Politics
I should have known of course.
Put about fifty people in a room and give them decisions to make. What do you think will happen? It’s not going to be a friendly hug-me-hug-you party. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a fuck-me-fuck-you party either. Forgive me the words. I personally will forgive anyone their words. But what is said at the ICM does not stay at the ICM. It goes out into the world. That’s what the ICM is for. The words are about the deeds, the many more deeds, that need to be done.
And everybody has different ideas about how these deeds need to be done. The results of this is that acts are played out that I - and the whole of humankind with me - would not normally do as a hobby. Together these acts are better known as ‘politics’.
We may be a peace organisation. We do not deny conflict, but we want to solve it. That does not mean that we always agree. It doesn’t mean that we always are truthful to the bone, all-be-it only because the delegates not only speak for themselves, but for a whole branch, and no whole organisation is holy. We could be, but that is not practical.
I suppose they are the necessary evil. The slime to drive out the germs from you nose (see a previous blog), the plane you have to take to Bulgaria, because the train won’t get you home in time.
Politics is a wonderful realization. When you push somewhere, somewhere else something will come up, and what has come up is found by a certain person that can actually use it, and (s)he will know that you were the one responsible for it coming up, and therefore gives you something back, or - as is more common - also pushes somewhere in the hope that something even larger near you will come up. Upon which you will again push somewhere, and so on…
These are many steps. Obviously the chances of you actually getting what you want are quite small, so the idea is that you have to push on a lot of places, to actually get anywhere.
So I sit at the table in the ICM, and in the back of my head separate resolutions click together. Not that I have been playing the game - hey, I’m loyal! - but I’m thinking it and it probably slipped into hand once or twice when I had to raise the voting stick. And realising that, I see it in everything everybody is saying. That it is why delegates are not consequent, that’s why clear things are dragged into the shaded area’s and vice versa, that’s why I hesitate when someone actually has a good recommendation (s)he wants supported.
Actually it is not that good to be better from the cold that I had on the first ICMdays. In a full head there is no room for going around in speculation, thoughts just arrive. Having a clear head might be worse. And what will become of my own efforts?
Then it happens that you push somewhere and suddenly the substance under your hands gives in, and you see that you have actually been pushing on a hollow part of the structure. You never had any chance of something somewhere to come up. You laugh in disbelief.
Tomorrow is ‘voting’ day. We’ll see what comes out of that.
Florian