Your Conversation With Libyans

Let's just assume for the moment that you were asked to help the new Libyan regime determine its communications strategy.  I don't mean setting up television and radio spots and writing articles for print and on-line media.

I mean the strategy around the conversations that need to be initiated--and sustained--among the populace at large.  Face to face conversations as well as on-line conversation.  I'm especially interested in how you would seed effective face to face conversation with a goal of reaching actionable conclusions.

 These are people who have lived for decades in a nation where freedom of speech was unheard of.  In many ways, although they all know how to talk, they have not learned how to converse.  To have the kind of discourse in which no subject is taboo, no opinion is considered dangerous and in which listening is as important as speaking.  I mean the kind of conversation in which the parties have a goal of shaping--together--a new way to look at things, to inspire each other, to explore new ways to consider their future.

Imagine if it were possible to teach the art of conversation to an entire nation that has not been exposed to the power of truly interactive exchange.

So where would you start?  How would you introduce the concept? 

This is important because until it learns to converse as a nation, with a grounded set of values (think of how our Constitution frames the way we interact with one another, whether we are conscious of it or not), Libya will have difficulty entering the global conversation. 

If they get this right, it will mean a great deal to progress in the Middle East.  And to the world at large. 

 

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