Digging and Dreaming

The struggle I have with this blog, is that when I’m doing activism I am hesitant to write anything profound about the why of it - or to incriminate myself, and when I have the energy to write about the why of it - I lack the inspiration that comes from the doing of it. Thus it had been what 2 years since I've visited here which accounts for the dust and the cobwebs,

But of late I have been chasing round the world and burning too much carbon to work with activists, volunteers, communities and organisations from Brazil to India, to the Philippines and beyond. So perhaps there are some new stories to tell, and enough of a pause and a reflection to revive this blog? Or to decide to stick a stake through its heart before heading on to the next narrative in the Middle East.

So here goes, the clock is ticking - if I can commit to composing something before the sun rises then there may be life here yet.

Laboratory experiments in Asia

So I wonder about the sympathetic magic associated with this blog. It started as an argument as to whether digital activism and mobilisation was where my future led, or whether old school organising was still as valid a path to change as ever. Then I ended up working in the digital field.

Now 2+ years later the pendulum has returned, and I seem to find myself back working with offline organisers, volunteer coordinators, network developers and more. With an experimental mandate, and a sack of money (ok a moderate budget), to go out into the world and make good things happen. Folk who believe in chaos theory, the complexities of the modern world, and change management would be delighted by the lack of project plans.

But the challenge is enormous for starters the countries I now working with; India, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, ML China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan I reckon together summarise half the planets population – and I’ve not been to none of them - well not yet.

Equally I’ve been around a while, have an open mind, ask more questions than make assumptions, am scared shitless, think I might have a basic understanding of face, understand some of the uncertainties, and have low expectations that I’m the herald of the revolution so perhaps I can get be moderately useful to people I like – and it’s going to be epic finding out.