Green spaces and red spaces and the need for dialogue

This article was first publised online Thought Thursdays, a blog by the University of Stellenbosch Business School Executive Development. http://www.usb-ed.com/content/Pages/go-green.aspx

Chris Spies

Go green!

“There is nothing wrong with competition,” said Roelf Meyer to the Guyanese politicians. “But if the only space you have is a competitive space, you are in trouble.” Meyer was the De Klerk government’s chief negotiator during South Africa’s transition to democracy in the early 90’s. “You need to carve out parallel spaces where you can collaborate instead of compete,” he advised.

As I listened to him I imagined these parallel spaces as transformative green spaces where people  change the way they see each other, and competition spaces as red-hot spaces, capable of destroying creativity and new life.

Guyana, where I worked as a peace and development advisor for the United Nations from 2003 to 2006, suffered from a toxic political culture which fed on people’s fears. Descendants from African slaves and Indian indentured labourers found themselves in different political camps. Humiliation and blaming each other’s past and present political leaders for the current socioeconomic situation was the favourite ping-pong style of interaction. The governing party, which was the favourite party of East Indians, came to power in 1991. Most Indians were still bitter about ‘the period of discrimination and abuse’ under an African-dominated administration which allegedly rigged the elections for 28 years prior to 1991. Fed up with ethnic politics, two MPs, one Indian and one African defected from the two major parties and formed a new political party, the Alliance for Change, to lead Guyana towards a non-racial, just and equitable society.

The situation was bleak. People were leaving the country in droves. The economy was suffering and the business community was also split along political lines. Guyana suffered from red space symptoms.

Competition, in theory, is meant to motivate us to achieve levels of unprecedented excellence in business, sport and academia. In practice, however, it often brings out the worst in us, especially when political, economic and societal tensions and stakes are high.

Red space interaction is mostly heated and adversarial. People argue, debate, attack and defend. They get distracted and focus on the wrong set of questions: Who is right? Who has power over others? Who is the strongest? Why shouldn’t the opposition be trusted? Who is to blame? Mistrust becomes a tool for survival; justifying your position as the silver bullet. Hard negotiations are a sign of strength; vulnerability and compassion are signs of weakness. Relationships are important only insofar as they serve self-interest. Winners don’t share. Losers don’t cry. The ruling party rules. The opposition opposes. The spiral heads downward.

Politicians, and certain types of economic actors and activists thrive in this adrenalin-filled environment, which, predictably, does not create new meaning and life. In fact, it just “reproduces patterns of the past”, as Otto Scharmer reminds us.

Guyana was stuck in such a deep red space. The government was looking to the United Nations (UN) for assistance.

We – the UN and its local partner, the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) – carefully chose appropriate terminology and strategies. We could not talk about mediation, dialogue or facilitation, because memories of failed political dialogue attempts were still too fresh and painful. The UN undertook to assist Guyanese to “explore ways to take Guyana forward”. Our strategy was a green space strategy. It was an attempt to change the setting, the mode of interaction and the questions and topics so that Guyanese could generate new energy to heal the nation.

Green spaces are very different from red spaces. The ground rules are completely different. The mode of communication is dialogue – not debate. Dialogue is not an event. It is a process. It is not only about the physical act of talking. It is also about “minds and relationships unfolding so that people can find real freedom through collaboration”.^[1] Dialogue is “respectful interaction through which human beings listen to each other deeply enough to be changed by what they learn”.^[2] William Isaacs says that “dialogue … is a conversation with a centre, not sides. It is a way of taking the energy of our differences and channeling it toward something that has never been created before”. The aim of dialogue, as Louise Diamond and others explain, is not so much to talk, but to listen; not so much to convince, but to explore; not to blame, but to affirm; not to prove a point, but to build common understanding; not to have power over others, but power with others; not to create winners and losers, but winning solutions for all.

While details and specifics matter, in dialogue the focus is more on understanding the system than on nit-picking. Dialogue partners focus on arriving at a strategy in order to reverse a dysfunctional system that distracts and keeps us from answering the most important questions of our time:  What does the future ask of us? What are the elements of a vision we see for our country? What do we need to understand together? What do we most want others to understand about what is important to us? What are the key driving factors that reinforce the red space-type interactions and systemic problems? What can we do together to break patterns of resistance to change? What do we collectively need to do more of and less of? What do we need to start doing and stop doing?

Green spaces make positive shifts in relationships possible. People change because they discover a common humanity, common values and intentions, which are the basis from which common action can be undertaken to overcome the challenges, says Adam Kahane.

