Big Society: Mostly about the Tesco Riot and Hyperactivism

There was a riot involving the opening of a Tesco store in Bristol a couple of nights ago.  160 police officers and 300 local residents were involved.  And no doubt there will be a great deal of scrutiny over the chain of events that led to such an out of control situation – blame will be portioned out.

But don’t we have the perfect climate at the moment for this to happen: a recession, high unemployment (especially amongst young people), government cuts … and not forgetting the increasing cultural glamorisation of conflict as the tool for social and political change.

If you speak out against conflict in favour of collaboration, as I do at every possible opportunity, you tend to divide your audience instantly.  Speaking against conflict is viewed by some as weak and is often associated with ‘appeasement’ and cowardice.  But conflict is very easy in reality - finding solutions in a collaborative way is much more difficult.

My first experience with this was about 10 years ago when Royal Parks announced their plan to close ¾ of the roads in Richmond Park. The interest group, The Friends of Richmond Park had been politically highjacked by a very militant group of people and had been pressuring for this change for some time. The thing with Richmond Park is that it is the centre of an area that acts as a single community.  In terms of the community relationships Sheen, Richmond, Kingston, Roehampton etc are all interconnected through schools, activities, churches and the local economy. Many people in the local community also wished for reduced park traffic – most of which was pouring in through the one-way Robin Hood gate off the A3. It was a pretty big deal and lots of people were very upset.

The public meetings were astonishing.  One in Kingston Town Hall had to be piped out to 100s of people listening in the car park.  The people from Royal Parks were utterly bewildered and completely out of their depth.  They did not understand until that moment that they had been unduly influenced in their plans by a forceful minority group – claiming to ‘represent’ the opinion of the ‘local community’.

I remember it was quite thrilling to hear from the local Liberal Democrat office that ‘yes, of course you can start a pressure group if you want to’. Not so thrilling though when I started to get violent threats and abuse in the local paper. Perhaps I shouldn’t have called the group The Real Friends of Richmond Park, but this was my first naive outing into the world of activism and local politics of this sort.

To be very clear, although this was obviously considered by some to be a bit inflammatory, this was in fact a diplomatic mission rather than a declaration of war. I started new community group to counter-balance the opinions of another community group, where at the time there was no alternative pathway to express concerns and opinions outside of the anger and shouting that was being done at every relevant town meeting. 

I am not describing this to impress (or not) but to share a first-hand experience, which has fed many of my current views. It was indeed very heart-warming receiving £5 notes and handwritten letters of support from young families and older people who felt the plans were denying them access.  But I was very inexperienced, and being a mother of young children at the time, frankly quite scared, particularly of the anger that was fuelling the situation, so concerned in fact that I never spoke up once at a public meeting. 

I did however create a new line of communication with the Royal Parks staff and with the help of some local scientists gathered some evidence about the potential environmental effects of slower, traffic-bound cars circling the park and the stats of the number of cars cutting through the park entering through Robin Hood Gate. We raised £40,000 sponsorship for a new clean bus to provide public transport around the park.  Anyway, ultimately Robin Hood Gate was closed and the roads remain open for park access to the surrounding community. We would have made some small contribution to that outcome I don’t doubt – but certainly not the only contribution.  The solution was pretty obvious.

Since that time I have continued to encounter situations where both elected and self-appointed groups of people claim to represent ‘the community’, but in fact represent only a narrow and often self-serving perspective.  In the 4 other cases that I have seen at close quarters the patterns have been similar.  Someone makes a mistake, a community or part of community gets angered, someone wins. They have always left a wake of division and broken relationships in the community that can takes years, if ever, to repair. Sometimes it sets up a fresh cycle because the lines of dialogue never re-establish themselves well enough.

This is the real landscape into which the Localism Bill will descend.  There seems to have been some dramatic shift recently from ‘government knows best’ to ‘community knows best’.  With political and media help, a myth that sanctifies community members or groups choices and decisions and demonises everything that local government thinks and does has become widespread. In this paradigm it is very easy to manipulate situations on the grounds of social justice and easy also to make conflict and aggressive strategies look worthy and spirited. In my view this is romantic and wrong and dangerous.

The truth, and many will recognise it, is that there are silly and arrogant people everywhere, both in government and in communities, just as there are responsible and kindly people everywhere.  All our systems (democracy in particular) are designed to safeguard against the arrogant. These systems as we know are flawed, and in need of some honest overhaul,  but there also appears that what is creeping in slowly, in addition to these inherent flaws, is a sort of wilful blindness where we appear to be acting on myth and a simplistic or one side truth rather than the complex reality. This means we are currently in danger of forgetting that our elected government is responsible for the health and wellbeing of our communities and that includes being honest broker to balance the multiple needs and desires of all citizens – not just the ones that have been quick and switched on enough to seize the decision-making ‘empowerment’ about to be so forcefully pushed into communities.

