep listening, compassion and consensus. And there’s a people story; how ordinary people respond to being given real agency, how open they are to new perspectives, how they surprise themselves with their ability to engage with complex subjects, how they grow into the role of citizen.

Amy, 27, postal worker from Scarborough

Amy, 27, postal worker from Scarborough

Not surprisingly, given its title, The People Vs Climate Change mainly tells the people story of the UK’s first Citizens’ Assembly on Climate Change. The result is a novel and disarming approach to the subject of climate change. The common sentiment in a trawl of Tweets on the #ThePeopleVsClimateChange hashtag is that this is a warm, human and relatable film, and that is down to the storytelling around the assembly delegates that the filmmakers chose to focus on. They come from all four corners of the UK, they are different ages, they have different backgrounds, and they entered the assembly with different levels of knowledge and different perspectives on the topic of climate change. They are all sympathetic characters. They are all quietly charismatic in their own ways.

Folajimi, 43, University Lecturer

Folajimi, 43, University Lecturer

We are given space to get to know these people. We get some back story and context for each person. We understand how their lives have shaped their opinions. And their opinions on climate change vary considerably. The credibility of the assembly, and the credibility of the film, are greatly enhanced by giving a voice to people who are deeply concerned about making personal sacrifices, who are yet to be convinced by the science, who abhor government intervention and tax penalties on lifestyle choices. Folajimi, who grew up in Lagos, where electricity might only be available for six hours a day, quietly but powerfully gives the African perspective: ‘How do you bring climate change to someone thinking about food.’

Marc, 47, British Gas employee from County Durham

Marc, 47, British Gas employee from County Durham

In a Q&A with its makers, the producer and director of the film, Harriet Bird, makes a crucial observation about its storytelling approach. These are not scientists or activists. These are not people telling an audience what to think and do. Instead, the audience watches them deciding what to think and do, as a result of being presented with the facts and deliberating with other delegates. Watching someone else change their mind is more powerful than being told to change your own.

Richard, 75, retiree from Kent (RIP)

Richard, 75, retiree from Kent (RIP)

The People Vs Climate Change is a people story not a process story. We see snippets of presentations. There are snatches of conversation between delegates, where they assimilate new information and work their way towards consensus. There is a short description of how the assembly was constructed and how delegates were selected. And some people might take issue with Professor Rebecca Willis when she says that 100 people is a ‘perfect sample of the country as a whole,’ or that, ‘it really is the country in miniature.’ But, overall, there is no discussion of the assembly as a democratic innovation. Indeed, there is no mention of the concept of democracy at any point. Nonetheless, the film does a good job of showing that anyone, regardless of background or education, can make a positive contribution to policy making. We all have an active citizen inside ourselves.

Charley, 25, frequent flyer from Northamptonshire

Charley, 25, frequent flyer from Northamptonshire

This is a people story, not a policy story. We get a broad idea of the issues on which the assembly deliberated and voted. We know that a detailed report was produced containing its recommendations. But the film is light on the details of how bold people are prepared to be when they immerse themselves in the issue of climate change. It would have been good to spend more time on just how far, just how much further than politicians, well-informed people are prepared to go with climate policy.

The least satisfying aspect of the film is its ending. We’ve been on a journey with some interesting people. We care about them and what they think. The topic of climate change has subtly breached our defences and got under our skin. But, predictably, inevitably, there’s a point where deep democracy - deliberative and participative - meets the brick wall of politics - aloof and evasive. Alok Sharma, Secretary of State for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy, deserves an Oscar for his portrayal of a typical condescending politician, committedly committing to not committing to the wishes of concerned citizens: ‘The assembly’s report will help to inform our plans. I’ve asked my officials to look at its recommendations in detail.’

Alok Sharma, 53, typical politician from Westminster

Alok Sharma, 53, typical politician from Westminster

We can only hope that this film will play a part in giving both politicians and the mainstream media greater confidence to be more bold with their approach to climate change. It’s a charming portrait of active citizenship. But it can’t hide the frustrating limitations of assemblies that take place at arm’s length from power. The people behind the UK Climate Assembly designed and assembled an engine of democracy. But they had no influence over the transmission system. In the end, the delegates find their car stuck in neutral, with none of the power of their ideas reaching the wheels of change. The People Vs Climate Change is a heartwarming people story, but it lets the system off lightly.

The assembly’s recommendations are contained in a report called The path to net zero.

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Out Of The Ruins opens European Commission democracy festival

A screening of our film Out Of The Ruins was the opening event of the 3rd Citizen Engagement & Deliberative Democracy Festival. The Festival is organised by the European Commission’s Science Hub.

We were pleased to be asked to “be” the opening event of the third Citizen Engagement and Deliberative Democracy Festival, hosted by the European Commission’s Science Hub. The event was a screening of Out Of The Ruins, introduced by Patrick and followed by a Q&A session.

Our work is intended to be constructively provocative. We want to empower reformers. And we want to enthuse and educate people to become more politically active. So it was gratifying to witness one of our films delivering on this objective. The post-screening questions, observations and discussions were well considered and wholehearted, across a range of important topics:

  • The oversimplification, or even abuse, of ancient Athenian democratic principles by technocrats.

  • The evolution (corruption) of democracy in Europe since ancient Athens.

  • What happens to people’s movements like Unidas Podemos when they secure political power and become part of the system that they sought to rebel against?

  • The idea of ‘vigilant citizens’ as being more crucial to democracy than ‘electoral citizens’.

  • The importance of occupied spaces as nurseries for vigilant citizenry.

  • How to properly integrate popular movements and their ideas into systems of governance. Including the idea expressed by Pope Francis that democratic structures need to unleash, ‘the torrent of moral energy that springs from including the excluded in the building of a common destiny.' (Paragraph 169)

Screenings and discussions such as these provide an excellent platform for our work. Our films are made freely available to people who wish to provoke constructive conversations about democracy. And we’re always happy to discuss ways in which we can facilitate and participate in such events.

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Film review: On a le temps pour nous

Review of On a les temps pour nous (Time is on our side), a documentary by Katy Lena Ndiaye. The evolution and revolution of democracy in Burkina Faso as described by rap artist Smockey (Serge Bambara).

On a le temps pour nous (There is time for us) is an intimate moving-picture portrait. It is a portrait of the rap artist Smockey (Serge Bambara). And it is a portrait of revolutionary democracy in Burkina Faso. It is a gripping, intense, almost pungent piece of film.

The film was shown as part of Scotland’s Africa In Motion (AiM) film festival, on the same day as its director, Senegalese film maker Katy Léna Ndiaye, gave a documentary masterclass that was co-hosted by AiM and the Scottish Documentary Institute.

Smockey is an artist and an activist, a cultural provocateur and a political protagonist, often playing both roles simultaneously. Whether he’s rapping into a microphone or speaking through a megaphone, he is a powerful orator with a knack for connecting with people. He was a leading member of Balai Citoyen (Citizen Broom), the movement and the popular uprising that ousted the dictator Blaise Compaore in 2014.

This crossover between activist and artist is perfectly illustrated during a car journey as Smockey describes an incident from his past. In the story he is addressing a large crowd of protesters, encouraging them to temporarily disperse to avoid being charged by hundreds of riot police. He is successful but, as he steps down from the podium, his phone rings and he is berated for being late on stage and unprofessional by the playwright of a theatre show that he is appearing in. The show is about the uprising. Smockey reflects on the irony…

If my reality had met fiction, her fiction hadn’t met any reality... It was hard for her to believe that everything we’d experienced and created on the stage was happening in front of our eyes.
— Smockey (Serge Bambara)
Smockey (far right) working with army generals to enable a transition from dictatorship to democracy in 2014.

