Mediating Across Difference: Oceanic and Asian Approaches To

mediating across difference oceanic and asian approaches to conflict resolution

Edited by Morgan Brigg and Roland Bleiker

writing past colonialism mediating across difference Writing Past Colonialism is the signature book series of the Institute of Postcolonial Studies, based in Melbourne, Australia. By postcolonialism we understand modes of writing and artistic production that critically engage with and contest the legacy and continuing mindset and practices of colonialism, and inform debate about the processes of globalization. This manifests itself in a concern with difference from the Euro-American, the global, and the norm. The series is also committed to publishing works that seek “to make a difference,” both in the academy and outside it. our hope is that books in the series will • engage with contemporary issues and problems relating to colonialism and postcolonialism • attempt to reach a broad constituency of readers • address the relation between theory and practice • be interdisciplinary in approach as well as subject matter • experiment with new modes of writing and methodology

INSTITUTE OF POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES | WRITING PAST COLONIALISM

Selves in Question: Interviews on Southern African Auto/biography Edited by Judith Lütge Coullie, Stephan Meyer, Thengani Ngwenya, and Thomas Olver

Boundary Writing: An Exploration of Race, Culture, and Gender Binaries in Contemporary Australia Edited by Lynette Russell Postcolonizing the International: Working to Change the Way We Are Edited by Phillip Darby

Dark Writing: geography, performance, design Paul Carter

Hidden Hands and Divided Landscapes: A Penal History of Singapore’s Plural Society Anoma Pieris

Imperial Archipelago: Representation and Rule in the Insular Territories under U.S. Dominion after 1898 Lanny Thompson

Mediating across Difference: Oceanic and Asian Approaches to Conflict Resolution Edited by Morgan Brigg and Roland Bleiker mediating across difference Oceanic and Asian Approaches to Conflict Resolution

Edited by Morgan Brigg and Roland Bleiker

16 15 14 13 12 11 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mediating across difference : oceanic and Asian approaches to conflict resolution / edited by Morgan Brigg and Roland Bleiker. p. cm.—(Writing past colonialism) Includes index. ISBN 978-0-8248-3459-3 (hardcover : alk. paper)— ISBN 978-0-8248-3519-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Conflict management—Cross cultural studies. 2. Conflict management—Oceania. 3. Conflict management— Asia. 4. Conflict management—Australia. 5. Conflict management—New Zealand. I. Brigg, Morgan. II. Bleiker, Roland. III. Series: Writing past colonialism series. HM1126.M438 2011 303.6’9095—dc22 2010026343

University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources.

Series design by Leslie Fitch Printed by Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction 1 Roland Bleiker and Morgan Brigg

I The Values and Limits of Western Approaches to Conflict Resolution 17 Chapter 1. Postcolonial Conflict Resolution 19 Morgan Brigg and Roland Bleiker Chapter 2. Silence in Western Models of Conflict Resolution 38 Tarja Väyrynen Chapter 3. Local Conflict Resolution in the Shadows of Liberal International Peacebuilding 57 Oliver P. Richmond

II Australian Aboriginal and Ma¯ori Approaches to Conflict Resolution 73 Chapter 4. Conflict Murri Way: Managing through Place and Relatedness 75 Mary Graham, Morgan Brigg, and Polly O. Walker Chapter 5. Conflict Resolution and Decolonisation: Aboriginal Australian Case Studies in ‘Enlarged Thinking’ 100 Deborah Bird Rose Chapter 6. Māori Dispute Resolution: Traditional Conceptual Regulators and Contemporary Processes 115 Carwyn Jones

III Melanesian Approaches to Conflict Resolution 139 Chapter 7. Christianity, Custom, and Law: Conflict and Peacemaking in the Postconflict Solomon Islands 141 Debra McDougall with Joy Kere

v vi Contents

Chapter 8. Bougainville: A Source of Inspiration for Conflict Resolution 163 Volker Boege and Sr. Lorraine Garasu

IV East Asian Approaches to Conflict Resolution 183 Chapter 9. Crossing Borders: Indonesian Experience with Local Conflict Resolution 185 Frans de Jalong and Muhadi Sugiono Chapter 10. Mediating Difference in Uchi Space: Conflict Management Lessons from Japan 205 Jacqueline Wasilewski and Norifumi Namatame Chapter 11. Shu and the Chinese Quest for Harmony: A Confucian Approach to Mediating across Difference 221 Chengxin Pan Chapter 12. Korean Sources of Conflict Resolution: An Inquiry into the Concept of Han 248 Roland Bleiker and Hoang Young-ju Chapter 13. Conclusion: Mediating the Mediation with Difference 270 Stephen Chan

Contributors 275

Index 279 Acknowledgments

Many people have contributed to the development of this work. We wish to thank the contributors for their willingness to engage in a productive and supportive way with each of the chapters and with our framing of the project. Sincere thanks are due to two anonymous reviewers who dedicated time and energy to provide valuable feedback on the entire manuscript. We also want to thank Costas Constantinou for his comments on this project. For their able research assistance, we want to thank Erin Wilson, Barbara King, Lesley Pruitt, Nilanjana Premaratna, and Amy Bonshek. Erin, in particular, was central to the organisation and smooth running of the workshop that led to this volume. This volume would not have been possible without financial support for a workshop and related activities that led to this project. Core funding was provided by the Japan Foundation, the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, and UNESCO. Additional support was provided by the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland.

vii

Introduction

Roland Bleiker and Morgan Brigg

From global terrorism to local community conflicts, cultural difference is widely invoked in conflicts that beset today’s world. Examples range from regional conflicts in the Balkans, Sudan, or Sri Lanka to an alleged global clash between Western secularism and Islamic fundamentalism. Individuals will agree or disagree about the origin, nature, and consequences of these and other confrontations, but we cannot ignore that dealing with the dilemmas of cultural difference is one of the most challenging tasks we currently face. Nor can we overlook that existing political attitudes, by tending to see cultural difference as an inevitable threat rather than a potential source of insight, often fuel rather than help to resolve contemporary conflict. Required, then, are attempts to turn difference from a perceived threat into a valuable resource for helping to manage conflicts. Prevailing ways of dealing with conflict tend to be limited because they are almost exclusively embedded in Western conceptual frameworks. This is as much the case with formal diplomatic negotiations as it is with regional peacebuilding missions and local conflict resolution efforts. The ensuing approaches often imply, for instance, that politics and religion are distinct realms or that emotions are irrational and private phenomena and thus best kept out of rational public deliberations about how to solve conflict. These and countless other values are not shared universally. They are culturally specific and linked, often, to very particular Western understandings of how to arrange sociopolitical community and how to understand and manage conflicts. The result is that Western approaches, regardless of how well intended and resourced, often fail to understand and adequately deal with conflict, particularly when cultural difference is at play. In a worst-case scenario the ensuing con-

1 2 mediating across difference flict resolution practices are ineffective or even facilitate further conflict. The resulting imposition of Western values upon culturally diverse conflict situations can lead to a regime of domination that is resented by those who are subjected to its ethnocentric implications. Such scenarios have regularly arisen in recent decades, sometimes on a large scale, as in postconflict peace- and state-building efforts from the Balkans to Timor Leste, and from Cambodia to Sierra Leone and the Solomon Islands. Even where Western conflict resolution practices are successful, excessive reliance on them seriously limits the ability to embark on the type of genuine cross-cultural and interdisciplinary conversations that are necessary to understand and address conflict in a rapidly globalising world. This book is based on a fundamental premise: to deal adequately with conflict, and particularly with the challenge of cultural and other differences, we need to enrich both prevailing Western theories and practices of conflict resolution and their often-ignored local counterparts through mutual encounter and exchange.1 Doing so requires a genuine effort to be open towards different cultural practices and ways of knowing and being. And it entails developing a more critical attitude towards previously underexamined Western assumptions about conflict and its resolution. Central too is a shift away from understanding cultural difference as an inevitable source of conflict. Difference can—and must—also be seen as a valuable resource for contemplating how people can live together, manage conflict, and produce stable sociopolitical orders. Our response to the challenge of conflict and cultural difference—and the main objective of this book—is to introduce and explore some of the rich and diverse insights into conflict resolution emanating from Asia and Oceania. Al- though often overlooked, these traditions offer a range of very useful ways of thinking about and dealing with difference and conflict in a globalising world. We bring these underrecognised traditions into exchange with mainstream Western conflict resolution. We do so by presenting the results of collaborative work between experienced scholars and culturally knowledgeable practitioners from numerous parts of Asia and Oceania. The result is a series of interventions that challenge conventional Western notions of conflict resolution and provide academics, policy makers, diplomats, mediators, and local conflict workers with new possibilities for approaching, preventing, and resolving conflict.

The Colonial Framing of Conflict Resolution An influential global conflict resolution movement has developed during the second half of the twentieth century. In the academic sphere this is a trans- disciplinary development that has roots in, among other fields, international relations, peace studies, social psychology, law, industrial relations, and anthropology. In practice, conflict resolution is a broad movement taking in a range of introduction 3 processes from mediation and facilitation to analytical workshops and conciliation. The breadth of the field makes definition difficult, but conflict resolution can be approximated as the effort to pursue the collaborative, informal, and non- coercive processing of conflict.2 Familiarity with conflict resolution approaches is now common among a wide range of conflict workers, from diplomats and community workers to lawyers and peace activists. Moreover, such approaches have had a concrete and significant impact. Several decades ago the first—and possibly the only—options for managing conflict in many Western contexts would have been limited to court action, the threat of force, or even the use of force. Today mediation and other well-known conflict resolution processes are broadly accepted as viable options for addressing a wide variety of conflicts. Much of the impetus for the development of conflict resolution comes from criticism of prevailing approaches to international relations and domestic conflicts. These approaches tend to emphasise the inevitability of power politics. They assume that political dynamics are dominated by states and other powerful actors. They also presuppose that coercion and the use of force are, ultimately, the key instruments that powerful parties use to promote their interests and manage possible conflicts. In stark contrast, conflict resolution scholars and practitioners tend to be more grassroots oriented. They encourage the direct participation and empowerment of those in conflict. The idea is to find ways for all parties to have their say and to give them the chance to solve conflicts on their own and in a mutually acceptable manner. Conflict resolution processes also tend to be informal rather than formal. Practitioners are meant to pursue consensus and collaboration while eschewing coercion. By working against mainstream realist approaches to conflict in this way, and against violence and suffering more generally, conflict resolution has gained a substantial level of popular credibility and moral authority. While conflict resolution is undoubtedly desirable in principle, its theory and practice are not as straightforward and unproblematic as they may seem. One of several potentially problematic aspects has to do with an oversimplistic, optimistic, and depoliticised approach to conflict. There is an underlying universalist assumption in many of these approaches. They imply that certain key features drive conflict and its resolution—and that well-developed insights into the ensuing dynamics can help manage conflicts in a range of different political and cultural contexts. Those with little exposure to conflict resolution processes may want to turn to the opening page of Stephen Chan’s conclusion to this volume for a brief illustration of these problematic dimensions. Stephen particularly deplores the lack of attention to historical and political contexts, showing how a depoliticised approach to conflict resolution risks further entrenching deep-seated patterns of exclusion and domination. 4 mediating across difference

By focusing solely on ending overt manifestation of conflict, prevailing conflict resolution practices can easily neglect much more powerful underlying structural forces. Consider one of many possible examples: ever since 1492 the leading Western nations have defended their interests and imposed their worldviews through a great deal of violence. Depoliticised approaches to conflict resolution often fail to see how conflict and the problem of difference today is still intertwined with colonialism and its legacies, with the residues of slavery, destruction of cultures and civilisations, expropriation of lands and property. By not explicitly recognising and challenging this history and its contemporary effects, the conflict resolution field risks supporting forms of order that are the result of—and complicit with—a violent history. Drawing attention to problems with the prevailing theory and practice of conflict resolution is not to accuse its practitioners of ill intent. In fact, many of the key figures in the field—from Johan Galtung to John Burton and John Paul Lederach—explicitly descry structural violence, advocate transformation of unjust relations, and are attuned to the political complexities of dealing with conflicts. But it is also often the case that the bases for such critical understandings are rather broad and commonsense humanist ideals. These are no doubt important in engaging particular conflicts, but they are also partly inflected through a colonial history in ways that can often be lost amongst the good intentions of intervening to alleviate suffering and solve conflict. Consider, as an example, how conflict resolution operates as a mode of governance. To manage or resolve conflicts is to reshape the way people organise being together—a process that inevitably installs some level of order upon those who participate in its processes. All too often conflict resolution facilitates such order through transnational liberalism—and hence through a set of values that emerge out of colonialism and revolve around market democracy, the power of reason and speech, and notions of individualism, including human rights and personal enterprise.3 Be- cause of the seemingly benign—and often desirable—dimensions of these values, the ensuing governing dynamics often go unnoticed. This is even more the case when advocates of conflict resolution emphasise the informal, consensual, and dialogical dimensions of conflict resolution processes in order to contrast them with formal (legal and sovereign) processes, which are seen to impose upon, constrain, and sometimes destroy lives. But conflict resolution governs and constrains no less when it is articulated in the context of admirable and benign traits. As a result, many practitioners overlook the values and forms of order that their practice tends to facilitate and reinforce.4 We do not pretend that we can possibly offer a comprehensive engagement with the ensuing challenges. Our aim is to engage with and contribute to the field of conflict resolution, rather than embark on a postcolonial critique of it. introduction 5

Although the field deserves to face strong critical challenges that we must remain attuned to, we also believe that a productive engagement with conflict is itself a useful vehicle for beginning to address the above-mentioned challenges and to advance conflict resolution scholarship and practice.

Searching for a Dialogue across Cultural Difference Our discussion so far shows that opening up a dialogue between neglected and prevailing approaches to conflict resolution is not a straightforward affair. Three major obstacles stand out. The first challenge, introduced above, relates to European colonialism and its legacy. When European powers extended their domains in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, they typically assumed that the Indigenous peoples they encountered were inferior and lacking in the institutions necessary for civilised life. Where institutions recognisable to Europeans were not in place— and even in some cases where they were—the ideology of colonialism tended to facilitate either a derogation of, or fascination with, Indigenous practices. Neither allowed for an appreciation of local ways of managing relations among people in general, or processing conflict in particular. The result was limited recognition or documentation of non-Western practices and a set of attitudes that often devalued the non-Western and compromised possibilities for intercultural engagement. Many of the ensuing challenges extend into the contemporary era—a phenomenon we discuss in chapter 1. A second and related challenge has to do with the tension between oral and written forms of communicating insights into conflict and conflict resolution. Take Indigenous approaches to conflict resolution in Australia, the country from where we write. These approaches, likely the oldest available on the planet, are articulated orally. Insights developed and refined by centuries of experiences with conflict are handed down from generation to generation through a range of informal methods, including stories and performances. Of course, such conflict management and knowledge transmission practices have been damaged through colonisation and have shifted and changed over time. However, Indig- enous Australian ways of conveying knowledge stand in sharp contrast to the type of script-based and formal scholarly conventions that prevail in the West. The latter, Western approaches to conflict resolution mechanisms have been refined and disseminated by practitioners and scholars who publish their insights in books or academic journals. Bringing these two traditions—oral and written—into dialogue poses fundamental problems. The third challenge has to do with a tension between theory and practice. Most of the leading conflict resolution scholars today are academics trained in the West. They may also have practical experiences of mediating conflicts in 6 mediating across difference local, national, or international environments. But no matter how sophisticated and experienced such scholars are, they cannot possibly know the great variety of local traditions of conflict resolution that exist in local cultures around the world. By contrast, many of the people who have the most sophisticated insights into local practices of conflict resolution are practitioners, not scholars. They have gained their knowledge through years—in some cases decades—of involvement in community conflicts. Their prime commitment has been to find practical ways of addressing these conflicts. But communicating the so-gained knowledge to the wider world is an entirely different task, often requiring skills other than those needed to solve conflicts. We have attempted to address these challenges by bringing into dialogue scholars and practitioners as well as oral and written ways of conveying insights into conflict resolution. Central to this process was a three-day workshop held at the University of Queensland in March 2007. Workshops are, of course, a standard feature of many scholarly projects. But in our case the workshop took a particularly important and somewhat distinctive role. Given the importance of oral traditions to many local conflict resolution practices, we needed to find a forum that could facilitate respectful ways of engaging with and learning from different practices of conveying insights into conflict. Oral ways of sharing knowledge cannot simply be translated into written ones, for the form in which they are conveyed is part of their substance. A careful negotiation process is essential. This is why we brought together, for face-to-face discussions in an informal but productive environment, scholars and practitioners, including representatives from Indigenous Australia, the Pacific, and East Asia. In this way we discussed a range of conceptual issues as well as case studies on Indigenous Australia, the Solomon Islands, Bougainville (Papua New Guinea), Indonesia, Japan, Korea, and China. A Māori colleague from Aotearoa/New Zealand was unable to join us for the workshop but was able to contribute a chapter. To maximise the potential for exchange and learning, we tried whenever possible to work in teams. Only in a few cases did single scholars work with their personal or professional knowledge of a cultural tradition. Forming cross- cultural and theory-practice teams allowed us to recognise that key insights into local approaches to conflict resolution are often known by people who do not usually express themselves in an academic manner. This type of collaboration allows the field of conflict resolution to be challenged by rich cultural traditions. At the same time it provides practitioners with the opportunity to reflect and expand upon local approaches. Many traces of these dialogues remain visible in the final version of the chapters. For instance, most of the chapters make use of text boxes. These are designed to contextualise the chapters with basic information (where we feel some readers might find this necessary) and to highlight, introduction 7 for instance, the manner in which writing in cross-cultural teams inevitably involves a process of listening to each other and negotiating across different understandings of knowledge. Opening up a constructive dialogue between different ways of articulating and communicating knowledge of conflict and its resolution is no easy task. The most significant contextual challenge relates, again, to the legacy of European colonialism. We do not pretend that we can entirely escape a Western locus of enunciation. The chapters that follow try to break free from colonial mindsets, but we also had no choice but to conform to at least some of the prevailing scholarly expectations. For instance, by conducting our workshop and writing our book in English we were already bound by the constraints of the English language: a language that is not only foreign to many of our participants but also deeply intertwined with the practice of colonialism. We furthermore admit that there are potential problems with our attempt to engage non-Western approaches to conflict resolution and position them in relation to Western approaches. But without doing so we would simply be unable to bring our insights to the type of audience we would like to convince of the need to take on the rich but largely unexplored insights offered by Pacific and Asian approaches to conflict and difference. Finally, we as editors of this volume have to admit that we are both white and male, benefitting from residence on Aboriginal land. We also take the privilege of framing and contextualising the chapters that follow. We do not wish to engage in an extended confession or absolve ourselves of responsibility for this volume. Rather, we wish to openly acknowledge the limitations of the research presented in this book, as well as the structural constraints that bear upon it. In doing so we want to position this volume alongside debates about the cultural politics of knowledge production. Although we have not always engaged these complex issues as directly or fully as some readers might expect, we hope that the exchange we have created through our workshop and in these pages is a modest contribution to a longer and larger process of decolonising knowledge and conflict resolution. Beyond contextual and political challenges there are also practical difficulties. Bringing together a group of culturally diverse practitioners and scholars is a task entirely different from, and far more challenging than, organising a workshop for a dozen academics comfortably based in Western academic institutions. There were funding challenges, which we solved thanks to the generosity of several grant agencies, most notably the Japan Foundation, the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, UNESCO, and the University of Queensland. There were communication challenges: some of our local practitioners in the Pacific, for instance, could be reached only with great difficulties and delays, which rendered both the organisational tasks and the collaborative writing process diffi- 8 mediating across difference cult. There were travel challenges, with our participant from Timor Leste having to cancel his attendance due to a sudden intensification of political violence. We tried to make other arrangements, but political unrest—once again—and a range of other logistical challenges meant that a Timor Leste chapter became impossible for this volume. There were significant cultural differences between the participants in our workshop, ranging from the casual and egalitarian habits of Australian participants to the much more formal cultural attitudes of our participants from Confucian-influenced Northeast Asia. At the Brisbane workshop, participants managed surprisingly well to talk across these linguistic and cultural differences and find a common discourse— or, rather, a way of engaging through which different discourses could be respected and mutually enriched. Participants had conducted extensive research prior to the workshop, so that we were able to discuss well-worked-out draft chapters. These chapters served as the textual starting point for our cross-cultural engagement. Our project then went through several stages of collaboration, each involving adjustments and refinements that took place as a result of the participants’ willingness to listen to, learn from, and engage with other cultural perspectives. In organising the Brisbane workshop and then the chapters in this volume we were not prescriptive about how participants should pursue their research. Indeed we wanted people to follow their interests and inclinations about what was important for the cultural tradition they were considering. At the same time, we wanted to create enough common ground to engage in discussion. For this reason we asked each practitioner-scholar team to address a series of questions in preparing their draft papers. Our opening questions asked authors to identify the key features of the approach they were considering and how it deals with difference. We then asked contributors to engage in a more thorough process of identifying the key features of the particular approach they were dealing with by asking questions such as: What is the role of various faculties, such as reason, affect, emotion, or imagination? Can they be used to address difficulties and restore peace after conflict? If so, how exactly are they employed? Other questions included: What is the place of violence and physical confrontation in the conflict resolution process? Is violence seen as inherently bad, or are there ways through which violence can be employed legitimately to address and solve conflicts? Finally, we asked our contributors to consider, and address where possible, the fact that local traditions are sometimes the target of objections—for instance, with regard to gender relations or the use of violence. We were careful not to romanticise Indigenous approaches to conflict—a tendency that is all too prevalent. By bringing together a range of practitioners and scholars, we have aimed, introduction 9 as Australian postcolonial scholar Phillip Darby suggests, to bring “into play the relationship between different knowledges about the world, the self, and the other”.5 This partly involves, as Darby also highlights, bringing out experience from everyday life. The point is stressed by Indian public intellectual Ashis Nandy and Australian Aboriginal scholar and activist Marcia Langton.6 The former laments that important voices from around the world cannot be heard, because they do not speak in the languages of the Western academy. The latter stresses that there is a major gap between scholarly discussion and the actual lives of Indigenous people. To achieve our aim we have avoided the standard use of academic jargon and attempted to write in everyday language in order to bring out the type of everyday experiences with conflict and conflict resolution that have been lived in a range of neglected local contexts. At the same time, we have aimed to produce high-quality scholarly essays. In this sense the process of cultural exchange had as many rewards as challenges: our participants had the chance to contextualise their own traditions of thought in a manner that would otherwise not have been possible. And at the same time we hope we have been able to bring neglected insights into conflict resolution to a larger audience.

