Tag: leadership

• December 27, 2015

  LEADERSHIP, IDEA, AND EVIL

   

  There is no mystery to evil.
  In fact making evil into a mystery,
  Is a bad idea.
  There are only good ideas and bad ideas.
  Anything that brings purposeful, unprovoked harm,
  To other sentient beings,
  Is a bad idea.
  Evil is a bad idea,
  In the hands of a leader.
  Be a leader only,
  With a good idea.
  If you must,
  Be a follower,
  For a good idea.
  Be smart enough,
  To be aware,
  Of your own bad ideas,
  And confine them to your head.
  If you cannot,
  Then you must leave immediately.

  The temptation to mystify evil is equal to our bewilderment at humanity, how many good people are led to do the worst things imaginable. The answer is not evil in them, but the evil of bad ideas inside leaders, and the tragedy of human obedience. The one alternative that has always worked is very good …

• August 27, 2014

  Thoughts on God, Human Leadership, and Mountains, upon Leaving War’s Victims, Unfinished

  

  GOD

  An atheist leader
  who is rational,
  Can be more a messenger,
  of God’s mercy for the powerless,
  than a leader,
  who bows down to God,
  over the dead bodies,
  of his victims.

  ‘Less suffering’
  Is the tortured scream
  of God.

  An authentic smile
  Is the fleeting face of God,
  A single act of kindness,
  The touch of Her finger.

  Only when you accept death,
  Can you become committed
  To the renewal of life.
  Only when you see democracy die,
  Can you plan its rebirth.…

• July 15, 2014

  Reflections on Dancing in War and Leadership

  Franklin Theodore Roosevelt

   

  DANCING IN WAR

  There is always a dance of life and a dance of death. The only question at each moment of history is which dance is more appealing. 
  
  Warriors for life must learn to out dance warriors for death, and the best way is to never ever dance alone. 
  
  LEADERSHIP

  Being misled is a fundamental human need for some, being anything is better to them than Confusion 
  
  Leaders for life ultimately prevail over leaders for death because most want life, but followers never prevail over anything…

• March 26, 2009

  Nonviolent Noncooperation in Palestine and Israel: The Time Has Come for Arabs and Jews

  I just published this essay in the Common Ground News Service:

  Non-cooperation can bring a revolution to the Holy Land
  by Marc Gopin
  26 March 2009

  WASHINGTON, DC – It is time for a mass movement of nonviolent non-cooperation and resistance amongst Palestinians-because everything else has failed. I have hopes that the Obama Administration will be the best yet in moving the parties toward resolution, but in my heart I have always felt that there is one path to peace that has never been adopted, and that is the path of nonviolent non-cooperation – but with love – the way of Gandhi and Martin Luther King.

  This is something that a number of Palestinians within Israel and Palestine have tried through nonviolent marches, protests, and food boycotts, but it has never received full backing because it only works when it is adopted as the only means of resistance.

  This …

• March 18, 2009

  TURKEY’S RETURN TO GLORY

  This article just appeared in Today’s Zaman and in Zaman which is Turkey’s preeminent journal. As you can see this has been part of my ongoing efforts to introduce and encourage far more intermediaries in the Middle Eastern conflict who can be effective, trustworthy and more even handed that Western intervention. This is meant also to encourage the United States, Hilary Clinton, and others to follow the lead of where the most moderate voices of the Islamic world are going. This is also a development of my work in Syria which has encouraged cultural revival that is peace-oriented, practical and visionary at once.

  Turkey’s return to glory
  by
  Marc Gopin
  For reasons of history, culture and geography, there is a surprising opportunity for Turkey to assume a position of central global leadership in the 21st century and thereby further all of its legitimate national interests.

  This is shocking considering the

  …

• February 18, 2009

  “Lehman Sisters, Yes We Can!”

  

  A REPORT BY DR. KATRIEN HERTOG

  International Women’s Conference Celebrates Women’s Leadership

  Bangalore, 6-8 February 2009

  “If the Lehman Brothers would have been ‘Lehman Sisters’, would we be in the same mess as the one we are in now?” This provocative question characterizes the lively atmosphere of the Third International Women’s Conference, organised by the International Association for Human Values (IAHV) in Bangalore at the beginning of February. The Conference was dedicated to ‘The Light of Leadership: Integrating Global Perspectives’ and brought together 700 women from 68 countries and the most diverse cultures. All these women have taken up a leadership role in the world, whether on grassroots level or at the top, and this in the most diverse areas, such as health, politics, business, media, education, art or science. A top manager of the World Bank was sitting next to the first …