Dimensions of Peacebuilding Through Dialogue

In early 2019 we publishing Peacebuilding Through Dialogue: Education, Human Transformation, and Conflict Resolution. With this project, we sought to present the collected wisdom of scholars and activists, many already in our network and some new to us, who have thought deeply about how dialogue can contribute to creative coexistence within our lives, our societies, and our world. The insights collected here portray the rich, multifaceted nature and potential of this crucial endeavor. 

From the Foreword by Daisaku Ikeda, founder of the Ikeda Center 

In order to achieve mutually enriching, deeply connecting dialogue, we need to overcome the divisions within our own hearts that make us unconsciously categorize people and rank their value on that basis. We need to be aware of the danger of categorizing people into such simplistic binaries as good and bad, us and them, and friend and foe. Such an approach is one of the deep drivers of conflict.

This failure gives rise to the forces of misapprehension and prejudice. Ours is thus an age where there is a critical need for truly creative dialogical processes grounded in respect for the dignity of life. This is vital if we are to transform division into harmony, confrontation into collaboration.

From the Introduction by Peter N. Stearns, editor of the volume, and University Professor and Provost Emeritus in History at George Mason University

Enthusiasm for dialogue always risks accusations of undue idealism, of neglect of harsh practical realities. The essays that follow undeniably express idealistic commitments, but they also show dialogue at work in a number of applications, from classrooms to conferences. They suggest a variety of tested and achievable steps to extend dialogue in various settings. Dialogue connects directly to a number of measurable achievements, not just in the past but in current programs to advance effective learning or resolve disputes among conflicting factions.

But with no contradiction intended, it is also important to note the many threats to dialogue that also describe the contemporary world. We live in an age when intolerance is increasing—of different opinions, of different groups. Yet tolerance is essential to dialogue, a theme that runs through the history of the phenomenon. Groups that essentially refuse to talk with each other mark the current political horizon in the United States, as well as other parts of the world. Commitments to dialogue have always been contested, and they have often proved fragile. Dialogue has regained greater health in our own age, in many ways, and properly pursued and extended, it can help resolve some of the tensions that seem to be growing around us. As several essays suggest, there are costs involved in the process, in investments in time, and in the admitted risks of uncertain outcomes: but the benefits loom larger. And this means that dialogue must not only be understood in the present day: it must be defended; here too, the essays that follow offer vital guidance.

Ultimately, in the contemporary world, the primary goal of dialogue is to serve the promotion of peace—and this applies to its role in facilitating greater understanding of complex issues in the classroom and in promoting personal transformations, as well as its service in conflict arenas. Each of the essay’s authors reflects this goal by addressing the challenges that confront them—illustrating Dr. Ikeda’s (2004) core belief that even transforming single individuals “will enable a change in the destiny of all mankind” (p. iii). Not only the results but also the process of sincere dialogue move all participants toward more peaceful interactions, in turn the greatest need of the world we live in.

Section One: Education

From Chapter 1, “Identity, Race, and Classroom Dialogue,” by Steven D. Cohen, Tufts University

Talking about [sensitive] issues in classes can get to these levels [of honesty] only if the classroom is one in which students feel respected and trusted by the instructor and their peers. I’m very aware of at what point in the semester I raise certain topics. Unless students have a sense of where they are and whom they are with, they will be reluctant to say what they really think. Classrooms in which the teacher is fishing for a certain answer are ones where only students who want to give that “right answer” will want to play.

I don’t know anything about being a lawyer, but I watched Law and Order for years. I remember hearing the advice from a senior counselor to a young one that a lawyer should never ask a question to which he doesn’t know the answer. In teaching, the process should be different. I think that every single day teachers should ask at least one question to which they legitimately do not know the answer. A good discussion is not an exercise where the teacher leads the students to the winning comment. A good one deals with questions, ideas, and concerns that are legitimately complicated. The point is not to reduce an issue to a sound bite or a one-liner that puts students in their place. Students have to know that they are not being “played” by the teacher and that there is not a “gotcha” moment hiding around the corner. They have to know that consensus and agreement may not be forthcoming, but that respect is unwavering.