Format and Outline of Chapters The book is divided into four parts. In the first part we problematise West- ern approaches to conflict resolution, demonstrating the need to broaden the existing conceptual tools and engage other cultural traditions. The subsequent three parts deal, respectively, with traditions of managing conflict in Indigenous Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand, in the Southwest Pacific, and in East Asia. Our aim is not to provide a comprehensive coverage of the region, something that would require several volumes. Instead, we want to draw upon selected examples to highlight the value of engaging often-overlooked traditions. The first, conceptual part consists of three chapters. In chapter 1 the editors of this volume provide an additional contextualisation. Morgan Brigg and Roland Bleiker discuss why and with what consequences prevailing approaches to conflict resolution have neglected to engage many local traditions. Address- ing the question of colonialism in more detail, they argue for actively embracing difference in our efforts to know and address contemporary conflict. They then identify seven themes—points of contention that cut across different approaches to conflict resolution, and that readers can use as a lens for reading the following chapters. These themes include tensions such as those between the place of reason and emotion in conflict resolution, and the relationship between individuals and society. Highlighting such points of contention is not to draw a stark line between West and East or to suggest that one set of traditions is superior to the other. Processes of globalisation have rendered cultural 10 mediating across difference boundaries porous. Many of the local traditions we engage, for instance, have inevitably been shaped by their contact with the West. Consider the Solomon Islands, where the church plays a central role in conflict resolution. The influence of Western ideas is obvious and central here, stemming from the work of missionaries. But one must, at the same time, recognise that Christianity and church practices in the Solomon Islands are indigenised in ways that lead to a unique response to conflict situations. In the second chapter, Tarja Väyrynen takes up the issue of silence. Examin- ing processes of building peace after violent conflict, Tarja shows that Western approaches place great emphasis on speech and dialogue, often to the point that nonverbal forms of communication are largely ignored. But the latter, she stresses, are of crucial importance. Leaving unexamined or even unnoticed a large part of silent interactions leads to major shortcomings. Add to this that some stories about conflict are never told—and thus also never addressed by prevailing ways of solving conflict. The ensuing peacebuilding efforts remain fraught and could fuel new forms of conflict unless a conscious effort is made to deal with silence and to understand nonverbal forms of communication. Draw- ing on thus-far-neglected local traditions of conflict resolution has the potential to recognise the importance of silence and unconventional ways of conveying knowledge, such as dance and other rituals. In chapter 3, Oliver Richmond shows how prevalent liberal approaches to peacebuilding and conflict resolution fail to draw upon local culture. In many parts of the world, from East Timor to Bosnia, from Cambodia to Sri Lanka, peacekeeping, conflict resolution, and peacebuilding activities are framed in terms of Western understandings of peace. As a result they often miss the opportunity to learn from and employ important local knowledges. Oliver’s personal experience as well as his scholarly research leads him to argue that local knowledges are accepted only if they are presented in Western terms—an assumption and corresponding political practice that seriously devalue both these knowledges and the people who convey and practice them. As a result, local needs and knowledges are being ignored by a top-down version of neoliberal marketisation, wealth creation, and state-building. It is thus not surprising that many international peacebuilding efforts face considerable local resistance. In part 2 we begin our exploration of non-Western approaches to conflict resolution, focusing on Indigenous traditions in Australia and New Zealand. Chapter 4 deals with Aboriginal Australia and is a collaborative effort by Mary Graham, Polly Walker, and Morgan Brigg. The authors point out that Aboriginal people have had many millennia to reflect upon fundamental questions: How do we live without substantially damaging the environment and each other? Why do we live? And how do we find answers to these questions in a way that does not introduction 11 make people feel alienated, lonely, or murderous? Aboriginal philosophy does not approach these challenges by striving for human perfection, nor does it assume that society is inherently ‘peaceful’. Rather, Australian Aboriginal societies tend to foreground process-oriented activities that manage conflict by according individuals a wide range of autonomy in the context of networks of relatedness. Aboriginal concepts of Place, Dreaming, and Law establish an overall framework for accommodating and negotiating a multiplicity of perspectives. Individuals are expected to manage themselves within a system of relationships that generates ‘emergent’ rather than prescribed conflict management practices. Pursu- ing social balance in this way can be time-consuming and frustrating and can involve relatively independent (yet, ideally, controlled) expression of violence, which may clash with Western nonviolent understandings of conflict resolution. In chapter 5, Deborah Bird Rose further explores Indigenous contributions to conflict resolution. She explains the role of stories as a vehicle for managing time and relationships in processes of conflict management. Her chapter highlights the importance of relationship: in contrast to the typical position of the Western mediator as a neutral or impartial outsider, the mediator position in Aboriginal society is constituted such that people are so complexly involved that they cannot take sides. Deborah also explores the importance of violent yet rule-governed expression of emotions, the cross-cutting of differences by relationships so that difference is primarily complementary rather than hierarchical, and the importance of ritual for conflict management. By tracing shifts in land claim processes and drawing upon other aspects of her fieldwork, Deborah shows that recursive relationships between land, people, and other-than-human sentient beings bring into question mainstream Western orientations to land and assumptions about the centrality of separate individual selves in conflict events. At the same time, Deborah shows that mainstream institutions, in this case Western law through the land claim process, are capable of ‘enlarged thinking’ that can lead to more satisfactory mutual accommodation. Chapter 6 is authored by Carwyn Jones, a Māori scholar and lawyer from Aotearoa/New Zealand. Carwyn considers key dimensions of Māori conflict resolution, and how they differ from orthodox Western approaches. He examines the ongoing negotiation of Indigenous-Settler relations through the Waitangi Tribunal. The tribunal, a permanent commission of inquiry established in 1975, hears claims arising out of Māori concerns about implementation of the Treaty of Waitangi, originally signed with representatives of the British Crown in 1840. In an analysis that resonates with that of Deborah Bird Rose, Carwyn shows that tribunal processes have been able to combine Māori and Anglo-European conflict resolution approaches. Such blending, he suggests, may hold promise for mediating across difference in other settings. 12 mediating across difference

Part 3 draws on case studies from Southwest Pacific Islands. It begins with chapter 7, where Debra McDougall writes in partnership with Joy Kere. Draw- ing upon Debra’s extensive fieldwork and Joy’s involvement in concrete peacebuilding efforts, the chapter shows that the pursuit of peace often makes use of three institutional mechanisms—church, custom, and law. Contrary to popular perceptions of ‘closed’ island societies, this approach revolves around a basic openness to foreigners and foreignness. This openness is accompanied by a widely shared sense that people—whether they be locals or foreigners—have reciprocal rights. The chapter highlights an extensive and complex entanglement of social relations whereby problems in one realm of life, such as illness, can be entwined with those in another, such as land disputes. One implication of these complex interdependent relationships is that locals, rather than outsiders, are best placed to devise satisfactory conflict resolution interventions. Chapter 8 is coauthored by Volker Boege and Sister Lorraine Garasu. The authors show what can be learned from Bougainville, one of the few recent successful cases of postconflict state-building. Sister Lorraine and Volker clarify and elaborate on what they call a ‘road to sustainable peace’: a mode of reconciliation that carefully involves emotion and incorporates everyone, including ancestral spirits. This process must resist instrumental and short-term tempta- tions, developing instead a sustainable long-term, step-by-step engagement with different layers of problems. Time is crucial in this approach, which revolves around finding out when exactly which people are ready for which step in the reconciliation process. Reconciliation on Bougainville is thus seen as an ongoing process that involves entwined relationships and contains spiritual and ritual dimensions. The latter are, in fact, an integral and indispensable element of conflict resolution, rather than simply aspects of ceremonial functions. The fourth and final part of this book deals with conflict resolution practices in East Asia. Chapter 9 focuses on Indonesia and is authored by Frans de Jalong and Muhadi Sugiono. Frans and Muhadi examine two of Indonesia’s most noted traditional conflict resolution methods in the context of recent ethnoreligious conflicts. They show that Pela Gandong of Ambon and Motambu Tana of Poso are ties of brotherhood across religious and ethnic differences that have emerged over centuries in specific locales. These practices have proved successful over time for managing violent conflict, including when they were used as a ‘last resort’ in recent communal conflict. But Frans and Muhadi also find problems in the prevailing tendency to view as static and even primordial the inherently dynamic practices of Pela Gandong and Motambu Tana. These practices derive their efficacy from long-standing concrete local interactions. To frame them as unchanging ignores the grounds of their efficacy and compromises efforts to revive Pela Gandong and Motambu Tana at a time when they introduction 13 are under pressure from state-led forces of modernisation and the introduction of modern Western conflict resolution practices. Chapter 10 deals with Japan and is the product of collaboration between Jacqueline Wasilewski and Norifumi Namatame. This exchange between an intercultural communication scholar and an international relations academic revolves around an examination of traditional Japanese modes of conflict prevention, management, and resolution. Focusing on the concept of uchi, which denotes an ‘inside’ or ‘us’ space, the authors contemplate the extent to which the resulting insights may still be of relevance today. They argue that the three ensuing Japanese cultural ideas regarding consensus, dialogue, and fairness can be placed alongside a fourth concept, takakuteki, which emphasises multidimensional engagements. This ‘multiplicity orientation’, which accepts and accommodates contradictions that might not be tenable from mainstream Western perspectives, offers possibilities for enriching contemporary conflict resolution. Chapter 11, by Chengxin Pan, examines perspectives on self, other, and the world in the Chinese tradition. Chengxin believes that the tendency to view China as a monolithic threat forecloses a potential contribution of Chinese culture to building a less confrontational world. Add to this that Confucianism proposes less dichotomised understandings of self and other than are on offer through realist international relations perspectives. In Confucianism the self can come into existence only through and with others, and it is in this stance that Chengxin finds a compelling approach for conflict resolution. By focusing his discussion through a particular Confucian concept—shu (恕)—Chengxin finds a philosophy for harmony and conflict resolution through mutual responsiveness among differences. While Chengxin acknowledges that the ensuing principles might not map easily or directly into current international affairs, he maintains that, and continues to explore how, they could together offer a fresh approach to international security and conflict resolution. The last case study, chapter 12, deals with Korea and is coauthored by Ho- ang Young-ju and Roland Bleiker. Both have had extensive scholarly and practical experiences that entailed crossing boundaries between Korean and Western contexts. The chapter examines the concept of ‘Han’, a collective emotion usually translated as ‘sorrow’ or ‘sadness’. Han emerges as a result of particular grievances: injustices done to a person or a collective. The authors discuss two manners in which Han differs substantially from Western approaches to conflict resolution: the explicit engagement with the emotional nature of conflict; and the conceptualisation of mediation as a process of engaging broad societal issues, rather than merely settling clashes between individuals. With respect to the first issue Roland and Young-ju highlight that the Korean approach, contrary 14 mediating across difference to the Western one, does not seek to establish and refine a set of rational and universally applicable procedures that can then be applied to each particular conflict scenario. The purpose, rather, is to understand and deal with—on their own terms—the unique and complex emotional grievances that are generated by a particular conflict situation. With regard to the second issue Roland and Young-ju note the problematic features of a tradition that subsumes individual rights and interests to societal harmony, but they also seek to appreciate such a cultural tradition on its own terms. By doing so, the authors observe that the concept of Han identifies a path that moves from grief and sorrow to a gradual transformation of conflict, thus providing important suggestions about how to break cycles of violence. Locating a way out of anger and feelings for revenge, the concept of Han and its direct engagement with emotions validate forgiveness and compassion as central elements of reconciliation and conflict resolution. The final, concluding chapter is authored by Stephen Chan, from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. Stephen begins by drawing on his long-standing experience and knowledge of conflict resolution efforts, most immediately in Zimbabwe, to provide a provocative and challenging characterisation of the ‘mediation industry’. He then synthesises some key themes from the volume by stressing the importance to conflict resolution of long-term involvement in—and knowledge of—individual communities.

Notes 1. This formulation echoes the approach suggested by Oliver Ramsbotham, Tom Woodhouse, and Hugh Miall, Contemporary Conflict Resolution: The Prevention, Man- agement and Transformation of Deadly Conflicts (Cambridge, UK; Malden, MA: Polity, 2005), p. 8. Such an approach builds, in turn, on the work undertaken by Kevin Avruch and Peter Black. See, for instance, Avruch and Black, “The Culture Question and Con- flict Resolution,” Peace and Change 16, no. 1 (1991): 22–45. 2. There are by now a significant number of texts that survey and synthesise the conflict resolution field. Examples include Daniel Druckman, Sandra Cheldelin, and Larissa Fast (eds.), Conflict: From Analysis to Intervention (London: Continuum, 2003); and Daniel Druckman and Paul F. Diehl, Conflict Resolution, 5 vols. (London: Sage, 2006). For a list of sources that synthesise various dimensions of the conflict resolution field, see Carrie Menkel-Meadow, “Correspondences and Contradictions in Inter- national and Domestic Conflict Resolution: Lessons from General Theory and Varied Contexts,” Journal of Dispute Resolution 2003, no. 2 (2003): 319–352 at 320, note 2. 3. For various elaborations on this theme in the context of conflict and conflict resolution in general, see, for instance, Oliver P. Richmond, Peace in International Re- lations (London: Routledge, 2008); Mitchell Dean, Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society (London: Sage, 1999); Vivienne Jabri, War and the Transformation of introduction 15

Global Politics (New York: Palgrave, 2007); and Michael Dillon and Julian Reid, The Liberal Way of War (London: Routledge, 2009). 4. For further discussion of this theme, see Morgan Brigg, The New Politics of Con- flict Resolution: Responding to Difference (Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK, and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). 5. Phillip Darby (ed.), Postcolonizing the International: Working to Change the Way We Are (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2006), p. 100. 6. Ashis Nandy, “The Darker Side of Modernity: Interview with Phillip Darby,” in Darby, Postcolonizing the International, p. 118; Marcia Langton, “The Changing Com- plexions of Race: Interview with Phillip Darby,” in Darby, Postcolonizing the Interna- tional, p. 228.

I The Values and Limits of Western Approaches to Conflict Resolution

Chapter 1 Postcolonial Conflict Resolution

Morgan Brigg and Roland Bleiker

The argument for drawing upon non-Western cultural traditions of conflict resolution can be made in direct terms. Local traditions of conflict resolution have been neglected because prevailing ways of dealing with conflict are typically focused through Western approaches to conflict resolution. There is a clear need, then, particularly in the context of conflict resolution and peacebuilding efforts of recent decades, to expand our approaches through engagement with local processes and sources of insight. If one recognises this predica- ment, then a number of important questions immediately arise: Why have local traditions been neglected? Why should we draw on these traditions rather than continuing to rely on well-known Western approaches? What are the politics of knowledge associated with drawing on local traditions? And how can we begin to think about the complexity that comes with different approaches to conflict and its resolution? The purpose of this chapter is to address these questions in order to establish a broad conceptual framework within which the following chapters can be read. We begin by showing that the relative neglect of local approaches to conflict resolution is bound up with the legacy of European colonialism. We then present a more thoroughly argued case for cross-cultural ways of knowing and addressing conflict by highlighting the compelling link between culture, conflict, and the search for peace. Third, we briefly address some theoretical and practical questions and challenges accompanying our effort to draw upon local and marginalised traditions. We identify seven key themes that are instructive of how different cultures approach conflict and its resolution. We emphasise how these themes are taken up in particular ways in prevailing Western approaches to conflict. The underlying idea of our strategy is to develop useful

19 20 mediating across difference starting points for debating and discussing, in much broader terms, approaches to conflict and its resolution.

The Neglect of Local Traditions The ethnocentric conceits of colonialism are largely responsible for the relative neglect of local approaches to conflict resolution. Colonial prejudices often viewed Indigenous societies as lacking the institutions that were assumed to be necessary for civilised life. This absence of readily recognisable institutions helped justify colonial conquest but also blinded colonisers to the possibilities of other ways of organising political life and dealing with difficulties among people. Perhaps the most striking example of this is the European tendency to identify political community with command-obedience power relationships. That is, a functioning polity is typically seen to require the subjection of individuals to a ruler. Early European observers assumed that Indigenous peoples were in a constant state of disorder simply because they lacked a central institution that could organise and enforce societal behaviour. It is thus not surprising that the colonial occupiers were unable to identify—yet alone appreciate—non- European institutions or approaches to conflict and its resolution. There were, of course, always exceptions to this tendency. But, by and large, Indigenous societies were viewed through the conceptual universe of the colonisers. And from this perspective they were perceived primarily in terms of how they fell short and what they lacked.1 Over time anthropological and other studies have shown that Indigenous societies are capable of holding together and managing conflict over exception- ally long periods.2 During the 1950s and 1960s, legal anthropologists in particular have drawn attention to local Indigenous ways of approaching and processing conflict. Many of these studies focused on Africa,3 but practices from other contexts have also been studied and documented.4 Although these and other studies were able to promote a wider recognition of Indigenous approaches and processes, their impact has been limited, in part because legal anthropology remained a rather specialised academic subfield. Add to this that legal anthropology, particularly during the 1950s and 1960s, was strongly shaped by European understandings of law and society. In other words, while there was a shift to acknowledging that local people were indeed generating social order, the analysis of how they were doing so was conducted through the lens of European institutions. In many cases local processes were presented as either immature or as underdeveloped instances of their European counterparts. They were thereby seen as forms that would naturally be overtaken and displaced in the expansion of European processes. This generates an internal paradox for legal anthropology. On one hand, it involves and indeed requires an interest in other cultures. postcolonial conflict resolution 21

On the other hand, as Simon Roberts notes, this interest in how other societies maintain order or settle disputes is largely presented through the “framework of Western legal theory”.5 Although legal anthropology participated in a range of debates during the 1950s and 1960s, there was little recognition of Indigenous approaches as anything other than something lesser or derivative. In one debate, for instance, Paul Bohannan raises questions about the relevance of Western concepts for studying local peoples.6 The reply from a key figure in the field, Max Gluckman, invoked a developmental schema that explicitly asserted the superiority of Eng- lish jurisprudence over tribal processes.7 He states, more specifically, that “the very refinement of English jurisprudence makes it a better instrument for analysis . . . than are the languages of tribal law”.8 Interest in other cultures, then, does not necessarily translate into respect. As was the case in earlier colonial eras, we see a form of violence—this time of an epistemological nature—that subordi- nates Indigenous conflict resolution approaches to the conceptual schemes of the West. Anthropology has since been involved in a process of disciplinary self-reflection and critique. The comments made by Gluckman would be far less likely to be uttered today. Anthropologists today generally recognise how scholarship frequently mirrored and enabled iniquitous colonial relationships. Around the same time, debates about community-level justice processes in the United States raised the need for legal reform and for improved ways of dealing with local-level disputes. This evolution, in turn, has led some Western mediation scholars to draw on earlier legal anthropological knowledge of Indigenous practices.9 In the broader conflict resolution field, Buddhist and Gandhian ideas have inspired many scholars and practitioners, including Johan Galtung, one of the discipline’s pioneers. There have also been attempts to modify and develop conflict resolution practices for use in multicultural settings.10 Most recently peacebuilders have increasingly turned their attention to local approaches and processes as ways of coping with the challenges of rebuilding postconflict societies.11 Although interest in local and Indigenous processes has increased dramatically, many aspects of the colonial legacy remain intact. While there are now more cross-cultural encounters and more engagements with local knowledge, most approaches to conflict resolution continue to be shaped by the type of principled and problem-solving approaches that have come to dominate West- ern mediation practices.12 In other words, non-Western cultural influences and perspectives tend to be subsumed into prevailing scholarly and practical approaches to conflict resolution. In earlier times, a neglect of Indigenous institutions supported colonial ventures. Today a discourse about weak and failing 22 mediating across difference states helps justify neoliberal interventions, which, as Oliver Richmond points out later in this volume, leads to a particular imposition of top-down, Western approaches over Indigenous forms of knowing and managing conflict. The colonial legacy poses a challenge that the conflict resolution field must actively address if it is to retain the moral authority it often claims. This is all the more the case since this moral authority rests largely on its ability to respond to the needs of people in conflict.13 Numerous scholars have already drawn attention to this challenge. Kevin Avruch, for instance, noted in the early 1990s that the field of conflict resolution is a predominantly ‘white’ phenomenon, an expert practice dominated by the discourses and rationalities of the West.14 To understand this phenomenon we need to explicitly acknowledge that the denial and neglect of non-Western knowledges and insights are linked to more than the general ‘power’ of the West, as manifest in aspects such as economic wealth, military power, and the concentration of academic institutions and publication outlets. These openly visible effects of power relationships emerge, as postcolonial scholarship shows, through deeper ways of knowing and relating to people. The latter arise out of the sense of cultural strength that Europeans developed in colonial encounters and that continues to suffuse much mainstream West- ern academic and policy orientations toward non-Western peoples. Avruch and Black have proposed a particularly promising way of addressing the ensuing challenges: to recognise and actively draw on local understandings of conflict and approaches and practices for resolving it.15 This book accepts and extends this promising approach in an attempt to deal with the colonial legacy and to widen the range of conflict resolution practices available. This does not resolve the challenges and questions generated by the colonial legacy, but it is a way of facing them and beginning to work through and around them.

Validating Cross-Cultural Engagement While the relative neglect of local traditions provides a strong rationale for this book, we also want to locate our project in a broader context and deal with some of the accompanying challenges. To do so, we now present a more thoroughly argued case for embracing difference and intercultural ways of knowing and addressing conflict. At first glance there might not seem to be a compelling need to engage conflict resolution through the question of cultural difference. In many respects the economically and culturally dominant West appears to respect and appreciate diversity. Multiculturalism is often actively embraced. There are antidiscrimina- tion and cultural education programs. The food, art, dance, music, and literature of other cultures are widely appreciated. This way of valuing cultural difference—as a set of visible traits, behaviours, and customs—features prominently postcolonial conflict resolution 23 in a number of Western states. But such an embrace of diversity is relatively superficial. As long as the engagement with diversity is limited to food, dance, or music, it is easy to tolerate, for these cultural features are mere ‘titillations’ that enrich Western lifestyles without interfering with or challenging the basic values and organisational structure of a society. Cultural difference tends to be seen as benign as long as it is restricted to these external manifestations of exotic customs and behaviours. But as soon as we turn to politics, culture is often presented as a problem. In theorising the basis of political community, diverse streams of Western political philosophy have emphasised consensus, commonality, and unity rather than difference. This continues to be the case, with even those contemporary theorists who explicitly advocate diversity retaining an assumption that “diverse strangers would share a common goal and that this would be the basis for the polity”.16 Conversely, difference threatens community and is seen as a source of conflict. This dualistic approach to cultural difference is well exemplified by the authors of a textbook on managing international conflict. Cultural difference, at best, “is a fount for much of the world’s glorious variety and coloration, its mirac- ulous panorama of art, music, literature, and language”, they state. “But at worst the pathological expression of the roots-seeking impulse is extreme nationalism that can trigger sociopolitical disintegration”.17 For these and like-minded ana- lysts, cultural difference can “unleash tribal warfare and ethnic cleansing” and “launch human floodtides across state frontiers in Europe, Asia, and Africa”.18 Such statements, expressed within a tradition that tends to see difference as a problem rather than a resource, leave little room for the possibility that difference can make a positive contribution to political order. Difference, then, is that which “remains condemned and must atone or be redeemed under the auspices of a reason which renders it livable and thinkable”.19 The pattern of identifying cultural difference as a problem is also a disturbing feature of contemporary politics. Immigration policies in many Western states, including in Australia from where we write, express a deep-seated fear of difference. The strength of right-wing populist parties across the Western world testifies to a desire to uphold a key set of cultural values against values that differ from them. People from other cultural traditions are either unwelcome or seen as desirable only if they adopt the cultural and religious practices that prevail in the West. Similar patterns operate in other parts of the world, including in regional conflicts where political leaders often try to rally populations around a hostile discourse that separates a safe inside from a threatening outside. In many cases the reassertion of ethnic, religious, or cultural roots has taken on strong nationalistic or violent overtones. From Rwanda to Fiji, from Sri Lanka to Bosnia, from Kosovo to Kashmir and the Middle East, the political manipulation 24 mediating across difference and mobilisation of identity can lead to widespread violence, even instances of genocide. The quest for cultural homogeneity, whether pursued by states, belea- guered leaders, or warlords, plays a particularly important role in shaping and fuelling conflicts. Differences in culture are often seen as an inevitable cause of conflict. Western scholarship tends to lend support to this view by traditionally understanding cultural differences between people in terms of their separation and the accompanying problems rather than their mutual entanglement and the accompanying potential benefits.20 When combined with prevailing understandings of politics, the result is a deeply rooted practice of juxtaposing ‘us’ and ‘them’. The tendency to identify difference as a problem becomes particularly fate- ful when combined with the equally deep-seated realist tradition of international relations scholarship. Here individuals and states are driven by power and self-interest, thus generating a security dilemma that inevitably and constantly breeds conflict. The latest prominent example of this position is Samuel Hunt- ington’s much discussed treatise on the clash of civilisations.21 His influential propositions revived the realist vision of an inside/outside world, except that they locate the inevitability of conflict not in the interaction of security-seeking states but in the confrontation of incompatible cultural traditions. The widely perceived clash between an Islamic fundamentalism and a Western form of democratic secularism is only the most evident manifestation of such tendencies to vilify difference. More subtle, but equally important, is the widespread perception that, in many parts of the world, conflict is so deeply entrenched and so endemic that overcoming patterns of hatred and violence seems virtually impossible. This is particularly the case in societies that have experienced a major trauma, such as genocide or a war. In these situations, from the Middle East to Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Somalia, East Timor, Rwanda and Kashmir, years and often decades of conflict have left societies deeply divided and traumatised. New forms of violence constantly re-emerge to the point that some commentators portray the respective conflicts as intractable. The accompanying tendency is to see areas such as the Balkans or the Middle East as irrational “zones of violence” that are “cut off from normal rational living”.22 Such interpretations are exemplified by Robert Kaplan’s influential depiction of conflict in the Balkans as being rooted in ancient hatreds, in an inevitable clash between different cultural traditions.23 Consider one of several well-known examples on the world stage: the clash between different ethnic groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina of the mid-1990s. Various authors have argued that finding an end to the conflict was so difficult and took so long because the international community, most notably the postcolonial conflict resolution 25

