For sure! I got a call from Linda and ever since … I have put all my energy into building a set of 6, 8X8 screens/scrims for her play in Charleston,Yankee Bajan, invited for two showings at MOJA Festival. Exactly the kind of carpentry work which seems so easy on plan and on drawing but proves to be a challenge when you don’t understand set-design terminology. My luck is that we know Tom, a professional movie sets builder! He came by to give me a quick explanation of what meant what.

Now, after a week of commitment, it is done. The screens have been delivered. And I exhausted myself! It is time to recover.

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This morning Gwylène and I had an argument about the way she was signing a quick note to the members of her TINYisPOWERFUL work group, ‘Tiny Investigations’. The note was an invitation to come to the Dock Street Theater for Yankee Bajan! I insisted that the signing for this kind of notes, so obviously relating to the mission of TINYisPOWERFUL bear its seal, one way or an other. It could be as discrete as ‘Gwylène, a member of TINYisPOWERFUL’, instead of ‘Gwylène, for TINYisPOWERFUL’ … whatever as long as the word TINYisPOWERFUL appears at some strategic point in the note!

More importantly, this incident, reminded me of what happened at the Creative Sync of Tuesday morning (my only break from the Yankee Bajan set construction this week!). Rayn (they) had decided not to come in person to an official Rhizome organized by ROOTS at the occasion of the play at Moja. It was taking place at the same time they had a meeting with Daniel, one of the three young men who came here the other day, and who could well become an important addition to the presently limited TINYisPOWERFUL group. I expressed my surprise that Rayn, as assistant of Victoria, would see a conflict there. In my mind, there was no question whether Rayn would invite him to come to the ROOTS meeting in parallel with her tête-à-tête. Pam got a bit mad, I think, that I was barging in Rayn’s personal life choices!

So, today, after the heated conversation with Gwylène, and after a quick but deep thinking bout, I came up with this resolution, important I think:

As a member of TINYisPOWERFUL, dedicated to its mission and values, I am not here to weigh in on matters related to the collective. Mission and values are here and weigh in on me. And I add that this defines my understanding of what is referred to as ACCOUNTABILITY.

Accountability has always been, for me, a difficult word to understand and use. Taken out of a context, it is just an other pie in the sky. A pious notion. The way Pam uses it though is very concrete. For her, it means a promise to deliver. Yet, this promise assumes that the deliverer understands and accepts the implications of being accountable. And, I have observed, this assumption may be a way to distance oneself from responsibility vis-à-vis the deliverer. (S)he is accountable … not my problem.

Thanks to the above remarks, and within the framework of a collective or any cohesive group, the possibility of unaccountability should be diminished. Aren’t dedication, responsibility, reciprocity, respect … the basis for social-or-otherwise cohesiveness?

Isn’t this why, for TINYisPOWERFUL, both vision and mission should be omnipresent and always updated to remain relevant? Updating and contextualizing also guarantee the local/individual/personal scale of accountability.

Besides, within the framework of its values and mission, TINYisPOWERFUL also promotes autonomy, yet an other guardrail against any tendency for the group to become oppressive.

My feeling obligated to write the above is proof of both, my unease and my determination. I strongly sense that all questions around accountability – that is social responsibility and (personal) autonomy – are pivotal in this era of transition to postcolonialism. The same way colonialism is characterized by its permanent ‘control mode’ by an authoritarian minority, post-colonialism will be defined by the liberation of the individual into an autonomous, socially responsible citizen. I suppose that, then, the transformative force behind such a change will root accountability!

Democratic socialism may be the regime we are looking for! Thank you Sanders, AOC and – in France – Ruffin since, apparently, Mélenchon is now ‘old school’, too authoritarian for the moment. But it is true that, if democratic socialist there will be, it will require major accountability.

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Yesterday, there was a ‘I Like my Tea Sweet’ OhmRadio podcast with Victoria. The guest was Daniel Green, a young Charleston video artist. Interesting dialogue all the way through but I believe the last three minutes were a highlight. Victoria asked Daniel to come up with a question for the new guest next week. He did not have to think too long. His question came out like this: I like to take an Adam and Eve perspective on things sometimes. Well, in an Adam an Eve perspective, before colonialism, what would have been the definition of ‘success’? My own immediate answer was: accountability! And, within the perspective of TINYisPOWERFUL’s values and mission … this makes a lot of sense!

PS: accountability does not necessarily mean punishment in case of failure. Punishment is recessive. And possibly violent.