Effective green spaces are safe spaces. This does not mean that green spaces are kumbaya-type ‘soft spaces’ where ‘soft skills’ are needed and where the hard issues are avoided. It is a popular myth that listening, affirming human dignity and respectful communication are soft skills. It is much harder and much more uncomfortable to engage ‘the other’ face to face than to shout or shoot at an adversary from a distance.

In green spaces, there is no limit to how deeply and widely issues are explored. What is absent is not the quest for truth and honesty, but the desire to defend one’s own point of view at all costs. As Otto Scharmer says, we come with “an open mind, open heart and open will”. We suspend our strongly held beliefs to generate understanding, solutions and actions that could not have been developed by the individuals alone. Joseph Jaworski calls this “creating collective intelligence”. This is hard work in uncomfortable safe spaces.

After 18 months of careful preparation Guyanese political, business and civil society leaders attended a two-day conflict transformation workshop, as equals. Mistrust and apprehension were, of course, present at the start, but towards the end the need to attack and defend disappeared as participants explored ways to lead Guyana towards a better future. Positions, status and egos mattered less than discovering one another as Guyanese who wanted to see the best for their country.

Inspired by the power of genuine interaction, this gathering gave the ERC a mandate to organise nation-wide multistakeholder  conversations. The 30-odd Guyanese whom we had trained as facilitators were immediately available to facilitate 143 green spaces in a period of three months all over the country at local, regional and national level.

A couple of months later Guyana experienced its first violence-free elections in 50 years. The cycle of election violence had been broken. Two more violence-free elections followed.  A new coalition of seven opposition parties won the latest elections in May 2015 by only 5 000 votes. They campaigned on a platform of “a government of national unity” and promised to help Guyana “truly live up to its motto of ‘One People, One Nation, One Destiny”.  The Ministry for Social Cohesion – the first such ministry in the world, as far as we know – has now been established.  I was thrilled to accept an invitation to attend the first national round table in September 2015 to help develop a strategic framework for implementing Guyana’s social cohesion five-year plan. 

Guyana’s leaders chose to stay in the green space. As a South African, I’m jealous.

I keep wondering about what it would take for South Africa to rediscover the value of green spaces. We set the example of going green when we negotiated a new South Africa. We participated and witnessed the fruits of the National Peace Accord structures at regional and local levels. We have in our hands Vision 2030 and an imperfect but very important National Development Plan that asks green space-type questions.

We also know that staying in a red-space mentality has produced Marikana, Nkandla, student uprisings, injustice, unemployment, poverty and inequality. We witness destructive confrontations and violence in and around parliament and on the streets of our cities and towns. We seem to be stuck in a red space mentality.

What we need is leaders who understand that if we only have red spaces, we are in trouble. It is time for ordinary citizens to step into the middle to convene and facilitate dialogue spaces. All of us have to go green!

Chris Spies, founder and director of Dynamic Stability Pty Ltd is an independent conflict transformation practitioner with extensive international and local experience. He specialises in dialogue design and facilitation. He is also a senior research fellow at the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation in Cape Town.[J1] 

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^[1] Mark Gerzon, Strategic Outlook on Dialogue, internal UNDP report (June 2005).

^[2] Hal Saunders, A Public Peace Process: Sustained Dialogue to Transform Racial and Ethnic

Conflicts, New York: Palgrave (1999) 22.

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Student protests in South Africa: Will that lead to real dialogue?

As thousands of students march on the Union Buildings today they come with a message: Take us seriously and understand that our future is at stake.

They are protesting because they are sick an tired of not being heard. So now students talk truth to power. Let us hope this leads to real change. But real change will only be sustained when there is real dialogue.

Dr Brigalia Bam wrote in 2012: "We may have been doing many remarkable things, but we seem to have unlearned the power of real dialogue, which has served us so well in the past. We confuse dialogue with robust debate, conferences and consultations, which leave most people deflated and disillusioned. Tired of talking and cynical about efforts to bring people together, we resort to radical tactics, blaming or withdrawal.

Our negative experiences of being in contested spaces where the battle for the supremacy of ideas destroys our ability to unite around a common vision are reinforcing a growing fatigue and a belief that it does not help to talk...

Our young democracy is now entering into a phase where we can no longer ignore the value of dialogue.

No longer can we rely on our struggle credentials and our past heroes. We need to become the heroes of today and tomorrow.

