The environment a community needs for transparency

This is a continuation of my previous post, Security by obscurity vs Security by Design. If you haven’t read that, I suggest you read it first to get the background, and then continue here.

In that earlier post, I talk about opening a can of worms once we start being transparent. Problems that are invisible, unknown, and hidden start to surface once we become transparent. The root cause of these problems can range from simple ignorance, inability, or oversight, to intentional wrongful intent. Or, on the other side, the problem flagged could just be a false alarm that needs a simple record correction somewhere. Whatever the root cause, the way we deal with these problems is a sure sign of our maturity as a community. It determines whether we encourage more people to be transparent, or shun transparency as a bad practice, as has sometimes been feared.

For anyone who might wonder why all this fuss about transparency, here in brief is how I look at it. In our physical world, or in my mental world, everything needs the right environment to grow, be it a seed or a thought. Transparency, and the environment needed for transparency, is the basic need for a community that looks for transformation.

While in the previous post I talked about the need for transparency and why it should be in our DNA, here I would like to address some of the principles and behaviours towards transparency that are necessary to keep growing in transparency and trust. It’s possible that we, as a community, always aspired for transparency (as in the BCC mandate), but didn’t talk enough about the environment needed for it.

Safe space

First and foremost, everyone should feel that sharing data in our community domain (a semi-public domain) is a safe space, and that an individual or entity flagged by some data is not immediately seen as a violator or labelled in any way. As mentioned earlier, the root cause of a problem could be anywhere between ignorance and a false alarm. Creating a safe space for people to freely share their views on why some data flags them is a sure way to encourage more people to be transparent.

Empathy

People are not numbers, or just some data on a computer. They have stories, emotions, and unmet needs behind what is revealed as data in some analysis. Listening to humans in an empathetic way is important as we understand the truth behind the data. Without this empathetic listening, we build a wall of division and label people good vs bad, as extremists all over the world have done.

Dealing with unmet needs

Work would not be a way to earn one’s living but a way to express oneself and to develop one’s capacities and possibilities while being of service to the community as a whole, which, for its own part, would provide for each individual’s subsistence and sphere of action.

It’s a widely known fact that our community is unable to take care of its residents in a meaningful way. While our support system is not bad for everyone, it is definitely not addressing everyone’s needs at all times. Some grave examples are how our healthcare system is unable to provide support (whether in-kind medical treatment, or in cash to get treated elsewhere) in many serious health issues of our family members.

So, in this context of several unmet needs over too long a period, it’s possible that many of us found “a way” to solve it for ourselves, which, when looked at through the layer of transparency, reveals us in a bad light.

Can we take these up as “unmet” collective needs, and re-look at them as a larger problem to solve, rather than isolating the individuals whose actions revealed the issues?

Dealing with wilful wrong intent

A gentle and yet strong message could be sent to people who are proven to have behaved wilfully, with wrong intent that harms our community. My friend told me a story of how the Mother reacted to an incident when a man pushed her down during Darshan time. It is said that she allowed the person to stay in the ashram against the wishes of other devotees, who were furious after the incident. She said it is the energy in him that pushed her down that needs to go out, and not the person himself.

Time and space for change

A sufficient amount of time and space should be given to anyone who needs to change. Forcing people to change is not a way towards transformation; it can only hide the problem even further.

Owning up to consequences

There are consequences for every malpractice, and it affects the community as a whole. The damage is always there; it is only the degree of it that varies. The collective can let people go without “paying” for the damages, or demand that the damage “be paid” on a case-by-case basis, but whatever the choice, the decisions should again be documented and transparently available for all.

Stigma free

Keeping our family members “stigma free” for actions that were once done by them (and later revealed by the transparency in our system) is a way to bring in true inclusivity and help each other on our path to collective transformation. Without this collective will to not stigmatize people, transparency will be feared as something that ruins people’s lives for what happened in the past.

In Nature, only when all the environmental conditions are right do seeds grow into beautiful trees. Until then they remain dormant and locked inside, or they try to grow but die in the process. The same is true of the process of becoming a transparent society.

What, in your view, are the environmental conditions for transparency? I would like to hear your views. Please share.