mediation brief...

Mediation Brief #1 March 2013

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Brendan McAllister, Senior Associate [email protected]

About the author Brendan McAllister was Director of Mediation Northern Ireland from 1992 -2008. His remit was to promote the use of mediation within Northern Ireland and to develop indigenous practice. He is Associate and Senior Adviser at mediatEUr.

About this issueThis paper was prepared for a seminar on “Mediation in the Mediterranean: Developing Capacities and Synergies”, convened by the ‘Spanish-Moroccan Initiative on Mediation in the Mediterranean’ and the Toledo International Centre for Peace on 11-12 February.

About this series Our Mediation Briefs is a series of publications where our associates and collaborators touch upon key issues in international peace mediation and share their personal experiences, in a short and accessible format.

“A society in which peace is being built is like a wagon with four wheels, each of which is important to keep the wagon stable and moving in the right direction”

www.themediateur.eu

Peace From Within, Help From Without: Engagement Between Indigenous Mediators and Helpful Outsiders

The brief for this seminar refers to ‘local actors’ and

‘international actors’. Actually, I would suggest three different

types of mediator:

International Actor: someone from another country who comes in to mediate or assist in some way.

National Actor: someone based within a country whose remit concerns macro, societal change.

Local Actor: someone whose is concerned with a particular locality within a society; with micro issues.

As Director of an NGO with a remit for the whole of society in

Northern Ireland, I was concerned with macro political and

social conflict and also with supporting activists engaging

more localized disputes, which, of course, were often local

expressions of wider societal issues. My work sometimes

involved collaborating with international actors bearing an

insight or idea and helping them to navigate the local terrain

to find suitable places to land; places suitable for a particular

idea to take root and survive in the local climate. In a sense, I

sometimes mediated between international and local actors.

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Peace From Within, Help From Without: Engagement Between Indigenous Mediators and

Helpful Outsiders


First, I’d like to consider the nature of indigenous

mediation. Where do local mediators come from

and what might be their motivation?

Formation

My formation as a peace activist began long

before I became a mediator. And as an activist I

started mediating before I knew it was mediation.

While I had been involved in peace work since

1974, in 1983 I began convening church-based

meetings in my town at which contentious issues

were discussed and through which my skills at

facilitation began to develop. It was 1986 before

I received my first, formal mediation training.

In 1985, nine police officers were killed in a

mortar attack on the police station in my town. I

led a public demonstration the following night:

around 500 townspeople gathered for a vigil and,

standing on a wall, I addressed them through a

loud hailer, watched by local and international

media.

I think that incident was a Rubicon moment for

me. At a time when the instinct of the average

citizen was to keep their head down, I had raised

mine. I had drawn attention to myself. I received

brief media exposure followed by letters of

support and also some hate mail.

Friends expressed concern for my safety. I had

publicly criticized those who had maimed and

murdered in our town. I had loudly questioned

the morality of violence. In the light of that

experience and a number of other peace actions

in response to shootings and explosions, I knew

that I was breaking with the common sense of

the ordinary citizen and exposing my wife and

children to stress and disturbance.

In 1991, when I began to engage in peace

mediation my employers expressed concern that

my activities were endangering my colleagues.

So, I gave up a job that I loved and had intended

to do for the rest of my working life. Ironically,

this steered me towards full-time mediation

work but mediation was not a career choice; it

was a way of life that I was drawn into.

“At a time when the instinct of the average citizen was to keep their head down, I had raised mine.”

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I think there is a moment in the life of many

indigenous peace activists when they realize that

if they continue to take the work of peace

seriously it is likely to turn their lives upside

down, place them in danger or even lead to their

death.

For some, this is the moment when they back

away. They come to understand that peace may

exact a personal price that, in the end, they are

not prepared to pay.

For others, a decision is taken that alters their

relationship with conflict. They turn into it and

begin to grapple with the monster of violence, its

many tentacles reaching out and curling round

their limbs, as if playing with them as they

struggle with its smothering embrace, possibly

for the rest of their lives.

My point here is that outsiders wishing to work

with indigenous activists would do well to

appreciate that such people range from those

who are new and enthusiastic about peace work

(and therefore may be untested and naïve) to

those who have already committed their lives to

peace and are conscious of the risks involved.

Outside interveners have a duty of care to

indigenous activists, especially those who are

inexperienced and possibly naïve about the

potential implications of what they are doing. The

outsider can return to the outside; the local

person has to live with the consequences of their

involvement in a mediative initiative.