From Chapter 2, Listening and Dialogue in Educators’ Reflective Practice, by Bradley Siegel and William Gaudelli, Teachers College, Columbia University

Mindfulness in teaching centers on a deeper awareness of one’s being in the classroom amidst myriad distractions to the body’s equilibrium. A mindful teacher seeks to interrupt scripts about students that create negative emotions, particularly those related to student behavior. As Jennings notes, an example of a script that runs counter to the type of awareness engendered through mindfulness training is the oft-expressed “I must maintain complete control of the classroom at all times.” When students are not behaving as desired, a teacher operating from this script may resort to coercion and threats, which surely detract from the goal of creating effective learning environments. Beginning teachers often focus intensely on classroom management given a justifiable concern for an orderly environment. Yet the outward locus in what is typically offered to teacher candidates misconstrues the problem as solely behavioral rather than exploring the emotional and internal dimensions of these manifestations.

From Chapter 3, “The Presence and Role of Dialogue in Soka Education,” by Jason Goulah, DePaul University

Following Mikhail Bakhtin’s perspective of dialogism, Hatano casts value creation as the process of negotiating the tension between one’s own internally persuasive discourse of gain, good, and beauty and that of the Other. It is the dialogic process of co-living toward personally and socially beneficial ends. Value-creating, or Soka, education, then, is the process of fostering in students the character and ability to create such value volitionally and dialogically in the space of the Other’s character. This is why Ikeda calls it “human education,” because it is a process of continually becoming more fully human, “an endeavor that emphasizes the development of the kind of ‘character’ such that children can, of their own accord, open the way for a happy life”

From Chapter 4, “Dialogue and Agency: Educating for Peace and Social Change,” Monisha Bajaj and Ion Vlad, University of San Francisco

Students need the opportunity to imagine a reality beyond current forms of inequality and conflict so that they cultivate behaviors and actions required to transcend such conditions. This is true not only for students who may occupy positions of marginality but also for those in positions of privilege; dialogue enables critical reflection and analysis that can produce empathy, solidarity, and willingness to act in the face of injustice.

The practical emphasis on participation and agency cannot be overstated. A truly empowering praxis, based on dialogism, always involves reflection and action. Critical conversations and dialogues are only the starting points for social change. They are the inspiration for subsequent direct engagement with reality. They mark the beginning, not the destination.

Dialogue is an important part of the foundation of the peace education endeavor. On its own, it offers the opportunity for democratic learning and reflection; together with fostering action and transformative agency, dialogue offers an important practice for learners to engage with the world around them. As such, dialogue is an important tool in the peace educator’s toolbox in the fostering of capacities that will ultimately lead both to personal fulfillment and to greater equity and social justice.

Section Two: Personal and Interpersonal Transformation

From Chapter 5, “Compassion in Dialogue,” by Bernice Lerner, author, All the Horrors of War: A Jewish Girl, a British Doctor, and the Liberation of Bergen-Belsen

Let us note that human speech—living, transmitted through the generations—is sacred to the extent that it presupposes goodness. The history of human civilization lays bare both base and noble instincts, language that sanctions evil and dialogue that impels right action. Our genetic disposition to imitate, the ease with which we may unthinkingly integrate into our vocabulary words we hear, can leave our character development to chance. We need to exercise judgment. We need to evaluate which “incarnated words” are worth making our own, and which forsake principle and ought to be censured. To the extent our sources inspire justice and compassion, they foster our growth as human beings.

We can—as did Abraham Lincoln (in the Gettysburg Address) and Martin Luther King Jr. (in the “I Have a Dream” speech)—discriminate, absorbing and transmitting what is truly sacred. When virtue guides our internal dialogue, caring and compassion are reflected in our outer speech and actions. And the more we practice nying je (generosity of spirit), the more it becomes our habitual way. Compassion flows naturally, along with the desire to help others.

