POSTED ON November 27, 2013 BY admin
PADKOS NO 45
In civil society organisations, the overwhelming tendency is to speak – and the unerring consequence is to reinforce the silencing of the people. In fact much civil society practice and thinking proceeds really on the assumption that speech is not a capacity of the people. The Church Land Programme (CLP) has explored an alternative path. A central idea that emerged was that “our voice is our praxis” – or indeed, “our praxis is our voice” – and that the discipline of that principled praxis requires of the organisation much more listening than speaking.
On the other hand it has been important at various moments to be able to collectively and clearly articulate the principled basis of that praxis. Over the past years there continue to be moments of collective discussion and clarification that we’ve captured in short sets of notes. Attached are edited extracts from three such notes from the past three years:
- A CLP confession of faith (2011);
- A CLP statement on the land question (2012); &
- A CLP Summation of our principles and politics (2013).