Democracy and its Discontents
Principles:  Jean-Bertrand Aristide, President of Haiti (1991-1996); Sithembiso Nyoni, President, Organization of Rural Associations for Progress, Zimbabwe; Bernard Kinsey, Co-Chairman, Rebuild L.A.

The Forum's third and final plenary session offered much food for thought today as the eight panelists and moderator, Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, spoke about the breakdown and revitalization of civil society. In various ways, each acknowledged that the topic involved nothing less than the survival of humanity itself, lending the session a grave undercurrent that was nevertheless lightened by enthusiasm and humor.

"We have to move from poverty to prosperity with dignity," Aristide opened the session. "We have to invest in human beings." As illustration, he outlined the steps his own government had taken in this direction, including projects to increase literacy and improve health care.

No two panelists covered the same ground in offering their different perspectives  which ranged from the accomplishments of the women's movement in the United States to the national reconciliation process in South Africa  yet all touched upon this basic theme. Three common threads ran through many of the speeches: the worldwide need for improved education, broader prosperity and material security, and a greater role for women.

"Security is a basic human need. So we must ask: Who is responsible for meeting basic needs? In my country, in Africa, it is women," said Sithembiso Nyoni of Zimbabwe, setting off the enthusiastic audience applause that erupted every time women's empowerment was mentioned throughout the session.

"Women are not taken seriously" and are consistently left out of international peacekeeping efforts, she said. "Why is it that women and children must always be defended instead of being made part of the process? ... Women can play an important role provided we don't take security as a way of standing between two people who are already fighting, but as a way of mending relationships that have been broken."

Bernard Kinsey, who led efforts to rebuild Los Angeles' inner city after the 1991 Rodney King riots, offered his approach as a model for development efforts elsewhere. "We asked businesses not to go into the inner city out of philanthropic motives, but out of economic motives," to look at the area as an ordinary investment opportunity.

Such an approach requires "maximum involvement for everyone, appreciation for all citizens, and everyone must know their role, because everyone has a stake."

The need for this sense of inclusiveness, for participation by all citizens and not just those with wealth or political power, was a recurrent theme. According to Prof. Boutheina Cheriet of Algeria, "What we should be working on is establishing trust between those who govern and those who are governed."

Aristide closed the session by urging that people stop seeing problems as black or white, but seek a new "third way" toward solving them. He illustrated by telling how he once invited several local homeless children to go swimming in his pool. "I asked [one little girl] if she thought the pool"  which she called a "bucket"  "was large or small. 'It's beautiful,' she said. I gave her two ways to look at it, and she found a third way."

--Randall Lyman