The Neutrality Trap. Bernard S. Mayer

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Название The Neutrality Trap
Автор произведения Bernard S. Mayer
Жанр Зарубежная деловая литература
Серия
Издательство Зарубежная деловая литература
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781119793410



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of these efforts are necessarily misguided or inappropriate. As we seek to change systems, we also have to support people as they navigate these systems. But undertaking them without considering the impact our well‐intentioned and even necessary actions may play in the larger pattern of dominance, oppression, or hierarchy is problematic and sometimes dangerous. One of the most important challenges we face in promoting social change is how to develop strategies for increasing constructive dialogue among groups in conflict while also raising the level of that conflict in an effective and durable way.

      Disrupting and Engaging

      Many of us who have worked in the conflict field (e.g. as facilitators, mediators, peace builders, and trainers) also have backgrounds as social activists where raising the prominence of public conflict is central to the mission of promoting justice. Working to help people resolve their differences has often seemed like a logical and constructive next step. But what seemed like a natural progression has often meant losing the clarity of purpose that the previous focus on social change had provided. While the conflict intervention field has at times helped consolidate changes that social movements have generated, it has also sometimes undercut the energy necessary to build movements by focusing prematurely on dialogue, de‐escalation, and resolution.

      We have experienced some astonishingly and unexpected transformative moments in our work with others, but we know that profound change does not come easily, predictably, or by the mechanistic application of some formula for human interaction. We believe that just as the lessons we have learned as advocates for social change have informed our work as conflict interveners, our work on conflict sheds light on the struggle for social justice. What those lessons are and how they can be applied to the volatile world we inhabit is the focus of this book.

      Three of the most important lessons we have learned are the vital role of conflict in breaking cycles of oppression, the importance of taking a strategic approach to long‐term conflict, and the danger that neutrality poses as a central guiding principle for the role that conflict interveners play in the change process. These lessons are relevant not only to conflict specialists but to all those working for social change.

      Conflict intervention practitioners frequently assert that conflict itself is not the problem, but how we handle it often is. Labor and management struggle over competing interests, environmentalists and fossil fuel producers look at the world through different lenses, and divorcing parents often have different visions and values about rearing children. The challenge we all face, therefore, is not so much how to resolve these differences but how to find a constructive way to deal with them over time.

       So what makes conflict truly constructive?

      Constructive conflict moves us forward in creating the world we want to be part of, one that reflects our most important values and desires, promotes the systems that will contribute to the changes we seek, and disrupts those that interfere with these. Constructive conflict is also carried on in accordance with our values about human and group interaction and with the fundamental goals we are pursuing.

      There are two important caveats here, however. One is that what is constructive is contextual to the person and situation. The other is that no action is pure. The line between constructive conflict and pointless destruction is often a fine one. When does angry, militant, and effective mass action turn into looting, arson, and violence against individuals?

      The challenge in developing a truly constructive approach to conflict, which of necessity is disruptive, is to move through periods of chaotic disruption to build a multi‐pronged, sustainable, strategic, nonviolent approach to disrupting oppressive systems.

      As may be obvious, nonviolence is one key to sustainable ap‐proaches to systems disruption. Nonviolence as both a philosophy and a strategy has been at the heart of many of the most important and successful social movements in recent history. The anti‐nuclear, civil rights, women's, gay rights, and environmental movements have largely adhered to a commitment to nonviolence. This has been essential to sustaining them and to harnessing the moral power that has been vital to their success.

      But we should remember that the power of nonviolence lies not only in its moral consistency and vision but in what lurks behind it. The alternative to taking seriously the grievances expressed by nonviolent protestors is often chaotic and destructive violence. This was true of the movement against British Colonialism led by Mohandas Gandhi, the struggle to end apartheid in South Africa, and the US civil rights movement. We should also remember that in a White supremacist system, people of color are held to a very different standard about violence than White people.

      “All lawful modes of expressing opposition to this principle had been closed by legislation, and we were placed in a position in which we had either to accept a permanent state of inferiority, or to defy the Government. We chose to defy the Government. We first broke the law in a way which avoided any recourse to violence; when this form was legislated against, and when the Government resorted to a show of force to crush opposition to its policies, only then did we decide to answer violence with violence.”

      (Mandela, Statement at the opening of his trial on charges of sabotage, Supreme Court of South Africa, 1964)

      Mandela never disavowed this decision, albeit one he was very loath to make. Whether this was the wisest or most effective approach remains an interesting question. The group that engaged in sabotage (Umkhonto—an offshoot of the ANC) was quickly broken up,