The Common Good

I may be wrong, but I can't help feeling that my understanding of what organisation is all about is different from that of my neighbours.

Recent experiences are the cause of that feeling. Together with some others I'm involved in setting up two different organisations here in Aston. Organisation means influence, power if you like, and that is a scarce commodity in a deprived neighbourhood. Organisations are rather crucial in having one's voice heard.

In preparing for the two organisations it was unavoidable to discuss frameworks and constitutions. The discussion brought home to me two concerns I had not really thought of before. One said that great care should be taken not to exclude anyone and certainly not persons with a kind of following. They may turn against you if they are not properly acknowledged. The second concern was even more interesting. It had to do with the possibility that one particular group of people, a large family or a network of family and friends, would try to hijack the organisation for its own particular ends.

These concerns struck me, because so far I had thought of my organisational efforts as an attempt to bring people of different backgrounds together. It was all about bridge-building for the sake of the community as a whole. But apparently, this is not how my partners in the discussion looked at things. Perhaps, they thought me rather naive, as they had stories to tell of how organisations have been used not to serve the common good but to benefit the leaders.

It brought home to me that the 'common good' is very much an abstract concept. In a community that is fragmented, there is no such a thing as the common good, at least not in an experiential way. It is all about your own group, your own particular community, your own culture and religion. And even if the different groups would get together, they are not in it for an overarching purpose but to promote their own interests. It is the politics of the temporary alliances: you scratch my back and I scratch yours. Until, that is, when I grow strong enough to do without you.

The 'common good' may not seem to be part of the 'real world'. Still, there is joy in getting to know each other, to explore each other's backgrounds, to share each other's experiences and to set common goals. Both realists and idealists have their place; together they may make a difference.

Ton