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Fear and isolation among your peers because of your beliefs
Have you experience fear and isolation among your peers because of your beliefs?
One of our new members from the US wrote to us:
"I strongly believe in the principles you promulgate and believe we must all speak our hearts. I feel isolated from most of my peers who have adjusted their principles to align themselves with big business or with the government bureaucrats who support it. (...)"
I am not surprised at what our colleague says, I have experienced this - I just hadn't seen it expressed so well.
At the office where I used to work, one of my colleagues placed an US flag - my memory may not be that accurate, but I believe it was fabric and about 40 to 50cm wide. Having returned from work in the US - as part of our developers projects (designing housing for the military) - he must have felt he had the right to place his flag in the common office space. The interesting thing for me wasn't that he did that, as I suspected he would be the type, what was telling was my own reaction - I said nothing. I put up with this as I did with many other appalling situations. I guess all the others in the office did the same, architects, planners, urbanists and administrative personnel. Whether it was because they did not care or because they responded with silence the way I did, I will never know.
"Normal" conversations of course continued, football, Big Brother etc, war did not rate that high, at least not in public.
Could I have placed a Palestinian, Syrian, then French or Iraqi flag with the same easiness? I don't believe so. What does this say about our equalitarian and democratic society?
One of our new members from the US wrote to us:
"I strongly believe in the principles you promulgate and believe we must all speak our hearts. I feel isolated from most of my peers who have adjusted their principles to align themselves with big business or with the government bureaucrats who support it. (...)"
I am not surprised at what our colleague says, I have experienced this - I just hadn't seen it expressed so well.
At the office where I used to work, one of my colleagues placed an US flag - my memory may not be that accurate, but I believe it was fabric and about 40 to 50cm wide. Having returned from work in the US - as part of our developers projects (designing housing for the military) - he must have felt he had the right to place his flag in the common office space. The interesting thing for me wasn't that he did that, as I suspected he would be the type, what was telling was my own reaction - I said nothing. I put up with this as I did with many other appalling situations. I guess all the others in the office did the same, architects, planners, urbanists and administrative personnel. Whether it was because they did not care or because they responded with silence the way I did, I will never know.
"Normal" conversations of course continued, football, Big Brother etc, war did not rate that high, at least not in public.
Could I have placed a Palestinian, Syrian, then French or Iraqi flag with the same easiness? I don't believe so. What does this say about our equalitarian and democratic society?
Howdy, Stranger!