Constitution for Humanity

AndriusKulikauskas February 28, 2008 15:31 CET I am drafting a Constitution for Humanity that I will propose for the mid-March meeting of PyramidOfPeace that we will organize. Here is my current thinking. There are the kinds of structures:

• Command Structure: a command structure (ours is the Pyramid of Peace) by which peacemakers wield as much authority as possible as individuals. They act to prevent genocide and terracide. There will be leaders reponsible for the peace and security of various tribes and locations.
• Cultural Congresses: each tribe will be led by a Congress of thirty or so independent thinkers who are the voice for the tribe, who can establish, revoke, revive the tribe's traditions, who can annul oaths and establish counteroaths (which is important for helping people to leave militias), who can hold tribal militias accountable, who can speak on the tribe's behalf, and who can represent the tribe in any agreements with powers, governmental or otherwise. Tribal decisions will be made by majority rule so that difficult decisions (such as ending the practice of female circumcision) can yet be made that hold for everybody. Each Congress member will be responsible for the relationships with the traditional tribal structures in one or more villages.
• Stewardship Councils (previously known as DiversityCouncils): each location or bioregion will have a council of twelve or so citizens who represent the full diversity of the area in terms of ways of life, including tribes, locations, gender, age, occupation. Typically they may be leaders of associations. The council works by consensus so that all are included and there is no unfairness in the sharing of resources. The council also reports on the local leader of the Pyramid of Peace command structure to help make sure the local leader does not show any favoritism to one group or another. The Diversity Council maintains the treasury (including for the Pyramid of Peace), raises money and issues any local currency, and organizes economic activity and economic projects so they are fair. There will be many local councils, but there will also be councils that cover larger bioregions. Those who participate in the larger areas must also be active in their local areas. The councils may also have supporters around the world who help, for example, raise money.
• MinciuSodas is led by AndriusKulikauskas to serve and organize independent thinkers. Minciu Sodas provides an environment where every independent thinker can openly grow and make evident their ability to work independently. Minciu Sodas structures the relationships between the Pyramid of Peace, Tribal Congresses and Diversity Councils so that they allow every person to contribute fully as an independent thinker. Every individual, tribe, group is free at any time to participate or not. They may choose to establish their own structures outside of Minciu Sodas.

I was originally thinking that there could be a diversity council for Kenya, but now I realize this is a mistake and so I correct myself. I think that we have the opportunity to organize ourselves around larger and smaller bioregions, which is to say, according to nature rather than nation-states. (God created Nature but God is also keen on History so I may be wrong, but I think we gain much by acknowledging Nature here.) The boundaries do not need to be very exact. But the water system of rivers and lakes is a good guide as to who should work together so that all interests are included. Here are some bioregions that cover Kenya, according to the World Wildlife Fund:

• Shebele-Juba Catchments (Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia)
• Lake Turkana (Ethiopia, Kenya)
• Lakes Kivu, Edward, George, and Victoria (Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda)
• Southern Eastern Rift (Kenya, Tanzania)
• Kenyan Coastal Rivers (Kenya)
• Pangani (Kenya, Tanzania)

I spoke further with Dennis Kimambo about the bioregions. We considered the areas of conflict in Kenya. What bioregions do they fall in? There seem to be three that are relevant for us now:

• Lake region, which is to say, the area around Lake Victoria, which includes Kisumu, Homa Bay, Mbita, Rusinga Island, but also parts of Uganda and Tanzania. Water from this region flows down the Nile into the Mediterranean Sea.
• Rift Valley region, which includes Nakuru, Eldoret, and many of the areas with the worst fighting. The Rift Valley is part of a large feature, a tectonic divide that goes from the Dead Sea to the Red Sea and through Ethiopia to Tanzania and Mozambique.
• Nairobi region, which is on the other side of the mountain from the Rift Valley. Water flows from here down to the Indian Ocean.

• The Rift Valley is the scene of some of the worst ethnic violence as various tribes are incited to drive people out and claim lands.
• The Lake region is supporting Raila Odinga so that they get their fair share in Kenya.
• The Nairobi region is a major metropolis with many slums and urban gangs because it is the hub for all the resources.
• The Coastal region - such as the port of Mombasa - is notably quiet.