From Chapter 6, Bringing Out the Best in Oneself and Others: The Role of Dialogue in Daisaku Ikeda’s Peacebuilding Practice, by Olivier Urbain, Min-On Music Research Institute

Here I would like to emphasize that—in the context of Ikeda’s philosophy of peace—wisdom, courage, and compassion are not fixed characteristics that one possesses once and for all but emergent properties that are latent in everyone and can be brought out and enhanced through personal effort or in response to circumstances. Everyone possesses these three virtues, but the challenge is to activate them to the greatest extent when necessary. To say that dialogue requires these three qualities means that dialogue will be greatly improved with the activation and enhancement of these three qualities within oneself.

While the three virtues facilitate successful dialogue when they are activated, they can also be enhanced once the dialogue has started, through the physical, emotional, and intellectual engagement happening through the process of dialogue. As a result, dialogue can create a virtuous circle strengthening the three virtues within oneself and others.

From Chapter 7, “The WISE Model and the Role of Self As Observer in Genuine Dialogue,” by Meenakshi Chhabra, Lesley University

Note: This excerpt describes a process that Chhabra, a native of India, engaged in when she made the acquaintance of a woman from Pakistan when both were graduate students in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The two countries have been at odds since the Partition of British India in 1947.

Unsure if we should continue these conversations, [my new acquaintance and I] decided on a process and made a pact to stay committed to it. When conversations got too heated or felt stuck, we retreated and reflected on the things that caused us discomfort. We made a list of these, and the next time we met, we shared these with each other, allowing each other time to speak and deeply listen. One by one, we confronted and dismantled the negative stereotypes about the other and came to realize the mirror images of reciprocal distortions that we both held. The process allowed us to see the divisive nature of the narrow discourses we had been systemically fed, and to accept the multiplicity of our perspectives.

Through this iterative process of reflecting and engaging, the friendship Anila and I shared deepened along with our mutual passion to work for peace between our two countries. Our compass was our desire to jointly write a new narrative of coexistence, a narrative that acknowledged that there were perpetrators and victims on both sides, and that both sides had suffered loss of life and dignity.

From Chapter 8, “Values, Dissonance, and the Creation of Shared Meaning,” by Gonzalo Obelleiro, DePaul University

After my guests finished their presentations, it was time for open discussion. I noticed that from the outset everyone tried to avoid certain expressions that would create real discomfort—for example, mentioning “police brutality” to a police officer has the effect, intended or not, of demanding uncomfortable emotions like guilt and shame. Adjusting discourse to avoid discomfort can, and often does, simply mean caution and politeness, not necessarily an adjustment of value commitments. As the conversation proceeded, however, unavoidable normative differences surfaced, bringing out normative dissonance. Facing normative dissonance, both police officers and activists found themselves confronting not the convenient picture of the other constructed from within their own discourses but actual human beings in the flesh, with palpable emotional reactions and compelling appeals to facts and reasons—facts and reasons often absent or deemphasized in their own discourses. Over the extension of the conversation, they came to adjust not only their ways of talking about crime and incarceration but also their perceptions and the values through which they engage the world.

*

The normative adjustments I identified in police officers and activists were indeed significant, though in another sense they were nothing dramatic. For example, when activists told humanizing stories about inmates and their families, clearly meaning to inspire empathy, police officers were receptive, even though the demands of their work put pressure on them to turn empathy off. At the same time, police officers reminded activists of the importance of considering the perspective of victims of crime. For activists, the inclusion of such an additional perspective into their understanding of events did not entail surrendering value commitments. Their commitment remained to give voice to those affected by over-incarceration. However, the values at stake—compassion, open-mindedness, courage, justice—acquired nuance and complexity. The cognitive and emotional powers required to uphold value commitments under conditions of clearly defined good “us” versus evil “them” are relatively limited compared to the powers required to uphold similar value commitments under conditions of complexity and uncertainty. The subtle shift exhibited by people involved in the dialogue entailed an expansion of powers.

