#36 - BUILDING IKO - A CITY OF OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE POWERLESS

ISSUE #36

IKO means POWER (STRENGTH) in Hausa – one of the biggest languages on the African Continent.

CITY OF INTERACTIONS

I never wanted to be an architect. I wanted to think like an architect. The father of one of my best friends was a well-known architect. He had a huge drawing board in his house where designed buildings on paper. I was fascinated by the idea that a white piece of paper was the start of a chain of activities that ultimately led to a building used by thousands of people every week. Somehow my friend’s father gave me the bug for creation. And create I do. I am building a city. I am building IKO, the city of opportunities.

IKO is a (virtual) city of opportunities. The city is not about buildings; it is about the activities and interactions done in those buildings. It is about whether the results (outcomes) of those interactions lead to better worlds with more opportunities. It is about facilitating people to achieve those results. That is what IKO CITY (aka Peoples’ Impact Platform) is all about. The ambition is that we become the biggest exporter of Peoples’ Impact.

Our ambition is to create market-level social change on a large, international scale. It is a high-risk venture because many will oppose us. We do not serve their interests. Don’t kid yourself. Social change is always and always about POWER. People who talk about social change without addressing the POWER issue are fakes. Their ambition is to get a seat at the table for themselves; they do not seek fundamental social change.

POWERLESS GAIN (SOME) POWER

Peoples’ Impact transfers some power to the powerless. Are they ready to assume those powers? The answer is probably, NO! Most of us are conditioned with a traditional mindset that most probably leads to more of the same. How can you create social change through people who routinize their lives? If social change transfers power to the powerless, the powerless should be trained to think and act in new ways to maximize the process. One of the first things we need to get rid of is the petite bourgeoisie mentality. In many societies, people seem to worry more about women walking topless on the beach than about the power structure of society. They seem to worry more about old etiquettes of fashion than about producing more sustainable goods. They find pride in raising obedient kids instead of encouraging them to be creative, and curious.

It is a disastrous mentality that only leads to hypocrisy and mediocrity.

The powerless should start to think about the big, formative issues in their barrio. Not always, not the whole day, not everywhere. We do not desire fanatics. They should fully embrace the Freedom-4-All mantra. And your free behavior may irritate me. Freedom means the freedom to irritate others. The key issue is to what extent we allow ‘irritating’ behavior to manifest. Designing a city brings up many questions: Where do you build a disco? Where do you build the soccer stadium? Where do you house the immigrants, students, or me? Is it a good idea to separate it all?

How do you enjoy your freedom without irritating too many people for too long? Irritation is a highly underappreciated factor in society. Compounded irritation in large groups has a deep impact on social life and is used to their advantage by shrewd, populistic politicians. Compounded irritation in the masses is weaponized to increase the powers of the few. They turn compounded irritation into an Enemy – be they trans, Icelandic, or green people. Creating enemies is a highly effective strategy to deviate the attention away from the most fundamental building block of society – POWER.

In our city of IKO, the Smart District (1 of 16 districts) is the education center, where we train the Mavericks to start looking at the world as-is. To start looking at the power structures of society as-is. The objective is not to create enemies of The Other but to find ways to collaborate with people from all walks of life. The fact that people might think differently (diversity of opinions) is seen as a positive provided they share both share the will and ability to build together.

By transferring powers to the powerless on the barrio level, they now find themselves in different circumstances: thy now have some opportunities in their own hands – they can create something. They can build something better. The ball slowly rolls into their court. It is time to act. It is time to start building.

The Peoples’ Impact Platform (aka IKO City) needs to be designed and outfitted in such a way that the journey of the inexperienced Maveriqs becomes as smooth as possible for them to rebuild the barrios they live in. The only way we know how is to build, evaluate, adapt, innovate, evaluate, adapt … and so on. So, we need to think like an architect. How can my design encourage positive interaction between people?

Here is the first version of the map of IKO City.

TO BE CONTINUED