Initiation and initiative : an exploration of the life and ideas of Dimitrije Mitrinović

THE SENATE INITIATIVE 161

and the well-being of the group as a whole required certain functions to be performed—funds to be raised, people to be contacted, pamphlets to be written, lectures to be arranged, posters to be pasted, meeting rooms to be booked, interpersonal conflicts to be faced up to and reconciled.

In such ‘constitutional’ groupings Mitrinovic¢ often placed discordant people together deliberately in order to ensure that people had to make a serious effort to get on and work cooperatively together. However, particular functions were frequently performed by members of certain of the more basic ‘natural’ groups. Politics—going about meeting people, maintaining contact with outside social and political organisations—was frequently the function of Blackies and men, and most of all the Blackie men. The care of home affairs—looking after the financial concerns of the group and of the individual members, caring after the well-being of the members—was more the function of Whities and women.

As in any community there was conflict. One source of interpersonal tension was the creation of a nucleus of people to perform the senate function vis-a-vis the wider group.

Though the persons who took upon themselves this central function could be changed from time to time, there were in general some whom he judged from their whole general attitude to be more suitable for the role of Senate than others. This implied no personal superiority, but only a greater aptitude for the function of Senate. This differentiation within Senate was characterised by DM as the distinction between Senate and Folk. Some persons were always in the role of Folk, and DM tried to impress upon them that this was just as honourable and worthy as being Senate. However it was very difficult to convince those who were not chosen to act as a ‘senate within senate’ that they were not being consigned to an inferior status, and those who were chosen for this role were often happier and more energetic in their action than those who were not. So none of us who took this work seriously could have any illusions about the difficulty of establishing a Senate who were neither considered nor considered themselves to be personally superior to those performing other functions. However the mere facing of this problem fairly and squarely was in itself a small first step towards overcoming it.?!

Whilst many of the participants in the wider group life might have had, initially, only the vaguest of notions of what ‘Universal Humanity’ actually entailed, one thing was very clear—they were trying to create a human household, a family of people held together not by ties of blood and kinship but by a personal commitment to each other. Much of the group work, consequently, was devoted to working out the ‘rules’ and gaining experience in the dynamics of such a household.