Larger Systems Forum: Dialogical Conversations and Animating Democracy in the United States

Gonzalo Bacigalupe, Ed.D.

The Larger Systems Forum organized a conversation to assess our feelings about our homeland and about its role in the world. Based on the Arts and Civic Dialogue movement, Dr. Pat Romney facilitated an exercise that through music and the expressive arts helped us to talk about our feelings of connection and disconnection to the United States before and after September 11. In this kind of dialogical encounter, the artistic process creates opportunities for citizens to dialogue on issues that have profound political, historical, and societal significance.

The focus of civic dialogue is not about the process of dialogue itself. Nor is its intent solely therapeutic or to nurture personal growth. Rather, civic dialogue addresses a matter of civic importance to the dialogue participants. Civic dialogue works toward common understanding in an open-ended discussion. It engages multiple perspectives on an issue, including potentially conflicting and unpopular ones, rather than promoting a single point of view.

Wearing a colorful shirt that had the U.S. flag on it, Pat situated herself in the middle of the room and told us that she was going to represent this country. She asked us to move around the room and to stand in relationship to her. America the Beautiful and the Star Spangled Banner were played or sung. A few minutes later, the majority had found his/her "place," while others walked around for a while. The music stopped and Pat described where we were located and some of the emotions that were in the room. It is hard to describe the silence as well as the tears, but they were there. We were instructed to listen carefully and to attend to each other's perspective.

Reactions ranged from embracing the homeland as a place of freedom, the same freedom that allowed us to have this conversation, to remembering the atrocities that the United States commits or has committed here and abroad. The following are some edited testimonies from participants who wrote to me as well as reactions evoked during the Forum.

I love this country, when I hear the land of free, I hope for that, the country that can become too.

After living for a long time abroad, I feel so much more connected to this country. But my head and heart are split; I fear what this country can do and I want this country to do something different.

I don't want to stand behind you because I don't want to stand with the present government. And I do not want to follow you or be at your right because I would like to be on the left but I am very mainstream person and don't have an influence on what you do but I want to watch what you do very closely.

I feel teary, but today, especially because we do not want to hear what is out there, I am on the left, definitely not on the right but not a part of the radical left either, but I am behind too, because I want to push you in a different direction.

The whole planet is impacted by what we do, wanting to be a refuge to others—a scary place—but I'm also very grateful for what this country has done for me.

When I heard the "Star Spangled Banner," I was again horrified by the bombs bursting in the air and the U.S. policies that support bombs bursting in many countries across many years, and at the same time moved deeply by the high ideals of a "land of the free." For my grandparents and mother, this was indeed the land of the free. The flag to them was a sign that they were rescued and that there was hope and possibility. They would have been dead if they stayed in their native country, and all the discrimination, poverty and marginalization that they experienced here were to them not only bearable but so far better than their experience in their country of origin and secondary to being able to be publicly Jewish and worship at a synagogue. But I am their daughter and granddaughter, born here to privilege and very aware that this is the land of the free only for some, and aware of what the flag represents in many countries throughout the world. "America the Beautiful" is moving to me—I am especially moved by "God correct its every flaw" and "crown thy good with brotherhood." It is a song of possibility and of beauty. At the same time, I'm keenly aware that the line "Oh beautiful for patriot's feet . . ." is a reference to the same feet that trampled Native Americans. Ah, ambivalence.

As an "outsider," I did find the overt patriotism a bit too up front for my British Isles sensibilities, which are hallmarked by "restraint."

The U.S. does things that bother other countries, little things that show the arrogant side of the country. For the most part, people like this country, but not the taking over the metaphor of the world as in the "World Series," and of course the lack of attention to international news.

After the Civil War, the U.S. added my own state to this country where my roots are. I am weeping because of this country for what this country is and it has been.

My own position in the room was far from the center, but also represented some of the ambivalent walking back and forth as I paid attention to the dialogue itself and my own positive relationship with the U.S. Tuesday, September 11, 1973, was the traumatic event that marked my relationship with the United States—on this date the Chilean military with the support of the American government overthrow the democratically elected president. Pat asked the group how many knew about this other September 11, a few said that they did not know about it and for some it is just another way in which silence pervades around accounts that subvert the dominant discourse. Pat also asked the group to think about the kind of conversations we could have across the various positions in which we have located our relationship with the United States. How could a conversation evolve between the person who embraces the flag in a loving admiring way and someone who feels violated by its symbolism or is critical of U.S. foreign policy?

The music brings a lot of feelings for me; it brings forth the different realities
Distinctions about what this country is and what its government represents were expressed frequently throughout the conversation. The idea of freedom and personal safety were often contrasted with experiences in other countries, with the recognition that, for many immigrants from abroad, the idea of homeland does not offer safety, nor does the host country. Interestingly, the conversation about safety is also a historical and geographical one—many in the room did not feel safe growing up. One of our AFTA members stated: Being Jewish and growing up in Miami, the White supremacists scared me and made me think about not feeling safe in my own country. For others in the room, the idea that national allegiance is constitutive of their own personal identity did not fit their life experience: National identity does not necessarily make sense to me having lived in so many places, I live everywhere and the place is no where. The intersection of historical and transgenerational stories was evident in the accounts of each of those who were present at the forum.