I find it helpful for focusing on real problems such as land issues in the Rift Valley or malaria in the Lake region. Note that the Lake region is connected by the Nile with Italy. Storks fly back and forth between Lithuania and Egypt. These kinds of connections are much more real for me than a construct like "Europe" or "Africa". The Lake region and the Nairobi region don't have so much reason to be related except for the road that brings goods from the port of Mombasa. Which makes clear why the Rift Valley region affects them both. And also raises the question, Why does the Lake region have to send tax money to the Nairobi region? unless it is for joint projects such as roads? and Why is the Lake region so dependent on imports?

We then see that the Pyramid of Peace is already active in three bioregions, and aside from sharing a Commander-of-Operations for this emergency, there isn't any need for any long term "nationwide" structure. The cause of the emergency is national, but I think the solution isn't. Mombasa seems to have solved the problem. We can help each bioregion solve the problem, too.

I therefore envisage that we think separately in terms of these regions. My thought is that in March we organize an Diversity Council for each region. Certainly, we will encourage bioregions to work together where they are interested. But we will also point out that in many cases they don't have to. Also, the question of participation in the structures organized by Minciu Sodas becomes separate from national structural issues. We can organize in this way around the world to include regions large and small. They can overlap and group themselves in many different ways.

I encourage us to speak up about such an approach. If it makes sense, then I will work with our Commanders Dennis Kimambo, Rachel Wambui Kungu and Kennedy Owino to organize our Pyramid of Peace command structure accordingly. I will ask them to suggest peacemakers who can lead each region, and we will rotate them. We will also train them if they are interested to be Commanders. Please let us know if you would like to be trained as a Commander. I don't think a Commander should be shy, but should nominate themselves, just like the boy David who took on Goliath.

Each Diversity Council will let us and donors know the priorities in the area, organize participation in community projects, help us check to make sure the lead peacemaker is acting fairly, manage the treasury and release funds for our operations, and work with a group of international supporters.

I also envisage an Diversity Council for the Earth. This would certainly be the place to organize consensus regarding global warming. Janet Feldman and Franz Nahrada, I think you would be both good organizers for such an Diversity Council. Of course, it would be quite a challenge to find twelve people who might reflect the diversity of the people of the world.

I envisage this as a Minciu Sodas activity. I will be very active to shape the structure of such Diversity Councils that I propose. I want an Diversity Council to be a voice expressing a consensus of all people AS THEY ARE, and the Congress of a Tribe to express the expectation of what people SHOULD be, and the Command Structure to demonstrate how virtuous people CAN be. I am taking initiative so that these three modalities can be vibrant and in harmony. I also think that participants should be active and accountable as independent thinkers. Minciu Sodas is a context for that.

I suggest that each Diversity Council have twelve people. My thinking is that twelve is a number large enough to reflect diversity, but small enough to achieve consensus. One mechanism to achieve diversity would be to have a system as follows. The members would serve for twelve months, but staggered. Each month one member's term would end and they would propose three candidates who might best add to the diversity of the council. The council would by consensus choose one of them.

I have proposed many ideas in a short time. I appreciate our thoughts on the whole or any part.

Rights

All people have the right :

• to love - to act as peacemakers and wield all of the authority they are able to
• to care - to be included in consensus for the matters where they live
• to cherish - to belong to no tribe or any and all tribes

Draft of Letter

I share my chat with John Rogers. Thank you, John, for your community currency advice!

As we chatted, I thought through what I want for our Earth Stewardship Council. This would be the stewardship council for the entire earth. The purpose is to coordinate our global resources, including our global treasury, both in cash and community currency. It is also to approve or not on a global scale our Constitution for Humanity or any other arrangement.

I organize this as Direktorius of Minciu Sodas and Maintainer of the Constitution for Humanity.

The Earth Stewardship Council should be a bottom-up arrangement that includes people from all bioregions. That is not possible yet, so I wish to appoint Janet Feldman, Franz Nahrada, John Rogers and Pamela McLean. Would you agree to be members? Also, I will look to our Stewardship Councils in Kenya and Africa to provide four members of the Council. So we will have some balance and some bottom-up participation, too.

However, this will be virtual work, and so I think it would be right that all of the members be comfortable as online leaders. Therefore I think there should be the minimum requirement of every ESC member that they lead a working group at our Minciu Sodas laboratory based on their deepest value. Another requirement, for the bottom-up selected ESC members, is that they be active in some local or bioregional Stewardship Council, preferably where they live.

