How to occupy democracy

When the civil rights movement abandoned its focus on nurturing personal, individual relationships and instead resorted to broad principles and detached theorising, it lost its power. It became coopted, removed from the people who otherwise held it accountable with the gentle discipline that is required in being true and kind to one’s friends.

I suspect that this aspect is where grand nation-building projects, based on the most beautiful of ideals, stumble.

So what happened next, you ask?

During the two months that it took me to get my experiences at Rayat-Bahra down on paper, I often wondered how things were progressing at the College. I had not heard much since the retreat in April and so started to worry that nothing had come of it. Maybe the teachers decided it would be too big of a change to handle or maybe unforeseen external factors came into play that caused the process to be derailed…my mind hatched all sorts of reasons for the silence [...]

Rayat-Bahra Teachers College

The landscape turns from deep green to sepia-yellow as we drive out of the tree-lined streets of the city and onto a dusty road lined with wheat fields. At some point we return to pavement and I glance out the back window to see a horse gallop across the road in our wake. Our taxi slows and turns onto a smaller road, meanders through an enclave of large white-washed structures, and comes to a stop in front of a cheerful looking building with students streaming through its front doors.

“Interviewing” Gandhi

Many of us are familiar with the phrase “Be the change you want to see in the world,” so much so that it has become a bit of a cliché. I’ve been wondering for a while now what else Gandhi said that relates to expressive social change, a concept that is at the heart of [...]

The unConference

They are scattered about the steps and lawns. A knot of people puzzling over the relationship between education and politics. Sari-clad women practicing Brazilian martial arts. A group of home-schooled 10-year-olds selling handmade paperweights. A young man recounting with artistic precision his transformative experience on the front lines of the Egyptian revolution. There are workshops [...]