United States and key European states, were unable to see beyond the nationalistic attitude towards politics that was partly responsible for the collapse of multicultural Bosnia in the first place.24 Given their own difficulties in embracing multiculturalism at home, many Western leaders could not conceive of a world in which different ethnic groups could live together without resorting to violence. The most extreme example of this position can be found in the arguments of the influential realist scholar John Mearsheimer,25 who advocated partition of Bosnia as the only possible solution to the crisis. While any form of peaceful coexistence would clearly have been a major challenge after almost half a decade of intensive warfare in the region, the Dayton Agreement of 1995, which established a cease-fire in the region, was dictated by the logic of partition. Where Bosnia used to be a territory in which Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs lived as neighbours, most neighbourhoods are largely segregated today. Politics has arguably been reduced to a correspondence between identity and territory, to what can be called a “desire to have one’s own land”.26 Such a conflict-prone stance, which sees difference primarily as a threat and a force to be kept at bay, continues to guide foreign policy making in many parts of the world and seeps into approaches to difference within states. In our volume we juxtapose these widespread and deeply entrenched approaches to political community and conflict with the possibilities of cross-cultural ways of knowing and addressing conflict. To frame our view that difference should be seen as a potential resource, rather than a problem, we find reason to challenge long-held Western assumptions that view difference primarily as a source of conflict. Instead, we follow alternative scholars, such as William Connolly, who show that the most serious cases of violence and community breakdown today stem not from interactions with difference but from doctrines and movements that suppress difference by trying to reinstate a unified belief in one form of identification.27 Simon Harrison argues likewise and backs up his argument with studies that range from Melanesian warfare to European nationalism. He demonstrates that a fundamental threat to the individual or group is the possibility of slipping into an undifferentiated and homogeneous existence.28 People’s identities are put at risk by too much sameness with others. Efforts to articulate difference from others, the process of producing individual and cultural boundaries and differences, are, then, central to the formation of political community. As Jean-Luc Nancy states: “What I have in common with another Frenchman is the fact of not being the same Frenchman as him”.29 Conversely, the differentiation of ‘Frenchness’ on the world stage produces distinctions that end up making modern political communities similar in their minimal differentiation through nationalism.30 Other scholars, too, oppose the notion of difference-as-a-problem and the source of deeply entrenched and in- 26 mediating across difference tractable conflicts. They locate the roots of violence, not in ancient hatreds or in the inevitable clash between different cultures, but in much more recent political manipulations.31 A powerful illustration of these scholarly positions can be found in the actions of thousands of practitioners worldwide. They cross difference on a daily basis, engaging in dialogues and pursuing joint agendas in a way that draws from their diversity in an enabling and positive manner. Recognising the dangers involved in vilifying difference does not mean that we can or should dispense with notions of identity and community. Identi- ties are essential for our individual and social existence. They provide political communities with the coherence necessary to articulate and advance common projects. Connolly recognises that such standards of identity and responsibility are essential for political life, even if they do injustice to what is excluded through their application.32 Identities, he argues, are neither fictitious nor naturally given. They are an indispensable part of social life, but neither identities nor the differences mobilised in producing them lead automatically to intractable political problems or to violence. Our contributors show that there are numerous ways of managing difference. Perhaps more importantly, they show that such an appreciation of difference—including a willingness to be open to different ways of knowing and being—can actually play a key role in preventing or solving conflict. These ways may not always align with Western perceptions and they almost always involve ongoing commitment and work rather than a perpetual end-state of peace, but they are part of the cross-cultural and interdisciplinary conversation that is necessary to address conflict in a rapidly globalising world. Such ways of mediating across difference are essential, not least because ample evidence suggests strong linkages between violence and the breakdown or absence of engagement and dialogue across difference.33

Speaking of Difference By working across cultures to address the neglect of local traditions in conflict resolution, our endeavour is invariably situated in the fallout of colonialism and amidst ongoing processes of globalisation. Numerous theoretical and practical challenges are thus inevitable. What is the meaning of ‘the West’? How do commonsense formulations of the ‘West-and-the-rest’ shape our perceptions and distort our understandings of the subject matter? To what extent are so-called universals—ideas and concepts usually associated with western Eu- rope—actually the result of global cultural exchange and connection? And what of ‘local’ practices that are in fact borrowed from elsewhere? Furthermore, what boundaries and limitations are suggested by the term ‘culture’? Can we speak of ‘other’ traditions in ways that do not risk setting them against ‘the West’, com- postcolonial conflict resolution 27 modifying and romanticising them as objects of exotic interest? Is it possible to successfully intervene to redress dominance in the circuits of postcolonial power and privilege within contemporary transnational conflict resolution practice? Does the attempt to validate non-Western approaches provide some conflict resolution practitioners with the intellectual skills to present themselves as ‘cultural experts’ on the global consultancy circuit—but without actually forging real local relationships and according respect and recognition to local actors? This book does not shrink away from these political questions and challenges, but nor do we focus our energies directly upon them. To engage these issues closely would take us away from our key goal of highlighting alternative sources of insight; a process we believe is possible, practicable, and urgently required. We also want to avoid rehearsing debates internal to particular academic disciplines or other professional circles, in order to make this book as widely accessible as possible. We acknowledge that we live as part of ongoing processes of transnational global cultural exchange and connection where, in the fallout of colonialism, universals are contested and reproduced through local encounters.34 Peoples, traditions, and cultures rub against one another—with unexpected results— through political struggles, including those that play out through the politics of everyday life. Our contributors are well aware of these complex dynamics; many of them live and work with these challenges in their everyday lives. All chapters speak to these challenges in one way or another, and some speak directly to the politics of the interaction of local and Western conflict resolution processes. To situate our project in this globalising world of complex challenges and possibilities, we must briefly spell out how we view cultural difference. Is cultural difference a matter of flux in which all identities and relations are fluid? Or is it a matter of strong and incompatible differences? In our view, a middle path most accurately represents a world characterised by ongoing everyday exchange. It also serves our purpose in this volume. We therefore do not collapse processes of interaction to discussions of fine-grained and complex encounters accessible to only a limited few, nor do we insist upon boundaries that foreclose interaction and are not supported by the reality of ongoing intercultural exchange. To reflect our middle path we use widely accessible categories and notions in a provisional way. Ap- parently blunt categories and notions such as ‘the West’ and ‘local traditions’ help us frame this volume in useful ways; they are vehicles for moving through space and time to generate new insights and understandings in conflict resolution. While such terms serve as useful shorthand, we believe that not many people take them to suggest incommensurability or exclusivity. If some readers do, they will quickly find that the chapters of this volume speak to the plurality, possibility, and complexity of encounter and exchange rather than to insurmountable differences. 28 mediating across difference

In sum, we acknowledge that different cultures give varying emphases to a range of aspects of human experience and interaction in conflict situations, and we recognise that there are varying orientations to conflict. But we do so not in order to keep these orientations apart, nor to suggest that these cultures are hermetically sealed, and certainly not to suggest incommensurability among them. Rigidity, separation, and incommensurability among cultures is not our experience, and nor, we believe, is it the experience of many others. Indeed, the ability to crisscross cultural boundaries is underlined by our managing to hold a workshop at which a culturally very diverse set of scholars and practitioners engaged in stimulating and fruitful dialogues with each other, dialogues that produced significant similarities but also left enough space to accommodate differences in an empathetic and respectful manner. The chapters that follow spell out this cross-cultural dialogue in more detail and, in doing so, seek to increase our ability to better acknowledge, understand, and respect the significance of local conflict resolution.

Approaching Difference in Conflict Resolution: Key Themes To further frame the following chapters, we identify key themes that are instructive of how different cultures approach conflict and its resolution. We emphasise how these themes are taken up in particular ways in influential Western approaches to conflict resolution. We do so not to draw a stark line between West and East or to suggest that one set of traditions is superior to the other. We assume that processes of globalisation have led to a situation where cultural assumptions about conflict have inevitably spread far beyond their original setting. Indeed, we must acknowledge that processes of cultural exchange are more ubiquitous and long-standing than is often thought: cultural differentiation often arises out of contact between different groups rather than, as continues to be assumed, through isolation. Many Western values have, of course, played a dominant role in processes of cultural exchange. They have become quasi-global in reach. But it is also the case that various other cultural traditions, marginalised as they may be, have had an impact on dominant Western ways of conceptualising conflict and approaches to its resolution. As traditions and cultural values mix, our ways of knowing are themselves challenged in ways that make it impossible to identify pure or ‘authentic’ cultural traits. Our conceptual distinction between Western and non-Western approaches is thus no more than a tentative but necessary heuristic device designed to establish a conceptual framework through which the subsequent chapters can be better appreciated. At least a basic engagement with the values that underlie Western approaches is necessary to appreciate the relevance of searching for alternative ways of knowing and being. Where do the central ideas and processes postcolonial conflict resolution 29 that characterise Western approaches to conflict resolution come from? What types of assumptions—about the state, freedom, sovereignty, rights, representation, justice, rule of law, dialogue, negotiation, and mediation—underlie this cultural tradition? These assumptions and their associated values result from particular traditions of knowledge and political practice. Western ways of organising political community and resolving conflict typically derive from a tradition that emerged out of western Europe and subsequently become more global as a result of practices of colonialism and globalisation. Understanding something about the specifics of these ways of approaching and resolving conflict is an essential element in the process of appreciating alternative approaches. Our list of seven themes that characterise key points of contention among different cultural approaches to conflict and its resolution is by no means complete. But it serves as a starting point for a cross-cultural dialogue on conflict resolution, and that is why we provided the list to all participants in the workshop that led to this book. The contributors do not necessarily take up all of these points of contention, but we thought it valuable to reproduce them here as a series of open questions to the conflict resolution field. We hope that they encourage debate and discussion beyond the pages of this book.

1. Reason and Emotion Reason is typically seen as central to resolving conflict in prevailing West- ern approaches. Such a focus separates reason from other human abilities and accords it higher status. Perhaps the best known example of prioritising rationality over emotion in conflict resolution is the classic maxim of “separating the people from the problem”, proposed by Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton. The idea is that emotional outbursts serve to clear the air, making “it easier to talk rationally later”.35 Though not entirely ignored by Fisher, Ury, and Patton, emotions are subordinated. As the authors state: “Freed from the burden of unexpressed emotions, people will become more likely to work on the problem”.36 Willem Mastenbroek applies a broadly similar perspective to the overall process of conflict resolution by framing the development of the field in terms of the increasing management of emotions.37 There are good reasons, though, for questioning this prioritising of reason. First, prioritising reason over emotion can pose serious limits for our ability to solve conflicts, for conflict is very often shaped by emotional dynamics. Conflict cannot be thoroughly or satisfactorily addressed if important emotional dimensions are subordinated and marginalised. Second, we need to challenge the very separation of reason and emotion. Anthropological research has shown that not all cultures see reason and emotions as fundamentally distinct from each other.38 Even in Western cultures the 30 mediating across difference distinction is likely to be drawn by theorists and in a rather abstract and artificial manner, differing markedly from the actual lived experiences of most people. As recent cognitive science shows, our ability to reason cannot be separated off from other bodily capacities for movement, perception, and emotion.39 Artificially separating reason from other faculties such as emotion probably draws unwarranted boundaries among human abilities, obscuring that there are ways in which reason itself is emotional and that emotional responses are a type of reasoning. Some conflict resolution scholars have started to address this shortcoming. Examples include Tricia Jones and contributions reviewed by Erin Ryan.40 Even Roger Fisher and his collaborators, who pioneered the rational, interest-based approach to mediation, have started to take emotions into account.41 But these efforts have so far been both limited and articulated through Western social science and cultural traditions. To begin to explore this theme, we asked our contributors to think about what various cultural traditions might teach us about the relation between reason and emotion, about different forms of ‘reason’, or about the role of emotions in the resolution of conflicts. We wondered if insights into emotions can be used to address difficulties and restore peace after conflict. If this can be done, how exactly are emotions used in conflict resolution practices?

2. Communication beyond Speech? Prevailing approaches to conflict resolution tend to privilege speech as the medium for addressing difficulties and making agreements. Speech is typically thought of as the natural way of reaching resolution; it is central, for instance, to processes of dialogue and negotiation. Within much Western political theory, speech is the ability that distinguishes humans from other animals and allows us to form communities. The capacity for speech is also usually closely linked with reason in the Western tradition. It is perhaps understandable, then, that mainstream conflict resolution emphasises speech as a means for addressing conflict. But emphasis upon speech can also lead us to overlook the role of other capacities. As with reason, considering emotion or feeling is a good way to highlight the limitations of an emphasis upon speech. Anthropologists show us that significant communication occurs through the feelings that people sense between and among themselves.42 Speech, in other words, is not necessarily the only way of communicating about conflict and its resolution. Nonverbal ways of interacting, such as rituals or body language, can be just as important. Such ways of interacting also point to interesting and perplexing possibilities that we might call the “feeling of community”.43 These interactions might be difficult to codify in the terms of traditional social science. E. Richard Sorenson, for postcolonial conflict resolution 31 instance, explains that intense and continuous regard for others is important among some peoples for the formation of community.44 To address this theme, we asked our contributors to think about what other traditions teach us about the role of speech and other faculties in conflict resolution. What is the relationship of spoken words to issues of conflict and their resolution? What other ways of communicating and interacting might people use? In addition, we asked conflict resolution theorist Tarja Väyrynen to explore the role of silence in conflict resolution.

3. Universal and Contextual Procedures Prevailing conflict resolution efforts tend to strive for clear and predictable processes. They formalise the outcomes of these processes, usually by way of contract, written agreement, or treaty. Processes such as mediation and problem-solving workshops are typically taught as a series of steps to be applied in various contexts. The underlying objective is to refine a set of pre-existing and universal procedures that can then be applied systematically across different cultural contexts. While the shortcomings of this formalism have meanwhile been recognised and discussed widely in conflict resolution literature, there are still only a few inquiries that explore alternatives in detail. To promote further discussion on this theme, we asked: What can other traditions teach us about the formality and universality of conflict resolution processes? Is it important, or even desirable, to have a set of well-worked-out procedures to solve conflict? What can other traditions teach us about ways of responding to particular contexts or cultural environments?

4. Time Western approaches to conflict resolution typically see time in linear and mechanical ways. There are a particular number of weeks in a year; these are broken into days, which are further broken into hours and minutes that can be easily measured. Time began at a particular point and travels in a straight line. Measuring and linearity provide a framework for understanding the progress of conflict resolution as a path leading from conflict to peace. We might say, then, that conflict resolution is often organised according to calendar or clock time. But clocks and calendars are only one way of relating to time. Time may be seen as cyclical, flowing with the seasons, or as displaying other patterns. People may think of time in terms of spiritual realms that do not relate to clock time; time may speed up, slow down, or bend; or events and relationships with other people may be more important ways of dividing up social life. To think further about time, we asked: What can other traditions teach us about orientation to time for conflict resolution? What role do conceptions of 32 mediating across difference time play in conflict resolution approaches or processes you are considering? How much time is necessary? Do conflict resolution processes change over time? How is time important in a process of healing relationships?

5. Violence Prevailing approaches in peace and conflict studies frequently assume that violence is negative and to be avoided in conflict resolution efforts. War is opposed to peace. Physical and other forms of violence are seen as dangerous. Talking and consensus, in contrast, are regarded as desirable ways to deal with difficulties among people. This leads to the general position that the best forms of conflict resolution and peace, from community mediation to the United Na- tions campaign for a Culture of Peace, are nonviolent. Nonviolent approaches and dialogue are markers of ‘civilisation’ while violence is ‘barbaric’. Violence does, of course, often lead to the breakdown of order. It can generate a vicious cycle of hatred and revenge that generates ever more conflict. But it is also true that war and peace are subtly entwined.45 Karl von Clausewitz famously stated that war is the continuation of politics by other means.46 And Michel Foucault inverted Clausewitz to argue that battles are continually fought within social orders.47 Violence is also domesticated in the modern West in en- tertainment ranging from sports to movies and computer games. These ‘violent’ practices in ‘civilised’ contexts are an obvious challenge to straightforward assumptions about the effects and roles of violence. The complex relationship between violence and nonviolence should lead us to question the assumption that physical violence is synonymous with conflict. Could it be the case, for instance, that physical violence can be constitutive of order in ways that are—somewhat paradoxically—less violent than conventional Western ways of governing and managing conflicts? By asking this question we do not advocate violence as a way of solving conflict. Rather, our objective is to question more generally whether or not the relationship between outwardly violent and nonviolent processes is as straightforward and as unproblematic as it is generally portrayed to be. To address this theme, we asked our participants: What is the place of physical confrontation in the tradition you are considering? Is violence seen as inherently bad, or are there ways through which violence can be employed legitimately to address and solve conflicts? And what challenges and possibilities come with such practices?

6. Individuals and Relationships Western approaches to conflict resolution, shaped by liberal emphasis on the individual person, tend to stress discrete entities rather than relationships postcolonial conflict resolution 33 and social ties. Conflict is seen as taking place between individuals or entities modelled on the individual. The main objective then consists of solving the conflict on terms agreed by the individuals who are implicated or concerned. The mediator as well as the parties involved assume, or at least imply, that the individual is autonomous from the surrounding social dynamics. Other cultures and traditions, in contrast, often tend to put greater emphasis on relationships and the collective. They assume that the boundaries between individuals and society are much more fluid. They also assign different values to individual autonomy and social harmony. This theme suggests a number of questions: How do different cultures see the role of individuals and the manner in which they are embedded in social relations and collective values? What importance do these traditions give to societal issues when addressing conflict?

7. Myth and Magic Western approaches to security and conflict resolution follow a broader Western pattern of delegitimising myth and magic. This focus is linked to the earlier-mentioned prioritising of reason. Yet, considered engagement with myth and magic shows that they are important for how individuals relate to each other, including for sustaining political community. Rituals, for instance, deserve not to be viewed as superstitious and misguided efforts to bring about events such as rain or community harmony.48 Rather, they sustain, restore, and rebalance personal, social, and political life. Myth and magic are also important ways of knowing that, Claude Lévi-Strauss suggests, should not be wholly juxtaposed with Western science. Rather, he sees myth and science as “parallel modes of acquiring knowledge”, as a form of concrete science that contains no less claim to genuine knowledge and insight than established scientific methods.49 Once we challenge the long-standing division between sciences and magic, is it possible to explore how myth and magic contribute to conflict resolution? We therefore asked participants to elaborate on the possible role of magical and spiritual forces in managing and resolving conflict.

Notes 1. For an elegant elaboration of this argument, see Pierre Clastres, Society against the State: Essays in Political Anthropology (New York: Zone Books, 2007). 2. Simon Roberts, Order and Dispute: An Introduction to Legal Anthropology (Har- mondsworth, Middlesex, UK, and New York: Penguin, 1979), p. 12. 3. See Max Gluckman’s The Judicial Process among the Barotse of Northern Rhodesia (Manchester, UK: published on behalf of the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute, Northern Rhodesia, by Manchester University Press, 1955); “African Jurisprudence,” Advance- 34 mediating across difference ment of Science 18, no. 75 (1962): 439–454; and The Ideas in Barotse Jurisprudence (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1965). See also Paul Bohannan’s “The Differing Realms of the Law,” in “The Ethnography of Law,” special issue, American Ethnologist 67, no. 6 (1965): 33–42; and Justice and Judgment among the Tiv (London: published for the International African Institute by Oxford University Press, 1968). 4. See Laura Nader and Harry F. Todd (eds.), The Disputing Process: Law in Ten Societies (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978); Sally Engle Merry, “The So- cial Organization of Mediation in Nonindustrial Societies: Implications for Informal Community Justice in America,” in R. L. Abel (ed.), The Politics of Informal Justice (New York: Academic Press, 1982), pp. 17–45; Sally Engle Merry, “Mediation in Nonindus- trial Societies,” in K. Kressel, D. G. Pruitt, and Associates (eds.), Mediation Research: The Process and Effectiveness of Third-Party Intervention (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1989), pp. 68–90; and Nancy Williams, Two Laws: Managing Disputes in a Contemporary Ab- original Community (Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, 1987). 5. Roberts, Order and Dispute, p. 13. 6. Bohannan, Justice and Judgment, pp. 57, 100. 7. Gluckman, “African Jurisprudence,” especially at pp. 441, 443, 452. 8. Ibid., p. 452. 9. Richard Danzig, “Toward the Creation of a Complementary, Decentralized System of Criminal Justice,” Stanford Law Review 26, no. 1 (1973): 1–54; Paul Wahrhaftig, “An Overview of Community-Oriented Citizen Dispute Resolution Programs in the United States,” in Abel, Politics of Informal Justice, pp. 75–97. 10. See Honggang Yang and Alvin W. Wolfe, “Epilogue: Agenda for Applied Research in Conflict Resolution,” in A. W. Wolfe and H. Yang (eds.), Anthropological Contributions to Conflict Resolution (Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 1996), p. 144; E. Victoria Shook and Leonard Ke‘ala Kwan, “Ho‘oponopono: Straight- ening Family Relationships in Hawaii,” in K. Avruch, P. W. Black, and J. A. Scimecca (eds.), Conflict Resolution: Cross-Cultural Perspectives (Westport, CT: Greenwood Pub- lishing Group, 1991), pp. 213–229; Marg Huber, “Mediation around the Medicine Wheel,” Mediation Quarterly 11, no. 4 (1993): 355–365; and Bruce Barnes, “Conflict Resolution across Cultures: A Hawaii Perspective and a Pacific Mediation Model,” Me- diation Quarterly 12, no. 2 (1994): 117–133. 11. See Luc Huyse and Mark Salter, Traditional Justice and Reconciliation after Violent Conflict: Learning from African Experiences (Stockholm: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, 2008); Ahmed Yusuf Farah, “Traditional Ap- proaches to Negotiation and Mediation: Examples from Africa—Roots of Reconcilia- tion in Somaliland,” in L. Reychler and T. Paffenholz (eds.), Peacebuilding: A Field Guide (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers in association with the Field Diplomacy Ini- tiative, 2001), pp. 138–145; Roger Mac Ginty, “Indigenous Peace-Making versus the Liberal Peace,” Cooperation and Conflict 43, no. 2 (2008): 139–163. postcolonial conflict resolution 35

12. For the most popular expression of this orientation, see Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce M. Patton, Getting to Yes: Negotiating an Agreement without Giving In (London: Random House Business Books, 1999). 13. For elaboration, see Morgan Brigg, The New Politics of Conflict Resolution: Responding to Difference (Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK, and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). 14. Kevin Avruch, “Introduction: Culture and Conflict Resolution,” in Avruch, Black, and Scimecca, Conflict Resolution, p. 5. 15. Kevin Avruch and Peter W. Black, “The Culture Question and Conflict Resolu- tion,” Peace and Change 16, no. 1 (1991): 22–45. 16. Linnell Secomb, “Fractured Community,” Hypatia 15, no. 2 (2000): 133–150 at 140. 17. Lincoln Palmer Bloomfield and Allen Moulton, Managing International Con- flict: From Theory to Policy; A Teaching Tool Using CASCON (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), p. 41. 18. Ibid. 19. Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition (London: Athlone Press, 1994), p. 262. 20. Nicholas Thomas, Entangled Objects: Exchange, Material Culture, and Colonial- ism in the Pacific (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), p. 3. 21. Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996). 22. A. B. Fetherston, From Conflict Resolution to Transformative Peacebuilding: Re- flections from Croatia (Bradford, UK: Department of Peace Studies, University of Brad- ford, 2000), p. 13. 23. Robert D. Kaplan, The Coming Anarchy: Shattering the Dreams of the Post Cold War (New York: Random House, 2001); Robert D. Kaplan, Balkan Ghosts: A Journey through History (New York: Picador, 2005). 24. David Campbell, National Deconstruction: Violence, Identity and Justice in Bosnia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998), pp. 109, 166; Gerry J. Simpson, “The Diffusion of Sovereignty: Self-Determination in the Post-Colonial Age,” in Mor- timer Sellers (ed.), The New World Order: Sovereignty, Human Rights and the Self-Deter- mination of Peoples (Oxford: Berg, 1996), pp. 52–53. 25. John J. Mearsheimer, “Shrink Bosnia to Save it,” New York Times, March 31, 1993. 26. Didier Bigo, “Guerres, conflits, transnational et territoire,” Cultures et Conflits: Sociologie Politique de l’International, no. 21/22 (1996): 2. 27. William E. Connolly, The Ethos of Pluralization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995), pp. xxi–xxii. 28. Simon Harrison, Fracturing Resemblances: Identity and Mimetic Conflict in Mel- anesia and the West (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2007), p. 99. 36 mediating across difference

