Current Issue - See Below Archived Issues - Click Here
The Global Systems Review Issue 12 January 2010
The Global Systems Review is a periodic e-newsletter that explores critical world issues through the lens of whole systems thinking.
In this Issue:
The Heart of National Security
Louise Diamond
We are so used to thinking of national security as an issue solely of threats and defense, that we forget what lies, literally, at the heart of any nation’s well-being.
The human body can exist without many of its organs, but not without its heart. So too the body politic. The countries we most condemn are those where the leaders are most hard-hearted toward their own people – the despotic, the oppressive, the rigid totalitarian regimes. The countries we most admire are those with the greatest concerns for the quality of their people’s lives.
The heart has always been a symbol of love. Love comes in many forms – compassion, appreciation, empathy, respect, goodwill, caring, admiration, and more. The word ‘courage’ relates to the French ‘coeur, ‘ for heart. To encourage is to hearten. The heart pumps blood – literally, keeps the life force flowing. Constriction of that flow can cause major disease.
Our national security experts tend to be ‘realists,’ concerned primarily with who has greater power to control the resources and conditions of others and therefore of our own country. In that paradigm, forms of love or matters of the heart are considered ‘soft,’ even dangerous. They have no place in the ‘real’ hard world. And yet, the historical events and circumstances that most move us, most tug at our hearts, most inspire us to action, and yes, most strengthen our nation, are those that touch into the power of the heart.
Let me give you some recent examples.
Haiti. America is at its best when it opens its heart to those in distress. The almost-unimaginable scope of human tragedy in Haiti, brought graphically into our living rooms and cell phones and social networking sites hour by hour, has touched us profoundly. We pour out money, rescue teams, medical supplies, military support, prayers, even tears for the people of Haiti in their devastation. Former political rivals join hands to work together on a humanitarian mission. We connect over the stories we hear and the images we see of miraculous rescues, children taken in by strangers, and the perseverance of survivors to make order out of chaos.
At the individual and the governmental level the people of the U.S. (and of many other countries) have literally poured their hearts out to the Haitian people. It brings us together as a nation, it brings us together with our neighbors, it brings us together with the international community. This too is a way of strengthening national security.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The celebration of this holiday is a reminder of the physical and moral courage of the people who led and fed the civil rights movement. Slavery, segregation, Jim Crow laws, the KKK, the horrors of racial prejudice and the violence of racial hatred that have infected our nation (and some that continue to do so) represent the most heart-breaking stream of our national history. The treatment of black Americans – ranging from the downright vicious to the unthinkingly dismissive over several centuries – is one of the primary fault lines that undermines our nation’s strength, just as the fault lines in the earth undermine the well-being of Haiti and other earthquake-prone places.
There are similar fault lines around the world: Israel-Palestine; India-Pakistan; Hutu and Tutsi; Muslim-Christian-Jew; Protestant and Catholic are just a few of the big ones we can all name. But in and across many countries there are current and ancient ethnic, tribal, cultural, religious, and economic unhealed wounds festering in the hearts and minds – and political relations – of people and nations. Indeed, the degree of trauma, fear, hatred, and violence from these clashes is beyond comprehension. As a human species we still have much to learn about how to heal these wounds and cherish our commonality across differences.
Martin Luther King Jr. was a beacon in that journey. He showed us who we could be, how we could be better as a nation that embraced all its citizens with equal dignity and respect. While not yet completely realized, that dream continues to guide and inspire us, and the more fully we live into it the stronger and more secure from the inside we are as a nation.
Invictus. Nelson Mandela is another beacon in the human journey of literally re-membering itself. The movie Invictus, currently playing, shows us the power of social healing writ large. The white protagonist – the captain of the South African rugby team, a symbol of Apartheid white hubris and privilege – ponders, in a moment of awe while measuring Mandela’s cramped prison cell on Robben Island with his outstretched arms, ‘How can you spend thirty years in a tiny cell and come out ready to forgive the people who put you there?’
That ability to forgive, the resoluteness with which Mandela led South Africa beyond inclinations for revenge, that demonstration of moral imagination to see the larger vision of what could be possible in human relations outside the limitations of ‘payback’ mentality – this is the heart of humanity at its best. The healing of historical wounds requires forgiveness, reconciliation, acknowledgement of responsibility, contrition, letting go, reaching out, listening, making apology and amends. These activities, for whatever reason, are difficult for us, so when we see them in action, they touch us powerfully. They not only inspire us to open our own hearts but also strengthen the fabric of the nation, as South Africa and Mandela have so nobly shown.