Smockey (far right) working with army generals to enable a transition from dictatorship to democracy in 2014.

In her masterclass, Ndiaye described the approach she took to earn Smockey’s trust, and the process by which he gradually revealed himself to her, and us, as Serge Bambara. It was an exercise in patience, respect and restraint. Ndiaye trained as a journalist, but she knew that asking questions would only elicit what she described as “formatted” answers from a wary and media-savvy Smockey. Instead she placed herself and the camera “by his side.” Ndiaye talked about how she tries to make films with people, not of people. She wants people, particularly women, to be subjects of her films, not objects. She wants her audience to feel that they are meeting her protagonists, not watching them.

At Smockey’s side.

At Smockey’s side.

It works. When we’re with Smockey, we are shoulder to shoulder or face to face. He lets Ndiaye into his world and into his personal space. We’re with him as he improvises new lyrics, we’re with him as he relaxes and shares revolutionary anecdotes with friends.

In her masterclass, Ndiaye talked about the importance of having a point of view as a documentary filmmaker, and how this required her to suppress some of her journalistic instincts. On a le temps pour nous is an opinionated film, particularly with respect to democracy. Smockey has a deep distrust of politicians but a strong democratic instinct to place as much power as possible in the hands of citizens, and to trust their streetwise political wisdom. There is a revealing conversation in which Smockey takes a friend to task for saying that the people are not ready for democracy, that they first need to become more politically educated.

You say these people must have a certain IQ level. That’s bullshit! ... Despite not having this information, these guys are far more objective and far more realistic than all those pseudo-intellectuals who went to school, useless idiots who are up to their eyes in diplomas.
— Smockey (Serge Bambara)
Smockey begs to differ.

Smockey begs to differ.

Smockey’s trust in the deep political wisdom of ordinary people is vindicated in a sequence where he addresses an open air town hall style gathering in the Karpala district of Ouagadougou. In an open-mic session it is made abundantly clear that local people are able to identify political priorities and to suggest better pragmatic political solutions than the elected officials who usually live outside the district that they are supposed to represent. Smockey urges the gathering to become more politically active. “You must agree to take your destiny into your own hands,” he says, urging them to chase away the “old crocodiles” of politics as usual.

Smockey knows that true democracy requires all hands on.

Smockey knows that true democracy requires all hands on.

On a le temps pour nous is a film about transition. Smockey was a part of his nation’s transition from dictatorship to nascent democracy. Now he himself is in transition. How does he channel his passion and conviction, now that he has achieved his primary objective? There is a telling sequence when it becomes apparent that neither he nor his friends are particularly impressed by the incumbent regime. Smockey is challenged to start a movement to remove them from power but stridently refuses to do so on the basis that the government was voted in via a fair and transparent election. He may not like them but he respects their legitimacy. He firmly insists that a government that is fairly installed by election should be fairly removed by election.

Deafening silence

Deafening silence

On a le temps pour nous is a work of power but also a work of beauty. Ndiaye and her production team have created some stunning sequences which combine stock footage and original film, overlaid with a soundtrack which combines Smockey’s music with periods of silence that create an absence that is every bit as intense as white noise.

For All Hands On, On a le temps pour nous is a timely reference point. Patrick is not long back from filming people’s assemblies in Malawi. We hired an entirely local crew, deliberately including a female camera operator, in an attempt to avoid as far as possible the pitfalls of filming African subjects from an outsider’s perspective. The citizens that spoke to us in Malawi demonstrated the same deep, natural political wisdom that Smockey so appreciates in the people of Burkina Faso. We aim to show as much respect to our subjects as Ndiaye does to hers.

On a le temps pour nous is well worth seeking out. At the time of writing it appears to be doing the festival circuit before general release. You can view the trailer on the homepage of Indigo Mood, Ndiaye’s production company website.

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Ich bin eine Demokratin

Our second screening event for Out Of The Ruins. This one for a multi-national audience of twenty and thirty somethings in Berlin.

On 30th July we took part in the second group screening of Out Of The Ruins.

This one was kindly organised by Eleanna, a friend and ex-colleague of Phil, and her friend Jean-Baptiste. Eleanna is Greek and the film had sparked a lot of discussion with friends and family back home, and she anticipated a similar level of animation from her politically engaged friends in Berlin. She was right.

Most attendees watched the film together on a big screen at CoopSpace, with the rest of us joining by Zoom. After the screening there was an extended Q&A session with Patrick, with some interesting conversations around horizontal structures for grassroots democracy, solutions journalism, and the need for democratic education and political literacy as part of the school curriculum.

These screenings are rewarding for all concerned and an excellent fit with our model for change. Please let us know if you’d like us to be part of a screening for your friends/network/community/organisation.

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Your democracy baby is ugly

A recording of the Q&A session following the first screening of our film, Out Of The Ruins. Mary Valiakas talks to Patrick about our childish representative system, capitalism, democracy, oligarchy, and Greece as a crucible of civic innovation.

On 22nd June, our friends at The Alternative UK kindly hosted an online screening of Out Of The Ruins. The Alternative is a political platform but also a question: If politics is broken, what’s the alternative? About 40 people gave up their Monday evening to watch our film, which is a response to very similar questions.

Patrick introduced the film and took part in a Q&A session afterwards, which was conducted by Mary Valiakas of Oi Polloi, a development agency working on a renaissance of Greece as a crucible of civic innovation. The Q&A covered issues of democracy, capitalism and activism and you can watch both it and Patrick’s introduction below.

We are keen to do more of these communal screenings and Q&A sessions. Please get in touch if you would like our help to organise one.

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A journey to political literacy

All Hands On founder, Patrick Chalmers, on a journey to become more politically literate through a series of articles for The Correspondent.

My name is Patrick and I’m politically illiterate. You are too.

So begins the first article in a series by All Hands On co-founder Patrick Chalmers for The Correspondent. Patrick is on a journey and he wants us to come with him.

Talking politics often feels like a personal health hazard. Unless we can learn to understand our own roles in a dysfunctional system, there’s no chance of fixing it. Come learn with me.

This first article generated 96 comments, or contributions, with Patrick actively involved in the discussion that his article had given rise too. Some of the questions asked in the thread may well be addressed in future articles. For example

Can politics be also about common thriving, rather than simple distribution?

Not to be outdone on the good questions front, this is how Patrick opened the second article in the series.

Screenshot 2020-06-01 at 21.10.16.png

Democracy is an emotionally charged word that resolutely defies a universally approved and universally applied definition. This article also prompted a lively, well-informed discussion, with some contributions taking the form of mini essays in their own right, including comments like this from a kindred spirits for All Hands On.

We want to explore deliberative democracy and citizen assemblies. We want to look at the problems with power as problems of sustainability. It's systemic and we need systemic solutions, where power can circulate in much more sustainable eco-systems of politics.

In his third article, Patrick takes us on a “global tour of innovations intended to bring more of the power to more of the people”. Under the title, “Democracy isn’t working: five ideas that are already helping to fix the problem”, he describes a series of “quiet revolutions” that are introducing more trust, transparency, direct participation, and some cyber-punk attitude, into democratic processes. The tour takes in participatory budgeting (PB), crowdsourced digital democracy, Citizens’ Initiative Reviews (CIR), and various approaches to deliberation by representative populations. And the tour takes in Brazil, Taiwan, Mexico, Switzerland, Oregon and Kenya.