29. Jean-Luc Nancy, Being Singular Plural (Stanford, CT: Stanford University Press, 2000), p. 155. 30. Harrison, Fracturing Resemblances, p. 44. 31. See Norman M. Naimark, Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002). 32. William E. Connolly, Identity\Difference: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002), p. 12. 33. Michel Wieviorka, “Le nouveau paradigm de la violence,” Cultures et Conflits: Sociologie Politique de l’International, no. 29/30 (1998): 15. 34. Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005). 35. Fisher, Ury, and Patton, Getting to Yes, p. 31. 36. Ibid. 37. Willem Mastenbroek, “Negotiating as Emotion Management,” Theory, Culture and Society 16, no. 4 (1999): 49–73. 38. Niko Besnier, “Language and Affect,” Annual Review of Anthropology 19 (1990): 419–451 at 420. 39. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought (New York: Basic Books, 1999), p. 17. See also William J. Long and Peter Brecke, War and Reconciliation: Reason and Emotion in Conflict Resolution (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003), p. 130. 40. Tricia S. Jones and Andrea Bodtker, “Mediating with Heart in Mind: Addressing Emotion in Mediation Practice,” Negotiation Journal 17, no. 3 (2001): 217–244; Erin Ryan, “Review Essay: Building the Emotionally Learned Negotiator,” Negotiation Journal 22, no. 2 (2006): 209–225. 41. Roger Fisher and Daniel Shapiro, Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate (New York: Viking, 2005). 42. Fred R. Myers, Pintupi Country, Pintupi Self: Sentiment, Place, and Politics among Western Desert Aborigines (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991); E. Richard Sorenson, “Preconquest Consciousness,” in H. Wautischer (ed.), Tribal Epistemologies: Essays in the Philosophy of Anthropology (Aldershot, UK, and Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 1998), pp. 79–115. 43. Linnell Secomb, “Introduction,” Cultural Studies Review 9, no. 1 (2003): 9–11 at 10. 44. Sorenson, “Preconquest Consciousness,” pp. 79–115. 45. Oliver Paul Richmond, The Transformation of Peace (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). 46. Karl von Clausewitz, On War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976). 47. Michel Foucault, “Truth and Power,” in C. Gordon (ed.), Power/Knowledge (New York: Pantheon, 1980), pp. 109–133 at 109. postcolonial conflict resolution 37

48. Brian R. Clack, “Scapegoat Rituals in Wittgensteinian Perspective,” in K. Schilbrack (ed.), Thinking through Rituals: Philosophical Perspectives (New York: Routledge, 2004), pp. 97–112 at 100. 49. Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Savage Mind (La pensee sauvage) (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1966), pp. 13, 16. Chapter 2 Silence in Western Models of Conflict Resolution

Tarja Väyrynen

Western models of conflict resolution tend to privilege speech over nonverbal means of communication. Speech is thought to be vital for dialogue and, therefore, for conflict resolution and peacebuilding after a violent conflict. A large domain of silent interaction is thus left unnoticed and unexamined by the dominant Western forms of conflict resolution. The complex and underexamined problématique of silence in conflict resolution can be approached by understanding silence as a nonverbal means of communication and as a form of social and political action. Silence relates intimately to reconstructing and narrating a community after violent conflict. Some issues are narrated into the collective historical accounts of the past conflict, and some stories are left untold. Similarly, some groups of people have a right to narrate their stories that then become a part of a collective stock of knowledge whereas some people and stories are silenced. To draw attention to the importance of silence and to begin to reflect upon it is a challenging task, partly because the conflict resolution approaches that emphasise the role of culture in conflict resolution and in dealing with differences are not always more sensitive to silence than mainstream ways of seeing conflict resolution.1 Although in the former the importance of cultural dynamics is stressed and local understandings of conflict and conflict resolution prioritised, silence is seldom recognised. Local conflict resolution practices may include local silences that are not recognised through a ‘colonial gaze’ of a Western conflict resolution scholar or practitioner. Similarly, prevailing power dynamics prevent us noticing the complex webs of hegemonic forms of speech, marginal silences, and processes of silencing.

38 silence in western models of conflict resolution 39

In this chapter the question of conflict resolution and silence is divided into three parts. The first part outlines the general Western view of conflict resolution by noting its philosophical and ontological premises. This discussion creates a foundation for understanding how culturally sensitive approaches to conflict resolution differ from mainstream theorising. The second part moves to the role of silence in conflict resolution and examines silence as a means of communication. It criticises the hermeneutically oriented ways of theorising conflict resolution and dialogue for their neglect of silence. In addition, it argues that to fully grasp the importance of silence, theories of nonverbal communication in conflict resolution need to examine the cosmological origins of silent communication. The third part discusses peacebuilding after violent conflict and argues that silences play an important, but unexamined and unrecognised, role in community-building in postconflict societies by creating alternative forms of political and social agency.

Western Approaches to Conflict Resolution: Philosophical Foundations Mainstream Western theorising on conflict resolution is based on the ideal model of a unitary actor who is instrumentally rational, whose communication is based on the use of verbal language, and who acts with few societal constraints.2 These approaches resonate with the Habermasian model of the ideal speech situation.3 Within this model, participants are assumed to have equal opportunity to participate in dialogue. Furthermore, the participants must be motivated by the desire to reach a consensus, and to do this, they must also have communicative competence that involves communicating in accordance with the fundamental system of linguistic rules.4 In the Habermasian ideal speech situation the dominant modern Western thinking on speech and silence is represented: speech and silence are seen to form an oppositional hierarchy where speech is prioritised over silence and is identified with truth. An actor who is capable of using language and speech is capable of participating in dialogue and therewith in, for example, conflict resolution. Verbal language is assumed to be the primary means through which a person or a collective enters into the social and political life: it is the vehicle for gaining social and political agency. Rea- soned argumentation, ideally leading to agreement, is the most highly valued means of social and political interaction. The mode of rationality in mainstream Western conflict resolution theorising is predominantly instrumental. Actors are assumed to ultimately aim at maximising their gains by calculating the possible moves of the other parties in the process of solving a conflict, and then adjusting their own strategies accordingly. Action is thought to be goal-directed and based on the assessment of the strategies and goals of the opposite side. Acting in this social world is reduced 40 mediating across difference to (verbal) negotiations in which the negotiators move towards agreement by employing instrumentally rational strategies. If the negotiators themselves are not able to employ this mode of rationality, a third party, often a mediator or facilitator, provides a rational device to overcome the difficulties experienced by the conflicting parties. A rational actor is seen as an individual who is subject to her or his own reason and will. Actors are discrete entities whose relations to collectivities are weak and modifiable. Self-interest guides the action of an autonomous individual, and social values play a minor role when the actor uses instrumental rationality. Collectivities exist to fulfil individuals’ personal goals. The thin relation between the individual and the collective implies methodological individualism where social and political theory is grounded in individual action.5 Mainstream Western conflict resolution theories follow the premises of methodological individualism by seeing individual human action to be the elementary unit of conflict resolution. The emphasis in theorising is on individual negotiators and mediators, particularly on their strategic goals and verbal behaviour during the negotiation process. Negotiation, then, is described as a process of joint decision making whereby individuals try to forge a verbal agreement so that they can bring together previously incompatible elements into a single outcome.6 Methodological individualism coincides with positivistic social science where the emphasis is on universal applicability of theoretical frameworks. These frameworks do not rely on local knowledge formation, in which, for example, silence may play an important function. Within the positivistic frame, knowledge relies on observation, abstract theory building, and scientific methods modelled on their applications in the natural sciences. The methods and the logic of reasoning are seen to be transcultural, and, moreover, they are assumed to be dissociated from the cultural and social background of the investigator. Positivism asserts, then, that there is a stable coherent self who can be the author of objective knowledge. Knowledge acquired through the correct use of reason can be true, neutral, transcendental, and free from interpretation and power. In the process of gathering knowledge in this way, language is considered transparent, allowing a direct correspondence between a word and an object.7 There is, therefore, a strong reliance on the individual observer as apart from social relations and networks of power. Yet problems arise when the ideal model of the autonomous action and the principles of methodological individualism are applied outside mainstream Western cultures. In other cultures individuals may be seen as interdependent entities. Here individuals may rely on cooperation rather than self-interest, respect hierarchical social structures, deny their own autonomy in the social domain, seek collective recognition, and see silence as a means of communi- silence in western models of conflict resolution 41 cation.8 In some cases, applying methodological individualism to these more collectivist cultures helps maintain postcolonial practices of power and domination. When individualist and linguistically focused approaches are prioritised as the foundations for conflict resolution practice, marginal and counterhege- monic narratives are silenced. Sara Cobb and Janet Rifkin’s critical analysis of the idea of third-party neutrality in mediation, for instance, demonstrates how conflict resolution through mediation can support the hegemonic narratives.9 Mediators may adopt the moral framework of one of the parties by emphasising particular semantic frames and moral orders in disputants’ stories. In the case of a Western mediator intervening in cultural contexts other than her or his own, she or he may adopt the moral frameworks and semantic frames with which she or he is familiar, and thereby sideline ‘alien’ and silent cultural and moral frames that apply in conflict resolution and society. A Western mediator may also place emphasis on verbal communication and dismiss a large domain of silent forms of communication. Mediators may use psychological vocabulary that focuses on individuals rather than communication patterns, let alone cultural and collective values. In general, some narratives tend to become dominant, and the political and cultural processes that constitute one story as dominant are left unchecked in mediation processes. Cobb and Rifkin conclude that the mere opportunity to tell a story in mediation does not ensure that one story will not colonise another and marginalise the disputant. Western conflict resolution theorising seldom spells out the philosophical and value bases of its practice. Instead, mainstream approaches tend to represent themselves as value neutral, universally applicable, and scientifically veri- fied. The same goes with practical conflict resolution attempts that seldom rely on local knowledge and practices of conflict resolution. For both theorists and practitioners, reason is central and culture is rarely considered. We need, then, to turn to those who have explicitly tried to engage cultural and communication issues in conflict resolution.

Culture, Language, and Nonverbal Communication There have been numerous attempts at theorising conflict resolution against the universal approaches outlined above, often by stressing the importance of cultural dynamics.10 These theories broaden the notion of instrumental rationality and question methodological individualism. Many of these critical approaches derive from hermeneutics, and particularly from Hans-Georg Gadamer, who emphasises the notion of dialogue and offers important ways of understanding what happens in intercultural exchange, including how shared meanings are created through encounter. The sensitivity to cultural difference 42 mediating across difference generated through this type of theorising often derives from an understanding of the importance of language in intercultural communication. Gadamer’s hermeneutic view on language and linguistic community differs from the views expressed in positivist Western conflict resolution models and from the idea of a correspondence of language with ‘reality’. By discussing how shared meanings are created, Gadamer’s philosophy offers a foundation for theorising the use of language in different cultural settings. He emphasises the community-building function of language and that community-building takes place through dialogue. For Gadamer, “language is the middle ground in which understanding and agreement concerning the object takes place between two people”.11 True dialogue allows participants to become ‘manifest’ to each other, which is particularly important in conflictual relationships. In order that the participants can reach an agreement, they need to be prepared for dialogue, open to what is alien and contrasting to them, and willing to weigh the coun- terarguments while holding onto their own views. They must be willing to understand and encounter something new and to take up fresh and novel views on the conflict. Gadamer’s theorising is a useful corrective to mainstream approaches to conflict resolution, but—just as its mainstream counterparts do—it also ne- glects the role of silence in conflict resolution. To begin to get some sense about the importance of silence, it is necessary to turn to those who have applied Gad- amerian and related theoretical approaches to the question of culture in conflict resolution. According to those who stress the importance of culture, dealing with differences does not require finding a universal base upon which conflict resolution theory and practices should rest. The accompanying theories recognise the existence of cultural differences and examine the possibilities for mediating across them in the Gadamerian spirit. At the core of this cultural theorising of conflict resolution is an assumption that the parties conceptualise their conflict differently. In order to conceptualise differences Kevin Avruch and Peter Black call for ethnoconflict theory, namely, theorising that takes local common sense about conflict into account while attempting to resolve conflicts.12 Ethnoconflict theory should, according to them, consist of an understanding of the locally held set of deep-seated assumptions about human beings. Understanding these assumptions is vitally important for conflict resolution models and interventions. Ethnoconflict theory can lead to resolution techniques where cultural differences are the foundation for conflict resolution. Avruch and Black discuss the importance of language for cross-cultural conflict resolution.13 They note that noncomprehension in cultural encounters is often a result of mutual nonsharing of linguistic codes. Noncomprehension, silence in western models of conflict resolution 43 however, does not imply that the conflict is intractable. Rather, many cultural conflicts are manageable and can be solved by improving communication patterns. Avruch and Black argue that, in fact, many intercultural encounters take place in shared linguistic settings, but in these settings the shared language and the presumed mutual comprehension can mask deep cultural differences. Par- ties may think that shared language means large areas of mutual interests and values. Thus, sharing a common language often covers up differences in, for example, perception, style, and moral evaluations of conflict behaviour. What, then, forms ‘better’ and ‘true’ understanding that cuts across cultural differences and is not bound by linguistic incomprehension or falsely assumed comprehension? Benjamin Broome suggests that relational empathy can provide a way to create shared meaning and mutual understanding in conflict resolution.14 Meanings are not given in language or in person. Instead, they are constructed in encounters following a Gadamerian approach. Broome views empathy as a series of successive approximations to the other’s point of view during social interaction. He seems to be referring, then, to the nonverbal dimensions of encounter, but he does not explicitly engage with silence. Raymond Cohen adds something new to these approaches by discussing silences in intercultural encounters.15 Using empirical case studies on national negotiation styles in Japan, China, Egypt, India, Mexico, and the United States, he demonstrates how cultural factors, and particularly the uses of silence, affect intercultural communication. For him, there are two different models of negotiation, which he theorises by drawing upon ideas originally developed by Edward T. Hall.16 There is a ‘low context’ style of communication and negotiation that is dominantly verbal and explicit. It is typically found in individualistic societies, such as the United States. The ‘high context’ style, in contrast, is associated with nonverbal and implicit communication and is used in many Asian societies. It is more typical for societies that are highly interdependent or ‘collectivist’ in their social relations.17 For the members of collectivistic and high-context cultures, language is a social instrument. It is a device for preserving and promoting social interest as much as a means for transmitting information. According to Cohen, high- context individuals dislike the negative, and therefore direct contradiction is invariably avoided. Open conflict is bypassed, because social harmony is to be maintained. In low-context cultures, on the other hand, language tends to perform an informational rather than social lubrication function. What has to be said is stated explicitly. The very explicit and straightforward negotiation style of low-context cultures is often alien for high-context cultures, in which more subtle means of communicating and negotiating are valued.18 Nonverbal communication and silences are used differently in high- and 44 mediating across difference low-context cultures. According to Cohen, high-context negotiators place more emphasis on nonverbal communication (e.g., gestures, body contact, use of space, ceremony, silence) than do low-context negotiators.19 Low-context participants often find it difficult to appreciate the nonverbal dimensions of communication employed by high-context negotiators. In some cultures silences are accepted ways of communicating, while in others they are considered to be impolite and indicate passivity. In general, quietness and listening are valued in high-context cultures, and overt verbalisation is devalued. Mainstream models of mediation, developed and applied in Western contexts, are founded on the use of language. They are, then, directly applicable in low-context cultures. Mediation, for instance, is a process that extends on the broader and socially embedded—and widely understood—negotiation process used to deal with everyday difficulties among people. (Indeed, mediation has been described as the continuation of negotiations by other means.)20 Third- party roles may vary from active negotiator to passive facilitator, but the use of language is seen to be the core function of the mediator, in line with the broader social context. Third parties facilitate communication between the disputants, clarify the issues in conflict, offer compromise formulas and substantive pro- posals, and assist participants in bargaining and negotiating. In the problem- solving workshop type of third-party involvement the facilitator tries to induce and sustain positive motivation for the parties to confront their conflict with a conciliatory attitude. The facilitator improves communication between the adversaries, regulates interaction between the parties, and helps them ‘diagnose’ their conflict. The focus is on the facilitation of communication, with communication seen as taking place linguistically.21 There is very little theorising on body language, signals, or silences in the Western theories of mediation. Some theorists do recognise the possibilities embedded in silence during the mediation process and urge the mediator to notice them. Mark Umbreit argues that mediation skills in any cultural context should include the ability to honour and feel comfortable with silence, to silently reflect what is being said, and to reflect what the mediator herself or himself feels and the kinds of emotions that emerge. He argues that many non-Western cultures are more comfortable with mediation practices that include silence and reflective listening. Umbreit calls his model of mediation “humanistic” and considers silence to be a vital element of it.22 Cohen’s theorising of intercultural negotiations can be applied to mediation by noting that in low-context cultures mediation is characterised by directness, assertiveness, and verbal activity. The mediator is assumed to take an active part in the process, interpret the conflict and its resolution to the parties, and openly spell out her or his own agenda. In high-context cultures, on the other silence in western models of conflict resolution 45 hand, the participants are more sensitive to nonverbal communication, personal relations, and the context of the mediation process. They may respect elderly people and withdraw to silence in order to show respect and maintain social harmony. Within the high-context setting, silence does not indicate passivity but constitutes a form of active engagement in hierarchical social relations.23 Cohen’s work, then, suggests a place for silence in conflict resolution processes. However, he does not develop this theme in his work. To begin to explore silence and the issues and possibilities that surround it requires considering other, non- Western traditions.

The Role of Silence in Asian Cosmologies A more profound understanding of the role of silence can be developed by considering silence as embedded in deep-seated assumptions about human beings and their surrounding cosmos within different cosmological traditions. Many Asian cosmological traditions, for instance, including Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism, emphasise the importance of silence in both spiritual and ethical terms. Silence is something that touches the very core of human being. In Taoist tradition, Chuang Tzu writes:

The Tao is not named. Great division is not spoken. Great Humanity is not Humanity. Great purity is not simplicity. Great courage is not contentious.24

And Wen-Tzu:

The vital essence of mind can be influenced spiritually but cannot be guided by talk.25

From this perspective, any attempt to use written or spoken words to talk about the Tao is doomed to failure, because the Tao is indescribable and un- nameable. We would do better to refrain from the use of language to understand and express our knowledge of Tao. Written and spoken words, because they are governed by the rules and conventions of language, tend to reify and obscure the immediate quality of the enlightened experience. Silence expresses Tao, but this silence implies more than just nonverbal communication. Thomas Tominaga speaks about the ‘catalytic’ use of silence in Taoism. He writes that “silence is not so much to communicate non-verbally as it is to overcome or transcend spontaneously and unconditionally the conceptual 46 mediating across difference constraints imposed by language, knowledge, and thinking in the conventional sense, whether or not we are made aware of the limitations and inadequacies of our language, knowledge, and thinking”.26 Silence is thus used to overcome the conventions and rules that language imposes upon us. Silence also serves to distance us from empty social conventions. It is our true inner condition that should be allowed to guide us in the world. Wise people refrain from speaking, because language can never convey the essence of Tao, the essence that can be found by following our mind. Words do not help us distinguish between the true and the false. Rather, they lead to pettiness and obscure the Tao. Ordinary people use speech to argue, whereas the wise encompass everything without words and conflicts. The Taoist tradition, then, suggests that words lead to argument and conflict because they are embedded in social rules and conventions. The Tao thus frees us from attempts to distinguish between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in conventional manners and, therefore, gives no basis for arguments and conflictual relationships. The importance of silence in another influential Asian tradition, Buddhism this time, can be exemplified through the following tale:

A philosopher once visited Buddha and asked him: “Without words, without the wordless, will you tell me the truth?” Buddha kept silence. After a while the philosopher rose up gently, made a solemn bow and thanked Buddha saying: “With your loving kindness, I have cleared away all my delusions and entered the true path.” When the philosopher had left, Ananda, a senior disciple of Buddha, en- quired: “O, Blessed one, what hath this philosopher attained?” Buddha replied: “A good horse runs even at the shadow of the whip!”27

Without internal silence there cannot be an interior experience of truth. Truth can be experienced only through the medium of silence, and the moment we try to express it, we run the danger of falsifying it, of rendering it untruth.28 True understanding does not need words. Neither do true teachers use language. Silence can transform us in a very deep and existential way. The Buddha did use language while teaching his followers, but at the same time transferred other knowledge without words. It is thought in the Buddhist tradition that the type of knowledge that leads to enlightenment cannot be spoken. The restless inner narratives we repeat and produce in our minds constantly lead to conflicts because in these narratives we produce our desires. Conflicts emerge from desires and can be solved mainly through taming the restless and wild mind by silent means. silence in western models of conflict resolution 47

Confucianism, the final tradition considered in this brief discussion of Asian cosmologies that emphasise the importance of silence, sees silence as valuable for experiencing truth. It emphasises social order and self-cultivation. Confucius’ vision of order unites aesthetic concerns for harmony and symme- try with moral force in pursuit of social goals: a well-ordered family, a well- ordered state, and a well-ordered world. Such an aesthetic, moral, and social program begins at home, with the cultivation of the individual. The following excerpt summarises the relationship between self-cultivation, right speech, and silence:

Tzu-chang was studying the Song Han-lu. The Master said, Hear much, but maintain silence as regards doubtful points and be cautious in speaking of the rest; then you will seldom get into trouble. See much, but ignore what it is dangerous to have seen, and be cautious in acting upon the rest; then you will seldom want to undo your acts. He who seldom gets into trouble about what he has said and seldom does anything that he afterwards wishes he had not done, will be sure incidentally to get his reward.29

Silence in Confucianism refers to ethical action. An ethical human being is cautious while speaking, using words carefully in order not to distort harmony that arises out of and contributes to order. Respecting and not disturbing harmony and order means ethical behaviour. Conflict resolution has to be founded on the establishment of harmony, and conflicts can be resolved through skilful uses of language and refraining from speaking when doubtful. In general, silence in these three traditions points towards enlightenment and truth, but also towards being an ethical person. In short, moral superiority and being a good person are expressed by restraining from speaking. Hwei-Jen Yang notes that a good person and a good communicator are naturally opposed in these cosmological traditions.30 A person can be only one or the other, not both. Since fundamental cosmological principles are inexpressible in language, truth can be gained through silent meditation, not through argumentation, reasoning, or dialogue. In sum, theories that emphasise the importance of nonverbal communication in transcultural communication, and the potential uses of silence in mediation, add an important layer to our understanding of culture and conflict resolution. However, as pointed out earlier, simple characterisations of cultures and their communication patterns fail to acknowledge the deeper cosmological foundations of cultural differences and the existential importance of silence in many traditions. Understanding the cosmological principles leads to a deeper understanding of transcultural conflict resolution. They govern conflict resolu- 48 mediating across difference tion and mediation in ways that are left untouched by even the most culturally sensitive Western conflict resolution models.

