Invictus and Spiral Dynamics The movie...
Invictus and Spiral Dynamics
The movie "Invictus" shows us an amazing example of the use of Spiral Dynamics in the real world. Don Beck and Spiral Dynamics were very involved in this time period in South Africa. To find out in more detail - come to the June Seminar at the Center for Spiritual Living in Dallas. I'm just giving you a brief, simplified description here.
During the ending of Apartheid the biggest question was how to bring the whole country together. Unfortunately what usually happens is that the oppressed, when they get into power, are so angry and hurt, that they turn right around and become the oppressors. To actually bring about unity in the country, however, a way of bringing the two sides together needed to be found.
You can see that from a spiral dynamics point of view, the country was facing a Red power struggle, with a bit of Blue on one side. The Red was evidenced by the tribal, revenge driven anger of the one side which was finally going to be in power. How did they seem to want to use their power? To get for themselves the power they saw the other side having for so long. This is the "I" side of the spiral finally getting to the personal "power" they had so long been denied. On the opposite side you also had Red being played out in the "power" of the oppressive regime as well as Blue with the "right of truth" and the sense of belonging to the correct group that was destined by a higher authority to rule. "We are destined to rule because we know what's best for all of us, which is that I get the best and you don't."
The way that was found to start bringing the two sides together? National sports! Mandela sought to create an environment where the Red on both sides was invited to start rooting for the National Rugby Team, even though to one side they seemed to represent the old, oppressive regime. This allowed them to meet on equal ground with the Red of the other side, rather than trying to take something away from the other side. And, since Sport of any kind is governed by "rules" it begins to invite everyone into the "truth or absolute rule" of Blue, you either follow the rules or you don't, as well as the "we" of Blue - we're all South Africans and we're all on the same side. It's really brilliant and the fact that they won was simply icing on the cake. After a year of coming together, rooting on the same side, an opening was made, that maybe, just maybe, we're on the same side enough that we can move through the hurts, forgive the past, and see each other as South Africans, all in this together. And we've learned that we can follow the rules together, and look what it got us!
You can also see that Mandela was bringing in the Orange conversation when he addresses the other nations, especially the US. Come and invest in us! Bring us your ambition and strive drive and you will find a place for that here. Of course, South Africa will learn from that as well. You can also see that bringing in the language of Green "we're all one human family, and we should love and respect each other" was too big of a leap for most people on either side. Some could see it and talk that way, but certainly not the general public at that time. The language was simply too Red/Blue.
This is a fantastic example of changing the conversation, using different language, to shift a cultural perspective, to allow two sides to get together rather than kill each other. It takes time, patience, commitment and diligence. But as we can see, it was worth it!
- 1 year ago
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