And it ends with the very question that led to the establishment of All Hands On. How indeed?

The key question is how to adopt such innovations more widely and at scale. How do we manage such transformational changes, upending top-down government in the process?
— Patrick Chalmers, Founder & Director, All Hands On

Screenshot 2020-06-10 at 13.05.50.png
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All Hands On Trailer

Trailer for both the episodic series and feature length versions of the All Hands On documentary project.

With our Athens film - Out Of The Ruins - in the final throes of post-production, we edited a trailer video for the All Hands On project. It works for both the series and the feature length version that we intend to cut when all of the episodes are in the can.

The trailer includes footage from When Citizens Assemble, from both Extinction Rebellion films, and from the Athens edit.

Our trailer editor was the wonderful Erika Iesse.

The trailer is mainly for behind the scenes use - funding applications, festival entries and such like - which is a shame because it has a lovely, optimistic, heartwarming vibe, if we do say so ourselves.

Our first festival entry using the trailer was for Scottish Documentary Institute’s Edinburgh Pitch event. Fingers crossed.

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The Deliberate Rebellion

All Hands On’s second film for Extinction Rebellion, explaining why they demand a Citizens’ Assembly to dictate policy on the climate emergency, and how it would work.

The Deliberate Rebellion is the second film commissioned by Extinction Rebellion and produced by All Hands On. It is about being deliberately deliberative. It is about being deliberate in the quest for a deliberative approach to addressing the climate and ecological emergency. It explains why Extinction Rebellion are demanding that a Citizens‘ Assembly dictate climate policy. And it details how Extinction Rebellion would want it to be implemented.

The film was screened at The Byline Festival as part of an ambitious live Citizens’ Assembly involving audience members. And it was officially launched on 27th August 2019.

Music for the film is by Massive Attack. They generously donated Hymn Of The Big Wheel, which Robert Del Naja remixed over our pictures.

The film took pride of place on the homepage of Extinction Rebellion’s website in support of the launch.

The film took pride of place on the homepage of Extinction Rebellion’s website in support of the launch.

As part of Extinction Rebellion’s events at The Byline Festival, co-founder Roger Hallam spoke about the importance of the Citizens’ Assembly to the organisation’s plans, pithily summarising the deliberately deliberative philosophy highlighted by the film.

A Citizens’ Assembly is not just some incidental add-on. It is essential to creating a semi-decent transition. We’re holding out for a progressive transition. And the essence of that is political legitimacy. A Citizens’ Assembly will have a profound legitimising effect.
— Roger Hallam, Co-founder of Extinction Rebellion
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The mood music in the room

Reflections on Shaping Scotland, a well attended Electoral Reform Society panel event to discuss Scotland’s proposed Citizens’ Assembly.

“If only you could experience the mood music in that room.”

So said David Farrell, Professor of Politics at University College Dublin, and research leader of the Irish Citizens’ Assembly. David was a panel member at the Shaping Scotland event organised by The Electoral Reform Society Scotland. He was talking about how every participant in the Irish Assembly rose to the occasion to tackle complex political issues, in a toxic political environment, whilst dramatically improving the tone of political discourse.

Change of tone was a common theme of this well attended and actively engaged forum, the purpose of which was to discuss the Scottish Government’s proposal for a Citizens’ Assembly to deliberate on issues of constitution and national values.

“The Citizens Assembly is going to try to change the tone of the debate to one of respectful discussion. We want not just 100 better informed citizens, but a better informed society as a whole.” David Martin MEP

“We need to do better than shallow exchanges. Democracy needs to evolve to meet the challenges of our time.” Dr Oliver Escobar

“We are moving beyond a vote-centred democracy to a voice-centred democracy.” Professor David Farrell

“Politicians allow red lines to kill progress. Party politics is designed to create division where it doesn’t exist.” Lesley Riddoch, Journalist

The mood music in this particular room was one of optimistic curiosity. The questions from the floor examined both general principles and detailed practicalities, but the general subtext appeared to be that people want this to work and were looking to be convinced. This was encouraging given that the assembly has already become a party political football.

Indeed, the panel members were at pains to emphasise the independence of the assembly.

“This is about what can be achieved when we put aside tribal affiliations.” Joanna Cherry MP

David Martin MEP, the Convenor Designate of the Scottish Citizens’ Assemble, suggested that the Assembly could effectively have its cake and eat it. It will benefit from the enhanced status of being sponsored by the Government, whilst operating completely independently from the Government.

This sentiment was echoed by Dr Oliver Escobar, Senior Lecturer in Public Policy at Edinburgh University. “People criticise these things when they come from the top down for lack of independence. But they also criticise them when they come from the bottom up for lack of influence. You can’t win.”

The mood music in the room was that of citizen empowerment. The most enthusiastic responses, from both panel members and the audience, were reserved for stories of assembly participants rising to the democratic occasion. And there was a strong sense during the questions, and on Twitter, that the presence of the Irish panel members, who “have the deliberative democracy T shirt”, was a huge bonus to the proceedings. Louise Caldwell, who was randomly selected to participate in the Irish Citizens’ Assembly (and who features in our film, When Citizens Assemble), spoke convincingly from first-hand experience in response to some detailed questions of procedure - how facilitation worked, the duty of care shown to participants, how media involvement was sensitively handled, how consensus was arrived at, how ballot decisions were made.

“We were all very proud of the work that we had done. We stepped outside of the black and white to sit in the grey area.” Louise Caldwell

“The power is with people who are actually experiencing life, rather than people who are used to commentating on life. You can see the strength that is in inherent to citizens. It is the averageness of the group that gives it its strength.” Lesley Riddoch

The mood music in the room was one of transparent realism. The panel balanced their conviction about the opportunities for positive change with a willingness to acknowledge and embrace the challenges. These challenges include how to balance protection for participants with a desire for transparency and inclusivity through the media, how facilitation works in practice, how the Assembly will deal with what appear to be relatively broad (vague?) topics and questions, and the various issues of process design and administration.

“There are challenges for citizens, challenges for politicians, and challenges for journalists.” Dr Oliver Escobar

“The magic is in the activity of doing it. If you [the media] wait for consensus, you’re going to miss the point. The point is the process.” Professor David Farrell

“Facilitators must be impartial on content, but they can not be neutral on dynamics.” Dr Oliver Escobar

So the mood music in the room was a combination of optimistic curiosity, citizen empowerment and transparent realism. These three notes should combine to make a pleasing democratic chord change.


You can watch a video recording of the event here. And thank you to Electoral Reform Society for allowing us to borrow their image to illustrate this post.

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Pickpocket democracy

Brief reflections on our six day shoot in Athens, examining the past, present and future of direct democracy.

When the announcers on the Athens Metro say, “Please be careful with personal possessions,” they really mean it. Pickpocket gangs are numerous, well organised and brazen in their methods. Attempts were made on two of our production team during our time in the city. The economic incentives for these crimes are easy to understand, but that doesn’t lessen the sense of injustice and abuse on the part of their victims. However, there are greater injustices playing out in this cauldron of a city, in a country at the extreme end of the austerity spectrum. Ordinary people there are extraordinarily exposed by UK standards. Life is a high wire act, with no safety net whatsoever.