Silences in Peacebuilding The question of silence in conflict resolution is multifaceted. As indicated above, it relates to communication patterns during conflict resolution and mediation processes and even to the cosmological and ethical principles that govern our being-in-the-world. Gadamerian-inspired conflict resolution theories emphasise the role of verbal dialogue in community- and peacebuilding. However, an important question remains unasked by the majority of Western conflict resolution models: does silence have roles in peacebuilding other than those suggested by the studies of nonverbal communication patterns? One reason for the neglect of silence can be found in Western political theory. In it, silence is mostly equated with submission. Conflict resolution is seen to require agency, and this in turn is equated with speech. The possibility that political and social agency might emerge from silence is therefore denied.31 To begin to explore the role of silence in conflict resolution beyond nonverbal communication, it is useful to examine silence in the context of postconflict nation-building. Communities have to be renarrated after violent political conflicts. To put the challenge in psychoanalytical terms, the master signifiers and narratives that were thought to form firm bases for social and political identities and order do not hold, and, therefore, new narratives have to be reformulated. Erik Ring- mar’s definition of ‘formative moment’ is useful in thinking about this task.32 According to him, formative moments occur when the community is being re- structured, new narratives are being told and submitted to the public forum, and new demands for recognition presented. In formative moments meanings are contested and fought over with the help of all sorts of rhetoric. They are intensive moments of community-building where the old definitions of identity, peace, and order are contested and new definitions brought into the social and political life of the community. Within the contested process of renarration, the state disciplines, normalis- es, and naturalises experiences of violent political conflicts and traumas embedded in violence.33 Narratives told during peacebuilding are, for instance, heavily gendered, although the official histories of nation-states often represent them as ungendered. Kavita Daiya’s observation that “women’s bodies bear often the symbolic burden of community building—national or otherwise” rightly emphasises the corporeal and gendered element of reinstating and renarrating the community.34 Case studies demonstrate that communal violence against women constitutes often symbolic violence against the whole community and that silence in western models of conflict resolution 49 violence is narrated after the conflict for nationalistic purposes. Since women’s sexuality symbolises ‘manhood’, its shame and dishonour extend to the whole community, be it a religious group, nation, or state.35 The emphasis on gender brings forth clearly the issues of silencing and submission. Although women’s bodies bear the symbolic burden of community-building and narrating the nation, women’s own accounts of violent events seldom become a part of conflict resolution attempts, negotiation processes, or the collective stocks of knowledge. Particularly in nationalistic narratives of violence, war is narrated as an ultimately masculine event that is seen to bring into being a particular type of heroic agency. Given that (re)narrating the collective history during the formative moment of conflict resolution is an act of nation-building, less heroic experiences are left untold and even silenced in the struggle over new meanings and interpretations. Urvashi Butalia notes that many layers of silences are encoded within violent histories.36 As argued earlier, the Western bias prevents us from seeing those silences, because in the dominant modern Western thinking, speech and silence form an oppositional hierarchy where speech is prioritised over silence, speech identified with truth, and silence equated with subordination. Only the spoken word is expected to be transformed into truth and history. Moreover, the fact that silence coincides with the gendered practices of power and the political practices of nation-building during formative moments makes it hard to recognise and examine. Silences in peacebuilding have often deep, traumatic elements. Many war experiences are so humiliating that their telling is impossible for the individuals involved. Such telling may also be culturally banned. Francesca Declich notes the challenge she faced in her study on Somalia when she wanted to interview Somali women on their experiences of war and violence: “They were unwilling to talk about their experiences of rape, the memory which remained present but was not transformed into a heroic event”.37 Fighting in the front line is presented as a heroic event, but the experience of rape hardly ever is. Conveying degradations and humiliating experiences through language may put the speaking subject into a position where it is impossible to encounter the ‘unspeakable’. Encountering is impossible for cultural, societal, political, or psychological reasons. Some psychoanalytically oriented researchers have argued that silences can be viewed as part of a range of ‘languages of pain and grief’.38 The accompanying theories recognise that difficulties in expressing the ‘unspeakable’ might be incorporated into the body in the form of pain and grief. This may create a chasm between the duty to speak (for example, in truth and reconciliation commissions, war tribunals, conflict resolution workshops, or research interviews) 50 mediating across difference and the impossibility of speech. Jenny Edkins argues that trauma cannot be spoken. It is outside the realm of language, and, she continues, “to bring it back within that realm by speaking of it, by setting it within a linear narrative form, is to destroy its truth”.39 Edkins thus equates silence with truth and sees silence as having its own truth, a view unlike that found in most of the Western scholarship on speech and silence. Elaine Scarry argues, moreover, that “physical pain does not simply resist language but actively destroys it, bringing about an immediate reversion to a state anterior to language”.40 In these views, the connection between language and truth, as well as the instrumental role of language, are challenged. The language of ‘pain and grief’ consists of silences that contribute to the narration of a violent past and ways of rethinking agency in conflict resolution. In order to see this, we have to, according to Nthabiseng Motsemme, “adopt frameworks where words, silence, dreams, gestures, tears all exist interdepend- ently”.41 Rejecting rigid oppositional hierarchies of speech and silence would allow us to interpret the meanings of silences and the agencies enacted through silences during the formative moments of conflict resolution. It would allow us also to see that identity construction and agency do not take place solely through the medium of linguistic communication, as Western conflict resolution models suggest. There are several ways in which silence constitutes agency. During formative moments three ways are particularly vital, because through them silence becomes a site for reconstituting ‘new’ meanings and agency after a violent political conflict. This is the case, for example, for those at the margins. Imagi- nation, silent communication of a shared experience of past violence, and rituals and performance contribute to community-building after violent conflict. First, in silence there can be invisible work of imagination. Imagination is important, because through it social narratives can be refigured. This is particularly important in conflict resolution where relationships and communities have to be reconstructed, rethought, and reimagined. Imagination has social and political repercussions when it results in the reformulation of cultural narratives, gives rise to new normative ideals, and organises social and political relations in new ways. In short, imagination transforms action and thereby gives rise to agency.42 Second, silence forms invisible relational and interactive links and bonds in communities among people who have experienced the trauma of violence. Silence can create networks of trust, care, and communal solidarity for those who have become isolated during conflict. By binding communities together, silence can produce a countermemory vis-à-vis official narratives. It can normal- ise everyday life after violence, because there are things the community knows silence in western models of conflict resolution 51 but is not willing or ready to speak about. Thus, silence does not just indicate the impossibility to speak or the impossibility to encounter the unspeakable, but it can generate a sense of community.43 Unlike the Gadamerian-inspired conflict resolution models that focus on dialogue as a precondition for community, Motsemme’s theorising suggests that silence can also work as a site for community-building. Third, performance and ritualisation come to the fore particularly in transition periods, and they deserve to be seen as an important component of conflict resolution. They facilitate change, often by generating major changes in the frames of reference of the participants. Of course, rituals often confirm habitual ways of organising societies by reinstating old forms of order and social and political action. However, they can also open up liminal, nonutilitarian, and nonconformist spaces that are not occupied solely by instrumental rationality. In general, performance and ritualisation do not follow the Habermasian model of ideal speech situation. Rather, they open up a rich field of bodily, corporeal expressions of community-building. Ritual is a form of communication that relies on symbols, senses, and emotions. Examples of ritual include informal activities such as eating, dancing, and recreation, as well as more formal cultural and religious ceremonies and holiday traditions. Rituals rely often on music and art to heighten emotion and sensual cognition. These activities allow people to gain deeper knowledge about the dynamics of conflict and what sorts of relationships are needed if conflict is to be managed in a constructive manner. Lisa Schirch highlights the role of symbols and their use within rituals in conflict resolution.44 According to her, they communicate that which cannot be directly spoken: “The first step toward embracing the symbolic dimension of peacebuilding is recognizing the profound effect symbolic acts have on humanity. Symbolic acts can penetrate the impenetrable, overwhelm the defensive, and convey complex messages without saying a single word. As with other human tools, their power can be used for good and evil”.45 Agency emerges from rituals and the use of symbols. This is indicated, for example, by Allen Feldman, who describes the uses of rituals in the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Although the commission was based primarily on speech, it offered, according to Feldman, performance sites “through which anti-statist, kinship-based bereavement breaks into public culture”.46 In other words, in such institutions as truth and reconciliation commissions, agency arises not solely from speech but also from silent means of expressing oneself. They are sites of mourning, and at the same time they are sites of resistance where antistatist community-building takes place.47 Third-party activities in conflict resolution can be interpreted in the light of 52 mediating across difference rituals and performance. The efficacy of much third-party mediation is linked to the creation of a special social space in which the conventions and scripts of everyday life are loosened, enabling personal and social transformation. There are rituals that take place in every mediation process, including the starting and ending of the sessions, providing hospitability, and communicating with the participants by nonverbal means (e.g., body language, shaking hands). Rituals in mediation and conflict resolution, then, including the agency of silence, do not play out only in ‘exotic and traditional’ cultures; rather, they penetrate all sectors of mediation and third-party activities.48

Conclusion Most Western conflict resolution models ignore the role of silence in conflict resolution. They focus mainly on the linguistic competence of the participants in the conflict resolution process. The models resonate with the Hab- ermasian ideal speech situation, which views universal linguistic competence as the foundation for agency in conflict resolution. Furthermore, instrumental rationality is emphasised in the models, and conflict resolution actors are perceived as relying mainly on instrumental reason that maximises expected gains. Conflict resolution becomes a game in which the parties make linguistic moves in order to guarantee their negotiation success. Even the most culturally sensitive Western models of conflict resolution— which are largely inspired by hermeneutical philosophy—neglect the study of silence. They advocate verbal dialogue as a prerequisite for community-building. However, in many cultural contexts nonverbal communication is a vital component that contributes to the reconstruction of the community after violent political conflict. The distinction between high- and low-context cultures provides a heuristic tool for understanding a part of the question of silence in conflict resolution, but it needs to be complemented with a study of cosmologies. In many cultures nonverbal communication derives from deep cosmological traditions that guide being-in-the-world as well as ethical and moral action. Silence in conflict resolution does not just imply nonverbal communication patterns. It also relates to narrating relationships and political community after conflict and to processes of reconciliation. Communities have to be renarrated after a traumatic event of political violence, and during conflict resolution processes there is often an intensified struggle for hegemonic narratives. These narratives render alternative stories silent. In Western political theory, silence is seen to imply passivity and lack of agency. It has been argued in this chapter, though, that silence can constitute an unrecognised form of political agency. It can thereby give rise to political imagination for marginalised communities and to new forms of action. Silence becomes a part of the collective stock of knowl- silence in western models of conflict resolution 53 edge through resistance, rituals, and performances, and it can create imaginative and nonconformist forms of conflict resolution and community building after conflict.

Notes 1. For example, see Kevin Avruch and Peter Black, “The Culture Question and Conflict Resolution,” Peace and Change 16, no. 1 (1991): 22–45; Kevin Avruch, Peter Black, and Joseph Scimecca (eds.), Conflict Resolution: Cross-cultural Perspectives (New York, Westport, CT, and London: Greenwood Press, 1991); Tarja Väyrynen, Culture and International Conflict Resolution (Manchester, UK, and New York: Manchester Univer- sity Press, 2001); and Tarja Väyrynen, “A Shared Understanding: Gadamer and Inter- national Conflict Resolution,” Journal of Peace Research 42, no. 3 (2005): 349–357. 2. See, for example, Morgan Brigg, “Governance and Susceptibility in Conflict Resolution: Possibilities beyond Control,” Social Legal Studies 16, no. 1 (2007): 27–47. 3. On Habermasian discourse ethics and mediation, see Deiniol Lloyd Jones, “Me- diation, Conflict Resolution and Critical Theory,” Review of International Studies 26, no. 4 (2000): 647–662. 4. Jürgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, vol. 1 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1985). 5. For example, see Jon Elster, Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). 6. I. William Zartman, “Negotiating Identity: From Metaphor to Process,” Inter- national Negotiation 6, no. 2 (2001): 137–140 at 137; Peyton Young (ed.), Negotiation Analysis (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991), p. 1. 7. Jane Flax, “Postmodernism and Gender Relations,” in Linda Nicholson (ed.), Feminism/Postmodernism (New York and London: Routledge, 1990), pp. 41–42. 8. On the individualism/collectivism divide, see Raymond Cohen, Negotiating across Cultures: Communication Obstacles in International Diplomacy (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1991), pp. 23–25; and Hwei-Jen Yang, “Communication Patterns of Individualistic and Collective Cultures: A Value Based Comparison” (paper presented at Speech Communication Association Annual Con- vention, November 18–21, 1993, Miami, FL), http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/15/36/db.pdf, pp. 4–6. 9. Sara Cobb and Janet Rifkin, “Practice and Paradox: Deconstructing Neutrality in Mediation,” Law and Social Inquiry 16, no. 1 (1991): 35–62. 10. For examples, see Kevin Avruch, Culture and Conflict Resolution (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1998); Avruch and Black, “Culture Ques- tion,” pp. 22–45; John Paul Lederach, Preparing for Peace: Conflict Transformation across Cultures (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1995); Mark Howard Ross, The Management of Conflict: Interpretations and Interests in Comparative Perspectives (New 54 mediating across difference

Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1993); and Väyrynen, Culture and Inter- national Conflict Resolution. 11. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (London: Sheed and Ward, 1979), p. 346 (originally published as Wahrheit und Methode: Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik [Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1960]). 12. Avruch and Black, “Culture Question,” pp. 32–36. 13. Kevin Avruch and Peter Black, “Conflict Resolution in Intercultural Settings: Problems and Prospects,” in Dennis Sandole and Hugo van der Merwe (eds.), Conflict Resolution Theory and Practice: Integration and Application (Manchester, UK: Manches- ter University Press, 1993), pp. 137–139. 14. Benjamin J. Broome, “Managing Differences in Conflict Resolution,” in San- dole and van der Merwe, Conflict Resolution Theory and Practice, pp. 98–106. 15. Cohen, Negotiating across Cultures. 16. Edward T. Hall, Beyond Culture (Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1977). 17. Cohen, Negotiating across Cultures, pp. 25–27. For the original division between low- and high-context cultures, see Hall, Beyond Culture. 18. Cohen, Negotiating across Cultures, pp. 26–28, 105–124. 19. Ibid., pp. 124–130. 20. Jacob Bercovitch, “The Structure and Diversity of Mediation in International Re- lations,” in Jacob Bercovitch and Jeffrey Rubin (eds.), Mediation in International Relations: Multiple Approaches to Conflict Management (Basingstoke and London: Macmillan Press, 1992), pp. 1–29; Fred Iklé, How Nations Negotiate (New York: Harper and Row, 1964). 21. For a summary on mediation models, see Väyrynen, Culture and International Conflict Resolution. 22. Mark Umbreit, “Humanistic Mediation” (2000), http://www.cehd.umn.edu/ ssw/rjp/Resources/RJ_Dialogue_Resources/Humanistic_Approach/Humanistic_ Mediation_Transormative_Journey.pdf. 23. See, for example, Lailawati Mohd Salleh, “High/Low Context Communica- tion: The Malaysian Malay Style” (proceedings of the Association for Business Com- munication, Annual Convention, 2005), http://www.businesscommunication.org/ conventionsNew/proceedingsNew/2005New/PDFs/09ABC05.pdf. 24. Chuang Tzu, The Inner Chapters, translated by David Hinton (Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 1997), p. 28. 25. Ibid. 26. Thomas Tominaga, “Ch’an, Taoism, and Wittgenstein,” Journal of Chinese Phi- losophy 10 (1983): 127–145 at 131. 27. A. J. V. Chandrakanthan, “The Silence of Buddha and His Contemplation of the Truth,” Spirituality Today 40, no. 2 (1988): 145–156 at 145. 28. Ibid. silence in western models of conflict resolution 55

29. The Analects of Confucius, translated by Arthur Waley (book II:18), http:// myweb.cableone.net/subru/Confucianism.html. 30. Yang, “Communication Patterns,” p. 9. 31. See, for example, Marsha Houston and Cheris Kramarae, “Speaking from Si- lence: Methods of Silence and Resistance,” Discourse and Society 2, no. 4 (1991): 387– 399; and Adam Jaworski, The Power of Silence: Social and Pragmatic Perspectives (New- bury Park [CA], London, and New Delhi: Sage, 1993), pp. 110–122. 32. Erik Ringmar, Identity, Interest and Action: A Cultural Explanation of Sweden’s Intervention in the Thirty Years War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 83–87. 33. For examples, see Urvashi Butalia, The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1998); and N. Yuval-Davis, Gender and Nation (London: Sage, 1997). 34. Kavita Daiya, “ ‘Honourable Resolutions’: Gendered Violence, Ethnicity and the Nation,” Alternatives 27, no. 2 (2002): 219–247 at 235. 35. For case studies, see Butalia, The Other Side of Silence; Urvashi Butalia, “A Necessary Journey: A Story of Friendship and Reconciliation,” Alternatives 27, no. 2 (2001): 147–164; Daiya, “ ‘Honourable Resolutions,’ ” pp. 219–247; Veena Das, Critical Events: An Anthropological Perspective on Contemporary India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995); Carolyn Nordstrom, A Different Kind of War Story: Ethnography of Political Violence (Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997); Maria Stern, “Nam- ing In/security—Constructing Identity: ‘Mayan-Women’ in Guatemala on the Eve of ‘Peace’ ” (PhD thesis, Göteborg University, 2001). 36. Butalia, Other Side of Silence, p. 127. 37. Francesca Declich, “When Silence Makes History: Gender and Memories of War Violence from Somalia,” in Bettina Schmidt and Ingo Schröder (eds.), Anthropol- ogy of Violence and Conflict (London: Routledge, 2001). 38. See, for example, Nthabiseng Motsemme, “The Mute Always Speak: On Wom- en’s Silence at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” Current Sociology 52, no. 5 (2004): 909–932 at 910. 39. Jenny Edkins, Trauma and the Memory of Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni- versity Press, 2003), p. 214. 40. Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 4. 41. Motsemme, “The Mute Always Speak,” p. 910. 42. Ibid., p. 925. 43. Ibid., pp. 922–923. See also Allen Feldman, “Memory Theaters, Virtual Wit- nessing and the Trauma-Aesthetic,” Biography 27, no. 1 (2004): 163–202 at 176. 44. Lisa Schirch, Ritual and Symbol in Peacebuilding (Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press, 2007). 56 mediating across difference

45. Ibid., p. 5. 46. Feldman, “Memory Theaters,” p. 179. 47. On mediation and forms of resistance, see also Brigg, “Governance and Susceptibility.” 48. Mark Davidheiser, “Rituals and Conflict Transformation: An Anthropologi- cal Analysis of the Ceremonial Dimensions of Dispute Processing” (2006), http:// v3.crinfo.org/action/search-profile.jsp?key=23575&type=web). For anthropological case studies on ritual and conflict resolution, see Alean Al-Krenawi and John Graham, “Con- flict Resolution through a Traditional Ritual among the Bedouin Arabs of the Negev,” Ethnology 38, no. 2 (1999): 163–174; and David Lipset, “Gender, Culture, Conflict Reso- lution among the Murik of Sepivik River, Papua New Guinea,” Development Bulletin 53 (2000): 38–40. Chapter 3 Local Conflict Resolution in the Shadows of Liberal International Peacebuilding

Oliver P. Richmond

Scholars and policy makers concerned with conflict resolution and peacebuilding have recently turned their attention to the importance of local community participation in efforts to generate sustainable peace. But the West- ern frameworks through which local engagement is promoted displays very specific cultural biases. The dominant form of international engagement with local practices of conflict resolution is strongly shaped by liberal approaches to peacebuilding. Such approaches revolve around a top-down approach that prescribes and then enforces particular understandings of governance. Traditional liberalism seeks to establish a contract between ruler and ruled that enables the preservation of life, liberty, and property. The accompanying Western values shape prevailing approaches to conflict resolution so strongly that the implementation of peacebuilding processes are disconnected from local cultures and the types of conflict resolution mechanism they might offer—even when Western approaches rhetorically embrace the importance of the ‘local’. The ensuing problems have become even more pronounced with the recent shift towards neoliberalism, which promotes free markets and the creation of private individual wealth, rather than more collective approaches to welfare and cultural preservation. As a result of these tendencies, recent and contemporary peacebuilding has only very rarely drawn on local practices, used local cultural resources, or even acknowledged a need for social welfare. This form of peacebuilding has been employed through the world, from Cambodia in the early 1990s to more recent cases in Bosnia, Kosovo, Timor Leste, and Afghanistan. Although few of these cases can be said to have been truly successful, a large international civil service has emerged in their wake. Many of the ensuing political engagements have

57 58 mediating across difference

Conflict Resolution, Peacebuilding, and the Liberal Peace Conflict resolution is taken, in this chapter, to indicate a multitrack peace process that involves diplomats, grassroots organisations, and citizens. In an ideal scenario the outcome satisfies all parties concerned and addresses the root causes of the conflict. Scholars who have authoritatively written on this process include John Burton and Edward Azar. Underlying their arguments is the notion that all of the various actors involved, from official representatives of organisations to private citizens, can succeed in finding a mutually acceptable solution. I use the term ‘peacebuilding’ to refer more specifically to the institutions required to achieve conflict resolution for individuals, communities, and states. Some of its advocates, such as Johan Galtung and Jean Paul Lederach, stress the need for a consensual, ‘bottom-up’ grassroots approach. Liberal approaches to conflict resolution and peacebuilding go about these activities in specific ways and by applying particular cultural values. They tend to be implemented by external actors through a top-down approach that emphasises the importance of secularism, democracy, human rights, the rule of law, free markets, and development. The scholarship of Roland Paris captures this approach best. Western-led peacebuilding is, in an important sense, a state-building project, focused on reinforcing institutions rather than communities and society. In recent years this form of peace intervention has taken on increasingly neoliberal characteristics. As a result there has been a shift from international assistance and redistribution projects towards the promotion of free markets, investment, and self-help as the basis for peace and economic development. One important effect of these peacebuilding approaches and their application for almost two decades throughout the world is the creation of a substantial international civil service. This loosely connected apparatus consists of the United Nations and its various agencies, such as the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Refugee Agency (UN High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR), as well as numerous other institutions and actors, such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), state and private donors, as well as the countless nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) they fund. thus continued far beyond their original mandates, making local communities dependent on external transitional administrations. Although external engagements in conflict are based on Western values, their legitimacy nevertheless relies on support from local actors and the population at large. But the notion of civil society that liberal approaches promote represents a very Western view of nongovernmental actors, citizens, workers, consumers, and the like. Members of the local population are empowered from above so that they can represent themselves and exercise their agency. Empow- erment is thus carried out in the shadow of ‘security’ and within the liberal ethic of individual rights, access to particular democratic institutions, and neoliberal local conflict resolution in the shadows of liberal international peacebuilding 59 notions of economic freedom. Indigenous actors in conflict zones often point scornfully to the gulf between them and this socially engineered and artificially promoted civil society imagined by international actors. Despite frequent local opposition, the liberal approach has come to define the Western-dominated peacebuilding consensus around the world.1 The ensuing agenda has taken over conflict resolution and the original grassroots orientation of peacebuilding, both of which had frequently bypassed the need to engage local cultural practices.2 The valuable lessons associated with local opposition and limited scholarly calls to engage local people have largely been lost, so that peacebuilding today is often equated with ambitious, large-scale state-building operations that endeavour to create Western institutions and a neoliberal market economy. I argue that conflict resolution and peacebuilding need to be reclaimed from Western neoliberal agendas if we are to succeed in providing a culturally sensitive framework through which war-torn societies can heal and rebuild successfully. In articulating and sustaining this argument, I draw on numerous sociological and anthropological approaches that have long lamented that liberalism and neoliberalism are unable to deal with culture in a nuanced and sophisticated manner.3 This is precisely why prevailing approaches to peacebuilding have little chance of establishing a locally self-sustaining peace. External cultural assumptions are far too often used to legitimate the liberal administration and control of politics over the local cultural and socioeconomic well-being of individuals and communities. The purpose of this chapter is to offer suggestions about how a culturally sensitive version of conflict resolution can be rescued from the agendas of prevailing liberal approaches to peacebuilding. Through a range of practical and conceptual examples I demonstrate why and how a differentiated understanding of culture is necessary if conflict resolution is to engage with the root causes of conflict and provide a type of peacebuilding process that can be acceptable to all parties concerned.

