Visionaries

7. Massively Parallel Roles & Tasks

Visionaries help us imagine a unifying vision for a diverse society that maximizes self-determination while promoting joint action to protect the commons. One of our favorite visionaries is Ebrahim Rasool, a former South African ambassador to the United States, who gave an amazing talk¹at the Alliance for Peacebuilding's PeaceCon2020 in which he reflected on the way South Africa emerged from Apartheid and what that might suggest about how the United States might best approach race relations. Rasool named seven steps that South Africa went through to reach the level of reconciliation that it has (which he admits is far from perfect, but it is way better than the bloodbath the world was expecting). First, he said, you have to understand that "the other is here to stay." They are not going to disappear. So you are going to have to co-exist with "the other." Second, he advised, "start with the end." Define your ultimate vision for your society. It must be one that has a place for "the other." For example, he explained, "The ANC vision was that South Africa belongs to everyone who lives there, Black and White. That not only was that a statement of vision, it was an extension of friendship. It was an act of generosity." That vision and the acceptance of "the other" in that vision, is what enabled South Africa to make all the further steps that it did toward reconciliation, including the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

We often wonder — what would happen if most of Americans agreed that "America belongs to all who live here" and start trying to figure out how to make that work? Rasool's approach highlighted the importance of developing both a prospective and a retrospective vision. The prospective vision tries to imagine how very different communities (often with deeply troubled pasts) can learn to peacefully coexist with one another despite deep and continuing differences. The retrospective vision tries to imagine how these societies can constructively come to terms with the wrongs and injustices of that past — wrongs that are, in many important respects, unrightable. For that reason we have divided "visionaries" up into two subcategories: co-existers and healers.