We went to Greece to film a story of democracy in three acts.

  • Act 1 : The origins of deliberative democracy in ancient Athens.

  • Act 2 : The crisis of today’s dysfunctional electoral democracy.

  • Act 3 : The potential for radical innovations in direct, truly representative democracy.

We did this over six days of shooting, amidst the fervour and the angst of the European Parliament elections.

Our people’s assembly on Areopagus Hill. They discuss the history of Athenian democracy, and the flaws of our electoral system, then deliberate on the rights and wrongs of voting in the European Election the following day.

Our people’s assembly on Areopagus Hill. They discuss the history of Athenian democracy, and the flaws of our electoral system, then deliberate on the rights and wrongs of voting in the European Election the following day.

We organised a people’s assembly on Areopagus hill, overlooking the Pnyx, where the ancients held their original assemblies. We immersed ourselves in the circus of contemporary electioneering. We politely but persistently doorstepped politicians. We interviewed direct democracy activists. We spoke to conflict resolution and deliberation experts. We took confession from a leading economist.

Painting a picture of democracy in crisis was not difficult. Athens was a super-saturated solution of subject matter. But where does one look for hope and inspiration? For this we walked away from the cacophony to seek democratic role models in some quieter corners. Guided by Tasos Sagris, our ‘fixer’, we picked a few pockets of democratic ingenuity and human dignity to point our cameras at.

Kastro. “When you live under a dictatorship you have no freedom of speech. When you come to an electoral democracy you can say what you want but no one listens.”

Kastro. “When you live under a dictatorship you have no freedom of speech. When you come to an electoral democracy you can say what you want but no one listens.”

For example, we were welcomed into an abandoned school in the Exarchia district that has been taken over as an immigrant and refugee squat community. There we spoke to Kastro, the community’s Syrian founder, about the extreme challenges of unauthorised life outside the system. But there we also witnessed a heartwarming demonstration of all-inclusive, deliberative democracy by which life in the community is governed. We observed displaced people from different countries and different cultures, speaking in different languages, naturally demonstrating the skills of direct democracy - respect, civility, deep listening and a willingness to alter one’s view as a result of deliberation. Under constant threat from the authorities, these people exude compassion, civility and not a little joy whilst, with light fingers, they pick radical democracy from the pockets of the establishment. The header image for this post features hand prints made by children in the community’s school.

Yanis Varoufakis on election night. He took time out from talking politics to talk to us about democracy.

Yanis Varoufakis on election night. He took time out from talking politics to talk to us about democracy.

This is just a small snapshot of our time in Athens. We are about to embark on an extended post-production process, starting with the time-coded translation of all the Greek language interviews into English, which will be the basis for a first pass at a paper edit. Post-production will be done in partnership with Paper Plane Productions from Belgium, with whom we have struck a deal for at least four episodes. Adrian, their joint CEO, was a pivotal member of the Athens team, providing production advice and operating the second camera. Thank you also to Tasos, to our director of photography, Mike Carling, and to our lovely sound engineer, Panagiotis Kyriakopolous.

Thank you, again, to Guerrilla Foundation, Fondation Pour Les Générations Futures and our individual donors for funding this production. And watch this space for post-production progress updates.

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Money, movies, momentum.

Introductory Athens episode funded by Guerrilla Foundation, La Fondation Pour Les Générations Futures and several individual donors.

Making friends is as important to us as making documentaries. Doing both at the same time makes us very happy.

So we are thrilled that Guerrilla Foundation and La Fondation Pour Les Générations Futures have both given us grants to make our introductory episode in Athens. Please take a closer look at them. They are kindred spirits. They see the same problems as us. They are looking for solutions in similar places.

We have also received our first individual donations. Some lovely people have given us money out of their own pockets. Wow. They have been moved to back an idea, and that moves us. We’re grateful and touched

Thanks to these friends and foundations we now have around €20,000 to plan, shoot and edit our Athenian episode.

That might seem like a lot of money but it goes super quickly, even with our frugal mindset, on things like travel, accommodation, camera and sound equipment, professional crew, and local hired help. We’ll be shooting for five days straight in Athens, which involves a mountain of work to get us there, to do the research, to shoot everything that needs to be shot, and then edit a finished product that we hope will inspire the changes we dream about.

We have the perfect moment to compare democracy as originally imagined with what it has now become - something imposed on us rather than composed by us.

We’ll explore these themes in the city that gave us our word for government by the people - to the backdrop of the democratic mirage which is the European Parliament elections.

It’s the perfect place to explore the origins of deliberative democracy, at a perfect time to expose how its ideals have been corrupted by elections, with the perfect people to show us what a revival of people-powered democracy can look like.

Though we describe our Athens episode as ‘introductory’, this will be our third film. When Citizens Assemble featured Ireland’s ground-breaking Citizens’ Assembly and the deliberations leading up to the country’s historic referendum on abortion. Then Extinction Rebellion commissioned us to make Welcome To The Rebellion, a film giving the background to its demands for a UK citizens’ assembly on climate and ecological justice. We hope there will be more to come from that collaboration, budgets permitting.


Become a quiet hero of democracy

So, if you don’t mind us asking: “Will you be our friend too?”

Conventional foundations and media organisations have been slow to support this project, even ones promoting themselves as funding radical progressive change and justice. We get that what we’re doing can be hard to wrap your head around - we’re the naive kids calling out the naked emperor that is representative democracy. Elections don’t work. The system’s bust. Not many people really want to hear that. It sounds too tricky and threatening, especially to those in power.

We won’t hide it - we’re promoting radical ideas about how democracy could be, in fact how it has to be if we’re to bring the peaceful changes to our societies that we urgently need. There’s a place in that future for everyone, if they can only imagine it.

Better democracy works best when everyone comes along for the ride. Participation can not be exclusive. Guerrilla Foundation and La Fondation Pour Les Générations Futures are good friends who understand this.

We like to meet more soulmates like them, and more pals like you.

If you or your friends could help fund our next production please get in touch with us at quiethero@allhandsondoc.com. Thank you, or ευχαριστώ as our friends in Athens say.

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A weekend of activism.

Looking forward to a weekend of activism.

Says Patrick:

I'm not going to today's march for the climate in Toulouse - Grève Mondiale Pour le Climat Toulouse - though I totally support its goals, and all the friends I know who are going.

Instead, I'm on a train North. First to London - to speak on a panel at this democracy and media festival on Saturday and then Bristol - for the Extinction Rebellion Spring Uprising event on Sunday, which aims to prepare people for the start of a global series of civil disobedience actions starting on April 15. 

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This is a rather knackered me after a civil disobedience march in Copenhagen in 2009 - something I wrote about in the introduction to Fraudcast News. It's not war paint but the residue of liquids used to calm the sting in my eyes.

Danish police had pepper sprayed us and beat us with truncheons. I can sort of understand why. We were trying to get into global climate change talks. Or non-talks rather, they were a total waste of time.

Then, as now, the insanity of climate inaction by our leaders had deep roots. Two major ones are the failures of our conventional media – to focus on systemic issues – and our reliance on the election of representatives to take poor political decisions in our place.

It's taken the likes of the remarkable Greta Thunberg to call out our collective madness. What a blessed relief she is. 