The Liberal Culture of Contemporary Peacebuilding: Effects on Conflict Resolution Conflict resolution approaches are, in their most basic form, strategies to find a mutually acceptable effort to build peace. But the dominant liberal approaches advance a much more specific strategy to postconflict reconstruction, focusing on the development of an ideal Western liberal state. The ensuing agendas have taken over most of the influential approaches to conflict resolution—both in political practice and in scholarly debates. As a result, peacebuilding has largely taken on the form of state-building. 60 mediating across difference

A Personal Journey into Peacebuilding My own fieldwork in several postconflict societies was initially motivated by the perhaps naive hope that increasingly sophisticated Western conflict resolution principles could find optimal solutions for all parties in a range of different conflicts and cultural settings. But I soon noticed a clash between, on one hand, dominant Western approaches shaped by liberal values and, on the other hand, a diverse set of largely neglected local cultures. Indigenous voices and local conflict resolution mechanisms were rarely noticed, let alone taken seriously, by the key international actors that shaped peacebuilding processes. And I realised that I and a range of fellow researchers were complicit in this pattern. The initially noble claims of conflict resolution seemed to have provided a disguise for a rather more forceful approach. I started to suspect that liberalism and neoliberalism—and the associated values that shape many conflict resolution approaches—are incapable of engaging with the local actors in any way other than as a hegemonic and imperial force. Or so at least resonated the voice of numerous citizens I talked to, from Kosovo to Afghanistan and from Sri Lanka to Bosnia. In contrast to these local frustrations, the staff of international NGOs and other organisations often complain about the lack of local capacity. They lament that locals do not understand basic tasks and cannot write or speak in English, that they treat each other badly, or that they have an inferior work ethic. Local culture is thus portrayed as primitive, valueless, and fading: quaint in part, dangerous in other aspects. The resulting assumption is that an application of liberal values and principles can rectify all these shortcomings. This is why the type of conflict resolution that is applied in the context of liberal peacebuilding implies that all locals either aspire to the liberal model or, if they do not, are in some way dysfunctional. Representatives of local grassroots organisations often told me stories of how so-called internationals make no effort to connect with them. They lament that these international experts often speak no local languages, use biased translators, and speak only to officials and elites but not to average members of the local community. The prevailing perception is that internationals come in with big plans but then blame locals when this big plan fails to bring the desired results. These misgivings resonated strongly in the dozen or so postconflict locations in which I conducted research over the last decade. I can recall countless examples of how these clashes between internationals and locals led to highly problematic outcomes. I recall, for example, an instance when a UN helicopter in a rebel-held village in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo refused to take on board a sick baby because of fears that this might upset certain parties in the peace process. I have many notebooks full of such anecdotes, demonstrating how conflict resolution in its neoliberal state-building dimensions tends to be out of touch with the individuals who are in need. The key focus, instead, rests with regulating security, risk, and institutions—that is, predominantly Western conceptions of how peace should be established and maintained. local conflict resolution in the shadows of liberal international peacebuilding 61

One of the most far-reaching implications of this liberal domination of conflict resolution has been the absence of a thorough engagement with local issues and culture. Rather than revolving around a negotiation of political and cultural challenges, peacebuilding has become a technique of governance and conflict management.4 In a liberal framework, peacebuilding aims at providing individuals with the conditions suited for ‘the good life’. This is to say that re- strictions need to be put in place to prevent uncivil behaviour and that suitable conditions should be created, in the neoliberal variant, so that individuals can then fend for themselves. Freedom, in other words, is found through self-help and the creation of governmental institutions that can further the related ob- jectives.5 Such a framework is implemented through a top-down approach of institution building, which, almost inevitably, co-opts rather than respects local cultures and local issues. The so-produced approach to peacebuilding is part of a new cosmopolitan order. For some, this order promotes emancipation and allows for difference. Yet, as Vivienne Jabri notes: “The local is in these circumstances the exotic, the private, the traditional, the parochial, the non-democratic, the non-political. Culture . . . [constitutes] that which is associated with the other of the modern, the progressive, the universal”.6 It is thus not surprising that liberal approaches to peacebuilding in postconflict environments are often resisted by local populations.7 Local protests clearly demonstrate that there is a need for sensitive approaches to conflict resolution to engage local culture and to distinguish themselves from prevailing liberal peacebuilding practices. But all too often local individuals are seen merely as workers or consumers, rather than as people who are immersed in complex emotional, social, cultural, and political networks. The neoliberal approach to peacebuilding reflects the market-oriented ideology of most ‘developed’ states, where political and social rights take prece- dence over human capacity. This dynamic is obscured by positivist problem- solving assumptions, so that when local recipients of this peacebuilding practice react negatively, it looks as if they are somehow dysfunctional to the ‘neutral’ eye of the peacebuilder. Where problems arise, locals, rather than the peacebuilding effort itself, are seen as the cause of difficulty and failure. This is why modernisation and liberalisation through peacebuilding practices often lead to situations in which local people forcefully reassert their cultural identities.8 And this is why culture has to be an important theme in any discussion of peace.9 Michael Doyle has produced a body of work that offers a nuanced critique of liberalism and in particular its claims to have ‘pacific’ qualities through its institutionalisation, freedom, and regulation of the person, state, and international relations.10 He argues that the three main traditions of liberalism, which include 62 mediating across difference liberal pacifism, liberal imperialism, and liberal internationalism, all propose democracy as an essential component of peace but make underlying normative assumptions about liberalism’s universality. In such a situation the result is all too often a conflict between supporters of liberalism and those who reject its value system. This indicates that the liberal peace argument is strongly focused on political rights and their associated institutions—an international peace between states is its overriding concern—rather than issues such as culture or economic welfare. There is little room for cultural considerations or for the actual ‘subjects’ of the social contract. In a liberal context the civil peace is viewed from above, from the perspective of elites strongly influenced by neoliberalism; it is rarely considered from the perspective of the actual people. The liberal discourse on peace therefore has focused upon state institutions rather than the original conflict resolution agendas promoted by the likes of John Burton. This liberal bias has particular effects on human life and the conceptualisation of culture, only some of which are covered by Doyle’s problema- tisation of liberalism. Liberalism’s reduction and abstraction of human life and culture lead to dangerous rational calculations that ultimately sacrifice human life and the chance of peace.11 Knowledge systems are presented as universal, when in fact they are very specific to the West.12 Such knowledge systems are also prone to isolate themselves in order to maintain belief in their own universality.13 This has the advantage of maintaining sovereign control through a liberal politics of ‘peace as governance’,14 but only through the marginalisation of welfare amongst those deemed primitive in culture or development. This view of local culture becomes a disguise for a refusal to engage with the basic requirements of the non-Western, ‘undeveloped’ other. By implication this approach assumes that the people are underdeveloped, rather than the state. The resulting social contract is not an ethical construct, nor can it engage with cultural difference. Instead, the contract is recast as an elite-level form of governance that binds citizens in the context of political rights as a priority over all else. A similar pattern is visible in the context of development issues, where dominant approaches aim to improve living standards and prosperity in the developing world, using Western knowledge and technology rather than Indig- enous approaches. Development efforts explicitly prioritise the economic over the social and cultural. Development work therefore often has little connection with local culture but rather focuses on material gain conceptualised in Western terms. This has been heavily criticised not just for being counterproductive but also for violently monopolising the ‘developing’ bodies and minds of people in order to homogenise polities within the broader liberal community of states.15 Local knowledge and culture are then reconfigured within a democratic, neoliberal state-building process controlled by liberal peacebuilders. Bodies are man- local conflict resolution in the shadows of liberal international peacebuilding 63 aged and governed, and resistance is not tolerated. Opposition is described as terrorism or corruption.16 Even if society aspires to the liberal project, however, neoliberalism means ‘bare life’ for many who suffer from poverty.17 What appears to be developing as a result of the liberal peacebuilding project today follows similar lines to the critique that Frantz Fanon advanced several decades ago with regard to the postcolonial state. He argued such states were economically defunct, could not support social relations, and resorted to coercion to control unfulfilled citizens.18 Similarly, liberal peacebuilders create capacity-less, virtually liberal postconflict states and governments in the expectation that society will respond positively. But as Fanon indicated, economic, social, and cultural life are interlinked and cannot be divorced in the way that liberal versions of peacebuilding assume. As a result the social and cultural glue that forms the key to the creation of a social contract between the governed and the state is lost. By implication, liberal peacebuilding identifies local politics as deviant. Lo- cal communities are consigned to a basic life of political rights without economic opportunities, and deaths are put down to poverty rather than inade- quate economic provision of a viable economic climate by liberal peacebuilders. Viewed through this lens, continuing poverty is put down to underdevelopment or to cultural dysfunction rather than to liberal peacebuilding. Effectively, this implies that there is no local culture worth intervening to preserve. The focus must be on democratic and market institutions as the precursor of societal and cultural well-being. Western liberalism constantly juxtaposes itself with others who are identified as ‘barbaric’ in their opposition to the liberal norm.19 Barbarians are noted only for their violence until they have graduated into the school of mature liberal societies and states.20 Edward Said analysed the cultural implications of this form of ‘Orientalism’ in which liberals dominate and dehumanise the nonliberal, non-Western subject.21 For some this means death through conflict, humanitarian intervention, preventive war, torture, genocide, or human rights abuse. But what concerns us here are the widespread situations where local culture and voices are suppressed—a situation of poverty-with-rights, so to speak. In many postconflict societies people are politically enabled but economically vulnerable: the cultural assumption is that these two fundamental components of liberalism, connected in the West by a long agreement on a set of welfare-oriented policies in most states, can be disconnected in the peacebuilding context because these are underdeveloped (read: primitive) polities, in which civil society is minimal. The liberal modernisation project clashes with the local where identity and cultural concerns defy rational progress towards liberal governance. Indeed, some have argued, following Karl Polyani, that capitalism and its incul- cation into multilateral development institutions are indicative of a disciplinary 64 mediating across difference approach in which social relations are dismembered if they impede neoliberalism.22 Polyani asserted that fascism was the outcome of liberalism’s failure,23 where civil society’s resistance was disciplined by the capitalist state. Some of these issues are now being investigated in the context of emerging literature on culture and conflict resolution and on the question of Indigenous methodologies of peace. But there is still very little work on the question of how peacebuilders see or ignore the Indigenous. The focus is instead on human rights and political representation, which is constituted according to the inter- veners’ own normative frameworks and social or political expectations. This biases peacemaking and peacebuilding efforts towards the replication of life via top-down governance as a parallel to that in developed liberal states. The major omissions this brings about relate in particular to a general belief that culture, identity, and peace are universally constituted. There is an obvious inconsistency here relating to the relative value ascribed to political, social, and cultural practice. Democratisation is advocated as soon as elections are held. Votes and social change effectively represent abstract reform. The most basic attribute of a liberal society is the ability to be productive and therefore independent, offering individuals the capacity to support themselves and their families as political and social reform develops. Yet this aspect often lags far behind other reform projects, meaning that individuals are left to fend for themselves in an economic environment where opportunities are generally absent. What emerges from all of this is the massive emphasis on institution building, external trusteeship and administration, and the importing of liberal values alongside political, social, economic, and development models by a community of peacebuilders who focus on blueprint institutions over individual needs. These actors profess to ‘do no harm’ and often turn to local cultural practices only to assimilate them into the top-down construction of the liberal peace, in order to give this project a sheen of legitimacy and grassroots consent. But this turn normally does not occur until after a top-down institutional approach has been tried and has begun to show signs of failure. It has been well documented that peacebuilding interventions have only very limited understandings of local culture and instead depend upon the local acceptance of their own dominant cultural systems. Where this does not occur, limited attempts at a mutual negotiation between international peacebuilding norms and local normative frameworks do emerge, but usually in an assimilative sense. This approach often ap- peals to a rather romantic ideal of local culture, while at the same time blaming it for being subject to beliefs and practices that led to the conflict in the first place. Local attitudes are also often assumed to underlie any spoiling violence while a peace process is under way. This reflects the mindset of neoliberalism: a local conflict resolution in the shadows of liberal international peacebuilding 65 blueprint based upon a set of assumptions about institutions and economic development, enacted by privileged and wealthy actors who are tasked with ‘drag- ging along’ the rest of society. Culture and welfare are therefore again secondary and not seen as significant in the short or long term. The civil peace is often said to be the most significant component of the liberal peacebuilding project. After all, what good are institutions if the general population of a state does not take part in them or they do not represent a contract between individual, representatives, and the state? This implies a social contract. Yet critical thinkers have pointed out that the civil peace is often virtual, a charade, referred to by international actors only to legitimate the new institutional reforms they sponsor. At best, local culture and society are recognised as dependent entities in a relationship of conditionality with international actors, who act benevolently, on their behalf, but according to their own external interests and norms. Here the ‘civil peace’ is predicated on NGOs taking responsibility for civil society and providing its requirements for a helpless, hapless, and deficient society. This is a Western cultural conception, predicated on social and political rights. The Western and liberal focus on political rights as separate and superior to cultural and economic rights betrays a certain Orientalism towards the inhabitants of developing states.

Clashing Cultural Values over Peacebuilding Priorities in Timor Leste and Cambodia A broad view of state-building interventions since the end of the Cold War shows that high levels of local resistance have emerged both in terms of political discourse and in terms of guerrilla or terrorist violence targeting international peacebuilders, humanitarian workers, and soldiers. This can clearly be seen in the policy evolution that has occurred from Somalia to Timor Leste, and extending into intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq. Considerations of local cultural knowledge, reactions, and requirements have been extremely limited. Instead, an escalation of interventions has occurred, each driving the next, deeper intervention. Taken together, this evolution in the approach to interventions indicates that international actors do not think locals are capable of running their own affairs. This is politically disabling and represents an assumption that cultures of violence and poverty are too deeply entrenched to allow local actors to act freely along the lines of the liberal peace framework without international tutelage. Internationals are said to possess superior knowledge that must be passed on through extensive training. Locals, by contrast, are seen as culturally primitive and institutionally corrupt. Yet what internationals fail to see here is that they are offering frameworks that do not provide cultural recognition or welfare, and they often actively intervene to prevent Indigenous institutions from providing these. 66 mediating across difference

For example, in the liberal peacebuilding process in Timor Leste the United Nations took on the role of sovereign government, the ultimate expression of liberal governance. After a hasty liberal peacebuilding operation run more from New York and donor capitals than from Dili, international actors have tutored the new state while under the illusion that a sustainable peace had already been created. Yet the signs of a breakdown have been present since the UN left in 2002, and the near collapse of the state for political and socioeconomic reasons should not have been a surprise. These factors were clearly recognised in the UN secretary-general’s report on Timor Leste in August 2006,24 and in 2007 the UN Development Programme reported that the present crisis in Timor Leste was due to poverty and unemployment.25 The focus of internationals has been on political and institutional reform, while the primary problem in Timor Leste has been the lack of social welfare and a liberal rendering of politics (and neoliberal rendering of poverty). This prioritised politics and institutions and relegated poverty and welfare—as well as Indigenous intellectual resources—to an insignificant position. Criticism of the role of the UN and other international donors had long focused upon their lack of engagement with local socioeconomic problems and on their complete disregard for local cultural dynamics. Political, cultural, and economic problems culminated in a ‘Timorisation campaign’ in which local actors called for more control of their affairs—somewhat reminiscent of a similar ‘Kosovonisation’ campaign a few years earlier.26 Even some senior international bureaucrats, such as Jarat Chopra, left the UN operation in protest against its inability to respect and negotiate with the local people in a culturally sensitive manner. Chopra explicitly criticised the role of ‘internationals’ and called for the transfer of more responsibility to local actors. But the reverse actually occurred. Meanwhile, many NGOs located in Dili largely confirmed the criticism that international agencies were failing to appropriately engage local people as well as their needs and cultural expectations. A lack of consultation and a distance between internationals and locals have, indeed, long been noted. A common complaint has been that locals cannot contribute meaningfully to the state-building exercise, in part because their very capacity is ignored by the international actors that dominate the peacebuilding process.27 These claims have been exacerbated by the emphasis of the operation in Timor Leste on top-down peacebuilding and governance at the expense of bottom-up peacebuilding, social justice, and welfare. This imbalance is rationally constructed upon the edifice of Western experiences of state-building. But in Timor Leste, neoliberalism had undermined the process of state-building by ig- noring the cultural priorities and practices of local communities. Overall, internationals and the UN assumed that locals in Timor Leste could not participate local conflict resolution in the shadows of liberal international peacebuilding 67 in governance or development because they did not have the skills, experience, or language to cooperate with the internationals. This meant that Timor Leste was a terra nullius where cultural considerations and local consent were less significant than results in building a liberal peace. This Orientalist mindset allowed the UN and internationals to claim and establish a sovereign authority. UN governance in Timor Leste was developed to replace lost or nonexistent political capacity. But it is questionable whether this improved the lives of the new state’s citizens. Indeed, the ‘lack of local capacity’ became a mantra that internationals deployed to legitimate their control of governance in Timor Leste. Local actors, who pointed instead to the lack of local language skills, cultural understanding, and empathy on the part of many internationals, disputed this absence.28 Similar patterns can be observed in Cambodia. In this peacebuilding and state-building operation the focus was initially on a regional peace agreement at the diplomatic level, which was thought then to form a basis for a state-building process run by the UN. A generic form of Western-style democratisation was seen as a key aspect of this process. Much criticism has been levelled at it and the subsequent peacebuilding operation for failing to engage with the local realities of Cambodian society. However, from the perspective of top-down formal peacebuilding studies, this case is often represented as a great success. Yet this attempt to construct a liberal state with a neoliberal economy has had little impact. Nor has the democratisation process fared much better.29 International peacebuilders have assumed that an Indigenous political and economic system is completely absent, thus legitimating the installation of the liberal peace framework upon a ‘terra nullius’. This was carried out with little regard for actually existing practices and institutions, which were automatically delegitimised even if they were not part of the dysfunctional politics that had led to conflict in the first place. This accentuated the focus on ‘peace as governance’, in which liberal modes of governance for all of a state’s key aspects are installed, and often even controlled, by international actors. In Cambodia this meant that as soon as the UN relinquished direct control of governance, local political elites were forced to find ways of continuing their contest over power and resources, but within the confines of the liberal peace framework the internationals had left them with. Rather than encouraging local elites and international peacebuilders to cooperate on providing resources for local communities and engaging with local cultural resources that might consolidate peace and the state, the focus remained on state-level competition and co-option, defined in terms of material resources. Indeed, as in Timor Leste, international perceptions of the local tends to define it as lacking capacity as well as being corrupt, conflict prone, and illiberal. In Timor Leste, the state and modern economy barely reach beyond 68 mediating across difference the capital, Dili, and most citizens resort to community and customary forms of social, political, and economic organisation. In Cambodia similar patterns Peacebuilding and a Social can be seen, though where the state reaches beyond the capital in political and Contract The basis of a liberal political economic terms it is through an authoritarian form of politics and a predatory order is said to be a social contract economy. between leaders, institutions, and International donors, frustrated by corruption and weakness of state gov- their constituencies. Therefore, in ernance, often fund NGOs directly as a way of circumventing the challenges situations where external actors build peace for others one would they find in recipient countries. Though this funding is aimed at providing assume that the same requirement humanitarian assistance and public services, it also undermines local capacity applies: a serious engagement with and thus exacerbates the very problem it is supposed to solve. Indeed there local cultures and their traditions of is little consultation as to what projects donors should fund through NGOs, managing and solving conflict. Such leading to what even liberal commentators such as Francis Fukuyama call ‘ca- has not been the case so far. Liberal approaches have tended to ignore 30 pacity destruction’. This dilemma is reinforced by the continued domination local cultures. Needed, then, is a of political power that underwrites the patronage system in Cambodia and situation where Western politicians, allows networks to be constructed from the top down, based on loyalty and diplomats, and aid workers engage rewards. Such dynamics can be seen in liberal states of course, but political with local contingencies and cultural practices prior to projecting their defeat and the possibility of marginalisation from power are of relatively more own models of conflict resolution. consequence in a society where resources are particularly scarce. From the per- Only then might a social contract spective of international peacebuilders such an analysis helps explain why local between culturally diverse com- social, political, and cultural dynamics are responsible for a lack of progress, munities and their political leaders become a basis for an emancipatory rather than inadequacies in the liberal peacebuilding framework itself. In light form of peace. Without this, exter- of this, it is unsurprising that it is widely argued that ‘civil society’ does not nally prompted conflict resolution exist in Cambodia, hence reinforcing the need for continued intervention. Yet, and peacebuilding may become given the deep-seated practice of patronage, doubts plague the effectiveness a thinly veiled colonial project in of the introduced ‘civil society’, especially given the dependency of NGOs and which the intervener imports frame- 31 works, institutions, and norms that other groups upon external funding. Civil society is quite possibly an illusion- represent its interests and subju- ary ‘virtual’ or ‘parallel’ society created by the presence and funding of the gates recipients. internationals and mainly visible to international eyes. Far from aiding the development and sustainability of an Indigenous civil society and a recognition of local cultural resources for peacebuilding, it is instead representative of a top-down imposition of external values and political institutions. In both cases, local practices, often emerging from community, traditional, and customary systems, have until recently been relatively invisible or ignored. Yet they have also inadvertently made the liberal state project appear to be relatively feasible by providing for a localised form of peace beyond the oversights of the liberal edifice.

Conclusion The currently dominant approaches to conflict resolution and peacebuilding have not seriously considered culture other than as a mechanistic way in local conflict resolution in the shadows of liberal international peacebuilding 69 the capital, Dili, and most citizens resort to community and customary forms which locals can be co-opted into lib- of social, political, and economic organisation. In Cambodia similar patterns eral peacebuilding. This is an expres- Peacebuilding and a Social can be seen, though where the state reaches beyond the capital in political and sion of a very specific culture of Contract The basis of a liberal political economic terms it is through an authoritarian form of politics and a predatory peacebuilding that blocks out the In- order is said to be a social contract economy. digenous, romanticises it, or blames between leaders, institutions, and International donors, frustrated by corruption and weakness of state gov- it. As a result, the prevailing interna- their constituencies. Therefore, in ernance, often fund NGOs directly as a way of circumventing the challenges tional approaches to peacebuilding situations where external actors build peace for others one would they find in recipient countries. Though this funding is aimed at providing fail to engage adequately with local assume that the same requirement humanitarian assistance and public services, it also undermines local capacity conflict resolution practices. They applies: a serious engagement with and thus exacerbates the very problem it is supposed to solve. Indeed there also have lost sight of the earlier local cultures and their traditions of is little consultation as to what projects donors should fund through NGOs, goals of conflict resolution. If the di- managing and solving conflict. Such leading to what even liberal commentators such as Francis Fukuyama call ‘ca- rect physical needs and capacities of has not been the case so far. Liberal approaches have tended to ignore 30 pacity destruction’. This dilemma is reinforced by the continued domination local individuals are not dealt with, local cultures. Needed, then, is a of political power that underwrites the patronage system in Cambodia and then any expression of interest in situation where Western politicians, allows networks to be constructed from the top down, based on loyalty and culture is mere lip service that does diplomats, and aid workers engage rewards. Such dynamics can be seen in liberal states of course, but political not offer any substantial political with local contingencies and cultural practices prior to projecting their defeat and the possibility of marginalisation from power are of relatively more value. The best that can be achieved own models of conflict resolution. consequence in a society where resources are particularly scarce. From the per- through such an approach is an ex- Only then might a social contract spective of international peacebuilders such an analysis helps explain why local ternally supported or coerced virtual between culturally diverse com- social, political, and cultural dynamics are responsible for a lack of progress, peace that is based on imported rath- munities and their political leaders become a basis for an emancipatory rather than inadequacies in the liberal peacebuilding framework itself. In light er than local values. form of peace. Without this, exter- of this, it is unsurprising that it is widely argued that ‘civil society’ does not Prevailing liberal approaches to nally prompted conflict resolution exist in Cambodia, hence reinforcing the need for continued intervention. Yet, peacebuilding are based upon an as- and peacebuilding may become given the deep-seated practice of patronage, doubts plague the effectiveness sumption that governance, develop- a thinly veiled colonial project in of the introduced ‘civil society’, especially given the dependency of NGOs and ment, and indeed conflict resolution which the intervener imports frame- 31 works, institutions, and norms that other groups upon external funding. Civil society is quite possibly an illusion- are ‘before’ culture. Within this ap- represent its interests and subju- ary ‘virtual’ or ‘parallel’ society created by the presence and funding of the proach to peace, constructed upon gates recipients. internationals and mainly visible to international eyes. Far from aiding the the edifice of Enlightenment think- development and sustainability of an Indigenous civil society and a recognition ing, there is little room for emotion of local cultural resources for peacebuilding, it is instead representative of a or imagination, and instead a technocratic focus on rights, reason, and rational- top-down imposition of external values and political institutions. In both cases, ity predominates. This logic drove peacebuilding in Timor Leste, for instance, local practices, often emerging from community, traditional, and customary and led to, among a range of issues, an attempt to sideline the local Tetun lan- systems, have until recently been relatively invisible or ignored. Yet they have guage in favour of Portuguese. Add to this that the key problems of poverty also inadvertently made the liberal state project appear to be relatively feasible and unemployment had not been addressed, suggesting that the multitude of by providing for a localised form of peace beyond the oversights of the liberal international organisations involved did not see fundamental questions, includ- edifice. ing cultural expression and basic human welfare, as major elements of political stability. The international organisations were soon proved wrong: in particular, Conclusion their implicit consigning of the poor and unemployed to poverty had major im- The currently dominant approaches to conflict resolution and peacebuild- plications for democratisation and for stability. The Western cultural assump- ing have not seriously considered culture other than as a mechanistic way in tion that political rights come before economic and social rights was revealed 70 mediating across difference to be dangerously flawed. Examples such as that of Timor Leste indicate a denial of Indigenous capacity and culture in order to insert the agency of liberal peacebuilders. If peacebuilding is to actually build a self-sustaining peace, then it needs to open a process of genuine communication between internationals and the recipients of peacebuilding. One option would be for peacebuilding to construct a social contract by creating frameworks that emanate from, draw on, and are cog- nisant of local constituencies. Such a bottom-up approach would require West- ern conflict resolution and peacebuilding approaches to acknowledge their inherent limits. Local cultural knowledge and conflict resolution processes could then be drawn upon in the effort to build a type of peace that is supported and sustained by local communities from the bottom up. Doing so might seem to be a major task, but it is essential if approaches to peacebuilding are to overcome some of the major problems they have faced so far.