Our legacy should not be sought in monuments for fallen heroes, but in a united nation that unlocks the potential of all its people, especially the youth."

To this I say "Amen"!

Address to Social Cohesion Round Table in Guyana on 3 September 2015

 President of Guyana, Brigadier David A Granger addresses the round table

 

 With Lawrence Lachmansingh, Former ERC Commissioners Cheryl Sampson and Norman McClean

Presentation by Chris Spies on the occasion of the Social Cohesion Roundtable, organised by Hon Amna Ally, Minister for Social Cohesion in Guyana

Salaam Haleikum, Namaste, Good Morning dear Guyanese friends and colleagues

All protocols observed

My friend and colleague, Emmanuel Bombande from Ghana, is an incredible story-teller. In fact, he has helped me to understand the power of stories to unlock profound indigenous wisdom. So here’s a story that he told me:

“One morning women, as usual, went down to the river to wash clothes. Living together in the same community for years they enjoyed each other’s company very much. As they washed their clothes and chatted happily, they heard the cries of a baby. Then they spotted the baby in a basket floating down the river. They were shocked and rescued the baby. The next morning the same thing happened and again they rescued another baby. After rescuing three babies, one of them said: ‘Maybe we should walk upstream to find out why these babies are being put in the river in the first place.’”

The second story is a true story. It is a story about the tension between fear and hope. During the Nepal peace process, a local peacebuilder realised the importance of bringing a Maoist general to the mediation table. He walked for days into the mountains to find the general, knowing well that he could be killed along the way. When he reached the general he discovered that there were indeed ambushes along the way, but because he was unarmed he was not seen as a threat. He asked the general whether he (the general) was willing to accompany him to the mediation table. “Can you guarantee my safety?” the general asked. “No, I cannot guarantee your safety, but what I can do is to walk with you”, he said.

The first story is about compassion and the courage to deal with the root causes of societal problems. To prevent disasters someone needs to do something different: find out why recurring problems continue to plague us. 

The second story is about someone who reached out to the “hard to get” because the future of the country was at stake—someone who risked to step into the middle. The middle is the most dangerous place to be, because you are exposed from all sides. There comes a time when hope for a better future becomes stronger than the fear that keeps us into our corners.

Dominique Moïsi, a political scientist, helps us to understand that politics and emotions go hand in hand, whether we recognise them or not. The three emotions that are currently shaping world politics, Moïsi says, are Hope, Fear and Humiliation. All three these emotions have to do with confidence. Those who are driven by Hope are confident that the future looks brighter than the past and the present. Fear, on the other hand, paralyses our confidence and courage to do something different. Fear and humiliation feed on memories and pain from past experiences. They paint a world as we see it—not as it is.  Humiliation either pushes confidence to non-existent levels, or it emboldens us to react in anger.

The task of leaders, says Moïsi, is to decrease Fear and Humiliation and to increase levels of Hope. How does one do that?  I would argue that dialogue—genuine interaction through which human beings listen to each other deeply enough by what they learn—is a journey that may help us to do just that.

Dialogue is not a once-off roundtable event. It is a long-term process aimed at thinking together—not apart—living together and taking action together. Genuine dialogue in safe spaces is uncomfortable, because we we confront ourselves more than “the other”. We have to confront our own fears, admit our own weaknesses, transform our pain and risk building trust with others who are different. As we develop the habit of choosing direct interaction over retreating into competitive spaces and political corners, we discover that deep down we all want the same outcomes for this beautiful country.

As William Isaacs says in his book Dialogue: The Art of Thinking Together, dialogue is not a conversation between sides; it is a conversation with the centre. Our centre is our common humanity: The courage to find the babies upstream; the courage to risk to reach out to the general in the mountains; the courage to step into the middle to model a different kind of behaviour than what has become the norm.

In South Africa, Nelson Mandela did the unexpected. He chose to reach out to an illegitimate apartheid government to lead the country away from humiliation and fear. Our Truth and Reconciliation Commission was a space where victims could tell stories of humiliation and fear. Our hope for a better future became stronger as we chose to seek win-win solutions through dialogue. (I am not proud today to admit that our country has lost its dialogue spirit. Politics have become polarised and racialised. We are the most unequal society in the world next to Brazil.)

At another moment in our history, shortly after Mandela’s release, President de Klerk called a peace conference in an attempt to bring down levels of violence before the elections. Mandela rejected De Klerk’s initiative and called an ANC-led peace conference, which, in turn, was rejected by De Klerk. Neither De Klerk or Mandela was seen as a credible convenor of peace initiatives. Realising that neither of the two political giants could make peace by themselves, Bishop Tutu and the business community stepped in as convenors of a process that led to the signing of the National Peace Accord. 