Chapter 9, “Dignity Dialogues: An Educational Approach to Healing and Reconciling Relationships in Conflict,” by Donna Hicks, author, Dignity: The Essential Role It Plays in Resolving Conflict

What is often a goal in conflict-resolution dialogues is to create common ground so that the conflicting parties can connect in that shared space. The Dignity Dialogue approach does not share that goal. This approach seeks not common ground, but higher ground.

I explain to participants in my Dignity Dialogues that the work we will be doing together is an effort to go beyond our understanding of our differences. I have spent many years doing diversity education in my classes, and that work is an essential component of any conflict-resolution approach. While the diversity work is of crucial importance (understanding our cultural differences matters), I don’t believe that it is the end of the road. We have another step to take before we can live peacefully together. We need to find a transcendent place where we can all come together after we understand our differences. I believe that place is our common yearning for dignity—what I have called our highest common denominator. This “higher ground” enables us to see our shared human identity and all the same struggles we are up against in our search for dignity.

From Chapter 10, “Changing the Conversation: Emerging Better Dialogue Practices Through Four Lenses,” by Mark Farr, Sustained Dialogue Institute

It is impossible not to change someone when you speak to them. This assertion is a starting point for the following short consideration of my nearly thirty years of involvement with dialogue, or put another way, my experience engaging in structured conversations in varying contexts. However superficial or fleeting the interaction, change, even if equally superficial, will occur. The depth, quality, direction, and longevity of that change must be variable, and so the dialogian who wishes to be maximally reflexive, believing in her or his ability to produce positive outcomes, is faced with choices during dialogic interactions. The aim of this chapter is to look at these choices in order to help the practitioner discern more-successful or less-successful approaches.

There are many questions for those who seek dialogical transformation. What content, form, or context of speech is more or less apposite for that moment? How to develop abilities to speed positive change, since any interaction whatever will change the other partner? What will provide pathways to more constructive relationships that increase the dignity of life and relationships? More art than skill, such dialogue is the work of a lifetime. This chapter is written from my perspective as a practitioner. My answers come from the messy, usually incomplete dialogues in which I have participated.

From Chapter 11, “Dialogue and Mutual Recognition: The Practice of Interreligious Encounters,” by Andrea Bartoli and Charles Gardner, Sant’Egidio Foundation for Peace and Dialogue

We can say then that the first step of dialogue is the mutual acceptance of presence. Dialogue is possible only when the presence of another is not perceived as an insult or threat, when the instincts to kill or obliterate are tamed and controlled, and when it is possible to be safe in another’s company. This is not an easy feat. In many circumstances of the world today, it is difficult for men and women of different beliefs to be simply present. The accumulation of pain and sorrow, the massive experience of violence, and the burden of the past are such that many prefer to live surrounded only by those of the same community. Similarly, many communities prefer to impose the safety of homogeneity by expelling those of different beliefs. These trends toward exclusionary differentiation, present in many communities, are on the rise.

Yet when we look at the international dialogue movement generated by the International Prayer for Peace in Assisi from 1986 through today, we encounter lively and growing religious communities that commit themselves to the good of all through the respect of differences and the quest for peace. Dialogue—as experienced in the spirit of Assisi—is not only a gift of life, it is also a life-giving gift. Accepting the presence of the other means to open oneself to the mystery of life and the possibilities of what is coming. This movement reveals that dialogue goes beyond just acceptance of others or of difference: It is an invitation to become more human together, to address shared problems together, to seek solutions to entrenched challenges, to encourage one another, and to explore beyond the boundaries of comfort. From one city in Italy, this movement of dialogue now reaches hundreds of cities around the world, generating new peace initiatives and engaging higher education institutions.

