The challenges of human nature
Humans are a tricky species, as I’ve already stressed on more than one occasion. We create but we also destroy. We speak truthfully but we also lie and deceive. We hate and fight one another but we also appreciate one another and cooperate together. Or, to put it simply, we’re a clever species but we also do many stupid things.
Fortunately, we also undertake counter-vailing strategies to cope with the many problems that we encounter here on Planet Earth, and the many problems that we ourselves generate. One key remedial intervention takes the form of conflict resolution. It’s vitally important. Yet it’s not a project to be undertaken lightly. It requires commitment, perseverance, and good judgement. Deep conflicts have deep roots, which are not easily resolved. And, of course, those trying to resolve conflicts have constantly to ensure that they don’t inadvertently get dragged into the core dispute themselves.
Resolving individual conflicts
Individuals regularly fall out with other individuals; and, in a proportion of cases, the conflict escalates into physical violence. For example, many children regularly find themselves in fights with other children, without any instruction from adults. Such behaviour is particularly common in young boys but it’s far from confined to the male sex. Part of the core educational process is therefore geared to training youngsters to keep their ‘animal spirits’ under control – and to direct their competitive instincts into games (or other regulated contests) rather than into physical fights.
Conflict between adults is slower to resolve, because adult behaviour has often been long established and normalised. (It does sometimes happen that individuals have a rush of blood to the head and launch into uncharacteristic conflict. In such cases, repentance is usually swift and immediate – and disputes can be resolved without too much trouble).
Entrenched behaviour, however, is much more difficult for people to confront and, especially, to change.
Hence one requirement for all mediators is to have plenty of time and patience. All parties need to meet in a neutral, non-threatening environment. All parties need to express their point of view, being heard with courtesy (even if not always with concurrence). And all parties need to acknowledge the other protagonist in the conflict as a fellow human, with a validly alternative point of view. This process is sometimes called part of a ‘talking cure’, although verbalising private thoughts and feelings does not immediately enable people to change their minds or behaviours. The point is, however, to calm things down and to move beneficially, as Winston Churchill put it, from ‘war war’ to ‘jaw jaw’.
Then, if the conflict has been a case of ‘six of one and half a dozen of the other’, it may be possible to find a compromise to resolve the dispute – and to allow all parties to express apologies. That should also be accompanied by a collective resolution to find more peaceable measures to resolve any potential future conflict. A peace-making handshake should resolve the talking therapy.
Yet, of course, the pathway is not always so easy to follow. There may be twists and turn on the track – and hidden obstacles. Some people become addicted to threatening behaviour, while others become habituated to cringing in fear and giving way on all issues. Lifetime patterns are not quickly changed.
In particular, if one or other of the individuals in dispute has resorted to outright violence as a matter of routine, then talking alone is not going to resolve things. Instead, such cases should be reported to the law. Perpetrators need both punishment and psychiatric help. And victims need support, solidarity and strategies to rebuild their lives – and to regain confidence, in order to shed the role of chronic victim.
The complexities of group conflict
Reconciliation is even more difficult in cases of group conflict. Humans not only fight individually but, in addition, they can – and do so to this day – cooperate to fight in opposing groups. Whether officially declared or not, such confrontations amount to open warfare. It’s a major feature in human history. And it characteristically produces substantial damage to properties, economic and social disruption, sudden death for many individuals – and legacies of anger and bitterness that may last for centuries.
Why do such negative legacies of warfare in particular last for so many years? It’s partly because combatants psych themselves up to fight, often by demonizing the enemy. Then, if they win, emotions of jubilation and relief are underlined by condemning their defeated foes as simultaneously dangerous and despicable. And if they lose the fight, emotions of anger and bitter hatred are underlined by viewing the conquering side as evil and heartless, especially if the victors have behaved arrogantly and used their winning power to inflict more suffering upon their defeated foes than the minimum necessary to assure victory.
These rival emotions are then ‘locked into’ the rival cultures. Adults consider them as normal. And each new generation of children imbibe these feelings with their mothers’ milk – both hostility and contempt on the one hand – or anger and bitter hatred on the other. These are immensely powerful emotions, especially when fortified by group commitment. If one person should waver and have doubts, then a few moments of re-immersion in group culture is likely to restore the original commitment.
Steps towards reconciliation
Resolving such deep-rooted antithetical attitudes is, needless to say, not an easy task. It can’t be done quickly. It requires input at many different social levels – from respected political and religious figureheads, to local community leaders, to classroom teachers, to family heads and to all social ‘influencers’. All points of view have to be respectfully heard (even if not all past actions can be condoned). And all need to be helped to recognise their opponents as fellow humans – rather than as incorrigible devils who are beyond the power of redemption.
Moreover, reconciliation between two mutually-hostile cultures often benefits from external help as well. Peace-makers within the wider global community can assist, for example, by helping to resolve territorial disputes. Never an easy matter, when two or more rival groups lay claim to the same piece of land – especially if and when the land in question is a holy site for two or more rival world religions. Nonetheless, there are a range of possible solutions, which may between them provide some answers.
Another crucial matter, before conflicts can be fully resolved, is due justice for war crimes. Again, not easy! It’s hard to derive good evidence from a contested battlefield. But international courts of justice have been established to tackle such problems. After all, disputes can’t easily be settled, if those who have committed horrendous war crimes remain unreported and unpunished. (It’s true that bistoric war crimes are beyond the reach of the law. But it still helps if such matters are reported and assessed by impartial historians.)
All these responses assert an international-human criterion of judgment. It also helps to have monuments and memorials to the dead, so that they are not forgotten, At the same time, however, it’s vital to ensure that memorials are respectful but not sectarian and/or triumphalist.
Despite all these problems, heroic efforts are being made in many quarters of the globe to reconcile deeply-rooted conflicts. It takes a degree of optimism – and deep wells of patience. One of the best ways is to start with children. In divided communities, many of them will have acquired from their friends and families pre-set judgments about the ‘other’ rival community. But young children have not lived for years with entrenched views. They are usually willing to listen to alternative viewpoints.
So getting groups of children from rival communities to play together and to recognise one another as fellow humans is an excellent first step. To take one example that is known to me, numerous dedicated peace-makers in Northern Ireland are doing that with groups of children from the rival Catholic and Protestant traditions. This initiative follows the crucial political settlement, known as the Good Friday Agreement, forged in 1998. That ended most of the inter-community violence.
Building a united society, however, is a long-term project. The political framework has to be right. But so do human mind-sets. Good luck to all those in Northern Ireland – and to all people living in hitherto divided communities, who are seeking reconciliation. May all their children grow up to become free, happy, and ecumenically-minded global citizens.