The truth is that credibility to convene dialogue has little to do with legitimacy. Credibility depends on whether people have confidence and trust that the process and space will be safe. Credibility is built over time as people recognise that behaviour and action are consistent with pronouncements and words.

For dialogue spaces to be effective, says Dr Andries Odendaal, the following principles and preconditions apply: Inclusivity; adequate preparation; credible convenors; credible facilitators; political will; and collective leadership capabilities. If these factors are not adequately present, they need to be created and nurtured by wise and credible Guyanese. This is what happened in Ghana, for example.

Ghana was on a knife’s edge during the 2008 elections. There was a real danger of civil war. A small team of peace-minded citizens stepped into the middle space to facilitate communication and dialogue between the two main rivals. Tensions dropped and power was handed over peacefully. Ghana kept the momentum of this initiative going. Parliament passed a law that created a credible independent body, the Ghana Peace Council. It’s mandate is ;

1. To coordinate and harmonize all Peace actors and initiatives within Ghana
2. To promote understanding of peace for behavioural change
3. To facilitate prevention and management of electoral violence
4. To prevent tensions from erupting into conflict
5. To manage conflicts so as to contain and limit further violent escalation
6. To identify root causes and resolve conflict

Myanmar—a country with numerous problems of racial intolerance and inter-religious tensions—has established the Myanmar Peace Centre. A comprehensive peace agreement was recently signed between the government and 17 armed groups. This initiative came about when a general in the military government realised that the young people his government was fighting, were “our people”. He stepped out of his office and drove 800 km to meet the leader of one of the armed groups. They listened to each other’s stories for a whole day, tears streaming down their faces. They decided to stop the madness and to do something different.

Closer to home, we have, as Lawrence Lachmansingh has indicated, a good example of Guyanese leadership that came together in a conflict transformation workshop. I remember vividly the amount of preparation that went into building confidence in an inclusive process that eventually led to the Ethnic Relations Commission-led country-wide multi-stakeholder conversations. A 50-year cycle of electoral violence was broken.

You now have had 14 years of relative peaceful elections, but the past is still with us. Some are dancing with hope and joy; others are fearing retribution and discrimination. For some hope for a better future has re-emerged. For others, hope has been destroyed. Elections are inherently adversarial. Hope, fear and humiliation dance to the music of of “the winner takes it all” as the ABBA song goes.

Research by Richard Wilkenson shows that more equal societies do better than unequal societies. There rests a huge responsibility on the shoulders of leadership across the political divides to operate from the core our common humanity. The greeting “Namaste” literally means: I see the god in you”. In one African culture when you ask “Did you sleep well?” the answer is “I slept well if you slept well.”

No one should be left behind. No one should discriminate or be seen as discriminating. I have seen the devastating effects of ethnic fragmentation and identity politics in many countries. Social cohesion and prejudice cannot co-exist.

This round table happens today, in the present. “Could we not allow ourselves the opportunity here and now to be together, to think together, in a way that goes beyond the pain and fog that we traditionally carry around…leading people past that natural defenses into genuine contact with one another?” (Isaacs).

There is the river. There is the mountain. There is courage. There is a middle. Guyanese have shown that, when it mattered most, they were able to unite. There is a unique opportunity. Today. Here. Now. Step into the middle and walk the journey together. You can do it.

9/11

9/11 will always be for me the watershed day when old thinking triumphed over creativity. It was old thinking that made the attackers think they were performing a heroic act. It was old thinking, devoid of any creativity, that led GW Bush to believe that a "war on terror" was the answer. Even today so many leaders still believe the way to settle conflicts is through violence. The world is much less safe. Old thinking seems to live forever but it kills everything it touches.

Maybe we need a monument for 9/11—not one that commemorates the victims, but one that celebrates the lives of thousands of creative peacebuilders in communities, countries and regions all over the world. Let the efforts of ordinary men and women be the living testimony of the true creative human spirit that triumphs over old thinking. Honour every father and mother who raise their children not to hate. Let the voices of those who say "not in our name and not in our God's name" shout louder and louder until the whole world stands together against senseless death, misery and old thinking.

Thank goodness for signs of hope. And spare a thought for those who are so disappointed about the Iran nuclear deal. At least there was some creative thinking.