It is a beautiful flag, but the idea that the U.S. is the world bothers many abroad
Pat invited us to sing America the Beautiful, first, because the audio failed, but also as a means of furthering our reflection about where we locate ourselves in relation to the United States. To further the experiential engagement, we were asked to create our own flag. Showing the same kindness with which she had led the first part of the forum, Pat told us that reshaping the flag could be seen by others as wounding and disrespectful. While we listened to more patriotic music, using scissors, color pencils, glue, we each took one flag and went on to create a piece of art. After working on our own, we displayed the flag we had created and described our process. Pat asked us to be curious, and to truly wonder about what others had to say.

Watching the flags was again a moving experience that provided all with the opportunity to witness a range of meanings. A couple of people cut the flag to represent a dollar sign to symbolize capitalism. Some cut the flag to soften it, to rip it, or to contain it in a body bag. Many painted or wrote on their flag to protest, to demand change, to show the need for the country to celebrate inclusiveness. There were also others who decided not to touch the core of the flag as a sign of respect and commitment to freedom and the constitution. The meaning of the flag and its deconstruction were also at the core of the reflections after the forum. Those who wrote stated:

This experience made me conscious of wanting my flag to reflect in the stars an inclusivity of the diverse peoples who make up the U.S. The stars have never been identified as representing a particular state and therefore they seemed a good place to reflect the diversity of the U.S. Reaching adulthood in the '60s has left me with ambivalence about identifications with the flag and a sense of resentment that one particular faction could appropriate the flag and its meanings for its own purposes.

The "United WE STAND" phrase has brought a lot of questions for me. I would feel more comfortable if we could add all the flags of the world to represent us. Does the "we" mean only Americans or does it include all cultures and ethnicities? Who is "WE"? Anyway, those were some of my comments at the forum.

I love my country and what it stands for. The fact that we can express ourselves in the way that we are doing, says it all. We have the freedom to feel the discomfort of our different views which leaves room for change.

During the forum, as participants embraced their flags, and entered not only in a dialogue with their listeners, it seems as if we were having conversations with the piece of art that we had created.

Dealing with the flag has been hard after September 11. I never burned one, but I never a very positive relationship with it. After 9/11 I am here and loving my country. My father, who came here in 1924 from Trinidad, always said, "America has been good to us." But there are so many problems of which we are responsible or that we could do more to help resolve. We do little about the suffering elsewhere. I want that to be different for our children.

I want this flag to have stars of different colors. Like here, it is amazing that we can be together without pushing each other down.

It should represent interdependence, not just a declaration of independence, with other people and nations. If we can change it to be that it will also serve our own self-interest too.

I hate flags as markers of difference, there are too many of them. I created a flag that represents the different factions in my own country. I want to bring the various territories, insiders and outsiders, and weave them together. Integrating and decorating with the colors of the others. Even the order is coordination rather than hierarchy.

I made cut outs to connect pieces that open up, to cut the harshness and make the flag softer, show union and compassion for the rest of the world. My desire is for our country to care for the planet. Not taking over but reaching over.

This flag represent duress, a lot of shredding, and a symbol of resilience. But I hate to see the flags on the trucks in the highway. There is far too much hate in that.

My flag is in a body bag, cut into pieces. The bag contains the bodies of Native Americans, Africans, Chinese, Japanese, Cambodians, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, the shoulders of people on which this country has been built. However, this country is so many different identities, an intersection of diversity.

My flag has a poem and it says: We don't want another Nagasaki, we don't want another victory.

As a child of WWII, I wanted to express my disappointment, since the economics of this country will most probably destroy us and the planet.

I tried to symbolize the shame about my country by darkening the stars. I wrote hopeful things like "free health care, child care, social justice, world peace, the elimination of poverty, no more tears."

September 11 brought disappointment. This is so painful to me, this is the lynching of a black man, a flag with slaves hanging from the flag.

This is a solution-focus flag; I softened the edges, shadowed the world, and added these antennae to be attentive to the world.

This flag has the shape of the edges of all the continents.

I created a flag that it is in a museum a century later with a description that explains how the flag became inconvenient to express who we are and how the meaning changed gradually.

Listening to the stories and evolving emotions about our personal relationship with a nation and its links with the rest of the world was an extraordinary opportunity to expand my own understanding of how personal experiences and citizenship are intricately woven in our encounter with the other. A conversation that has often emerged in previous conferences involves the ways in which we have been leaving behind the actual clinical work with families as the focus of presentations and discussions. These conversations, however, are at the core of the kind of work many of us find ourselves engaging in when talking with couples and families who are in highly contested and/or conflictive situations. Experimenting with dialogues that allow us to "jump tracks" and move out of our own lines of thought and action is truly a clinical skill that is at the cutting edge of more gentle and respectful therapeutic interventions. These conversations are also collective experiments at breaking through the dichotomies that move us back to individualistic ways of thinking and allow us to incorporate into our own personal experiences, the larger historical, political, and cultural dimensions that make us who we are.

Gonzalo Bacigalupe is Associate Professor at the Family Therapy Program at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Gonzalo is an AFTA board member and is chair of the Larger Systems Committee. Contact him via e-mail at gonzalo.bacigalupe@umb.edu.