Greg Mortenson. I recently gave myself over to Greg Mortenson’s Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools, books that are now required reading for senior U.S. military leaders and should be for all of us. I have long championed the power of one person to make a difference. Mortenson’s work in building schools and providing basic services to villages in the most remote and poorest areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan is more than an example of the good that one person can do. It is an example of how we can truly support one another’s well-being out of heartfelt compassion-in-action that transcends even the most extreme differences of religion, culture, nationality, age, geography, financial means, and politics.
What’s interesting to me most about this extraordinary man and what he has accomplished is that he works from a place of humility that recognizes the need to build strong and honoring relationships, listen carefully to the needs expressed by the people, and engage the people directly in meeting those needs, together. Though these approaches would seem obvious to anyone thinking seriously about these matters, they actually represent a new paradigm for development aid and military strategy, especially in Taliban/Al Qaeda territory – indeed, a powerful strategy for nation-building and national security in general.
If we didn’t know it already, Mortenson’s work also shows us how meeting the basic human needs of the people, including especially health and education, are essential ingredients in any nation’s security. I have long held that our outward view of national security as relating solely to threats that come to us from beyond our borders, is short-sighted. We must also acknowledge that our nation’s well-being – our prosperity, strength, moral standing, cohesion, and safety – depends profoundly on our internal quality of life – everything from education, health care, jobs, and transportation to the sanity of our political and social culture. A secure nation is one that is strong from the inside out as well as from the outside in. Mortenson’s Central Asia Institute is demonstrating this one school, one project at a time.
The primary imperative of living in an interconnected world is to connect the disconnected. It is time we re-weave matters of the heart into matters of our nation’s security. The earthquake in Haiti and the lives and accomplishments of Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, and Greg Mortenson have touched us deeply in recent days, activating our personal and national altruism and compassion. They are reminders that the true power of the state – and the true measure of its strength, resilience, and presence in the world – rests in the health of its heart.
Sites related to heart-healthy national security:
- To carry forward Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream message, and to actively participate in the social healing of our nation, attend this 2-day program on Race De-Mystified, or arrange for it to be offered in your community. Click here for more information.
- To learn more about the work of Greg Mortenson’s Central Asia Institute and participate in promoting girls’ education in Pakistan and Afghanistan, go to www.ikat.org.
- To learn more about Invictus, go to invictusmovie.warnerbros.com
Global Systems Initiatives News
Change Power Update
A project team of 12 individuals from several different sectors has been busy since November interviewing change agents around the world to answer these questions:
- What do we know about the times we are in, that might explain why there is so much turbulence in our global systems?
- What do we know about managing structural change in complex systems?
- What do we know about how to encourage large-scale culture change of attitudes and behaviors?
- What do we know about strengthening resilience to be able to meet and adapt to unpredictable conditions and abrupt events?
- What do we know about opening systems up to new voices, knowledge, and innovative approaches?
- What do we know about transformative leadership capable of leading these kinds of changes in complex systems?
The team is currently synthesizing the data from these interviews, with an eye to next steps toward making this wisdom available to policy makers and shapers who are dealing daily with the rapidly changing conditions of our world. The next issue of the Global Systems Review will carry further updates.
Leading in Social Systems
Louise Diamond will be offering a three-day training program on the skills of leadership through a systems lens, March 8-10, 2010, sponsored by NTL Institute. The course will cover skill sets related to the Twelve Simple Rules of Systems Thinking for Complex Global Issues, and will explore the challenges and opportunities of leaders in these times to think and act systemically.
To learn more about the training Click here...
To see the Twelve Simple Rules Click here...
Systems and Policy
On February 16 Global Systems Initiatives will co-host (with Connect US Fund and Rockefeller Brothers Fund) a special event bringing prominent systems thinkers together with policy, advocacy, and philanthropic leaders. The purpose will be to explore how the wisdom from systems and complexity sciences can be useful to the policy world as it seeks holistic solutions to the systemic challenges we face in our interdependent world. The day will focus specifically on Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Failing States, and Climate Change. The next issue of the Global Systems Review will carry highlights from the event.
|