Notes 1. As Lal has pointed out, culture has come to the forefront of debates about governance and development recently. Deepak Lal, “Culture, Democracy, and Development” (paper presented at the IMF Conference on Second Generation Reforms, September 20, 1999). 2. For some notable exceptions, see Tarja Väyrynen, Culture and International Con- flict Resolution (Manchester, UK, and New York: Manchester University Press, 2001); John Lederach, Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 1997); Kevin Avruch, Culture and Conflict Resolution (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1998); Elise Boulding, Cul- tures of Peace (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000). 3. David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York: Basic Books, 1973); Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, translated by Richard Nice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), p. 214. 4. Here I use the widely recognised differentiation between resolution (achieving a far-reaching mutually acceptable settlement) and management (simply removing violence). 5. See, for example, Arthur McEwan, Neo-Liberalism or Democracy (London: Zed, 1999). 6. Vivienne Jabri, War and the Transformation of Global Politics (London: Palgrave, 2007), p. 267. 7. Ibid. 8. M. Castells, The Power of Identity (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2003). See also Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism (London: Vintage, 1994). local conflict resolution in the shadows of liberal international peacebuilding 71

9. Jacinta O’Hagan, Conceptualizing the West in International Relations (London: Palgrave, 2002), p. 232. 10. Michael Doyle, “Liberal Internationalism, Peace, War, and Democracy,” http:// nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/articles/doyle/index.html. See also Michael Doyle, Ways of War and Peace (New York: Norton, 1997). 11. For a fascinating exposition on this insight, see Christine Sylvester, “Art, Ab- straction, and IR,” Millennium 30, no. 3 (2001): 535–554 at 540. 12. Ibid., p. 541. See also Sandra Harding, Is Science Multicultural? (South Bend: Indiana University Press, 1998). 13. Paul Feyerabend, Conquest of Abundance, pp. 223–224, cited in Sylvester, “Art, Abstraction, and IR,” p. 541. 14. Oliver P. Richmond, Transformation of Peace (London: Palgrave, 2005), chaps. 4 and 5. 15. See, among others, Christine Sylvester, “Bare Life as Development/Post-Colo- nial Problematic,” Geographical Journal 172, no. 1 (2006): 66–77 at 66; J. Briggs and J. Sharp, “Indigenous Knowledge and Development,” Third World Quarterly 25 (2004): 661–676; Mark Duffield, “Social Reconstruction and the Radicalisation of Develop- ment,” Development and Change 33 (2002): 1049–1071. 16. Rajeev Patel and Philip McMichael, “Third Worldism and the Lineages of Global Fascism,” Third World Quarterly 25 (2004): 231–254. 17. Ibid., p. 7. 18. Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (London: Penguin, 1967), pp. 132–138. 19. See S. Chan, P. Mandaville, and R. Bleiker, The Zen of International Relations (London: Palgrave, 2001). 20. G. Spivak, A Critique of Post-Colonial Reason (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni- versity Press, 1999), p. 277. 21. Edward Said, Orientalism (London: Penguin, 1978), p. 291. 22. Patel and McMichael, “Third Worldism,” p. 235. 23. Cited in ibid., p. 239. 24. UN Secretary-General’s Report on Timor-Leste Pursuant to Security Council Reso- lution 1690 (August 8, 2006), esp. pars. 34–35. 25. United Nations Development Program, UNDP Timor Leste News Monthly, Feb- ruary 2007, p. 4. 26. Michael G. Smith, Peacekeeping in East Timor (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2003), p. 63. 27. Sidonio Frietas, programme manager, Democracy and Governance Pro- gramme, USAID, interview with the author, November 11, 2004. 28. This was a constant complaint encountered in November 2004 during fieldwork in East Timor amongst agencies, NGOs, the UN, and other internationals. 72 mediating across difference

29. Editorial in Phnom Penh Post, 2005. Day and month unknown. 30. Francis Fukuyama, State Building: Governance and World Order in the Twenty- first Century (London: Profile Books, 2004), p. 55. 31. Official source at USAID, interview with the author, Phnom Penh, November 8, 2005. II australian Aboriginal and MA¯ori Approaches to Conflict Resolution

Chapter 4 Conflict Murri Way Managing through Place and Relatedness

Mary Graham, Morgan Brigg, and Polly O. Walker

Aboriginal Australian people have had many millennia to reflect upon fundamental human questions: How do we live together without killing each other off? How do we live without substantially damaging the environment? Why do we live? And how do we find answers to these questions in a way that does not make people feel alienated, lonely, or murderous?1 The answers to these questions manifest in Aboriginal Australia not so much in prescribed conflict resolution processes but in nuanced and sophisticated social and political governance systems for managing human relations. What might the resulting cultures and social and political systems of Aboriginal Australia—systems of the world’s oldest surviving culture, developed over tens of thousands of years with limited contact with outsiders—be able to teach the wider community of peoples, scholars, and practitioners about security and conflict management? How might this wider community hear—and what is the appropriate way for it to hear—insights for rethinking dominant approaches to conflict resolution amidst ongoing colonisation and the marginalisation of Indigenous voices? Aboriginal conflict management practices and political systems vary significantly across the Australian continent. They have also shifted and changed over time with the impacts of colonisation. In many cases both practices and systems have been severely damaged and attenuated. Nonetheless, Aboriginal people in rural, remote, and urban contexts strive to manage conflicts skilfully, in ways that restore balance by drawing upon their traditions. Some practices endure; others are recuperated as necessary. While there is significant variation across space and time, there is also sufficient continuity across the continent for us to draw out important themes for consideration beyond the specialised do-

75 76 mediating across difference

Australian Aboriginal people live predominantly in mainland Australia and Tasmania. With culturally distinct Torres Strait Islanders, who live between the northern tip of Queensland and the border with Papua New Guinea, they make up Australia’s Indigenous people and approximately 2.5 percent of the overall population. Perspectives vary on the question of origins. Archaeologists debate dates for first arrival on the continent, with most estimates ranging from forty thousand to fifty thousand years ago. But most Aboriginal people assert that they became human in this country instead of any sense of coming from anywhere else first. Contact with people beyond the continent was limited until colonisation. A wave of British colonisation, beginning with penal transportations from 1788, decimated Aboriginal populations through disease, expropriation of land, and frontier massacres. The impacts of dispossession, dislocation (many Abo- riginal people were moved off traditional lands), and colonial violence continue to affect Aboriginal people. There remains, as part of a range of socioeconomic shortfalls that are commonly parsed as ‘Aboriginal disadvantage’, almost a twenty-year gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous life expectancies. The Commonwealth was granted power to legislate in relation to Aboriginal people as the result of a 1967 referendum, and there has been limited granting of land rights and native title from the 1970s. But many of the political demands of Aboriginal Australia have not been met. A treaty or similar settlement has never been negotiated, and serious recognition by the Settler order of prior Aboriginal political standing—akin to sovereignty, for instance—is yet to occur. In the first part of the twentieth century, policy makers and legislators justified policies aimed at ‘breeding out’ Aboriginality and overlooked violent and oppressive dimensions of government policy by assuming that Indigenous people were ‘naturally’ dying out. But the population of Aboriginal people increased from the 1950s, with strong political and cultural movements also emerging from this time. While the effects of dislocation, dispossession, and colonial violence continue to plague communities, Australian Aboriginal people have survived colonisation. mains of Australian ethnography and Aboriginal studies. While the word ‘Mur- ri’ in our title refers loosely to Aboriginal people from Queensland, many of the themes we draw out have broader resonance. This is particularly so with regard to organising philosophical principles—Dreaming and Law—and the accompanying notions of relatedness, balance, autonomy, self-regulation, and becoming human. These principles are the foundation that informs Aboriginal conflict management practices. The political context for our effort to explore Australian Aboriginal contributions for rethinking dominant approaches to conflict resolution is sensitive. Aboriginal people have consistently attempted to establish relationships of equality and mutually beneficial exchange with Settler-Australians. In doing so, they have frequently shared their philosophies and approaches to social order conflict murri way 77 with outsiders. But Aboriginal and Western knowledge forms and their modes of expression and transmission frequently differ, and this has led to problems. Misunderstandings are widespread. The experience of sharing has often been unsatisfactory for Aboriginal people for other reasons too. Knowledge has been appropriated disrespectfully, new knowledge has been used by the powerful to further dispossess Aboriginal people, and little tangible political, economic, or other benefits have flowed to Aboriginal people themselves. Meaningful exchange in these circumstances requires engaging with Aboriginal tradition and philosophy on equal terms. An appropriate way to do so might be to note the survival value of an old culture, to note that Aboriginal philosophy has something to teach more broadly. Along these lines, Lilla Watson finds a lesson for today in the often disastrous efforts of early Australian colonists to know the new continent in which they found themselves. She states: “Enough ‘explorers’ have already starved in our country amidst abundant but unrecognized nour- ishment”.2 As we consider the challenges of conflict across difference in the current global context, Aboriginal approaches to conflict resolution may contain important political insights for pursuing conflict resolution in the twenty- first century. We begin this chapter with an account of a violent conflict within an urban Aboriginal community, a story we will revisit throughout the chapter to illustrate key points. After the account we turn to the key philosophical ideas of Law and Dreaming and accompanying principles of multiplicity and balance. Our second and third sections discuss the interplay of autonomy and relatedness, and ideas of becoming human in the context of Law and Dreaming. We then reconsider the events of the urban conflict to show how a type of emergent conflict management occurs through the everyday playing-out of principles of Aboriginal social organisation. We conclude with suggestions about possibilities for an exchange with Aboriginal Australia to expand approaches to conflict resolution.

Vagaries of Social Life Tragic and horrible events occur among Australian Aboriginal people, as they do among all peoples. W. E. H. Stanner notes that Aboriginal social life is not “without vitality, without cross-purposes, or without conflict”. There is also “plenty . . . of malice, enmity, bad faith, and violence”.3 As in other societies, and as the boxed text titled “Brokering Peace” shows, violent and distressing events threaten social order and harmony. Aboriginal society is not ‘peaceful’ in the sense of a people living harmoniously and ‘close to nature’, an image that is sometimes evoked by primitivist accounts. Nonetheless, conflicts and violence are also managed skilfully in ways that restore balance to community. Management may occur through particu- 78 mediating across difference

Brokering Peace Sometime in the 1980s in Brisbane, a violent event occurred in the Ab- original community. The event involved a young girl being beaten to death by her boyfriend. The two had been taking drugs and alcohol when an argument started; it ended in the girl being knocked unconscious. Sometime during the night she died. The boy realised this in the morning and fled the scene. The girl’s body was discovered, and the police were called. Because several people had known that the girl and boy had been together and fighting, it was assumed that the boy had killed her. The police started a search to arrest him. The news of the death reached the girl’s ‘mob’ (family and relatives in Aboriginal English) and the wider Aboriginal community. The girl’s mob were incensed and determined to find the boy and kill him before the police found him. Her mob began a search all over Brisbane, looking in places where the boy might hide out, visiting his family and generally warning members of his mob of their intentions. So a race was on among the police looking to arrest the boy, the girl’s mob out for revenge, and some members of the boy’s own mob searching for him to encourage him to give himself up to the police. Several Aboriginal organisations were also searching for the boy, negotiating with his family to persuade the boy to come in, and, with the involvement and assistance of Aboriginal Elders, trying to negotiate a peaceful meeting between the two mobs. This went on for several days, but by the time of the girl’s funeral the boy still had not been found. How- ever, the dynamics of the situation had changed. At the funeral the girl’s family announced to the large assembly through a spokesman (an uncle) that they were calling off the hunt. The uncle stated that the girl’s family hoped for (and would allow) the boy to come in to the police of his own accord to receive his punishment, that they did not want any more “bad blood” between the two families, and that they wanted the girl’s spirit to be at rest. The announcement was made for the members of the boy’s family who were present. But it was also a public message for the whole community, including certain members of their own mob who were still quite determined to carry out the vengeful task. The boy was ‘found’ not long after the announcement at the funeral.

lar practices of conflict resolution and protocols of diplomacy, but this almost always comes about in dynamic rather than prescribed actions and events.4 These actions emerge as a part of the fabric of human existence in the context of a sophisticated social and political system. Stanner explains that an “essential humanity exists and runs its course . . . within a system whose first principle is the preservation of balance”. Organising this system is “the logos of the Dream- ing”.5 In striving to become more fully human within this system, Aboriginal people learn to regulate their behaviour in ways that support the balancing of relationships necessary for social order. conflict murri way 79

Place, Dreaming, Law, and Relatedness Land has a particular and privileged status in Australian Aboriginal philosophy. This status is usually designated through the English language terms ‘Place’ and ‘Country’. For Aboriginal people, these terms signal that land is not inert or inactive. Place is both a source and a companion: it participates in reciprocal relation with humans.6 It is a vehicle for the authentic explanation of how and why things (including people, animals, and other beings and commodi- ties) come into the world. Meaning, too, enters the world through Place. The relationships established in this way provide a balance among spheres of social action, with Place as the point of origin. Balance and rebalance is achieved when Place is used as an ontological compass, as a vehicle for orienting existence.7

Spirit and Human Agency

Land Critical and Place Community Variable Social Origin Networks Beginning/End

Individual, Family, Clan, Group

The relationship of people to Place may have been disrupted; they may not be living in their home Country or may be otherwise distant from it. Such dis- tancing from Country likely applies for many of the key players in the “Broker- ing Peace” story recounted above, and this disconnection may be seen as one source of the imbalance that led to the tragic death. But because land endures, people’s relationship to Place continues to provide a template for social life, which, with effort, can be recuperated as necessary. At the centre of this template is Dreaming or Law. Dreaming brings the world and human beings into existence. It serves as a type of poetic ordering principle, or Law, for guiding individual behaviour and relations among people.8 The Dreaming references the activity of spirit ances- 80 mediating across difference tors who came out of the earth, moved across it, and re-entered.9 The everyday activity of Dreaming ancestors—their relating, fighting, loving—during their time on the surface of the landscape shaped the physical landscape in ways that are recognisable to human inhabitants. This landscape in turn allows humans to recognise themselves in Country in connection with ancestors. All existence has a moral Mary: value, then, due to its entwinement with the In those Dreaming Dreaming. Ancestors play an ongoing role in stories, affairs of land and people as Dreaming and Law Every contingency are articulated and affirmed in everyday social Has been taken into and political affairs and in story, song, and oth- account In all of those stories er mechanisms for passing Law on to younger Everything generations. That could have hap- For Aboriginal people, Law is not so much pened has happened a code or codes to be followed as it is a complex It’s so old, The stories have a dream totality of the foregoing fluid philosophical, so- like quality. cial, and political ways of being and interacting. These are interpreted individually to provide guidance in everyday life. Law refers existence back to Place and Country as people recognise themselves in Place through story. The fusion of being, sociopolitical existence, and Place through Dreaming provides a useful reference point for thinking about Aboriginal philosophy. Principles of relatedness, networks, and embeddedness are particularly important.10 The “ontological status of the Aboriginal world is always pluralistic”, as Tony Swain observes,11 because the sites of world-formative events (created by the ancestors) are many, and because these sites are set in dynamic rela- Polly: I remember Auntie Penny Tripcony saying she would get so frustrated with tion with human in people who thought Dreaming applied habitants. There is no only to the time in the past when the singular, originary, or Dreaming Ancestors were creating. overarching Aboriginal Many people don’t understand that the Dreaming is also now and in the future. Law or Dreaming in the Mary: Dreaming is a noun and . . . way that Westerners con- Polly: An ongoing process. It’s a noun and a ceive of sovereignty, as verb. the rule of law or the Morgan: Yes, the mainstream sense is that it nation. But there is con- is a verb, but in describing Aboriginal ontology and philosophy, it’s also used nection between mani- as a noun. Stanner talks about it as an festations of Law and everywhen, a poetic Logos. Dreaming. Law mani- conflict murri way 81 fests differently in different places, but the Dreaming Tracks of ancestors typically travel across the lands of several, and sometimes numerous, Aboriginal groups. So shared or similar stories, or Dreamings, serve as a common source of Law, and different manifestations of Law are negotiated, among groups and across the continent, in a networked manner.12 At the centre of this networked system is relationship and relatedness.13 So even where relationships with Place have been disrupted,14 networks of Place serve as a template for social relations that play out through extended family networks. Individuals do not come into existence or subsist as self-sufficient or discrete entities, and people do not have exclusive rights to a particular place or places.15 So each person is necessarily involved and entwined with others and finds his or her identity and individuality within the group as a result. When the death narrated above occurs, family members of the boy and girl are irrevocably involved. They are connected with each other, in this case through grief and anger. Beyond the vagaries of social life, including tragic events such as those ex- hibited in the above story, connection with Place, whether direct or mediated through Place’s role as a template for social relatedness, provides Aboriginal people with a type of unconditional ontological security. A basic precept of Abo- riginal worldview is that ‘you are not alone in the world’.16 Place serves as a sentient companion, a calibrating device that informs Aboriginal people of ‘where’ and ‘who’ they are at any time. The individual person is never pitched against the world as a conscious isolate. She or he is never alone, because the world is alive and animated, through the Dreaming, with a wide range of beings and because she or he is always “emplaced”—and called into existence—through this same Dreaming. Existence is not in any way competitive in the sense of individuals cast against the world or each other that is often evoked in Western accounts. The metaphysical corollary is striking. “The Western question, ‘What is the meaning of life?’ is simultaneously answered and displaced by the Aboriginal question, ‘What is it that wants to know?’ ”17 Relationships (with others) and with Place may be difficult or attenuated, and in extreme cases they may even be eschewed by Aboriginal people themselves at particular times. But relatedness and connection are nonetheless always available for people. The interplay of Place, Dreaming, Law, and relatedness offers a type of encompassing support for people. A person’s relationship with Place and with others may be disrupted or difficult as in the “Brokering Peace” story, or their personal behaviour may preclude connections at particular times. And if connections are disrupted, hard work may be required to re-establish them. But the ontological security provided through Place endures. Although personal behav- 82 mediating across difference iour may block connections in some ways, individuals are typically not excluded on this basis. Within the Law there is no notion of the perfectibility of humans. People are generally and quite naturally vulnerable beings given to the vagaries of events, feelings, and human and spiritual agency. People may be more or less Lawful, or may choose to take up or refuse responsibilities with regard to the Law, but their place is always secured.

Multiplicity and Balance The open expression of a multiplicity of views and perspectives is central to sustaining a balanced and relatively nonhierarchical system. A range of perspectives is not merely ‘tolerated’. It is necessary for the creation of knowledge, which supports the ‘abidingness’ that emerges when relationships among people, Place, and Law are in balance. The following diagram illustrates the principle:18

Individual, family, All Places have clan group have All perspectives are their own unique their own unique valid and reasonable voice Place/voice

Place = Dreaming = Multiple Places = Multiple Dreamings = Multiple Laws = Multiple Logics = Multiple Truths

= All Perspectives (Truths) Are Valid and Reasonable

Although the social processes of this system allow a great deal of freedom for individuals to express their views and feelings, these individuals do not operate as discrete, autonomous beings. They are embedded in relationships that draw on kinship and Place. This ensures Aboriginal people a Place within networks of relatedness. This ontology is rather open while also requiring people to pursue balance. The possibility of all people having valid and reasonable perspectives allows for a transformative dynamic of growth. Yet the ‘possible’ is also continually conditioned and supported by Law, which holds, connects, and relates individuals to others. People are free to express themselves as they wish, and they are provided security through their connections and relatedness. Just as some perspectives challenge and push against the boundaries established by others, other perspectives draw people together through kinship ties and relatedness.19 This balance is maintained both in everyday interactions and in ritual processes.20 conflict murri way 83

Pursuing multiplicity and balance within a relatively nonhierarchical social order is not easy. It requires extensive exchange of varied and sometimes competing perspectives until an understanding or agreement is reached. This serves as the negotiated truth at a particular point in time. Michael Christie describes how Yolngu people of Arnhem Land negotiate multiple views to formulate acceptable decisions: “Everyone has a chance to contribute, and the negotiation, rehearsal and presentation of knowledge cannot be tied down to a timetable. Everyone needs a chance to speak if they want to, and a second and a third time until agreement is reached. Everyone’s perspective must be respectfully recognised so it requires tact, patience, and time”.21 Senior Aboriginal people weave contesting perspectives together to promote consensus that signifies that the competing perspectives have been adequately considered. Christie refers to Yolngu ‘Galtha’ as a process of pursuing situated and negotiated truth that relies on knowledgeable persons to shape outcomes in ways that establish balance and harmony. “Galtha prioritises the knowledge of those who best understand our life in the context of everything that makes meaning in everyday life, (the economics, politics, spirituality), and gives us a picture of ourselves in terms of the ecology (including each other)”.22 Negotiating a consensus may be more than difficult: it can be tense and frustrating, as was the case following the death of the girl in the “Brokering Peace” story. When balance is a key principle, issues may not be immediately addressed or may remain unresolved for long periods. Balance may be more important than resolution, and individuals may become very frustrated as a result.23 Processes of management and negotiation may also be hostile. They can include (threats of) violent payback to address a death or other serious wrong. Deborah Bird Rose explains that the search for balance among the Yarralin people in the Northern Territory “is not sweet harmony”. Rather:

It is made up of assertive, and potentially hostile, statements of self. When Yar- ralin people are deeply grieved or deeply affronted, they rise up in anger, saying that only blood will satisfy them. The emotionally satisfying response to one’s own loss is to inflict a loss. Balance is not only an abstract meta-rule; it is the content of emotional life expressed in daily exchanges, politics, ceremonies, in life and in death.24

Pursuing balance may not be easy, but it has clear benefits. The interplay of multiple perspectives within a network of extended relationships allows a lively and seemingly chaotic (from the Western perspective) range of views to circulate and interact. The events immediately following the discovery of the girl’s death in the “Brokering Peace” story, as out of control as they can seem, allow free 84 mediating across difference expression and circulation of the emotions of individuals and family groups. Rather than emotions simply being tolerated, people are supported and “held” Mary: That thing of autonomy, personal in their feelings and actions. The freedom to openly express one’s perspective autonomy, is hard to get across to whitefellas. It seems like a con- and grievances helps manage conflict for, as we know of human societies more tradiction. It works alongside the broadly, those who consistently fail to have their perspectives heard often turn aim of harmony, so sometimes to violence. Vocal and sometimes violent expression helps manage conflict by you will see people talking, and allowing people to publicly voice grievances and have them addressed as part of people will wait to see what some- body else says, to see who will a communal decision-making process. The practice of accepting and working agree. . . . Some anthropologists with multiple perspectives to retain balance is one of the key ways in which Abo- say there is this mass conformity riginal people manage conflict. Conflict is normal and accepted, as is the lively among Aboriginal Australians, as juxtaposition of many viewpoints. though they were all of one mind, To say that conflict is normal and accepted is not to say that it is natural or almost like a shoal of fish! But at other times you are very much an preferable. The desirable state is one where there are no incidents that disturb individual. It comes back to ego the balance of the community. Yarralin people term this state punyu, a situation management . . . in which “nothing happens that can be marked as significant change”.25 But it is Polly: It seems that autonomy in related- the case that there is little focus among Australian Aboriginal people on living in ness is a paradox, and often in paradox we find some of the rich- a state of anything that might be approximated by the term ‘peace’. Rather, there est understandings we have as hu- is a generally accepted notion that if small tensions and conflicts are allowed to man beings. There is a wholeness be aired and to occur, then larger conflicts are prevented. there in bringing two seemingly The freedom associated with multiple perspectives is connected with the different things together. Mary: Your autonomy is continually vali- security that comes with an individual person’s link with Place. People live in a dated by the group. You can’t be “multi-centred world in which each centre is structurally equivalent, and linked, autonomous living on an island all to every other centre”.26 This freedom requires a high level of self-responsibility by yourself. to ensure social order. To explain how this arises we first discuss autonomy and relatedness and then turn to the idea of ‘becoming human’.

