New Integrity

Guardian article on Soft Power and the Labour Leadership

Welcome to those of you who've clicked through from Indra Adnan's Guardian article on 'soft power' and British party politics.

You may be interested to know that Indra is writing a book on the topic of women, politics and soft power, which she is researching through a sister blog, available here.

If you'd like to contact Indra about any of the issues raised in her work, please mail indraadnan@newintegrity.org

Publicity material for Indra Adnan, author of 'Call Me Soft'

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Media coverage of 'Call Me Soft', Soft Power & Indra Adnan

Indra Adnan interviewed on BBC Radio 4's 'Analysis' programme, 'Victims or Villains', broadcast on Thursday, 31 August, 2006 at 20:30 BST. For MP3 audio download of Indra's interview with presenter, Kenan Malik, click here. For transcript of the program, click here.

Article by Indra Adnan for The Guardian's 'Comment and Analysis' page, "Men, step aside: tackling terrorism is women's work", Thursday July 27, 2006. Available on Guardian website, and in PDF form.

Indra Adnan quoted and pictured in Independent article on UK think-tanks, Monday April 4, 2005. Jpeg of article here.

 

To contact Indra Adnan:

indraadnan@newintegrity.org

Sharing responsibility for Rochdale

New Integrity is quoted in The Guardian today, responding to a BBC documentary about the satanic abuse case in Rochdale in the 1990s, in which several children were wrongly taken from their families.
We said: "There were at least four contributing factors to the Rochdale [case]: (1) the capacity and willingness of the social workers to discern reality; (2) the framework of social work practice, which suggested specific actions; (3) the broader culture within which these actions can be credible and supported by others, particularly the media; and (4) the legal system and structures which can uphold the actions of the social worker, in the face of absence of evidence and the families' persistent claims of innocence. Ever more thorough checking and conferring among social workers is constantly being legislated for, and accepted as an obligation, within the profession. However, stigmatising social work must be avoided. Distrust from the public and the media is a hugely inhibiting factor in a social workers' ability to care properly. The deaths from abuse of Victoria Climbié and other children were partly due to decisions not to interfere in clearly dysfunctional families. This points to the need to free social workers from huge caseloads and unreasonable pressures".

The full text of the quote  can be found here:

Use your imagination

Indra Adnan, New Integrity

Appreciated Alessandro Buonfino and Geoff Mulgan’s piece on Britain’s ‘quiet crisis of unhappiness’ in the Guardian today.Although it was relentlessly miserable, attributing loneliness, the prevalence of anger and distrust to the weakening of social bonds within families and local communities, it did suggest there were courses of action the government and other institutional powers could take to ameliorate the situation – from improved design to promoting new relationships between services. Missing from this article is a sense of positive development – any suggestion that our society may be evolving rather than just changing.

Two clichés need to be addressed here: one, an image we hold on to of the camaraderie of the past which leads us to yearn for a ‘return to’ something that we lost. Two, an indiscriminate rejection of individualism, causing us to confuse any efforts people make on their own behalf with selfishness. These two add up to a sort of impotence. On the first, we will never re-capture the post-war mutuality. It arose directly from shared crisis and collective re-building, a willingness to put difference aside at a time of continuing grief and a future we all had to pull our weight in. We don’t have those circumstances now. (Or do we? See James Lovelock’s description of the need to pull together now in the face of a vengeful Gaia).

On the second, throughout the period of decline that the Young’sters write about, there has been a steady rise of interest in self-help practices, evidenced by the huge growth in the market for books that help us to understand and motivate ourselves better. This development has been almost universally derided by the media, caricatured in TV shows like Absolutely Fabulous or just routinely dismissed by ‘serious’ professionals who challenge their scientific foundations. Yet, these books have helped to bring about a new psychological, emotional and spiritual awareness amongst ordinary people that can only be useful when tackling the very complex problems of our current social malaise. At the same time, we have developed tools of connectivity and agency (that we have ‘selfishly’ bought and skilled ourselves up in) that have allowed us to tear down barriers of involvement across the globe. What will arise from this generation of people who are currently living lives that contradict and frustrate their heightened sensibilities – limit their creativity, sap their energy, deprive them of their families?

Buonfino and Mulgan talk about ‘putting (it) right’ as if we already know what it is that we are aiming to create in our 21C society. Maybe there is no fully working model of society that we can aspire to: maybe the changes that need to occur now are beyond our ability to imagine – but that doesn’t mean we should hold back. Let’s not invest endlessly in new ways to preserve the status quo – let’s change the rhetoric to a common search for a new way of life that delivers more of our needs.