Despite the cataclysmic effects of unchecked climate change that are starting to make themselves felt - her arrival at last makes me feel that the debate dynamic is changing. Given the late hour, we need to incorporate coping mechanisms alongside urgent efforts to reign in emissions - these include inevitable grief, frustration, anger, shame and all the rest. 

We mustn’t waste our energies blaming ourselves or others, we’ve all got our guilty climate-wrecking secrets here. Rather, we need to focus on more peaceful attempts to remedy, to consolidate community, to build responses that have some sort of chance of working.

Mine is to work on this All Hands On solutions-journalism project, trying to encourage a radical revamp of how political decisions happen.


Stay safe today whether you're marching or not, be nice to each other and those you encounter. Try also to remember those confused cops have kids and families too, remind yourself of that if things get sweaty. 

We've had enough blame and anger - no more time for that.

Peace.

Patrick

Says Phil:

Very proud that my daughter Madeleine is on strike from school, demonstrating outside the Scottish Parliament, taking part in the global climate protest for which Greta Thunberg has been the catalyst. She sent me the photo at the head of the article while I was editing it. This is a genuine act of conscience for Maddy and her friends. They are safer pairs of hands for our future than the rotten establishment, whose Westminster branch seems hell-bent on destroying any vestige of its credibility and dignity.

Progress.

Phil

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The trick in life...

Frome screening of When Citizens Assemble, and time spent chez Peter Macfadyen.

But to me, the trick in life is to take that sense of generosity between kin, make it apply to the extended family and to your neighbour, your village and beyond.

Tom Stoppard

We had a happy accident. The KIN Festival, at which Patrick was going to take part in several events, was cancelled at the last minute, leaving us with non-refundable flights and the prospect of a boozy but unproductive weekend in Bristol.

Instead, with a little help (actually a lot of help) from some friends, Patrick managed to hack together a short notice screening of When Citizens Assemble up the road in Frome. The screening turned out to be the catalyst for a wondrously uplifting weekend, which was a tonic for the soul. We missed out on KIN but hit the jackpot with kin.

Flour power. Peter Macfadyen introduces the screening in the atmospheric surroundings of Rye Bakery.

Flour power. Peter Macfadyen introduces the screening in the atmospheric surroundings of Rye Bakery.

Peter Macfadyen, ex mayor of Frome and author of Flatpack Democracy, hosted our pop-up screening in Rye Bakery, formerly the United Reformed Church in Frome. Sitting beneath the organ pipes, surrounded by flour and sharing food, we showed our film and shot the breeze about radical democracy. Frome is a radically independent town, and its inhabitants (based on the sample that turned up) have enjoyed their taste of participatory, deliberative politics and they are hungry for more. We discussed Citizen Assemblies from first principles. We stripped sortition down and reassembled it. We listened and we learned from each other. We were made wiser and warmer.

We are also grateful to Pete Lawrence, founder of Campfire Convention, for the loan of the presentation kit for the evening, and for his efforts in generating awareness of the event at short notice. Frome, it seems, is full of generous people.

Peter gave us beds for the night. We were welcomed into his home a week before the first Extinction Rebellion protests in London. Preparations were underway in the Macfadyen household. The atmosphere was convivial with an undercurrent of urgency. We had come to Frome to discuss radical democracy but we left with some bonus insight into holocratic organisation and the process of non-violent direct action (NVDA).

Peter and Annabelle Macfadyen are magicians. They conjured a pop-up screening for us out of nothing. And they are experts at Tom Stoppard’s trick in life. Thank you.

Peter and Patrick walking out among the 1,500 trees planted by Peter and his wife as a rewilding project.

Peter and Patrick walking out among the 1,500 trees planted by Peter and his wife as a rewilding project.

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Democracy beyond elections - UNDEF funding

Confirmation of All Hands On as documentary partner for an UNDEF funded project through newDemocracy.

All Hands On will be the documentary partner for a project that is sponsored by a United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF) grant, and which will be implemented by Australia’s newDemocracy.

The project’s full title is Enabling National Initiatives to Take Democracy Beyond Elections, and there are three main deliverables. The first is a handbook for “Democracy Beyond Elections”, which will act as an instruction manual for the design and administration radical, deliberative democratic processes. The second is a series of three representative pilot projects which will show the range of issues that well-designed mini-publics or citizen assemblies can be used to address. And the third component is a documentary film about one of those pilot projects. All Hands On will produce this documentary. As Iain Walker, Executive Director of newDemocracy, says:

We’ll be completing a documentary on one of those projects. We know that there are those, particularly in elected office, who are going to want to see not just what it looks like on paper, but who are the people, how do they work together, what are their experiences of the project?

Iain Walker, Executive Director, newDemocracy

Iain can be seen in conversation with UNDEF’s Annika Savill in this newDemocracy announcement of the project.

So at the time of writing we know that we’ll be making a film with UNDEF funding, but we don’t know where and we don’t know the exact nature of the deliberative process that we’ll be documenting, nor the issues that its participants will be tackling. Current status: grateful, excited, curious.

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Adventures in democratic progress.

Adventures in democratic progress at the Scottish Parliament’s Festival Of Politics.

“These teenagers! I’ve never seen anything like them. They have access to so much information and they are facing serious problems, unlike anything faced by previous generations. No way are those problems going to be solved by conventional politics, and they know it.”

So said Jamie Kelsey Fry, drawing on his classroom experience, as he bemoaned the structural, systemic inability of conventional political institutions to solve the big global issues (apologies if it is not a perfectly verbatim quote). In the same breath he relished the prospect of a new generation taking matters into its own hands and bypassing those institutions. He was speaking at the Scottish Parliament’s Festival Of Politics during a panel event called People, Parliaments, Possibilities?

The full panel consisted of Birgitta Jónsdóttir, Jamie Kelsey Fry, and Brett Hennig, and it was nicely chaired and deftly steered by Shelagh Wright into a series of stories and discussions about giving political agency to ordinary people. The panel members became “agents of agency”.

“These teenagers” are going to need a different kind of political agency to confront climate breakdown and inequality. And much of the evening was devoted to what a different kind political agency might look like.

Birgitta Jónsdóttir tried changing things from the inside as a member of the Icelandic parliament, latterly as a member of the Pirate Party. The experience left her disillusioned. “Parliament has no power,” she said, and illustrated this with some insight into the process of law making. She advocates for laws to be published with track changes visible so that people can see who has actually written them. They are not written by parliament. Laws are written by lawyers. Indeed, the writing of tax law is often outsourced to the likes of Deloitte. Track changes would make the process transparent. It is a far cry from Birgitta’s vision of a constitution being, “who we are as a nation reflected in our highest law.” She eventually left parliament and said that her time on the inside left her feeling like “toxic waste”.

But this was no downbeat evening. Stories of bottom up democracy helped to restore a mood of determined optimism amongst those present.

Jamie Kelsey Fry talked about the spirit of Fearless Cities and the principles of Municipalism, drawing parallels with his experiences of the Occupy movement. And Brett Hennig talked about the practicalities associated with institutionalising randomly selected citizen assemblies. Audience comments and questions focused on these practical considerations rather than the theory of sortition, a sign that the underlying logic of assemblies is both easily understood and compelling.

So it was good. It was encouraging. This bottom up democracy thing has potential. You can feel the momentum (small m) at at these events. The audiences members are not all veteran activists. They are not all politics nerds. They are all interested citizens who are united in their concerns about a broken system.

“As soon as you say, ‘It’s nothing to do with left or right,’ doors open.”