This week I discovered that in my small rural village there is a new group working on a Parish Plan. Sounds good doesn’t it? Active citizens taking responsibility etc etc.  Very Big Society and all that… Except I am puzzled by the fact that their website boasts that  “To produce a truly community owned plan; it is independent of the Parish Council”.  The Parish Council is elected by the local community to look after exactly the things that the Parish Plan covers.  At what point did the people we elect to represent us atparish level become irrelevant and incapable of engaging with the local community? In the Travelling Pantry workshops all around the country, time and time again I was given examples of local community centres in the control of ‘the community’, where they had become virtually inaccessible to anyone within those communities due to local power dynamics and not-so-benign administering of this power.  And the current lack of local democratic engagement favours this dynamic, but instead of trying to fix this, we keep starting another group!

Enter the government’s plans to introduce hundreds of ‘community organisers’. And while the people involved continue to explain that not all community organising is based on conflict-style Alinsky principles (about which I have already blogged), these tactics are still reported to be part of the tool kit. Whatever the tactic - they will be trying to stimulate some sort of local activism, sometimes using dissatisfaction as a tool for doing this. They will be trying to pressure local authorities for more, more of whatever is felt to necessary.  When I attended the launch of a report called ‘The New ‘Neighbourhood Army’’ on community organisers at NESTA recently the message was clearly ‘they won’t be shying away from conflict’.  It was rather depressing to hear from several people in the room currently working in local authorities that they already had concerns for their personal safety with the level of existing activism being demonstrated towards the councils over cuts. Is this what we really want ... by deliberate design?

If you haven't read them, here are the 12 'Rules for Radicals' written by Saul Alinsky so you can make up your own mind. 

Social design (and that is what we are talking about on this scale) needs to be ethical and positive throughout the process and take full responsibility for side-effects.   Wining or achieving results, but breaking the social capital and weakening the 'collaborative capacity' in a community as a result should not be 'acceptable collateral damage' in a local setting.

Compare this to an approach that favours collaboration – something that so many local authorities really value.  You don’t have to look far to find it – here here and here for example.  Conflict and collaboration strategies find it very hard to sit side-by-side one another.  They are frequently, though not always, diametrically opposed. As I blogged earlier in this week in several posts, communities, like organisations, develop an emotional climate, and we create that climate collectively with every conversation we have.  Communities, just like people, can also take on a collective persona – sometimes calm and other times jumpy and reactive.  A national climate of Hyperactivism could be created in no time with the combination of initiatives (and withdrawal of other initiatives).  By Hyperactivism I mean 'a heightened sense of', but also 'out of control' as with hyperinflation, which develops self-perpetuating vicious circles  – a hyper-reactive, hyper-vigilant atmosphere that can lead to unconstructive activism and potentially violence. The term could also be a play on the word hyperactive, implying overly, unusually or unnecessarily active.

It is not without its ironies that the same week we have a full-scale riot around a Tesco Express, complete with hand made petrol bombs, the People’s Supermarket in Camden held their first AGM  with over 100 people in attendance – where lots of yellow papers were waved about for voting purposes but nothing actually thrown. 

It is not that I am afraid of anger any more – although it often proves to be a bit pointless, self-indulgent and destructive - and I have particularly low patience with 'the permanently outraged'.  It’s that these repeating and predictable negative human dynamics that glorify conflict simply don’t deliver. That is the primary reason I am so drawn to creative and collaborative approaches instead.  Projects that draw people together – whole communities at a time rather than pockets of confident and strident individuals – do, I believe, offer the promise of being much more effective over time at giving us the types of communities and society that we would all prefer – and the sort of society that addresses the many social justice issues so many of us are passionate about.

I am sure every Prime Minister of Britain goes to sleep dreaming of World Peace.  Having read Tony Blair’s autobiography it is easy to see that World Peace is easier dreamt than created.  In his own story you witness how a little too much information here, and little too little information there, plus a bit of general confusion and a totally overwhelming sense of personal conviction, led an extraordinary national leader to design his own political downfall.  But when I visualise this in my mind, and I have read Peter Mandelson’s and Alastair Campbell’s accounts too, I imagine a man struggling, perhaps seated at a desk, his brow furrowed, head in hands, trying very hard to get it all right.

I see the possibility of an emerging cartoon of David Cameron – perhaps seated cross-legged on a Cloud of Happiness – Steve Hilton reading out loud to him from the Wonderful Wonders of Chaos Theory – perhaps making some union jack bunting with one hand, while with the other casually lighting the fuse of a giant fire cracker created so carelessly from a lack of integrated thinking, plunged into the heart of the country’s map – perhaps in large print the words Hyperactivism Rocks – and below in smaller print the words ‘co-designed with the help of the apathy of the Liberal Democrats and the having-a-little-rest-from-all-this Labour Party’.