These efforts do not come about without opposition or challenges. The most obvious is the refrain that “talk is cheap,” that it is easy to talk and do nothing, and that the global deficit is on the action side rather the talking one. But words (and shared silence before them) are crucial to set the tone for proper action, to understand what could happen and what should happen. Dialogue is problematic for those who already claim the truth in such a way that no new inquiry is encouraged. But for those who live in a world of contradictions and complexities that require inquiry, dialogue is the discipline that may generate the carefully chosen words that open paths to the future, even in situations that seem doomed to violence and chaos.

From Chapter 12, “Modes of Peacemaking Dialogue,” by Susan H. Allen, George Mason University

With all the strengths that dialogue offers, why do we not use it more often? Certainly, there are costs to dialogue. Participants and facilitators devote time to dialogue. The room, and perhaps refreshments or supplies, cost money. But perhaps a bigger impediment is discomfort with dialogue. Sometimes, people don’t want to talk. It can feel uncomfortable to talk about sensitive topics… .

Peacemaking dialogue requires taking a risk. In the words of Lederach (2005), it “means stepping into a place where you are not sure what will come or what will happen” (p. 163). Honestly, we engage in dialogue because we don’t know everything. We need one another to learn other perspectives and insights. There is a risk we might change our mind in dialogue. Dialogue for peacemaking assumes that this risk is at the very heart of the work.

From Chapter 13, “Dialogue and Demographic Complexity,” by Ceasar McDowell, M.I.T.

How we frame an issue has direct impact on which actions may or may not be appropriate in a given situation. As Kuypers points out, frames “define problems, diagnose causes, make moral judgments, and suggest remedies.” Moreover, frames are mostly narrative-driven and as such serve to organize our thinking around an issue.

The public is seldom provided opportunities to frame issues, yet framing conversations are perhaps the most important conversations for a demographically complex public. In framing conversations, we see and understand the world through our individual and collective lived experiences, providing us a richer and fuller understanding of any issue. This is demonstrated in the classic tale of a group of blind people describing an elephant. Each person is touching and describing a different part of the elephant. Each individual description is accurate. Yet if all we know is the description of each part, we cannot define the elephant. The elephant can only be known when the interrelationship between the discreet parts is understood.

Like the effort to describe the elephant, there are two parts to framing conversations. The first requires each person to name his or her own lived experience with an issue. This is the same as when each blind person describes one part of the elephant. The second happens when, after hearing the individual stories, the public creates a shared narrative from the experience that contains the individual stories as well as what is known from other sources of knowledge. Once this shared narrative is created, then the public can decide how to frame a particular issue so it attends to the complexity of the shared narrative. It is collective meaning making that enables the public to construct a more inclusive framing of any issue.

Framing conversations are also among the most difficult to establish. For people to engage in framing conversations, they need the authority (both internal and external) to speak to their own lived experiences. Yet much of what we have done in this country through our education system, media, and our structure of public dialogues is to constantly reinforce an image that the general public is not to be trusted and does not have the capacity to understand the intricacies of issues. Structural racism makes this particularly true for African Americans and other communities of color… . Through purposeful design, it is possible to create conditions that enable people, even in the face of these challenges, to participate in framing conversations.

From the Conclusion by Peter N. Stearns, editor of the volume, and University Professor and Provost Emeritus in History at George Mason University

Dialogue is never an easy medium. It does require adjustments away from sheer individualism and partisan passion; it does urge the importance of humility as well as mutual respect across some difficult divides. But the requirements of genuine dialogue—particularly given the experience and leadership provided by many in the peacebuilding community—must be open to participation in many varied circumstances. If the essays in this book suggest the deep implications of dialogue for many adepts, they also urge the availability of many of the basic requirements to a wider audience. Guidance and invitation, not exclusivity, are the keys to the kingdom. And while, as Dr. Ikeda notes, dialogue must involve courage, its rewards—personal as well as social—abundantly justify the effort involved.