Peace

When thinking about the development of

peacebuilding it is actually important to consider

the meaning of ‘peace’. In this respect I was

greatly influenced by an article written by the

Irish Catholic priest and moral theologian, Enda

McDonagh, in the early 1990s. McDonagh points

out that sacred scriptures revered by Judaism,

Christianity and Islam were first written in

Hebrew and used the word ‘shalom’ to refer to

peace.

‘Shalom’ means to live in balance: within

yourself; with other human beings; with the

environment; with the cosmos and the whole of

creation; with the Creator. This condition is, says

McDonagh, a ‘rich reality of wholeness’.

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When those scriptures were translated into Greek,

24 different words were used to translate shalom.

The nearest was ‘eirene’ which means ‘harmony

and order’. While this is a lovely concept, it is less

holistic than the original shalom (which in Arabic

translates as ‘salam’).

When the Christian scriptures were eventually

translated from Greek to Latin, the closest word to

shalom was ‘pax’, meaning ‘legal order’. Thus in

the Roman Empire, ‘Pax Romana’ referred to the

peace of Rome: the order established by Rome,

an order that suited the Roman Empire.

One could observe that in modern centuries there

has been, for example, a Pax Britannica or a Pax

Americana. Peace understood as pax may indeed

be a good thing but it is a long way from the

original concept of shalom/salam.

Perhaps the international community sometimes

approaches conflicted societies more concerned

with pax, with the establishment or restoration of

a form of stability that suits a wider status quo. A

window of opportunity opens in which the

international community seeks to establish order.

Once pax is put in place, the window closes and

the world tends to move on, often without

reaching deeper levels of conflict within a stricken

country and even leaving a legacy of additional

difficulties.

It seems to me that many people engaged in

violent conflict continue to reject ‘peace’

initiatives because they perceive them as serving

international ‘pax’ rather than a deeper, more

holistic peace; they perceive the messengers of

peace as agents of pax, acting on behalf of a

world order that favours vested interests rather

than being a more genuine shalom/salam.

Whether this is true or not is quite beside the

point: perception is the crucial factor.

With regard to mediation this raises two

important implications:

Firstly, indigenous mediators acting in consort

with the international community can be

perceived by some protagonists as serving a

hostile agenda and, even, as a threat. This creates

obvious dangers for local mediators.

Secondly, when faced with extremists and

fundamentalists who might be widely viewed as

insanely opposed to peace, it is important to dig

deeply into their dissent in order to gain a greater

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understanding of their rejection of a pax, a new

order that, in their view, is not a true peace.

Spirituality

This takes us to a third dimension of indigenous

mediation that is important for outside

interveners to consider: the spirituality of peace.

By ‘spirituality’ I do not necessarily mean religion

or faith. In this context I would suggest that

spirituality is a sense that there is more to reality

than what is obvious or tangible and there is a

place within oneself where one ‘goes’ for

reflection or renewal. A place from where an

‘inner voice’ speaks in discernment. For some

people, spirituality might refer to their

relationship with God; for others it might describe

a humanistic engagement with the source of

their creativity. The spirituality of the peace-

builder concerns the deeper values, traditions

and customs out of which the impulse for peace

emanates and is sustained. Religious or

otherwise, there is a spirit in which peace work is

carried out. This is important because I believe

that peace mediation works best at a spiritual

level; that mediation is much less about the

‘physics’ of change and much more about the

‘chemistry’ of human conflict.

I would observe three ‘philosophies’ at work in

societal conflict:

Violence: a belief that you can promote or defend

justice by the destruction of life or property.

Anti-violence: a belief that you can promote or

defend justice by opposing violence.

Many popular movements for peace are driven

by anti–violence. People unite around that which

they are against: violence. However, divisions

quickly emerge once such movements seek

agreement from people about that which they

are for. Anti-violence has its part to play in the

process of peace, a huge part. But anti-violence is

an unsuitable philosophical foundation for

mediation. Although it may be morally admirable

to oppose the violent, such a stance would render

a mediator one-sided.

“Mediators try to excavate the truth, no matter how small or distorted, within

even those viewed by others as obnoxious or disgusting.”

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Non-violence: a belief that you can promote or

defend justice by serving truth, with compassion.

I have been influenced by the teaching of Jean

and Hildegard Goss-Mayr. As exponents of non-

violence from a Christian perspective, they taught

that since every human being is made by the

Creator, every human being has ‘the seed of God’

or ‘Truth’ within them; every human being has at

least a seed of truth in them, in spite of their

terrible actions.

