In an unpublished letter, a kind of therapeutic cri de coeur, Councillor Mihevc admits his pleasure in revealing the mayor’s “gaffes and incompetence.”
But Mihevc, who has a Ph.D. in theology and social ethics, goes on to say that while he believes he and his allies are battling “forces of darkness” — you can imagine his light sabre flashing through council chamber — nothing is ever sharply “clean and unambiguous.” His opponents are not as “evil” as they are publicly presented, and his side is not as “good.”
How does divisiveness at city hall affect the citizens of Toronto, Mihevc asks. How to move to a more co-operative model?
Believing that answers may not be found only in political circles — “the usual suspects” — Mihevc has convened a group of leaders from Toronto’s religious, multicultural and psychotherapy communities to meet on Sunday. He says he hopes the seeds of that conversation will be broadcast from pulpits and in discussion groups across the city.
Anticipating that gathering, the Star talked to an array of Torontonians about the city’s political psychology under Ford, and how the workings of city hall are affecting people’s inner lives.
• Susan Swan, writer:Swan has noticed that her creative writing students tend to be writing dystopian novels. She muses about the setting of her own new novel, The Western Light, to be published this fall. It’s a prequel to her earlier novel The Wives of Bath and is set in 1959.
“Maybe I went back to that time period because it’s easier than dealing with the frustrating, discouraging times we live in now. Going back to the far past to find hope for the future.
“What depresses me the most about right-wing politicians is their belief that they are right and that there doesn’t seem to be any opportunity for dialogue. It’s my way or the highway. I have found that deeply disappointing.
“It looks like the twin Fords, as Atwood calls them, are kind of angry white men, as if they are hard done by. It’s laughable and adds to my sense of frustration.”
Swan doesn’t like to see the city run like a business, with citizens viewed as customers. “Rob Ford is clearly applying the business paradigm to city hall when he needs to learn the skills of leadership and dialogue. Until he understands that city hall isn’t a company he owns and runs, he’s going to have a rough ride.”
• Shawn Micallef, co-owner of Spacing magazine, where he is also an editor: During a recent talk at York University titled “how to fall in love with your city, while avoiding a culture war,” Micallef suggested that if Toronto has a spiritual centre, it might be located at Yonge and Eglinton. The latter goes the distance, beyond the borders of the old city of Toronto, he explains.
It’s easy to think of Micallef, author of Stroll: Psychogeographic Walking Tours of Toronto, as the quintessential downtown hipster. But in the Ford years, he’s embracing the suburbs. “The new challenge is loving the whole city, not only the downtown, and all those citizens who voted for Ford and feel left out.”
It’s not uncommon to hear downtowners griping about the suburbs, caricaturing them as an alien land of strip malls. “That’s like hating where you come from,” says Micallef, who grew up in suburban Windsor. It is in the suburbs that Toronto’s celebrated multicultural life is most alive, he argues. With mom and pop stores, they are economic incubators. “You can critique the built form of the suburbs, but never make it about the people.”
• Ursula Carsen, psychotherapist: In Jungian terms, Mihevc’s initiative is “looking at our own shadow,” she says. “There’s a fear that’s been set free.” It can be a fear of losing library services and all kinds of cutbacks in the arts and education.
She is seeing patterns in some of her patients’ dreams, where the personal unconscious is deeply impacted by imagery pointing to trouble in the collective unconscious. “People are feeling completely overwhelmed; there are dreams of tsunamis and sea creatures that are threatening to overtake them.
“What’s really missing here is what Jungian analyst Marion Woodman would call the feminine. The mayor seems caught up in a power complex, a combative way of setting us up as either for him or against him. What we need is a real conscious cooperation between masculine and feminine energies, a real dialogue between feeling and creative thinking aspects, with emphasis on dialogue and mutual listening.
“As individuals as well as a society, this is a time of challenge as well as opportunity for us to ask ourselves: how am I caught up in my own power complexes? How can I nurture that inner dialogue between my own head and heart? Can I allow myself to examine my own shadow sides, perhaps my deeper fears, resulting in my need for ‘power over’ rather than relating with others, at work or at home?”
• Karen Connelly, writer: Connelly cites the Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron. “The way to end the war is to stop hating the enemy.” She talks empathetically about Ford and would like to know more about him.
His public efforts to lose weight have been oddly touching. “It’s a strangely personal commitment to health and it’s something many of us are interested in. I felt it was an intimate thing for him to do, to allow us to know something about his personal life. It’s kind of inspiring and very positive. It’s without boundaries. I was very disappointed when he missed his weekly weigh-in.”