Respect (just a little bit...)

Hip hoppers murmur ‘Respect’ as they extend their knuckles towards each other in a gesture of solidarity – but laugh at most spectres of authority. George Galloway names his anti-war party Respect but is never consulted on the national respect agenda. Caught cavorting like a pussy-cat on Big Brother he becomes the very symbol of the lack of self-respect endemic in our society. What is respect? What is its value in our society? How can it be engendered, particularly amongst the young?

The grounds of friendliness

Pat Kane, New Integrity

I hadn’t watched Celebrity Big Brother as religiously as others, but I couldn’t help being completely struck by George Galloway’s final orations in the house. There he stood, in his “UK” overalls, delivering a jeremiad against the imperialist horror of the United States, while the massed ranks of his celebrity housemates looked on with a symphony of indifference and annoyance.

What was so tragic for me, as George prefaced his tub-thumping (most of which I politically agree with, it has to be said) with ‘brothers, sisters, comrades’, was the sense of the end of a certain brand of political rhetoric. His exaggeratedly precise language (“down the with be-heh-moth!”), his booming, arm-chopping delivery, was perfectly tailored for the striking crowd outside the factory games – a strong working-class voice to restore strength to the fragile and beleaguered. (I've witnessed him doing this on many political campaigns in Scotland, and others like him - Jim Sillars of the SNP was another classic exponent).

But for the watching, post-class millions, and certainly for the botoxed, hair-extended and deeply therapised celebritariat directly in front of him, this must have seemed like some cabaret act – perhaps one of Micheal Barrymore’s cheesier Saturday night routines.

Galloway's sojourn into reality tv has to be one of the greatest media miscalculations that any modern politician has ever made – precisely for the way that it unravels an older form of political “integrity”, in the face of the “new” integrity demanded by our omniscient media spectacles.

Playing around with the Universe

A new game, from the maker of the Sims, promises the ultimate in playful experiences: the right to be the creator of your own Universe. From Wired News:

Spore gives players the chance to control life -- from the ground up. Starting with single-cell organisms, players work on designing life with ever more complexity. As the game progresses, players must figure out how to take creatures from individual animals to small tribes and then to cities, whole planets, solar systems and galaxies.

The interview with creator Wil Wright is even more cosmically enlightening:

Wired News: What do you want players to get out of Spore?

Will Wright: One of my goals for this whole thing has been to give somebody an awe-inspiring global view of reality, almost like a drug-induced epiphany with a computer. The kind of, "Oh, man, what if we were a molecule inside of a galaxy?" type thing. Can we transfer that experience -- that, I don't want to say drug-induced, but I guess it is, or almost theological meaning-of-life-type experience -- into an interactive computer game?

Can a computer game bring you to theological discussions, or philosophy, but at the same time remain eminently whimsical and playful and approachable? That's an interesting balance to strike. I like the idea of an extremely whimsical toy that has deep philosophical implications.

WN: In the design process, was there any discussion of how religion would play into the game?

Wright: Well, we're looking at what we called Cultural as one of the ways a civilization on your planet can then acquire another civilization, and we're roughly thinking of that as possibly pseudo-religious. And I'm not quite sure how specific we're going to get.

It's almost better to be a little more abstract and let the player read into it.... So that distinction, let's say, between religion and art, I'd almost rather leave to the player.... They can design little churches or minarets if they want to. In the game, they can use the tools to instantiate a very specific instance of what they think Cultural means.

The Mogul and the Writer look towards 'Post-8'

The mogul (Tom Hunter, co-organiser of Live8 in Edinburgh):

We hear from the G8 leaders that they are making “signals” on trade relaxation. Signals don’t feed nations. Signals don’t allow the poor to step on that first rung of development – change does.

Change the laws on trade, change the world forever. Don’t get me wrong, the G8 has come a long, long way but it is still not anywhere near changing things for the better for the weakest people in our world.

By our Prime Minister’s own admission we now have the hope that global poverty can be eradicated. So let’s use that hope and actually translate it into action. Let’s help the poorest who don’t quite benefit from this historic agreement at the G8 in Gleneagles.

And let me ask again: why 2010, why not now? We have the money, we have the solutions, we have the democratic will – why not now? Why do we need to wait for five years? Why wait for trade negotiations when we know what is right and what is wrong?

