We the signers of this open letter from Noam Chomsky, Vandana Shiva, Boaventura de sousa Santos, John Pilger, and 40 other members of the interim decision body of the new International Organization for a Participatory Society, hope that you will circulate, email, and/or republish our letter, and, even more, that you will engage in and publish commentary regarding the organization’s purpose, implications, prospects, etc.
For more information visit http://www.iopsociety.org/
An Open Letter to All Who Seek A New and Better World
We are members of what is called the the Interim Consultative Committee of the International Organization for a Participatory Society – or IOPS for short.
IOPS is actually an interim entity, pending a future founding convention. IOPS was convened just a few months ago and already has over 2,100 members from 85 countries and a ten language site, despite that it is barely known publicly. IOPS is currently building local chapters, which will unite to form national branches that in turn will compose an international organization.
We send this open letter to invite you to please visit the IOPS Site to examine its initial features – including especially and most importantly its Mission and Visionary and Programmatic Commitments.
The IOPS commitments emerged from a long process of discussion and debate. We believe they correspond closely to the most prevalent, advanced, and widely accessible political beliefs on which to build an organization for winning a better world.
We also hope and even believe that if you read and consider the IOPS commitments, you will likely find that they are congenial to your interests and desires and that they provide reason for great hope that IOPS can become a very important organization in the coming years.
If we had to summarize the IOPS commitments, we would note that they emphasize:
that IOPS focuses on cultural, kinship, political, economic, international, and ecological aims without a priori prioritizing any of these over the rest;
that IOPS advocates and elaborates key aspects of vision for a sustainable and peaceful world without sexism, heterosexism, racism, classism, and authoritarianism and with equity, justice, solidarity, diversity, and, in particular, self-management for all people
and that IOPS structurally and programmatically emphasizes planting the seeds of the future in the present, winning immediate gains on behalf of suffering constituencies in ways contributing to winning its long term aims as well, developing a caring and nurturing organization and movement, and welcoming and even fostering constructive dissent and diversity within that organization and movement and based on its commitments.
We think hundreds of thousands of people, in fact, millions of people, will, on reading the commitments, overwhelmingly agree with them. We hope that if you look at the commitments and feel that way, you will join and advocate that others join as well. If you instead have problems with the IOPS commitments, we hope you will make your concerns known so a productive discussion can ensue.
On the other hand, we also understand that agreeing with the IOPS commitments will not alone cause those same hundreds of thousands and even millions of people to join IOPS. There are numerous reasons why a person might support the IOPS commitments and even hope that IOPS grows and becomes strong and effective at the grassroots, in every neighborhood, workplace, and social movement, and yet, at the moment, not join. Our best effort to summarize obstacles people may feel to joining even while they like the IOPS commitments, and to address those obstacles also appears on the IOPS site, in a Why Join IOPS Question and Answer format. Essentially we argue: If not now, when? If not us, who?
Asked to provide a succinct summary paragraph for the IOPS site about his involvement, Noam Chomsky wrote: “Hardly a day goes by when we do not hear appeals – often laments – from people deeply concerned about the travails of human existence and the fate of the world, desperately eager to do something about what they rightly perceive to be intolerable and ominous, feeling helpless because each individual effort, however dedicated, seems to merely chip away at a mountain, placing band-aids on a cancer, never reaching to the sources of needless suffering and the threats of much worse. It’s an understandable reaction that all too often leads to despair and resignation. We all know the only answer, driven home by experience and history, and by simple reflection on the realities of the world: join together to construct and clarify long-term visions and goals, along with direct engagement and activism shaped by these guidelines and contributing to a deepening of our understanding of what we hope to achieve… IOPS strikes the right chords, and if the opportunities it opens are pursued with sufficient energy and participation, diligence, modesty, and desire, it could carry us a long way towards unifying the many initiatives here and around the world and combining them into a powerful and effective force.”
And as Cynthia Peters wrote: “You hear it all the time. There is always another urgent crisis. They don’t just come in a steady stream, they seem to multiply geometrically. More draconian policies with life-threatening consequences, more corporate control, more prisons, more bombs, more funerals. With so many immediate fires to put out in our day-to-day organizing work, how can we make time to attend to larger issues, such as long-term strategy, vision, and movement building? IOPS creates the space for us to do the essential work of movement building and envisioning and then seeking a better world. Without these elements, we’ll continue to work in isolation. By enlivening and enriching IOPS with your presence, you will both give solidarity to and receive solidarity from so many others — across the world — in the same situation — up to their necks in the daily fight, and at the same time turning their creativity and energy towards revolutionary social change. That is not just good company. It’s the solid beginnings of another world being possible.”
We hope you will join us as we try to make it so.
Signed,
Ezequiel Adamovsky – Argentina
M Adams – U.S.
Michael Albert – U.S.
Jessica Azulay – U.S.
Elaine Bernard – U.S.
Patrick Bond – South Africa
Noam Chomsky – U.S.
Jason Chrysostomou – UK
John Cronan – U.S.
Ben Dangl – U.S.
Denitsa Dimitrova – UK/Bulgaria
Mark Evans – UK
Ann Ferguson – U.S.
Eva Golinger – Venezuela
Andrej Grubacic – Balkans/U.S.
Pervez Hoodbhoy – Pakistan
Antti Jauhiainen – Finland
Ria Julien – U.S./Trinidad
Dimitris Konstanstinou – Greece
Pat Korte – U.S.
Yohan Le Guin – Wales
Mandisi Majavu – South Africa
Yotam Marom – U.S.
David Marty – Spain
Preeti Paul – UK/India
Cynthia Peters – U.S.
John Pilger – UK/Aus
Justin Podur – Canada
Nikos Raptis – Greece
Paulo Rodriguez – Belgium
Charlotte Sáenz – Mexico/U.S.
Anders Sandstrom – Sweden
Boaventura de sousa Santos – Portugal
Lydia Sargent – U.S.
Stephen Shalom – U.S.
Vandana Shiva – India
Chris Spannos – U.S.
Verena Stresing – France/Germany
Elliot Tarver – U.S.
Fernando Ramn Vegas Torrealba – Venezuela
Taylon Tosun – Turkey
Marie Trigona – U.S.
Greg Wilpert – Germany/Venezuela/U.S.
Florian Zollman – Germany
For more information visit http://www.iopsociety.org/