[New-imc] Re: [Imc-valparaiso] Nuevas cuestiones para/ new questions to CMIValparaiso

[Petros Evdokas]

Hi,

Meghan wrote:
"does anyone else have serious concerns about these responses?

-meghan"

and then there was a comment by Mike R., saying:
"...we all have fallen into those problems.  The purpose
of having these questions in our application documents
is so these issues will be specifically addressed
instead of making the assumption that by our nature we
have solved them.

"....IMC is not looking for quotas of stories (or people
for that matter) to reflect diversity.

"They say gendered work divisions will not happen in the
future.  All we need for the application is for them
to explain how and why that won't happen.

   -Mike"
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I feel that this dialogue (of excerpts) above, is an
excellent example of what we need to be doing with every new
imc group. Essentially, is an opening of a political
dialogue with each new group, about forms of organization
and about group activities which are consciously aimed at
maintaining what little we already have built among us in
the correct direction, and looking for ways to improve and
amplify.

Let's not be afraid of pursuing this kind of dialogue with 
all of the emerging imc groups. Let's do it gently and 
politely, delicately - in this way, the whole of our imc 
network, new and old, will benefit from the dialogue. Gender 
politics, sexuality, spirituality, ethnic and cultural 
politics, are all *crucial* arenas in which human liberty is 
being destroyed and also reborn. It's correct for us to do 
what we can to ensure that our new comrades and colleagues 
of all emerging imc groups are gently and politely directed, 
encouraged, reminded, challenged - if necessary - to see 
that we are concerned about the kinds of organizations we 
are building.

The most embarassing part of our current reality is that
there are now more than a hundred existing and operating
"official" groups in our imc network, all around the globe,
among which, if we held an "audit" right now about how they
handle gender politics, sexuality, spirituality, ethnic and
cultural politics, the majority of our groups would probably
fail our criteria. It may sound sad and embarassing, but
this means that as the new-imc work-group, we are in the
correct direction, working to ensure that at least the new
emerging imc groups will have better foundations to stand on
from the beginning. And this will enrich all of our imc
network with better politics.

I'm ever so thankful that the womens-imc group gave us these
guidelines we started using recently (and it's also
embarassing that it took us more than a year to articulate
and embrace them); I hope we can be guided by the
guidelines, and learn to extend them to help all of the new
imc groups toward being formed and organised in a healthier
context than our previous groups.

Petros
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