So said Jamie Kelsey Fry. He was recounting his experiences of the kind of unified purpose that transcends political allegiances, but he was also succinctly capturing the mood of the room. Agency follows when progress on big issues takes precedence over party politics.

Agency also follows when you grab it with both hands. Birgitta Jónsdóttir epitomises that attitude. She makes agency sound simple, accessible and imperative.

“I’ve always been compelled to put my weight into democracy. One of us will be the tipping point. What if it could be me?”

Hopefully “those teenagers” will take heed.

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Patrick at KIN.

Patrick to appear at KIN in Bristol on November 9th 2018. Talking about how to reclaim our wonky media narratives.

Patrick will be appearing at KIN in Bristol on Friday 9th November 2018. He will be discussing how to "reclaim our wonky media narratives" alongside Chidera Eggerue (The Slumflower), Emma Dabiri, and Dave Boyle. It's fair to say that Patrick is stoked to appear at this event, having written a book on a similar subject, and given that the organisers have been very much "my kind of people" based on conversations thus far. Tickets available here.

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Economists talking about democracy

Economists talking about democracy at Edinburgh Book Festival 2018.

Our Edinburgh correspondent has been at large around the city's Book Festival, where a feature of this year's programme has been distinguished economists talking about democracy - namely Yanis Varoufakis, Kamal Ahmed, Yascha Mounk and David Runciman

The events lived up to expectation.  The esteemed panelists, authors all, provided interesting perspectives on a subject close to our hearts. 

More pertinently the events lived up to hope. It gladdened my radical democratic heart to hear several unprompted endorsements of more participatory, more deliberative democratic processes.

Perhaps this open mindedness to alternative democratic ideas has been prompted by clear and present threats to a democratic system and to institutions of democracy that belong to a previous century.


Political, economic and technological threats to democracy

Yascha Mounk and David Runciman discussed the rise of authoritarianism as a self-conscious regime type, bringing with it the suppression or eradication of legitimate disagreement.

"Either you are with me or you are against the people."

And they noted that the time taken for these regimes to put down roots is decreasing - ten years in Hungary, just two years in Poland, possibly (but not probably) by the end of a second term of a Trump presidency, should that come to pass.

Mounk set out the Hobson's Choice before us. Either democracy without rights in emergent illiberal democracies, or rights without democracy in our supposedly representative systems, where public opinion is not turned into policy.

Yanis Varoufakis echoed this idea of rights without democracy, this idea that what we call democracy is actually undemocratic, in that power does not rest with the people.

"We have all coalesced, despite our differences and idiosyncrasies, around the idea of democracy as something good and wholesome and worthwhile. But democracy is hardly ever present in our societies, especially those that call themselves democratic."

The horse of democracy is hitched to the wagon of capitalism, or vice versa. You can't discuss one without the other, especially if you are an economist. And, if the principles and institutions of capitalism are called into question, then the system we call democracy suffers by association, inviting serious consideration of alternatives.

According to  David Runciman:

"The moral legitimacy of capitalism is being eroded, which is a big issue for the 20th Century institutions of capitalism in the 21st Century. Napoleon said, 'To understand the man you have to know what was happening in the world when he was twenty.' Today's twenty year olds roll their eyes at the idea of capitalism."

Yascha Mounk linked capitalist economic factors to political and technological issues.

"The factors causing this mid-life crisis of democracy are the stagnation of living standards, the fact that diversity is being seen as a threat by a growing number of people, and technological change."

New(ish) technology has a lot to answer for in economic circles. Here is David Runciman again:

"Democracy has both problem solving and dignity enhancing (voice giving) powers. It works best when these properties overlap. The impact of technology is to pull them apart."

Varoufakis talked about the "techno-financial complex" and how it came tumbling down in 2008  under the weight of its own hubris. He described how these instruments of oligarchic power are responsible for a range of manufacturing activities that are every bit as damaging as those of the military-industrial complex.

  • Manufacturing prices (global corporations and their cartel behaviours)
  • Manufacturing desires (marketing and propaganda)
  • Manufacturing money (the wanton, irresponsible proclivities of the bankers)
  • Manufacturing consent (the media)

That is a snapshot of the bleak political and economic context for democracy in the 21st Century. However, this ostensibly hostile environment could provide fertile conditions for more enlightened democratic ideas to germinate and flourish...

 

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Imagining and embracing new forms of democracy

David Runciman said something quite profound as he turned his attention from political and economic problems to democratic solutions.

"Maybe we need forms of democracy that don't feel democratic."

Maybe a democracy that works in 2018 and beyond will challenge the conventions and the received wisdom of democracy as we know it. It won't keep citizens at arm's length. Its policies will be made in the name of the people, not as a favour to campaign donors. Maybe it won't even use elections.

"The 21st Century is about localism and democracy you can touch."

So said Kamal Ahmed, whose sentiments were echoed by Runciman as he expanded on his ideas for new forms of democracy:

"Our imagination is closed to how democracy can be applied, including radical local forms."

Across four separate events, with four individual economists, there was a shared sense that perhaps the best way to reboot democracy will be from the ground up, at a local level, putting power back into the hands of the people, and reclaiming the true meaning of democracy in the process.

Here are some excerpts from Varoufakis, on his feet, without notes, delivering a stirring thirty five minute sermon on democracy from first principles:

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"In ancient Athens power rested with the poor, for the only time in history. Ever since, the aristocracy and the oligarchy have made what we call democracy an exercise in keeping the demos out of the democratic process. We need democratic reform that will address the issues of private debt, public debt, poverty, and the lack of investment in things that really matter, such as climate breakdown. We need to storm the castles of the institutions of our democracies and make them work for the demos. We need political change that puts the many back in control of their lives."

I had a short conversation with Mr Varoufakis as he signed my copy of Adults In The Room, the non fiction thriller about his brief time as the Finance Minister of Greece, which gives all the gory detail of his encounters with the political and financial establishment in Brussels and Berlin. We talked about citizen assemblies and random selection, and, as he shook my hand, he admitted, "I want to be an anarchist, but I'm not allowed."

An anarchist maybe, but a true, radical democrat definitely. A champion of the demos, a fan of citizen participation. All four economists were interesting, insightful and genuinely concerned for a future that works for ordinary people. But Varoufakis gets the last word, with his Greek-style rejection of individualism in favour of deliberation:

"The only way to understand yourself is through your reflection in the eyes of the other, the person you are having a conversation with."

 

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Patrick writing for De Correspondent on the lie of the political land in Scotland.

Patrick’s third De Correspondent article. This one on the lie of the political land in Scotland.

This is the English language version of Patrick's third article for the independent Dutch radical journalism platform De Correspondent. It explores political attitudes, new democratic ideas and land reform in post-Brexit Scotland.  

His first article was published on the day of Ireland's referendum on the 8th Amendment to its constitution, and it detailed the mechanics and the deliberations of the Citizens' Assembly that led to the referendum and influenced its construction.

His second was published a few days later and it reflected on the momentous result of that referendum, and on the role that a randomly selected assembly of well informed citizens played in the outcome.


Scottish independence needing more minds than hearts, brave or not

By Patrick Chalmers

From the white sands of Camusdarach beach on Scotland’s sparsely populated west coast, on a clear day at least, a distant slither of land draws your eyes out to sea. Called Eigg for the iconic notch of rock towards its southern end, the island carries a modern tale of how residents freed themselves from rule by absentee landlords. 