Comments

[Andy Gibson]

This is the most important post I've read about the Big Society.

It says a lot about the emerging climate that I am already starting to fear the hostile reactions of all the self-appointed people's champions out there. Battle lines are being drawn and those of us who have been trying to make worthwhile things in the world are finding ourselves targets for criticism and anger from people who make nothing.

We have to put ourselves in the firing line. If we aren't willing to stand up for what we believe in, and hold the space for the gentle and the vulnerable, then the aggressive minority wins. Such is life I suppose. But it would be nice if the Government would support us to defuse things and that our democratic institutions were being supported to play a full and active role in keeping communities fair and accountable.

At the moment it just feels like a bunfight for local power, in which the best resourced and most confident will win. But all it takes is a few months of watching our communities being taken over by unelected individuals who don't represent our interests, before the buns are replaced with petrol bombs and the disenfranchised move the fight to where they are stronger. We are already seeing this happen against the supermarkets, the large corporations and the financial sector. Creating yet more unelected vested interests is hardly likely to increase the peace.

Perhaps community organisers are the new bankers?

[Maurice Specht]

Language has within it the resources for change, yet some rearrangement of elements will be necessary and new connections need to be established. New sense has to be made of something; it has to be new, yet still has to be intelligible. If we lack the new, we are forever trapped in tradition; if tradition is entirely absent, the new will be unintelligible. (Norval, 2007, p. 128)

This quote by Aletta Norval from here book Aversive Democracy, I think fits nicely with what you are trying to do in your recent post: to create a language with which we can understand the future we are able to built right now.

Having read several of your post during the last days, and just having spent 3 inspiring days in the Netherlands with you, I feel a deep urge to connect to and help develop your thoughts. As I said through Twitter, I think the work of John Forester is very relevant to your take on conflict vs. collaboration. And in what follows I will try and give you a feeling for what his work is about.

Forester has been at the forefront of planning studies for over 20 years. What distinguishes his work from many others is that he takes practitioner stories as his starting point for deep reflections on the practice of creating public value collectively. Whether under the label of the deliberative practitioner or public policy mediation, he has thought me, and many others to value and understand the professionalism that a good facilitator/mediator requires and what (public) value this can have with regard to both process and outcome.

In his most recent book ‘Dealing with difference. Dramas of mediating public disputes’ he tries to elaborate the middle ground between two extreme positions: ‘realism’ with argues talk will lead nowhere, and ‘idealism’ which argues genuine dialogue will solve everything. As has says: ‘the first view leads us to squander opportunities and cover our tracks with self-righteous explanations of why nothing’s possible. The opposite view leads us to foolishness and false hope (Forester, 2009, p. 5). He therefore tries to develop a third view, which puts at the heart of these processes careful mediation and for the design and conduct of participatory processes.
At the heart of this book sits the following scheme:
Process Role
Dialogue -- Facilitating
Debate -- Moderating
negotiation -- Mediating

What he proposes is that whereas dialogue is too much talk (process) centred, and debate is outcome oriented, we actually need mediated negotiation to create participatory settings which create workable solutions which can be realized in practice. This brings together parts of both other roles but tries to take it a bit further. In identifying these different roles and the processes that they deal with Forester offers us a tool with which we can further analyze and understand what you call facilitation.

Two quote to give you a bit more feeling for what he drives at with these distinctions:

Fostering dialogue can promote understanding and mutual recognition between parties, fostering trust and respect, beginning the work of relationship building – even as skeptics may always voice suspicions of this as ‘just talk’. Moderating debate can sharpen arguments, identify crucial or missing information, and clarify critical differences between parties – even as such sharp argument always risks escalating antagonisms and undermining relationships between parties. Mediating negotiations in contrast, crafts agreements to act – even as further, deeper structural issues require ongoing organizing. (152)

Moderating turns argument toward counterargument, and so it surfaces (the risk escalating) debate; mediating turns parties toward their multiple and diverse interest, and so it surfaces practical proposals to negotiate. Moderating helps parties to sharpen conflicting argument and terms of disagreement; mediating helps parties instead to respond to one another’s concerns to craft workable, mutual gain accommodations and agreements (p. 147)

With this background and fed by the practice stories of mediators, the rest of the book offers us rich and detailed insights in the practice – the practical wisdom, the skills, the ability to judge and improvise – which are at the heart of creating collaboration, or as he also calls it the organization of hope.
There is much more to be said about his work, but I urge you and others to take a look at his work, for he can further develop this discussion as well as the practice of creating a genuine collaborative big society.

