We have today also the Brandenburg Gate SPEAKERS CORNER a Speakers Corner. One poster was: "We are the People. The power of the free speech".
It is organized by a group campaigning for "political beauty". POLITISCHE SCHÖNHEIT doing art event and political and cultural campaigns since some years in Berlin. The event was sponsored by GOOGLE. See picture show.
Key speakers where from the Parliament, Citizens, Elders, Religious and Academic groups, and the civil society. Most reknown is Gesine Schwan who was the candidate for the German Presidency of the Social Democratic Party and has founded the Humboldt-Viadrina School of Governance.
Here you can see some VIDEOs: See [More] below:
I "pitched" what I feel needs to be said about living democracy, empowering, co-creation and harnessing collective action. Trying for the first time to cover what for me connects dialog and descision cultures, voting and deliberations, empowerment and policy making, dialog, decision cultures and peace-making - in the requested 5 Minutes !! - without questions or chance to dig deeper where needed...
Maybe see also my barcamp pitch for the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society where I had some more time to go into OPEN GOVERNMENT, STAMMTISCH cultures, STRUCTURED DIALOGIC DESIGN and AXIOMS, voting and demagogy. More in this Blog entry:
as this lecture around Alexander von Humboldt and Carld Ritter and what that might mean for us today, maybe check the GLOBAL YOUTH CONFERENCE contribution where there was also some more time available.... check: [link]
The issues there about shared meaning and actions are for the political discourse and culture very important. Please check this course book to be used in schools to have groups come to shared understandings on complex issues "A democratic approach to sutainable futures"
and a deeper look into the matter with "Harnessing the collective Wisdom of the People":. The Matter is not trivial and deserves highest attention and concern as a SWARM is very unreliable in complex, unprecedented, and dynamically changing situations. The hto just let people vote, even when they do not know about what they vote about is dangerous. We asked for informed, concerned, and responsible decisions by stakeholders and resposible risk-takers, so understanding the scope, scales, proportions and consequences, with space and time horizon! [more about context, frames, order and orientation] or see this "white paper": Which_Languages_and_Mindsets_for_Democracy.
Just voting opens all possible doors to demagogy - not just media and visual demagogy and manipulation. I work and write a lot about this since years, but this article in our weekly ZEIT - ONLINE is a master-piece, highy recommended: Mainstream: Der Sog der Masse
After that we had a whole day this MAYOR EVENT about society, policy and technology with our Chancellor and the top 20 leading scientists of the world, our ministry / th organizers wrote so... FALLING WALLS !!.
FALLING WALLS WAS A MAJOR EVENT - WELL ORGANIZED AND GIGANTIC - pls. check the link above !
And in parallel also around GOOGLE's claim to bridge old and new walls - explore some potentials, discrepancies, and challenges. I just remember our challengbe with UNESCO and GOOGEL at Frankfurt's book fair around introducing GOOGLE MAPS and what we cared about and around maps and literacy:
Two years ago we celebrated 10 year wall comming down ! Have a look - with leace laureats and google in the Hotel de Rom: The title is close to this years: WHAT DEMOCRACY - WHAT WALLS?
In closing,
here my favourite citation and poem about walls and borders.
"Borders? I have never seen one. But I have heard they exist in the minds of most people." Thor Heyerdahl
Whoever imagines mental deep permeable barriers
which actually do not exist and then thinks them away, has understood the world.
As space is entrapped in geometry's network of lines,
thought is caught in its (own) inherent laws.
Maps make the world comprehensible to us;
we are still waiting for the star-maps of the spirit.
In the same way than ambling through fields we risk getting lost,
the spirit negotiates its terrain. Friedrich Rückert
(as cited at the Nobels event above, see here for ) more (slide2).
9 Nov 2011 @ 16:56, by Heiner Benking
