Anchoring Hope in the World from India: A Sociodrama.
In response to Monica Zuretti's invitation to all Psychodramatists honoring Zerka Moreno and J L Moreno's ideas for mankind.
On the 21st of December 2013 at 11 am fifteen people created a sociodrama on anchoring hope in the world in New Delhi, India. I led the group of eight women and seven men. The group members were new to psychodrama and did not know each other prior to the commencement of the workshop at 9.30 am. I began with some warm up activities and then presented the idea of each individual being at the centre of their world. We created a sociodrama whereby one person represented an individual in the centre of the room who was then encircled by family and friends. Around these was another circle representing country or nation then a final outer circle representing the world with the outer reaches of space, the universe flowing evermore.
Beginning with the individual all expressed what they hoped for:
Individual: to know the world, be known and loved by the world, unity and peace in the world and no boundaries.
The Family and Friends: individual voices are heard; we need to hear them, love and affection all over the world, love, respect and peace for people in families, society, nation and the world.
The Nation/Country: respect females in India, respect womanhood and women, the government shouldn't focus on stupid issues, which create crime (and these were named) but to focus on real causes, to make our society peaceful and respectful, the greatest drug is religion and money.
The whole world reacted when the nation expressed their views and I had to insist that one person speak at a time. There was a great deal of diversity and dissent until everyone realised they would be better off asking what the person meant by "stupid issues" instead of reacting. It was wonderful to hear such strong viewpoints emerging and to see how much people cared about gay issues and women's safety and a host of other things. As people disagreed we could see the diversity in the group. In the end though, all were talking about the same thing. What was needed was the role of "naive enquirer" and once this role was enacted order was restored.
The Nation: the individual needs to give back to the nation, respect for individuals however different they are and we can then peacefully co-exist, immediately take down the poster depicting Morgan Freeman as Mandela and put the real person up, AAP party to come into power, with Arvind Kejrawal as Prime Minister.
The World: free flow of technology transfer from the top to the bottom, medicine for the poor, distribution of resources, education for all, energise a unified grid of love and light that connects every living being that imparts dignity and respect to every living being, balance, (the room became very quiet as this was expressed) peace and harmony, intelligent debate, diversity, respecting, understanding, learning from this diversity universally (again the room became very quiet), honest attempt at unconditional love which is difficult to give, if there is light in the soul there is peace in the person and harmony in the family, order in the nation and then there is peace in the world.
I asked everyone to look at where they were now standing and at each other. Someone said, we are all joined together now. It's like a tree with branches. We created the tree:
First were the roots on the ground, the trunk, the branches, the twigs, the leaves, fruit and flowers. The group members created this vibrant scene and spoke from the role they had taken. In order for this to grow, water was needed. Someone said the seed was missing and then the sun. These had been omitted. From this picture, we expressed that it was important to ground our ideals, take practical steps and with roots to cling to, we could have wings to fly. Individual choice was important, listening to people was necessary. Someone stated that with all of these the power of love will be stronger than the love of power. With this, the sociodrama of anchoring peace in the world was completed at 12.15pm.
I can share that from this activity our group continued over two days full of diversity, understanding, listening and respect for self and other.
Namaste.
Sue Daniel
New Delhi, India