Commanders may not be members of Stewardship Councils and that disqualifies me, Rachel Wambui Kungu, Dennis Kimambo and Kennedy Owino. This is because I want to keep the branches separate so that we can have clear answers to what people want as a group and not have that confused with what peacemakers want to do as individuals.

We currently therefore have only a few candidates, those who are already leading working groups: Samwel Kongere (Rusinga Island, Kenya), David Mutua (Nairobi, Kenya), Fred Kayiwa (Kampala, Uganda), Kiyavilo Msekwa (Arusha, Tanzania), Josephat Ndibalema (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania). But we have many good writers and we can start organizing more. If you are interested, please let us know and write about your deepest value in life!

Ultimately, the Council will have 12 people but we are covering only a portion of our planet's bioregions and so I think we can start with 8 for now.

Andrius: Hi John I am buying tickets to Lithuania for the COMMUNIA meeting. Could you come for a few days? the meeting is on Monday, March 31 Also, I like your thoughts on community currency.

John: Sorry, Andrius, I have to be in the UK for meetings that same week.

Andrius: ok

John: What do you want to do about the currency thoughts?

Andrius: I am thinking several directions I want us to organize Stewardship Councils for locations and bioregions and even the planet. I want them to include all those who care and reflect that diversity. :: I want them to manage their own treasuries and that would include community currencies.

John: Who else are you talking with about these Councils?

Andrius: Our Kenyan leaders are in agreement with this. :: And we're having a meeting in Nakuru on March 15

John: So the important thing with the currency idea is for people to understand that currencies outside the marketplace can do other things such as rebuild community. :: And they can be used in an economic way too if people so wish.

Andrius: So there are three structure in our Constitution for Humanity: the command structure for integrating independent peacemakers, the Stewardship Councils, and then also new organs for the Cultures/Tribes. :: Yes and it's important that we can have our own economy, and also I have thoughts on our relationship with companies, I would like us to be like a stakeholder's union for select companies that we're interested in. :: So for those companies that we choose we would be the moral control.

John: Ah, ha, thanks. CC starts with the goals, goes through the methodology to make the detailed design decisions and then make a system that fits local conditions.

Andrius: So imagine if we took a company like Yahoo which we were interested and organized the workers, managers, shareholders, customers, the people. :: And then suppose we engagedthem just as we do militias. :: Another example would be the Kenyan mobile phone company Safaricom. :: And then suppose we investigate them to make sure that they are working at a high moral standard and looking at long term fundamentals. :: For example, in the case of Safaricom, 5% of their stock is owned by a mystery owner who is probably corrupt politicians. :: Now what happens is that because of our scrutiny their stock price will become more accurate. It may drop or it may rise in the short term. But being more accurate, it will attract more investors because they will be more reliably informed and it will be a better vehicle for more kinds of investments.

John: You could start by engaging their officer for Corporate Social Responsility, eighty per cent of corporates now do this kind of reporting. A lot of it is 'greenwash' and some of it is serious. Find out if Safaricom has one.

Andrius: ANd if it attracts more investors then its price will go up in the long term. :: Yes so my idea is not to have a "greenwash" relation with a CSR, but rather the kind of relationship they would have with a labor union. :: And so we would have a Moral Index of the companies that we think are most relevant to us and on which we are interested to invest our scrutiny. :: And that Moral Index would be an attractor for investors because they would know that these are companies that attract investigation. :: And basically to seize "moral control" of these companies so that in a sense we are in charge of them :: And so they or their shareholders would pay us modestly to take this role. :: Just like union workers pay for union leadership, similarly the shareholders would pay for us to keep the company on its toes. :: But these payments could be not cash but rather :: in terms of good :: which would be from employees their time :: from managers the products :: from customers their interest :: from shareholders cash :: Am I making sense? So I am very much encouraged by your approach because you are saying that if what we are doing is valuable as we think it is, then we can use it to back a currency, and that currency doesn't have to be focused only on cash. :: And so we could certainly do a lot with Safaricom minutes or with Yahoo free ads.

John: : Yes. At what stage are you with real contacts with these companies and what do they think of your ideas?

