“Herein lies the tragedy of the age:
Not that men are poor, – all men know something of poverty.
Not that men are wicked, – who is good?
Not that men are ignorant, – what is truth?
Nay, but that men know so little of men.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois
Mutual improvement societies can be an interesting way to generate intellectual life.
Around May Day, we added the tool of Incident reports to try and improve the level of conversation.
MONOLOGUES OR CONVERSATIONS…INCIDENT REPORTS
One interesting way of knowing the truth in its many dimensions is to try and generate a conversation. If you ask about the same incident to different persons in different layers of the organization and try to record these, you will get a summary of what the feel of the incident is. This has been a way of building perspective from a holistic approach rather than a Top-Down Absentee Board Member approach making some closeted decisions without ever asking the persons on the ground what is happening.
HERE ARE SOME SUGGESTED HEADINGS
Date: Time:
What happened?
Reported to administrator…Yes or No,
To Whom
Discussion
Proposed action.
RELATED POSTS
The Exit Interview https://prashantbhatt.com/2012/05/16/the-exit-interview/
The Pygmalion Effect https://prashantbhatt.com/2012/04/23/first-line-managers-pygmalion-effect/
AWARENESS ..QUESTIONNAIRES
In her book- The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes’ Jonathan Rose writes about the workings of other grassroots and awareness-raising groups in hundreds of chapels and thousands of kitchens became known as ‘mutual improvement’ (a term used as far back as 1731). Although ‘these institutions are scarcely mentioned in studies of labour history,’ Rose comments, a Coventry millworker once claimed that
‘The Labour movement grew out of Mutual Improvement Societies’ (58).
In the medical private sector, I came to know of some bizarre rules like
“If you talk to the administrator three days salary will be cut”
While talking to some workers who do night duties.(When will they get
their dues if they keep working quietly in night?)
Meeting in a non-formal atmosphere, talking about the composition of the communities through their schools, libraries, reading groups made us realize how different issues like housing allowances, gratuity, medical insurance, transfers help build a narrative and perspective which is different from “millions transferred-profit and loss” of the board.
“How come a hospital which derives income from insured patients does not insure its own medical staff?”
RELATED POSTS
Remembering Haymarket..The Eight Hour Day
The first secular holiday of Libya under the transitional council is the International Worker’s day.Earlier, other than Islamic holidays, the only secular holidays were those relating to the important dates on the calendar of the previous regime.
The Eight Hour Day –Remembering Hay Market in Tripoli
Which Historiography..In search of Unknown Worker
Which historiography..In search of the Unknown worker.
EDUCATION..TO STAND ON OWN FEET
As we sifted through the intellectual life of working people, we realized the truth in the words of a student in 1936 Williams-Heath survey who believed education exists
‘To enable a man to stand on his own feet. To equip him to be able to endure his own company on occasions, communing with the inner world of his thoughts, instead of rushing out to mix with the crowd’ (283).
As I asked a reputed Head of an Infectious diseases unit in Tripoli about the source of medicines, he acknowledged that India-the pharmacy of the underdeveloped world can provide the same drugs at a much cheaper rate.
“There is pressure from NGOs to acquire the drugs from European companies.
I do not have much say in the purchasing committee and do my job to take care of the patients. The lobbies are funded by powerful interests.”
As I read this article in the Tripoli Post about the state of our hospitals-
I have recently seen a report on one of these hospitals that suggests that they still are in very bad shape. As a matter of fact recently some doctors have taken the desperate measures of leading a daily hourly strike in protest against the shortage of equipment, and the recently added problem of gun threats by patients to the medical staff.
http://www.tripolipost.com/articledetail.asp?c=5&i=10154
The truth of experiences at different layers comes out in many ways. The patient, relative experiences the same institution in a different way from a maintenance engineer, or a medical head of unit , nursing instructor. The place is the same, but the experiences and viewpoints are different .Add to this the fluid state of ministries the sense of flux is felt even more. As one veteran pointed out
“The persons in the ministries have become defensive, do not want to rock the boat and just want to finish their tenure without much controversy.”
If education is to stand on one’s own feet, then collective opinion may give us better ways of doing so.
THIS MAY DAY
Let us try to go beyond monologues into multilayered conversations, develop mutual awareness and improvement societies to interrogate various layers.
SUGGESTED LINKS
1. Book review by Elliot Murphy
The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes’ by Jonathan Rose
As the marketisation of universities accelerates, maintaining forms of education which value the pursuit of knowledge as an end in itself has become a crucial and necessary challenge. Elliot Murphy revisits a classic study by Jonathan Rose that explores the pre-war culture of self-education amongst the British working classes.
‘The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes’ by Jonathan Rose Books
2. The Scary Spider That Opened My Eyes – by Mary Ahmed
http://www.tripolipost.com/articledetail.asp?c=5&i=10154
3. Dictated by Pharma Companies
Commentary by Kalpana Mehta, Anand Rai, Nalini Bhanot in Economic and Political Weekly April 2013
The 59th report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on health and family welfare on the functioning of the central drugs standard control organisation strongly indicted the agency for its incompetence and the corrupt dealing of doctors who are puppets of pharmaceutical companies.
Prashant Bhatt's notes 