The non-violent peacemaker seeks to reach that

seed of truth in the belief that when two

individuals or ‘sides’ in conflict gain insight into

each other’s piece of truth, a positive

transformation begins in their situation.

In my view, mediation is a method of non-

violent peacebuilding. Mediators try to excavate

the truth, no matter how small or distorted,

within even those viewed by others as obnoxious

or disgusting.

Placing non-violence within the foundations of

peace mediation enables an indigenous mediator

to approach even the most extreme people in

their society with an attitude of genuine respect

and a belief in each person’s inherent human

dignity.

Without this kind of ‘spirituality’ (whether

religious or humanistic) there is a danger that an

indigenous mediator will lose their way in time

and become identified with one side in a conflict.

Peacebuilding

Thus far I am suggesting that, in my own case as

a local actor, I evolved from anti-violence to non-

violence and that this had two significant

implications.

Firstly, I moved from a ‘campaign’ style of peace

activism to a ‘relational’ style. Establishing

relationships with protagonists on all sides

became more important than advertising my

own views about what was going on in my

country. Out of such relationships it becomes

possible for a critical dialogue to occur and, in

time, to facilitate critical engagement with others.

Secondly, I evolved from a ‘reactive’ approach to

peace – reacting to violence or division – to a

‘proactive’ approach. This involved the

development of strategy. Envisioning where one

might wish one’s society to be in, say, 5 years’

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time leads to consideration of what one’s

contribution will be during that time period and,

in turn, to the development of plans and a more

conscious application of methodology.

As an international actor now, I assume that

there is sometimes a need to support local actors

to make a similar transition towards longer-term,

strategic peacebuilding.

Phases of Mediation Development

In the Northern Ireland situation I would observe

four phases in the development of local

mediation.

Phase 1: 1985 – 1992: Importation – the first

years of formal mediation training were based

upon the so-called North American model. We

were importing an American way of doing

mediation. By 1992 it was clear that while people

loved the training they were not making the

transition from student to practitioner. Mediation

was not happening.

Phase 2: 1993 – 1994: Inculturation – this was a

brief period when we were attempting to find

Irish/Northern Irish ways to say American things;

to infuse an American approach to mediation

into our culture. This was progress but was not

the answer.

Phase 3: 1994 – 2004: Indigenation – a time

when, in a sense, we lessened our reliance on

international experts and focused on a more

pragmatic approach based upon local realities:

the emphasis was on the development of local

practice infused with a mediative mindset rather

than a more orthodox approach in which

mediation was quite formulaic and rigid. This

was the period when mediation really took hold

on the ground in Northern Ireland on issues such

as prisons, policing, public order, parades,

criminal justice, sectarian interfaces, housing,

education, health, political and civic relationships.

Phase 4: 2004 -: Mutuality – a time when our

engagement with the international mediation

community became less deferential to external

knowledge and was based more on greater self-

confidence. Cross-fertilization remains important:

outsiders always have something important to

bring to the local world and the local world

eventually has important points of learning to

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bring to the outside. Perhaps a local mediation

field comes of age when indigenous practitioners

come to value their own expertise as much as

that of external actors. Looking back on my own

experience, I would say that local actors were not

immune from a sense of failure as citizens of a

failed society. Perhaps there is a tendency for

local actors to internalize their society’s failure. It

may take years to grow out of an inferiority

complex.

Dimensions of Peace

A society in which peace is being built is like a

wagon with four wheels, each of which is

important to keep the wagon stable and moving

in the right direction. I would describe each

wheel (or dimension) as follows:

The effort towards political consensus among leaders.

Agreed law and order. Economic Development (including

infrastructure such as water, electricity, sewage, roads and transport).

Social Progress (health, housing, education, community life, cultural traditions).

Over a period of more than 15 years I worked

with others to establish mediation within each of

the above dimensions. I would describe this work

as ‘applied mediation’ because it involves going

well beyond the orthodox notion of mediation as

‘bringing people to the table’. It involves an

engagement with civic society as well as political

parties and governments, in the belief that every

citizen in a conflicted society has a relevant

contribution to make for peace.

Five Functions of Mediation

In the Northern Ireland context mediation came

to serve any one of the following five functions

which, I believe, are applicable elsewhere:

Assisting communication. Improving understandings. Supporting creative thinking. Exploring accommodations. Facilitating agreement.

Phases of Work

I would suggest that there are three phases in the

evolution of peace in which mediation has a role

to play:

Helping to create the conditions for a peace process.