Scotland and the world stood up and said: “No more extreme poverty.” It’s clear that the politicians heard that plea, but now they need to give us the plan. The plan that will deliver us from the evil we visit upon our fellow humans.

Give the poor the drugs, the humanity, the money and the freedom to trade that they so richly deserve; to free themselves.

Africa will stand on its own two feet, but only if we remove it from the quicksand that the countries of the world have collectively made for it.

The time is now over for promises and for G8 rhetoric. Action now is the only thing that will count for the newborn of Africa.

The writer (Alison Kennedy):

So the riot got the front pages and the politicians were let off the hook. And the G8 haven’t delivered. And while Gleneagles was still drowning in police, including the Met, bombs went off in London. So should we give up, let violence breed violence, keep our heads down, go back to sleep?

Well, nobody sane suggested the G8 would crumble immediately, that next week there would be a new world, that spin and corporate greed and media complicity were going to disappear overnight. But we have the choice to try for a new world every day, to tell what we know of the truth every day, to take small actions every day. Millions of people taking even small actions every day – that does change the world.

Of course, people can be greedy, fearful, self-interested, willfully ignorant, vicious and worse. Of course, that has political effects, nobody ever doubts it. But people can also be generous, altruistic, powerful, ingenious, fast-moving and humane. And that also has political effects. Don’t ever doubt it.

Hoodie Two Shoes

From Demos:

Active citizens who ‘keep it real’ are challenging the traditional view of volunteering, according to a report published by Demos, the independent think-tank. Start with People, written by Paul Skidmore and John Craig, argues that radical new forms of volunteering could be the secret to rejuvenating communities and delivering better public services.

The report highlights the emergence of new forms of ‘citizen activists’. One group it identifies are ‘Hoodie Two Shoes’ – highly motivated young people committed to improving their communities in a way which is immediate and authentic. Their energetic approach to civic engagement is far removed from traditional modes of volunteering characterised by coffee mornings, committee meetings, and a preponderance of retirees.

“Politicians are desperate to foster a culture of volunteering, because they see it as a way to bring communities closer together and deliver better public services,” say the report’s authors Paul Skidmore and John Craig. “But politicians can’t engineer the kind of enthusiasm and energy of the best community groups.”

The report points to the success of organisations such as Envision, a London-based social and environmental charity. The group has helped a former gang member to run martial arts training and DJ skills workshops to help keep young people off the streets and away from potential trouble. Envision also helped the founders of Hands Up For Peace, an anti-war group which displayed handprints from thousands of young people outside Parliament.

The report argues that efforts to foster a culture of volunteering will fail unless the experience is made authentic for young people.

“Young people do want to change their communities, but on their own terms. Groups like Envision ask young people what they want to do to improve their communities, and then give them the tools to get on and do it. They are challenging the perception that young people are apathetic and disengaged.”

How it could have been even GR8R

It’s a morass of competing feelings. In one corner we have the billion partying people, feeling good this morning that they have acted on the global stage, having asked for something that they only dimly knew they wanted until Bob Geldof made it clear for them. Make Poverty History – "amazing, brilliant, historic" (or was that Robbie Williams’s comeback).

In the other corner, we have rather less but better-informed people, outraged at the terms and conditions being laid on the vulnerable Africans, betrayed by post-Iraq politicians buying their way back into the public hearts with false sacrifices.

And a few of us, hovering like a referee, pondering, queasy. Unwilling to diss the willing consumers of a good new idea on our left. Yet, somehow not ready to award any prizes either. Unable to ignore the fantastic opportunity lost. Here is what we saw:

• Millions of people coming together across the globe, in the name of Make Poverty History, to see some great music. Some with tickets to see a remarkable stage show, others at home, captive in front of the TV. A moment of possibly unprecedented globality – not to witness some great horror, but to participate in some great hope, a great global wish.
• Great musicians performing their greatest hits with superb discipline, some of whom expressed their feelings about the cause. As Madonna said, Music makes the bourgeoisie be a rebel, yeah.
• Some of the Live Aid films about poverty in Africa, first shown 20 years ago, reminding us how it all started. One very memorable example of the proof of Live Aid – a young girl, helped by funds raised, to get an education and develop a dignified life.
• A lot of joy: the feel good factor gets a Gr8 outing.
• Robbie Williams in his first concert in 2 years, getting the biggest ovation of the night, despite using his moment to speak to the global audience to invite the presenter on a date.