(ps: This reaction might not engage directly with most of what you argue in this post, but I think it fits in the overall discussion which runs through your recent posts)

[Andy Gibson]

Hi again Tessy. I've been thinking a little more about the emerging "conflict vs. collaboration" theme in this debate.
Often when people talk about creating things, or being open and collaborative, there is a tendancy in some quarters to perceive this as a sign of naivety or weakness. Nice little project, go away and play with your dolls while we fight for our rights. The implication is usually that collaboration and creativity can only stand up to external forces of competition and conflict if people are willing to fight for it. After all, we can't create anything if someone has just stolen our means of doing so.
This is true to an extent, but I wouldn't want people to think it was a choice between conflict or creation. For me, creativity is not soft work. Building something new in the world requires more strength, more will, more fight, more courage, than simply taking potshots at the leaders and feeling smug about winning the odd argument. As the leader of an organisation that seeks to create value in society, my job is to secure resources and defend our interests, in order to create the space for collaboration and creativity. I am fighting for the space and the tools to do my work, not to stop anyone else from doing theirs. But that doesn't mean there is no conflict involved in creativity.
I believe the best way to replace a system is to build something more compelling in its place. Ebay has never launched a hate campaign against people who buy new products. Amazon has never used Alinsky-style tactics to bring bookshops to their knees. New systems are created, the old systems are bypassed and society changes without so much as a cross word.
If we spent more time fighting to create the things we wish existed in the world, and less time trying to "take the power back", we might get more done. And we may also notice that almost every significant change that has affected UK society for the past 25 years - perhaps the last 250 - has had very little to do with local politics.

[Melanie Bryan]

Hi Tessy,

As always a thought-provoking post, many parts of which I can empathise with from my own experience. Also some interesting response comments - I'm with Andy on building positive compelling alternatives. As you know collaboration underpins everything I do so you already knew which camp I would fall firmly into!

The soon to be created community organiser posts will be 'interesting'. In my experience effective community organisers are those who:
- see sparkling new possibilities as well as sticky problems to solve
- care passionately about the community they are part of
- have the necessary emotional intelligence and soft skills to engage and motivate others
- positively inspire people through their own actions and experience sharing
- great networks both within their community and outside it
- innovate, rapidly trying things (rather than just talk about it), building on what works and learning from what doesn't

I have a sinking feeling that the paid community organiser posts will not attract those who can, or will be effective. A generous dose of 'community magic' is needed here and sadly role descriptions and selection processes are unlikely to unearth it.

Alongside this the remuneration offered is unlikely to attract the truly innovative. It is also difficult to see how any new approaches or what works will be quickly shared and replicated. I know that the 'administrators' of the scheme will talk about knowledge transfer but I suspect this will be more akin to that seen within the existing CVS type networks.

How I would have loved to see a core group of truly inspirational change catalysts sprinkling community change magic across the country. I live in eternal hope!

It is interesting to see the 'not invented here' syndrome running through much of the conflict. Engagement, as (I hope!) everyone agrees, is vital to the success of any change initiative. But all too often insufficient attention is paid to this.

Assuming people have had ample opportunity to engage if they wish to do so, then in an ideal world everyone would then support (or as a minimum not undermine) the ultimate group agreed way forward/decisions thereafter.

However, in the real world, even where engagement has been exemplary, there will always be people who will plough ahead to do it their way regardless. There are countless reasons for this including the positive - they genuinely believe their way will deliver the necessary results - to the petulant 'my way or I'm not playing'

At this point there are always choices to be made. I come down firmly on the side of mitigating the dissenters by delivering outstanding positive results quickly.

Along with Andy I believe in compelling positive alternatives!

I'm currently working with a community project that demonstrates how it can be done - and on a shoestring. In just 3 short months tangible progress has been huge. Reclaiming an under-used church hall we already have a community cafe staffed by learning disabled adults open (just 1 day a week at the moment but it's a tangible start!); a community garden cleared and being dug over; a theatre school operational; a youth live music project running whose 1st concert sold out attracting a local audience of 250; feasibility study completed for environmentally sustainable new heating system; and the list goes on.... All this as a result of a chance encounter and a cup of tea!

[Eileen Conn]

great discussion, thank you all. As a community activist (Peckham SE Lodnon eg www.peckhamvision.org) I have for some decades been creating new ways for us to collaborate with each other locally, and also with the public agencies. I have been many times effective, and I think that people on various sides have acknowledged that I generally take a constructive approach. But sadly no one in the public agencies or the voluntary sector has ever been interesetd in talking through with me what I have been doing... It is a long and lonely road sometimes, and so it is wonderful to connect with others on the same wavelength. Thank you.