Reform Wollongong City Council

With the increasing breakdown of the workings of the 20th century forms of organisation, where can we turn to for new ideas about how to empower our communities?

The old forms of organisation, from political parties to formal organisations with constitutions and meeting etc to Council and governments, have shown that they are no match for the social and ecological challenges which presently face us.

For those of us who reject master narratives from the Left, such as Marxism, and the Right, such as Capitalism, we ask:

* What would a genuine peoples reform movement look like?

* How would it operate?

* What lessons can we learn from the past about which mistakes to avoid?

These questions, and others, require community discussion and considered debate.

A NETWORK – FOR SHARING INFORMATION

Part of the answer may lie with networks of people who are active in their communities, but who want to move beyond political parties and the tired old forms of political organisation of the 20th century.

These new networks – as flows of information and ideas for action – would need to operate without the usual meeting procedures by which the creative part of the brain is dominated by the administrative part – that is, dominated by that part which is part of the problem and not part of the solution.

With the increasing chaos resulting from those who function by way of meeting procedures (think – “men in suits”) we will be increasingly pressured into the idea that we need yet another formal organisation, political party or similar.

We need to resist this kind of pressure – and move on to something which keeps our decision making centred both in our guts and in the guts of our community, not in the hands of yet another elite.

A peoples movement is a movement of people who are moved by the same spirit – a peoples movement is not a cast of thousands of extras in the unearthed fantasies of others.

Keep all options open, and resist those who seek to panic us into accepting their own dangerous delusions that they are born to solve our problems, if only we would cede our decision-making powers to them. This is not the way to go.

The healing solution is a full-brainer, with both parts of our brain working in partnership. Those from the Left and the Right do not understand this.

HOW CAN OUR INSTITUTIONS SERVE OUR REAL NEEDS?

Rather than seeking to reinvent the wheel, a peoples movement – as a network of shared information – would do well to make full use of existing community based resources such as, in the case of Wollongong, the Neighbourhood Forums. This keeps things well and truly grounded.

And one key question for a peoples movement is this:

“How can we best reform the existing forms of local, state and national governance so they properly balance community concerns with those of others which merely seek to make a quick profit, one way or the other, at our expense?”

The answer lies within all of us – we just need to learn how to link up to share the bits of the puzzle we each have.