zhassan's Home

The Continuing Story of Lula (02.01.2004)

"I just got back from a trip to Lula's Brazil. The sheer magnitude and sweep of what's unfolding there is staggering. In order to grasp it, we need to understand that the Lula revolution is in effect asking one of the most important questions of our times: Can the 21st Century State be a vehicle for radical social change"?

Dr Adballa versus the State (13.02.04)

"While blessed with political stability have we forgotten what it means to have the awesome power of the state ranged against us?" A report from Cairo on the work of Dr Ahmad Abdalla.

Democracy, Age 10 (15.04.04)

"I find myself in Johannesburg. The pathos of South African history finds expression in the most sublime, inspiring and worldchanging of civil projects. Juxtaposed against this civic energy is a curious ambivalence to democratic politics. The run up to the elections feels like a remarkably mundane and low-key affair. Driven by this uneasiness, I set out, on the eve of the elections, on a mission to untangle the relationship between South Africa’s vast appetite for change and it’s seeming indifference to the drama of state politics."

Subverting the 3 R's: Reading, Writing and Freedom (15.02.03)

An account of my resistance to education and how that (for better or worse) made me the person I am today.

A Lament on Life After Bush (18.06.04)

A short lament on how Bush is a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself.

Some Things I Know About The War in Iraq (And Some I Don’t) (18.05.04)

My response to the propoganda war being fought over Iraq.

A White Man’s Theory of Colour (02.04)

A short critique of Spiral Dynamics, most recently championed by Ken Wilber, my contention is that "Spiral Dynamics is a theory of a master race struggling with its manifest destiny to manage lesser races. It’s another theory in a long line of ethnocentric, Western theories of everything, which claim, with some violence, to be universally true."

The Little Book of Self-Organisation (03.04)

Personal field notes from my experiences with Pioneers of Change, a five year old collaborative social experiment in self-organisation.

"Manifesto From A Street Kid" (16.11.04)

"Here's a strange story. Sometime on the afternoon of June 12, 2000, Rio de Janeiro Bus 174 and its passengers were taken hostage by an unknown young man."

the-u

An article by Zaid Hassan about the U pattern of social change based on his experience over the last few years.