Negocios

Conscious Business
by Fred Kofman (*)
Everything said, is said by someone. Humberto Maturana Whatever you have to say, leave the roots on, let them dangle And the dirt, just to make clear where they come from. Charles Olson

I grew up under a military dictatorship in Argentina. Everything seemed under control—I went to school every day, the economy was stable, and the terrorist attacks thathad plagued the country in previous years had stopped. I played soccer, went to the movies, and had fun with my friends. Life was good. Or better said, it appeared good to me. In the late 70s rumors began to circulate: kidnappings, concentration camps, tortures, murders, and 30,000 desaparecidos ("missing"). Mostly, the information came from foreign sources—the national media was under governmentcensorship. I felt enraged. I was told, and believed, that this was an anti-Argentinean campaign. The country was plastered with bumper stickers that read "Argentineans are human and righteous" (a word play on the "human rights" that foreigners alleged were being violated). "Obviously," we thought, "if we are human and righteous this cannot be true." I guess we didn’t want it to be true. If thegrim reports were accurate, we would face an impossible dilemma: Inaction would turn us into accomplices to mass murder; action would turn us into victims of mass murder. In Argentina we have a saying, "Nobody’s more blind that the one who doesn’t want to see." There were plenty of signs for us to see, but we were afraid to look and to assume responsibility for what we found. It was much easierto remain

unconscious. Unfortunately, it all turned out to be true. This period was later known as the Dirty War. In order to protect the "Western and Christian Values of the Homeland" (as the slogan said), the military followed a policy of systematic extermination. Anybody who didn’t adhere to its nationalist right-wing doctrine was an enemy. Even volunteering for soup kitchens or teachingilliterate adults how to read indicated dangerous left-wing tendencies. In order to protect against an amorphous terrorist threat, the military arrested and killed anybody who looked suspicious to them. "If out of ten people killed, one is a terrorist, the other nine are worth the price," said a general. I lived in a nice neighborhood and went to a private school. I was a good student and didn’t getin trouble. I did not feel the evil around me. I was totally oblivious. The bus I took to school stopped daily at the Navy School of Engineering, a beautiful building with a manicured lawn. Its basement held hundreds of prisoners, most of whom never made it out alive. People were tortured and killed there regularly. This ostensibly respectable institution hid a death camp underneath. I amJewish, so waking up to the horrible circumstances in which I had lived had a tremendous impact on me. In school and at home I had repeatedly heard how the Germans stood idle while

six million Jews were exterminated. Self-righteous judgment came easily. "How awful! How evil! How could anybody do something like this?" Well, I now occupied the place of the "awful" and the "evil." Thousands of peoplehad been carried to concentration camps under my own nose and I didn’t see it. For many years I felt deep shame. I had been so unconscious. How could I not know? How could I have been so blind! Was I evil? After years of wrestling with these questions I accepted that I had done the best I could in the moment. To redeem the experience, I committed to learn from it and work so that it would nothappen again. I wanted to stop the violence at its roots, teaching people to be more conscious and more respectful of diversity. I finally mustered enough compassion to forgive myself and the Germans of World War II. Nobody is immune from unconsciousness. The best way to deal with it is not to judge it, but to touch it with compassion and awareness. Looking back years later, I have learned that...