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Supporting the peace process. Helping people to live with the

implications of a political settlement.

Relations Between Local Actors

In my own case, my responsibility was to

establish the practice of mediation and support a

field of practitioners within Northern Ireland. In

the early years, this involved identifying

community-based activists to train and mentor in

their practice. Thereafter, my approach was to

step into local situations if, either, local mediators

felt unable to address a particular issue or the

issue was more than local and involved macro

players. In some cases this kind of role was

welcomed. In others, locals resisted outside help,

preferring to work on the issue themselves. This

led at times to a sense of rivalry.

An indigenous mediation field should become

dynamic and, therefore, move with evolving

practice and with ‘market forces’. Money should

go to the most effective players. However, the

pursuit of funding can adversely affect

relationships between local actors.

Outside actors need to exercise discernment

regarding where they choose to hang their coat. It

is possible for an outsider to gain a favourable

impression of a local actor, only to later discover

that the same individual or organization may not

have credibility with local players.

Relations between Local and International

Actors

I would make a number of observations from my

own experience:

1. Travel broadened me. I started attending

conferences in the USA in 1993 and went

there most years thereafter – for training, to

attend conferences, to deliver papers and

workshops, to take groups on field trips, to

maintain networks. Events in Europe had a

similar effect over the years. Exposure to the

wider international field was nearly always

illuminating.

2. The US State department funded a

succession of field trips to America on police

reform, with return visits to Belfast by

individuals involved in policing. Each time,

the arrangement required me to find a US

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college/university to partner and receive the

actual funding. This required sensitive

discussion with each college to ensure that

they did not set out to teach Northern

Ireland police how to do policing in Northern

Ireland. Rather, the Americans’ task was to

tell us about good policing in various parts of

America, leaving it to the Northern Ireland

police to interpret what seemed applicable in

our situation. Such deference was essential

for an effective engagement with police in

Northern Ireland.

3. Visiting theorists and practitioners were an

important means to introduce new ideas. I

think that the helpful outsider tells a good

story and asks a good question. Outsiders

should pay more attention to questions than

to answers. The best answers are to be found

within a conflicted society.

4. Visitors created a good reason to bring local

protagonists together, at a workshop or over

dinner. Meeting the visitor sometimes gave

opponents an excuse to meet each other.

5. On one occasion, I wanted to bring opposing

sides into dialogue and had EU funding to

take them to continental Europe. One person

explained that he could not be seen to go

away to meet certain players. However, if

they happened to attend the same

conference he would be able to engage with

them. So, a ‘conference’ was duly arranged. I

asked a co-operative academic to host the

sides and to speak to them for half an hour

before going away and leaving us alone for

two days.

6. At governmental level, the international

community comes to town to do deals and

move on. Peace negotiations, therefore, tend

to be ‘event-driven’ rather than being

‘process-focused’ (John Paul Lederach).

While this is how the world goes around and

is a reality to work with, it can also mean

that international mediators will push for

deals and outcomes at a pace that leads to

problems later on. Locals, on the other hand,

are more likely to work at the long-term

relationships and the deeper foundations

that should underpin and sustain a peace

agreement.

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7. Sometimes internationals come in a hurry.

They acquire funding for a specific project

within a specific time period. Or they can

only spend a certain amount of time on the

ground before flying out again. Locals, on the

other hand, are typically engaged as part of a

‘life task’. They may work at a slower pace. A

tension between the two paces is not

necessarily bad, but it can be counter-

productive.

8. Engagement with international actors lifted

our imagination in Northern Ireland. I have

no doubt that they made a significant

contribution to the peace process there.

Tasks of the International Mediator

I would suggest this list of potential tasks for the

international mediator:

1. Educator – imparting a conceptual framework for peace mediation.

2. Facilitator – helping indigenous actors to ‘think’ and reflect.

3. Catalytic agent —whereby their presence, as an outsider, enables protagonists to meet and engage in a different way and to draw energy and hope from hearing about other situations.

4. Trainer – helping people to develop their craft and technique.

5. Mentor – supporting indigenous practitioners in the delivery of mediation and its associated disciplines.

6. Mediator – where and when appropriate, to engage in actual mediation, assuming local endorsement and consensus about the introduction of an outsider.

© European Forum for International Mediation and Dialogue e.V. (mediatEUr), 2013 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without full attribution. The views expressed in this publication are that of the author, and do not necessarily represent those of mediatEUr, or the funding agency.

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