It’s some story – one that nationalists like to tell in arguing the case for more powers being given to the people of Scotland. By freedom they mean independence from the United Kingdom’s three other countries – England, Wales and Northern Ireland. For absentee landlords, think successive British governments based in Westminster.

Telling stories is one thing, however compelling. Getting people to listen, let alone to take heed, takes uncommonly inspiring narrators. That’s a tall order right now with plenty of Scots, like their fellow Britons, tied up in knots over Brexit.

Yet crises focus people’s minds, as Eigg residents can testify.

Islanders’ attentions more usually look to vagaries of West coast Scottish weather and tides – far more pressing than politics. Indeed Maggie Fyffe describes a day of splendid sunshine and oil-calm waters as we speak on the phone, the sort when whales might honour the island’s ferry travellers with a splash by.

Fyffe arrived on Eigg with her partner Wes in 1976, invited in by the new owner Keith Schellenberg to create a craft enterprise. They were among a couple of dozen people drawn by the charismatic Yorkshire-born businessman, a former Olympic bobsleigher and vegetarian. Plans for a tourism-led revival ticked all the boxes for reversing an exodus of locals and the place’s gradual demise. The collective future looked set fair.

Things didn’t work out that way – with broken promises of work, and long-lease rentals in renovated housing among many things that soured relations over two decades. Schellenberg eventually sold to a German artist whose own grand plans, and finance, quickly failed.

Leaving limbo

The artist’s prolonged absences prompted residents to realise their island risked being sold a second time in as many years. That galvanised enough to prepare a community buyout. Many were lodged in limbo, living in unsecured tenancies with all the associated the uncertainty. By reviving a previous public appeal for funds, they raised the £1.5 million sought by the artist’s creditors to buy the land in communal trust.

That was 21 years ago.

The time since has been revolutionary for residents, who’ve more than doubled in number to 100 or so. Adults who grew up on Eigg have returned, settling down and starting businesses and families. Patchy power supplies from noisy diesel generators are long gone. Instead Eigg Electric, community owned, supplies constant power from hydro, wind and solar sources, relayed via batteries. 

Each venture has had something of learning independence by doing, says Fyffe, secretary and ex-chair of the Isle of Eigg Heritage Trust, which owns the place.

“Before the buy out, I was totally illiterate about computers. We went to the primary school to do computer lessons,” says the 69-year-old between puffs on a cigarette. From small-scale beginnings, islanders successfully completed their £1.5 million renewable energy scheme.

Like Eigg, but bigger, Scotland’s history is peppered by crises brought by forces from outside. Its residents, both locals and new arrivals, have yet to embrace the idea that a collective response could be to take more powers into their hands. 

The most recent crisis was the global financial crash of 2007-2008, which pretty much destroyed two Scottish stalwarts: the Royal Bank of Scotland and the Bank of Scotland. The latter began back when the country was last independent, in 1695. Both were bailed out by Westminster and remained controlled from London.

Two tales of crisis

For all the dented pride and personal losses to investors and bank pensioners, little came of the crisis in terms of powers being brought closer to citizens. Contrast that with what happened in Iceland and Ireland, cultural cousins of Scotland’s. Political fallout in each fired ground-breaking innovations in democracy.

In Iceland, that meant crowd-sourcing a new constitution, even though the project eventually stalled. Scots activists have a plan for the same but can’t do much about without independence.

In Ireland, the indignity of an IMF bailout and accompanying austerity also sparked plenty of anger but also concrete plans for action. Effects from one of the latter still play out in a series of randomly selected public juries. The latest ran its course with Ireland’s vote to abolish the country’s de facto ban on abortion. Scottish activists dream of juries too. One idea they have is for a second chamber in Holyrood, the Edinburgh parliament. Members would be randomly selected from all citizens, not elected, making it more representative than one with members chosen by voters.

In fact, Scotland’s independence activists don’t want for cutting-edge ideas. Their problem is more in getting enough people to adopt them.

Common Weal director Robin McAlpine knows the story. His organisation, its name derived from Scots for common wealth, pours forth ideas for socially progressive government in Scotland, independent or not.

The latest is a book length “How to start a new country”. It lists detailed practicalities for moving from an eventual “yes” vote in referendum to formal independence. That was lacking from debate in the 2014 referendum, when 55% of Scotland voted no. Among the recommendations are for a National Commission charged with giving future voters credible details of what they’re voting for, as free as possible from party political spin.

Ideas are all very nice, of course. That’s what they’ll remain as long as people lack the head space, appetite, or imagination to see them into action.

McAlpine reckons the public wants Brexit sorted before independence ideas get any sort of hearing. Even then, swaying the soft No voters of 2014 will take hard facts, presented within concrete plans and with evidence from real-life examples. Independence talk will best be done outside party politics, and with the volume turned low, or else risk being tuned out entirely.

“We need to achieve a ‘conversation of ideas’, not a fist-fight between opposing politicians… It’s us, having conversations in pubs, at work, at home, out shopping,” he says.

Act as if we own the place

Common Weal is one of a dozen organisations pushing for more grassroots power in Scotland, gathered together since 2016 as Our Democracy. For all the apparent weariness around politics, its call to “Act as if we own the place” certainly draws a crowd. About 500 people paid to attend the all-day Democracy 21 meeting in Glasgow last June, passing up the chance of shopping, Saturday sunshine and World Cup Football group matches.

But independence will take more than the odd conference – the Scots have history when it comes to political disengagement. The roots lie somewhere in the nature of what it means to be Scottish.

A much-quoted passage from Trainspotting, the heroin-heavy black comedy voted Scotland’s favourite film, features the 1996 film’s main character Renton berating fellow Scots’ small-minded politics.

“It's SHITE being Scottish! We're the lowest of the low. The scum of the fucking Earth! The most wretched, miserable, servile, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization. Some people hate the English. I don't. They're just wankers. We, on the other hand, are colonised by wankers.”

Renton’s rant stands out for placing blame for undersized Scottish ambition full square on Scottish shoulders. It’s painfully true. All Scots know, somewhere inside, that they could control their more of their lives. Yet they, which means me too, like to blame others instead, usually the English. We have a habit of losing – battles, banks, land, shipyards, coalfields, football. It’s tough to break.

That’s plenty familiar from my own experiences. I also know how hard it is to get family and friends to buy into the potential of Scottish independence. I see benefits both for Scotland but also in the creation of another small-nation-scale antidote to political failure at larger levels, like a bonus Scandinavian state.

Those ideas aren’t mine but a mix of other peoples’. I imagine they’d help a bit to promote socially progressive politics in government, local to global, particularly on climate change. They come from more than my being a Scot, albeit one with some English and Irish thrown in. Different bits emerged during more than three decades of thinking politics, begun in Scotland and continued in England, Brussels and other European capitals. Time in southeast Asia, then London again, brought me to the present in rural southwest France.

It’s not about a flag

Yet talking to fellow Scots anywhere, I’m wary of pushing independence. That’s partly down to memories of divisiveness from the 2014 vote. It’s also because I’m that worst of all independence beings: a posh-English-speaking Scot, hence suspect, who lives abroad while advocating change for a place I left years ago, so doubly suspect. I’m wary, too, of anything like waving a flag with politics as they are right now.

Journalist, broadcaster and author Lesley Riddoch’s not so shy. She’s been arguing a case for Scottish independence for years.

