STARTING THE UNDERGROUND W-CO!NSPIRATION :-)
This draft was started in NYC, during the Open Space for High Performance and Peace Learning Experience the 14th Jan 2011. Suzanne&Eleder (both in the photo, having co-written the first draft of this post) Terri, Caitlin, Karen, Harrison, Chino, Greg, and many more took part in conversations that inspired these piece.
Are you an underground mayor (UM) of your place? Someone that plays politics in a joyful way; probably out of the political parties but being in touch with people engaged in all the parties? Someone that loves conversation and would need an hour´s time to walk half a mile in her neighbourhood? Prone to dream up the craziest ways to get us all to a more joyful way of living?
Yes, kind of? Sure, you really are an UM (underground mayor -preferred to unofficial-) of your place and have been so for years. Now you come to know that a term was coined (first heard to Greg Rivera addressing myself :-) for it, you finally get a sense of belonging, and are now eager to spread the word. This makes quite a difference because you´ll be conscious from now on and the idea will start its own life.
We have probably also UPs of the world (term coined by brilliant Caitlin Nisos-Atlanta): they have the same way to play politics, but they play in a wider area, not necessarily their everyday walking distance area. They move quite much by plane. Myself I´m also a UP of the world, I was told, concerned with food, public space usage, creativity, de-electified fun,… but act mainly as UM, considering it a more comfortable and easier way of being.
Organic growing: by the way, how can the word be spread in a minimal effort way? I suppose that starting a w-platform and so would imply too much work and would be counter-underground. Maybe that just having people knowing about it, mainly through oral informal conversations and just a little organic presence in the net, just people that like the idea most keeping lists of mates around the world, signing e-mails with the term, keeping some links related to it listed,… something like so would be enough.
Openness: Maybe you still don't realize that you really are one of us, but you sure know some of them. Let them, us & the world know, please! There are, sure, some 87.349 UMs in NYC, same as we are some 12.739 in Bilbao... We are a growing government :-)! How many UMs in your town?
Voluntary responsibility: it´s oneself who comes to know about the term and says, “oh, yes, I´m a UM of my town, city, neighbourhood,…” and starts to state it wherever, when told the story.
No salary: but maybe we one day start paying a symbolic fee for the U-mayordom to fund some funnily interesting experiment/people/stuff …
And, if you feel much like, start us in the WUM movement, the net supporting all the underground mayors of the world :-)! Maybe just organizing a minimal distribution list for Ums and people around?
More key words: Another entry outside of politics (as politics is losing its meaning). Flatten the hierarchy. With humor, fun, creativity, dreaming of what can be regarding serious issues. Visionaries. Inspire each other. Play on words. Attractor, curiosity, playfulness, positive politics (pp). Humor: diffuses criticism or marginalizing of others; invites a place to have serious discussions.
Some UMs met these days in NYC, Bilbao, and through the internet:
– Chino (Carlos) Garcia, NYC-Lower East Side; Karen Davis, NYC-Upper West
– people in the HI Youth Hostel : friend from Osaka, Japan; Rodrigo and Ricky, Buenos Aires,…
– Gerry Kirk, Kirk, Canada
– Suzanne, Florida ; Caitlin, Atlanta ; probably, indeed, all the participants of the workshop 2011 OS for High Performance Learning Experience.
- John Stewart.Comedy Central
- Bilbao: Oihane, María, Rober (Zurbaran), Rubén (Zurbaran), Eleder (auto-exiled in Mundaka :-)
-Berlin: Anna Caroline Türk
Keep in touch!
Love,
eleder.aurtenetxe@gmail.com