The 18 months of Ford leadership have had an awakening effect. “It’s made me more interested in civic politics and a little more aware of the city. In a city run by David Miller and more left-leaning, I was a little more disaffected. Now I’m more curious.”
• Dave Meslin, urban activist:Meslin is a fan of the movement known as deep democracy. “Democracy shouldn’t be two teams fighting against each other until one of them wins, as we’ve seen in so many fights at city hall,” he says. “Democracy is an arena where people come together with ideas, to learn, and the goal is to come to a consensus. City councillors should be open to the idea that they could be wrong and alter their position.”
Ford has his strengths, says Meslin. “He speaks from the heart. He’s unscriptable, though he does stick to the message to stop the gravy train. He actually comes across as saying what he believes in.
“He has shown (in recent labour disputes) he knows how to negotiate and compromise, he just doesn’t use those skills at council. Part of that is his background as leader of the angry. He was the angry councillor and he led the angry at the election and he doesn’t know how to transform to the leader of the happy.”
• John Dalla Costa, business ethicist and author: Dalla Costa is trying to dig deeper, to go below the easiness of caricature and hardened positions. “What happens with ideology is that it frees us from thinking about problems . . . We need to have a non-judgmental conversation about what’s possible, in the middle.
“Leaders need to step into the dangerous unknown to not necessarily prescribe answers but to ask questions that will allow us to come together. Having dissent or disagreement is a wonderful thing, but if it’s only about accusing others about being wrong we don’t make any constructive steps together.”
He’s been studying the effectiveness of heroic leaders such as Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. “These people consistently extend the benefit of friendship to people they vehemently disagree with . . . They didn’t try to defeat them, but to work with them.”
• Rev. Brent Hawkes, Metropolitan Community Church: “I want a politician who will inspire me to sacrifice, not one who will appeal to my selfish instincts. People want some kind of vision to be drawn to and follow. People are saying, ‘Cut taxes and I want to keep what’s mine.’ I recoil when I’m reduced to a dollar sign as a tax payer. I don’t want my taxes lowered.
“I think of this as a cultural shift, fed by media that puts more emphasis on competition and fighting rather than values. So you get a Rob Ford elected because people are mad about wasteful spending on a bunny rabbit costume, or a lavish party, and people are so skeptical — ‘Let’s kick the bums out’ instead of focusing on issues.
“There is a biblical verse that says where there is no vision, the people perish. Same with the city. A vision of the city can’t be cutting waste. We demand good stewardship, absolutely. But to cut, cut, cut is not a vision that inspires people to sacrifice.”
• Kathy Paulin, storyboard artist: “I find this a disorienting time. I’ve always thought of Toronto as a place where people come together to make the city work. In a simple way, I felt (Ford) is a bully rather than the mayor who listens to people around him and makes wise decisions based on that. A lot of people felt the city was making progress and now are a little bit shocked. Now do we have to start fighting for everything?”
• Heather Rumball, president of the Toronto Public Library Foundation: Rumball looks at the city through the lens of psychologist Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. “We tend to be focusing at the bottom of the pyramid, on our wants and needs that make us feel very secure, instead of having discussions at the highest level of public good, going beyond our self interest to the betterment of the community as a whole.
“The challenge is to have a dialogue that transcends individual interests and speaks to a vision of the city and raises the bar for all. (Mihevc’s letter) really brought me up short, because I found myself recognizing even on occasion my tendency to distill to black and white, to us and them. It’s counterproductive and is certainly not the person I want to be.”
• Wolfgang Stumpf, architect: Stumpf voted for Ford and says he appreciates the challenges he faces. “I think he has had an emotional effect on the city. Many overreact, too quickly, without understanding issues. Their reaction — it could be anger, or regret — they voted for Ford and are disappointed with the results. There could be retaliation: they’ll never vote for him again.”
• Rev. Maggie Helwig, Anglican priest, author: From the start of Rob Ford’s election campaign, Helwig was troubled by what she calls the “politics of resentment,” the fact that society is made of different interests, pitted against each other. “It’s a fear-based paradigm. Part of what Joe Mihevc is trying to do is untie some of that — to get away from the other, the sense that different factions have to fight each other to win or lose.
“It will be interesting to see how this works out when the other side won’t play. The fact that I use ‘other side’ shows how much Ford has succeeded in creating this competitive paradigm, and how I have been drawn into it. It is against my values and beliefs.
“One of the things I’ve found encouraging is watching city council actually learn to work and talk and negotiate and compromise. It’s happening around Ford without engaging him. It may be that accidentally Rob Ford may have done a great deal of good.”
Original Article
Source: Star
Author: Leslie Scrivener
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