Her book “Blossom”, published before the last referendum, took a good-cop-bad-cop approach to saying why Scots should run their own affairs. She showcased examples of independent-minded flair, like in Eigg, alongside galling stories of inequality behind the “Scottish Effect”. That doleful term describes how poorer Scots’ lives fall short of European averages due to compounded deprivations, made worse by drug and alcohol misuse, suicide and violence.

“Scotland cannot blossom while so many are disempowered and stuck in hopeless lives,” Riddoch wrote in the book. Among the remedies she trained her sights on were better housing provision and land reform, ideas she used the case of Eigg to illustrate.

Land questions can seem abstract to anyone not having to worry about where they live, how long they can stay and for how much rent. Those were exactly the ones that finally fired up Eigg residents, their housing often tied to jobs, something quite common in rural Scotland.

Andy Wightman equates land ownership patterns directly to equality and fairness. The land rights campaigner and Green party Member of the Scottish Parliament says Scotland has “the most concentrated pattern of private land ownership in the developed world”. Not least is the fact that 432 landowners hold half the country’s land, a figure reformers like to wave at their opponents.

Wightman says Scots land law is unlike virtually any other European country’s. The place saw nothing of the revolutions or democratic reforms that empowered other European peasantries and their commons. His book, “The Poor Had No Lawyers”, lays out the sorry detail of how things came to be this way in Scotland. It’s basically a tale of concerted theft over centuries by the rich and powerful, usually ignored or abetted by distant government. Making things worse today, fiscal and monetary policies set in London inflate land and house prices across the UK. The effect is that poor people overpay in rent and struggle to buy houses or land on which to build them or start a business.

Scotland getting its own parliament in 1999 brought land questions closer to home. The new assembly enacted a law giving rural communities first right of refusal on land for sale. 

Those who’ve benefited are in community land buyouts, each with personal stories of increased autonomy. The Scottish government wants a million acres of land (400,000 hectares) in community hands by 2020, its stated aim being to boost local level control and democratic accountability. The target moved a bit closer with the recent community purchase of Ulva for £4.4 million – a West coast island similar to Eigg but with far fewer year-round residents.

Yet wholesale land reform, rural and urban, has yet to come.

Back on Eigg, Fyffe confides that even after the buyout, independence remains a mind game.

“Right at the beginning, when we bought Eigg, there were a few years when people talked about ‘they’re’ as opposed to ‘we’re’. It took a few years to get used to the idea.”

Fellow Scots, those who’ll decide any future independence vote, have still a way to go.

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"They walk different, they talk different, they think different." Democracy 21 conference.

Reflections on the Democracy 21 conference in Glasgow on June 23rd 2018. Organised by The Electoral Reform Society Scotland.

You can't discuss a reboot of local democracy without discussing both the means to increase citizen participation, and the creation of conducive environments for deliberation. So it was natural for All Hands On to attend the Democracy 21 conference in Glasgow. The organisers also kindly let us screen When Citizens Assemble during the lunch break.

Scotland is a backward nation with respect to local democracy. This is in no way a slur on the attitude or aptitude of Scottish citizens. It is a statistical fact. Scotland has had democratic backwardness thrust upon it via the erosion and demolition of the institutions that make local democracy possible. Several speakers quoted from a litany of statistics demonstrating that, in terms of the number of local democratic entities per capita, and by geographic area, Scotland is "beyond weird", as Lesley Riddoch put it. Switzerland (population 8.5million) has 2,300 Communes. The Faroe Islands (population 49,000) has 34 local municipalities. Scotland (population 5.4 million) has just 32 local councils.

Lesley also made the valid point that the Scottish Government has a tendency to try to bulk itself up, to puff out its plumage to appear bigger to its neighbours and on the international scene. The idea of a more devolved, more granular local democracy is counter-intuitive to that mindset. But the risk of not reinvigorating democracy at a local level is that the nation loses its diversity and authenticity. A reboot is imperative.

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Democracy 21 was organised by the Electoral Reform Society Scotland and supported by Common Weal, Nesta, Scottish Rural Parliament, and The Democratic Society, amongst others.

It was attended by roughly 500 concerned citizens and activists. We listened - in fact we mostly listened - but we also discussed ideas for what better local democracy would look like, and the process by which Scotland might get there. "How can power exist at the scale of the community which is affected?" was the overriding question with which we wrestled.

The conference also served as a launch platform for a declaration, co-created by attendees at a series of smaller events leading up to the conference, which is intended to shape the Scottish Government's forthcoming Local Democracy Bill.

This post is not intended as a comprehensive write-up of the Democracy 21 event, but we did want to record some conceptual highlights from the perspective of our project, which is concerned with all things relating to participatory democracy.

What does progress look like?

Democracy is about people having the power to make progress. At a local level it can be difficult to obtain the necessary power to make progress, and there may be debate over the prioritisation of options for progress, but progress itself tends to be practical, easy to identify, and unequivocally good. We citizens focus our efforts on securing the democratic means, but we seldom question the democratic ends.

Katherine Trebeck did just that.

She set the scene for the conference by arguing for a wellbeing economy. In so doing she railed against the narrow conceptual bandwidth that defines the economic progress that we seek to achieve through democratic means. Our slavish acceptance of the economic orthodoxy, and the "hegemonic common sense" of GDP growth and competitiveness are, in her view, as big a democratic failure as the Iraq War.

Whilst we're aiming for better democracy, we should also be aiming that democracy at better, more imaginative definitions of progress.

Bottom up and top down

Fixing the machinery of local democracy requires the striking of an appropriate balance between the bottom up and the top down. This applies to the flow of power, to the flow of money and other resources, and to the provision of services. At Democracy 21 several philosophies were espoused as to how this balance can be best achieved.

This included support for the principle of subsidiarity, whereby the top, or the centre, of the system plays a subsidiary role, only performing tasks and providing services that can not be delivered at a local level.

Willie Sullivan of Electoral Reform Society Scotland used a telephony metaphor. What local democracy in Scotland needs, he argued, is a bottom-up smartphone. What we have is a top-down, Bakelite, rotary-dial relic.

Elena Tarifa Herrero from Barcelona en Comú described the "unimaginable" political change that is being wrought in major Spanish cities via the bottom-up process of "municipalism". She talked about the citizens' platform that underpins the activism, she talked passionately about the feminisation of politics, and she described the resulting "democratic revolution from below". Of all the speakers and panelists she best epitomised the rallying call of the conference to "act as if we own the place".

The challenges, consequences and addictiveness of participation

Lots of good stuff under this heading. And lots of that good stuff from the mouth of Common Weal's Robin McAlpine.

There was a discussion about the practical challenges to participation in rural Scotland, arising from a lack of access to transport and/or a lack of access to appropriate technology.

Robin highlighted the need to manage the tension between, on the one hand, the intimacy and intensity required for good deliberation, and, on the other, the desire to be as inclusive as possible to as many people as possible.

He also floated the idea of getting comfortable with asymmetry. Getting comfortable with the notion that empowered Community A will make different decisions in similar circumstances to empowered Community B.

There was a comment from the audience to the effect that ordinary people, given political agency, tend to rise to the challenge of participation with the confidence and the innate skills to make good political decisions. Robin ran with this idea, drawing on his observation of participatory democratic processes and the effect of participation on the participants. "They walk different, they talk different, they think different."

From the perspective of All Hands On, that was a fitting conclusion. Radical, participatory democracy doesn't just transform politics, it transforms people.

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