Here is what we didn’t see:

• Africans. All the beautiful, funky, vibrant African musicians available to play at this great music event, were not invited. Instead they were given a small stage to perform in the Eden Project in Devon. The cameras only visited once, when Dido (who is not African) sang a duet with Youssou N’Dour. Try not to imagine the music industry in Africa, miraculously boosted by the exposure of these lesser known artists: it ‘s not about to happen.
• Consciousness being raised. Unlike the smaller MPH march in Edinburgh, there was hardly a banner to be seen at Hyde Park. Woeful coverage from the BBC – Jonathan Ross, covering his cynicism with vacuous celebrity watching. The young DJs, unable to take us any further than “amazing and brilliant”. In 8 hours of possible connecting the issues with the spectacle, the best we got was 5 minutes of an off-duty Andrew Marr and a patiently constructive George Alaghiah.
• An easily digestible presentation of the proposals and the facts. How can poverty be made history? What is the deal here, what might go right and what might go wrong?
• Any next steps for the captive audience. Surely it’s not all down to these 8 people alone. I have worn the wrist band to death: isn’t there something that I, as a relatively wealthy, fun loving citizen of the world can do next?

Millions of people, ready and willing to listen but only music on offer. It may not be too late. If the queasy and the angry could suspend their disbelief long enough to engage with the happy and deluded, we could still, in 20 years time be looking back at an historic moment. Here are a few suggestions:

• Social entrepreneurs unite. UnLtd, Rowntree, Nesta – all the funding bodies actively engaged in funding new ideas to make the world a better place – put some money into a substantial Post8 network. Bob and Bono need some help here. The best minds and energies need to be where the audiences are, helping to create maximum value out of this upsurge of popular feeling.
• Add women at the top. We know that men like to play, we know that men get things done, but if more women had been involved at the core of this…. who knows what lasting, caring networks might have been generated? Of course it’s just a co-incidence that the three female icons who took the stage, took Africans on the stage with them, forging the connections, modelling the relationships of mutual respect. More of those co-incidences please.
• Education get in there. Instead of PHSE lessons on how to cross a road safely, let’s get modules on how to be a global citizen. The kids want to know – they are up for it.
• Get personal. Recognise that the “well being” agenda, beloved by Blair et al is well served by the “feel good” factor. People like to do good for others, especially if they get energised in the process. Charity is tired. Engagement, activity, achievement is enlarging… Every kidult on a machine is a global playa, let’s develop some tools for making a difference. The Guardian persuaded 3,000 people to write to undecided American voters. Why not pair up potential peers in email relationships across the world?
• Remember reciprocity. If we are going to create a global network, we should look forward to receiving as much from Africa as we are offering. Africa’s story is already unique – the journey from apartheid, the struggle through illness and poverty, the triumph of its arts, the meaning of Mandela. How can we be sure to hear the story, learn from their humanity?

If Live8 is to have a lasting effect, to be the birth of a new era instead of a flash in the pan, ideas need to flow thick and fast. The comments page below is always open...

Wars of the World

We had an extraordinary experience watching Spielberg and Cruise's War of the Worlds the other night. The one thing to say is that it is undeniably resonant and powerful art - if the test for that is an ability to unsettle you, to linger in your day- and night-dreams. But you're also left wondering about the interior life of these creators. What enables them to render such a vision of poetic carnage?

One way to 'join-up' caring services

This report - Not forgotten: better services for people with dementia - is a good example of the kind of consensus about values, principles and approaches that's required to found an effective 'joined-up' care authority. Some of their 'commonalities'

Agreed Core Principles  
People with dementia should not be subject to discrimination.
People with dementia should not experience ageism.
People with dementia should have equality of access to all services.
People with dementia are entitled to all Human Rights.

Agreed Philosophical Approach
We support a person centred approach in our work with people with dementia.
We believe it is important to listen and respond to the needs of users and carers.
We support a care pathways approach where they are age and condition sensitive in responding to needs.
We agree that a whole system approach is essential in planning to meet the needs of people with dementia.
We recognise the importance of providing flexible local community based services.

Flexibility and New Integrity

From Do you need integrity to be a successful leader ?, a July 2005 report from IMD

Peers want their colleagues to show both integrity and flexibility. Paradoxically, these results represent both the toughest challenge and a solution for practicing managers. To us these results say, “Yes, show us that you have integrity, that you are honest and that you value merit but do not become rigid in the application of these values".