Andrius: I have a good contact in Yahoo and so I have to write a letter and propose this. :: Of course I need to break this down into doable steps but the long term goal is fine, too. And I need to sit down and make a structure for a budget, what kinds of expenses do we have and what kinds of income might take care of what. :: I also have the phone number and email of the Safaricom CEO although I don't know if he would be interested at all but they were studying my proposal. :: Another asset we have is that we are very successful with the tribal militia the Mungikis and they are keen to work with us. And I can suggest them to not focus much on their grievances against the politicians who manipulated them - hundreds of them were killed by police - but rather to focus on collecting information about corruption. :: So one of our first goals in Kenya might be to apply ourselves to show which companies or agencies are corrupt and how. :: And so that's a big social value and I think the scrutiny also has a big market value for shareholders. :: I imagine you are very busy, but still I would like to invite you. :: My role now with Minciu Sodas is twofold: to structure a Constitution for Humanity which various groups, especially for locations and bioregions, could accept as a framework to work within. :: And also to provide top-down executive leadership through our command structure. :: So we need a bottom-up system of councils based on locations and bioregions as I discussed above. :: and with a mind towards consensus and especially a culture of gift giving and sharing, responsible norms for that. :: I think it would be good to have a Stewardship Council for our planet as part of that. :: To provide overall guidance and consensus. :: And ultimately it would come from people of various bioregions. :: But that is several years into the future.

John: : I am still unclear as to how the PoP governance structure is going to work. I am also wondering, irrespective of the Kenyan situation, whether it is worth thinking through how a 'peace currency' attached to the Pyramid of Peace might work?

Andrius: Meanwhile, though we could have it and I could make top-down appointments and then we could also get bottom-up representation which would be possible ssoon for Kenya/Africa. :: The PoP governance structure is outlined at http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?Constitution :: and I and Minciu Sodas are responsible to maintain the Constitution for Humanity which participating individuals and groups then agree to (or not and participate alongside or in other structures of their won) :: and the management of the "peace currency" for the planet would be done by the Stewardship Council for the Planet :: and it would be a great help I think to have that :: and so at this point I would be happy to appoint you, Franz Nahrada, Janet Feldman, Pamela McLean :: to serve their at my request :: and start working that out :: while meanwhile we develop bottom-up participation, too :: so we would have our African participants choose one or two representatives for that Council too :: and add more as activity warrants.

John: : ok, I'll study your Constitution and think some more about how a currency could be integrated.

Andrius: Might you agree to be a member of such a Council? :: By my appointment?

John: : I am happy to do the thinking around a powerful idea, not so comfortable with Councils and such. Let me be an adviser.

Andrius: Currently it's basically Advisory. :: so it would be best for me if you might participate direcly :: so that your advice was direct!

John: : Tell me when this Council aims to meet and I will take part. Sorry I can't make it to Lithuania in March.

Andrius: It will be virtual for now.

John: : Any scheduled meetings on line?

Andrius: None scheduled yet, first we need participants! :: You are the first person I have asked!

John: :D :: I am honoured!

Andrius: and it will be a small group for now of peolpe who understand Minciu Sodas well and me well too! :: you, Franz, Janet, Pamela :: and then probably two people from Africa

John: ok, I'll carry on thinking through the currency and make a concrete proposal ready for when you have a Council to discuss it!

Andrius: great :: maybe three or four from Africa to keep it balanced

Andrius: and the ultimate size of the Council will be 12

John: Definitely

Andrius: so it is decision by consensus like an American jury :: and community currency governance would be one of its main roles :: so lets say 4 people are appointed by me serve at my decision, and 4 people are selected by the Stewardship Councils in Africa :: and that's a pretty good way to have balance for now

John: : Got to get back to my writing now. Keep me informed of developments.

Andrius: Thank you, John! I will share our chat.

John: : ok, see you...

Andrius: bye

Principles

February 27, 2008: ThomasChepaitis: I have a proposal for your strategies in aconference of Tribes. Call it "Attention to the smallest!" :: Begin from the needs etc. of the smallest tribe (group, language), then come up. It is honest, christian, and it helps to establsih a balance :: Because ususally the mess is going around "Bit the smaller (weaker)"

AndriusKulikauskas: Thomas that's a good principle.

ThomasChepaitis: Beat the weaker. You can bite the bigger as well, hmmm)

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 17:50:02 UTC kayiwa: i see this is meaningfull