Autonomy and Relatedness Autonomy is a highly valued quality in Australian Aboriginal social and political life. In Myers’ formulation of Pintupi social and political life, ‘autonomy’ emerges as a central concept.27 While careful not to claim that Pintupi would use this term to describe their behaviour,28 Myers defines autonomy as “a reluctance to permit others to impose their authority over oneself”.29 In another definition, Deborah Bird Rose refers to autonomy as being one’s own boss—not being able to be directed or controlled by others.30 Elsewhere Mary Graham states that autonomy, assumed to apply to everyone, is one of the bases of Aboriginal social and political life.31 Conveying the importance of autonomy in Aboriginal life requires shifting away from commonplace and straightforward understandings of Australian Aboriginal—and other Indigenous—peoples as ‘group’ or ‘collective’ oriented. Myers reports that recent researchers are “rather impressed with the value conflict murri way 85 expression and circulation of the emotions of individuals and family groups. placed on autonomy” in small- Rather than emotions simply being tolerated, people are supported and “held” scale societies.32 An example Mary: That thing of autonomy, personal in their feelings and actions. The freedom to openly express one’s perspective from anthropologist Diane Bell autonomy, is hard to get across 33 to whitefellas. It seems like a con- and grievances helps manage conflict for, as we know of human societies more helps explain. Bell recounts a tradiction. It works alongside the broadly, those who consistently fail to have their perspectives heard often turn fieldwork experience wherein aim of harmony, so sometimes to violence. Vocal and sometimes violent expression helps manage conflict by older Aboriginal women are dis you will see people talking, and allowing people to publicly voice grievances and have them addressed as part of cussing a four-year-old who has people will wait to see what some- body else says, to see who will a communal decision-making process. The practice of accepting and working just behaved and responded cor- agree. . . . Some anthropologists with multiple perspectives to retain balance is one of the key ways in which Abo- rectly throughout a ceremony. say there is this mass conformity riginal people manage conflict. Conflict is normal and accepted, as is the lively The ceremony is over, and peo- among Aboriginal Australians, as juxtaposition of many viewpoints. ple are going home. The girl is though they were all of one mind, To say that conflict is normal and accepted is not to say that it is natural or walking alone beside the older almost like a shoal of fish! But at other times you are very much an preferable. The desirable state is one where there are no incidents that disturb women, and one of the women individual. It comes back to ego the balance of the community. Yarralin people term this state punyu, a situation asks, “Who’s boss for you?” “No management . . . in which “nothing happens that can be marked as significant change”.25 But it is one”, quips the child. “I’m boss Polly: It seems that autonomy in related- the case that there is little focus among Australian Aboriginal people on living in for myself”. Bell writes, “Her ness is a paradox, and often in paradox we find some of the rich- a state of anything that might be approximated by the term ‘peace’. Rather, there statement was greeted with gen- est understandings we have as hu- is a generally accepted notion that if small tensions and conflicts are allowed to eral approval and mirth. The no- man beings. There is a wholeness be aired and to occur, then larger conflicts are prevented. tion of being boss for oneself, or there in bringing two seemingly The freedom associated with multiple perspectives is connected with the being in control of one’s own different things together. Mary: Your autonomy is continually vali- security that comes with an individual person’s link with Place. People live in a life, so directly expressed by the dated by the group. You can’t be “multi-centred world in which each centre is structurally equivalent, and linked, child, does not diminish as autonomous living on an island all to every other centre”.26 This freedom requires a high level of self-responsibility women age, but rather is a cen- by yourself. to ensure social order. To explain how this arises we first discuss autonomy and tral motif in the rich tapestry of relatedness and then turn to the idea of ‘becoming human’. desert women’s lives”.34 Autonomy is significant for conflict management because it is synonymous Autonomy and Relatedness with ‘self-regulation’. A knowledgeable Aboriginal person is one who has accept- Autonomy is a highly valued quality in Australian Aboriginal social and po- ed the responsibility for regulating his or her own behaviour and who manifests litical life. In Myers’ formulation of Pintupi social and political life, ‘autonomy’ this autonomy in everything he or she does.35 This explains why Aboriginal peo- emerges as a central concept.27 While careful not to claim that Pintupi would use ple have never had (and have never needed) formal systems of government— this term to describe their behaviour,28 Myers defines autonomy as “a reluctance and also why they do not consider any such system wholly legitimate. A person to permit others to impose their authority over oneself”.29 In another definition, who is self-governing does not need a legislature to pass laws—such a person Deborah Bird Rose refers to autonomy as being one’s own boss—not being able is his or her own law-bearer. Neither does such a person need a judiciary or a to be directed or controlled by others.30 Elsewhere Mary Graham states that au- police force—personal autonomy pursued in relationship with others and Law tonomy, assumed to apply to everyone, is one of the bases of Aboriginal social supplies those functions as well. and political life.31 People are expected to regulate their selves in relation to Law, but the defini- Conveying the importance of autonomy in Aboriginal life requires shifting tion of Lawful behaviour is not prescriptive. Behaviour is evaluated in the con- away from commonplace and straightforward understandings of Australian text of particular situations and, more broadly, Country and relatedness. This Aboriginal—and other Indigenous—peoples as ‘group’ or ‘collective’ oriented. type of self-regulation is inevitably social but is also pursued independently. It Myers reports that recent researchers are “rather impressed with the value follows that there is an absence of moralising in Aboriginal knowledge,36 with 86 mediating across difference individuals expected to make their own choices and to develop their own “broader system of coherence”.37 While we have previously introduced the importance of relatedness and relationship for Aboriginal people, a closer definition is necessary to place this pattern of relatedness alongside autonomy for the purposes of thinking about them for conflict management. In his work with Pintupi, Myers defines relatedness as a pattern of extending ties outward, being open to claims by others, and showing sympathy and willingness to negotiate, consult, settle difficulties, and so on.38 Negotiating autonomy is difficult and complicated in the context of this relatedness. Individuals may assert their autonomy by simply doing as they please, but in doing so they must be wary of transgressing the autonomy of others in ways that might ultimately impinge upon their own autonomy. People may also assert autonomy by demanding support or assistance from relatives, or they may defend their autonomy by refusing such requests.39 The continual enacting of individual autonomy does not imply lack of authority or political organisation, both of which are important to managing conflict. Although a person is assumed to be autonomous and have a variety of capacities from a very young age, his or her standing in the community in relation to senior people mitigates that autonomy. This relationship occurs within the register of Law and Country. Senior people are able to exercise authority (directing the actions of others) and greater autonomy in their relationships on the basis that their behaviour is knowledgeable and Lawful.40 This implies that the exercise of authority pays attention to the needs of others. The playing out of authority usually proceeds through relationship and a ‘custodial ethic’. In Myers’ words, it involves “looking after” others.41 The Aboriginal Elders who attempted to calm people and facilitate a meeting between family groups in the “Brokering Peace” story have authority to guide people’s autonomous expressions of grief and anger, but they do not have control over people’s actions. The Elders may be considered an elite, but the exercise of autonomy prevents the elite from enacting a vertical hierarchy. The authority of Elders is contingent upon their knowledge and skills, including their capacity to extend relatedness, rather than to enforce order. As Rose notes, politicking involves “locating one’s self in as many contexts as possible, rather than accumulating contexts and collapsing them into a singularity”.42 Extend- ing relatedness across groups can be an important ability, depending upon the prevailing political climate. So the ability to facilitate social order exists but does not emerge hierarchically43 or through the ‘rule of the Elders’ based upon the simple criterion of age.44 Rather, authority and autonomy emerge with capacity to act in a Lawful manner through extended networks alongside their continual conditioning through the autonomy of other individuals, in- conflict murri way 87 cluding younger people. This ensures social consistency in the context of Law and Country.45 The interplay of autonomy and relatedness in the context of Law and Dream- ing is an important element of a flexible and dynamic system for managing conflict. The high value placed on autonomy means that a wide range of behaviours are tolerated. As Myers reports, people are likely to say, ‘“That’s his business”’ in response to aberrant behaviour that a person might exhibit.46 When one person acts in a way that compromises the autonomy of others, conflict can be expected to result through action to reclaim autonomy. This flow of individual human claims, the push and pull of social relations, is managed as individuals regulate their behaviour according to their knowledge of what constitutes Lawful behaviour. Where necessary, kin and Elders become involved, playing roles in support of kin but also with a regard for relatedness, Law, and balance. Law does not preclude violent contact. Fighting may be necessary to protect or restore one’s standing, reputation, or very being.47 But here too there are codes to be followed. Physical fighting should be fair: it should take place in a controlled way in the context of kin and other relations.48 Serious injury should be avoided. And, as Myers notes, the aim of fighting is usually to achieve or restore autonomy in the context of relatedness, rather than to attain dominance.49 To pursue autonomy apart from relatedness—to pursue dominance—would be to isolate oneself and give up the support and opportunities afforded by social life. So in time the pursuit of autonomy and relatedness alongside a respect for multiplicity and Law helps achieve balance. To fully understand the importance of individual behaviour and self-regulation in the context of social order and conflict management, it is necessary to discuss ideas of being and becoming human.

Becoming Human Aboriginal people have had many millennia to reflect upon questions that are fundamental for any human group. The basic questions, regardless of ad- vances in technology, relate to how we create a stable society. Such questions, as we noted in introducing this chapter, include these: How do we live together without killing each other off? How do we live without substantially damaging the environment? Why do we live? How do we find answers to these questions in a way that does not make people feel alienated, lonely, or murderous?50 Abo- riginal philosophy does not answer by pursuing human perfection. Rather, it foregrounds process-oriented activity that can be termed ‘becoming more human’. In this pursuit there is no notion of perfectibility, and humanness is regarded as a skill to be acquired rather than a genetically endowed or otherwise intrinsic quality. People are not considered to be good or bad, but are quite natu- 88 mediating across difference rally vulnerable beings susceptible to life’s difficulties and challenges. Becom- ing human means embracing and managing this humanness in Lawful ways through authentic behaviour, the custodial ethic, and reflective practice. Difficult behaviours, interactions, and events are expected as part of the normal flow of social life. The occurrence of such events might be distressing, but they do not threaten social order. Aboriginal people are typically supported in their efforts to become more human, regardless of their immediate behaviour. This support extends in no small measure from the understanding that one’s place in the world is already and always secured. Particular individuals may be considered at some points to be a threat to balance and harmony—and in extreme cases this can lead to ostracism—but they are typically not cast out or excluded on account of what might be judged as aberrant behaviour. The principle of autonomy is respected in pursuit of humanness. As Fred Myers notes of Pintupi people, “Conformity is not desired, only consideration for others. People are not ostracized for temporary, erratic, or even violent outbursts”.51 The death recounted earlier in the chapter is an extraordinary event, but the subsequent expressions of emotion are understandable in the circumstances. Anger and other emotions are to be managed as part of becoming human, but their full expression is also unsurprising and often necessary for achieving balance. ‘Being real’ involves the direct and open expression of emotions and may include cursing, threats, and verbal abuse.52 These hostile verbal expressions, which are often considered as a breakdown of order within the wider Austral- ian community, are a necessary part of processing social difficulty. Not to give expression to such emotions is to be ‘blocked up’. Indeed, swearing and fighting are often carried out in public with the express purpose of restoring balance within an Aboriginal community. Pressures are often reduced, rather than increased, through the open expression of hostile emotions.53 By expressing emotion openly and demonstrating one’s humanness, participants are judged as sincere, altering the conflict in ways that restore relationships and increase the likelihood of a return to balance. There is a common understanding that people can get anger and hostility out of their system if they are allowed free and full expression. The expressions of anger or upset may be simply accepted or integrated into the social order through the understanding that a person who continually expresses heated emotions exhibits such behaviour as part of his or her Dreaming. The open expression of emotion is more or less carefully managed. If required, an appropriate space is provided. Senior people manage these spaces for contestation by establishing boundaries of acceptable behaviour. Both physical and verbal violence are accepted behaviour in conflict management, but senior people work to ensure that no person is seriously injured or humiliated.54 The conflict murri way 89 open articulation of emotion in managed spaces minimises the possibility of such emotions erupting into more encompassing, warlike behaviours. The authentic expression of what one is feeling provides opportunities for people to grapple with the vagaries of social life. These expressions are kept within certain bounds by the input of knowledgeable Aboriginal people, but the expression of emotion itself is not limited. Indeed, Aboriginal people tend to be suspicious of conflict resolution processes that are impartial, cool, and judgmental. The Western court system is seen by many Aboriginal people as hard-hearted, cold, and calculating because it strives to maintain high levels of impartiality and emotional restraint. This is not to say that hostile and volatile emotions are the only kinds of Aboriginal sociopolitical discourse that mark being and becoming human. Ex- pressing tenderness, compassion, and care are also demonstrations of humanness. For example, there are many words in Aboriginal languages for ‘sympathy’, often translated into ‘poorfella’ in Aboriginal English. These concepts are linked with the natural sympathy often observed in young children. Such language is used within Aboriginal communities to engender an ethic of care by instilling thoughtful, sympathetic responses. There is a balance between hostile expression and caring. Indeed, Aboriginal peoples consider it dangerous to have a ‘hard heart’ that is not open to compassion towards others. Within the Law, Aboriginal people have the opportunity to develop knowledge and authority by taking up responsibility for kin and Country. This custodial ethic, honed in caring for Country, becomes a template for broader caring relationships. The Law is in principle accessible to everyone over the course of his or her lifetime. This opportunity for participation and knowledge provides the mechanism for judging the success or otherwise of those who claim authority through Law, and hence for giving or withdrawing one’s consent. The custodial ethic is also an opportunity to become more human—to pursue greater standing or authority in terms of the Law. The custodial ethic is not itself a ‘true’ way—there are no set methods or correct rules. There are no small, powerful groups that are its only exponent; there is no hard, soft, liberal, or orthodox approach to this ethic.55 The custodial ethic is a social and political practice, a process through which Aboriginal people can develop their humanness. Ongoing personal reflection is necessary to pursue this ethic. This connects one with others engaged in the same task of increasing one’s humanness to inculcate a sense of communal, rather than individuated, identity. So reflection and the custodial ethic are not pursued in an individual or random way. Although enacted individually, they are pursued in the context of Law and relatedness as a type of group process of experiential learning and meditating upon collective actions. The process is both habitual 90 mediating across difference and nonegocentric as a result. Aboriginal people tend to attempt to align themselves with group needs in order to understand and to have and maintain harmonious relationships. Philosophical activity should not be engaged in alone, nor in a competitive, adversarial debate, but should occur with others in a sharing environment so that reflective thought is always associated with the other.

Balance, Autonomy, and Relatedness in an Urban Aboriginal Conflict The “Brokering Peace” story, in addition to recounting events surrounding a violent and tragic death, is also an account of conflict management in an urban Aboriginal community. The story cannot escape the difficulties Aboriginal people face in pursuing balance in communities affected by alcohol, drugs, and wider impacts of colonisation. Indeed the story is pervaded by them. But the durability of many of the principles, and the broader strategies for pursuing social and political order that we have discussed thus far in this chapter, are also in evidence. The capacity for pursuing balance endures despite many people being away from their home Country and despite a tragic death and the involvement of drugs and alcohol. The terrible nature of the death is mirrored directly and forcefully in the immediate reactions of the individuals involved. Members of the family of the murdered girl argued passionately for revenge. Some members of her family actively sought out the boy with the aim of carrying out violent payback. This expression of anger and grief is pursued along lines of responsibility to kin. It is matched by the actions of the boy’s family, not through an equal and opposite reaction, but through their responsibility to care for him by hiding and protecting him from payback. At the same time, senior Aboriginal people begin to advocate for a peaceful resolution to the conflict. To outsiders the situation may have appeared to be uncontrolled, but this is not the case from the Aboriginal perspective. Balance was certainly under threat, and the girl’s death surely signalled something gone awfully awry. But this does not mean that there was no capacity to manage the situation or that events were entirely chaotic or out of control. The search by the girl’s family to find the boy and inflict violence upon him was an understandable human reaction in the circumstances, and the principle of relatedness meant that all members of her family felt this grief and directed it toward the boy’s family. The responsibilities of the boy’s family led them to care for him but also to feel shame and responsibility for what he had done. Senior and knowledgeable people recognised the need of the girl’s family to express anger and grief, but they also had an eye to the longer-term balance of the community. The time and space for the expression of these competing perspectives serve to manage the overall conflict and keep open the possibility that relations conflict murri way 91 may be brought back to balance. Individual anger, grief, and fear—instances of humanness—are expressed in quite free ways while no further harm is inflicted upon people. These emotions are validated as they are witnessed by members of the wider Aboriginal community. Individuals were acting independently yet, in the terms of Aboriginal social order, the whole event has the character of a managed and calibrated performance of grief and concern. No one attempted to tell others what they had to do or what was the good, or correct, way of responding. All involved were allowed space and time to express their needs and pursue their agendas. At the same time, these autonomous behaviours were held in a network of relationships, with senior people working to ensure that actions did not result in an ongoing feud and that all involved were reminded of the needs and concerns of the wider community. The network of actions and counteractions generates a type of emergent conflict management that evolves through individual actions pursued within networks of relatedness. The conflict, undertaken in urban streets and houses, has the character of a ‘fighting ground’, a traditional bounded space of competing perspectives that allows the airing of grievances and the restoration of relationships.56 Individual expression of grief and anger is directed toward other individuals, but it does not imply a need for domination or annihilation of others, for each person remains secure in her or his network of relatedness. Throughout the days described in the story, senior people and family members contributed to a complex transition in social relations that provided for security within the wider Aboriginal community. At the girl’s funeral, public declarations were made that indicated it was time to restore balance to the community, and actions had been taken and decisions had been made within the girl’s family to that effect. As the spokesperson for the girl’s extended family, her uncle stated that his group’s hunt for the boy had been called off. He declared their encouragement for the young man to turn himself into the police, their desire for the “girl’s spirit to be at rest”, and their intention that there should be no “bad blood” between the two families. These declarations indicate a desire for the re-establishment of balance in actions, attitudes, and relationships. Throughout these upsetting and difficult events serious conflict was managed in calibrated ways that did not require centralised control. The wider Abo- riginal community understood that knowledgeable people were minding the young man so that he would not be killed and so that he would not commit further violence. The community of course knew that he was not going to be found any time soon. Both families and the wider Aboriginal community knew that a certain amount of time had to be allowed for the public anger and grievance to be aired before it could be brought to a satisfactory conclusion: one that, in this 92 mediating across difference case, avoided further killings and led the young man to face the Western justice system for his actions.57 Polly: I’m thinking about your question Aboriginal peoples do not have to be living in their traditional Country for about how Aboriginal approaches might inform security more broad- their sociopolitical systems to operate. Relations with land expressed through ly . . . Well, there’s a lack of security Law, balance, autonomy, and relatedness can serve as a template for individual within Australia at the moment for and social relations even when direct connections are disrupted through coloni- Indigenous peoples. Many of them alism. This is why knowledgeable members of the Aboriginal community, both are afraid to refer [to the Western justice system] relatives that have men and women, continue to assert, in both rural and urban contexts, that “the been violent in some way or another, land is the Law”. The logic of this system has immense survival value. It contin- because they are afraid those relatives ues to provide security and balance for Aboriginal people, including in difficult will die in police custody. circumstances such as the one described in the “Brokering Peace” story. This Morgan: As we are meeting today, the Austral- same system, if engaged respectfully, is also able to teach valuable lessons for ian government is planning to send military and the police into Northern wider security and conflict management. Territory Aboriginal communities, and just this morning there has been Prospects for Dialogue: Implications of Aboriginal Law for Conflict another Aboriginal death in police Resolution custody. Polly: So if you went with an approach Aboriginal approaches to security and conflict management are routinely based on the principles we have ignored or marginalised in mainstream Australian political and social debates, discussed in this chapter, if you were and little Indigenous philosophy has made its way into the disciplines of politi- looking for balance and relatedness, cal and international studies. Current levels of violence in Aboriginal communi- I think there could be a bit more willingness to explore alternative ways ties are often used by commentators to problematise or attack Aboriginal culture of dealing with conflict to see how and justify interventions in communities. There seems little immediate pros- things fall. You can’t get balance if you pect, in these circumstances, for a sustained and respectful dialogue between just overlay it with a Western system. Aboriginal and mainstream approaches to security and conflict resolution. Yet You can get some kind of order . . . exchange is also happening on an everyday basis. The engagement of the Abo- Mary: You get order, but not balance. With an imposed system you only get or- riginal community with the Western justice system in the aftermath of the girl’s der . . . Actually, an Aboriginal approach death refers us to a range of ongoing cross-cultural negotiations and encoun- would help mainstream develop a ters. These include the involvement of Aboriginal Elders alongside judges with- broader worldview; it would open up a in the criminal justice system and restorative justice programs. Such engage- whole range of other possibilities. ments are characterised by recognition, understanding, and accommodation as well as misunderstanding and disjuncture. The following chapter explores a range of these intercultural encounters to illustrate some of the issues at stake in concrete engagements between Western and Australian Aboriginal approaches to order and conflict resolution. Our task, to conclude this chapter, is to provide broader observations about how Aboriginal approaches to security and conflict management can be engaged to enhance mainstream conflict resolution. There are prospects for an interesting and important engagement between Aboriginal and Western approaches to expand our approaches to security and conflict resolution both in Australia and more widely. Yet pursuing such expansion requires ‘worldviewing’ skills: capacities for respectful engagement conflict murri way 93 case, avoided further killings and led the young man to face the Western justice with questions about what system for his actions.57 is real or true, how the Polly: I’m thinking about your question Aboriginal peoples do not have to be living in their traditional Country for world is organised, how about how Aboriginal approaches might inform security more broad- their sociopolitical systems to operate. Relations with land expressed through we know the world, and ly . . . Well, there’s a lack of security Law, balance, autonomy, and relatedness can serve as a template for individual how we should act.58 While within Australia at the moment for and social relations even when direct connections are disrupted through coloni- Aboriginal people have Indigenous peoples. Many of them alism. This is why knowledgeable members of the Aboriginal community, both been more or less forced are afraid to refer [to the Western justice system] relatives that have men and women, continue to assert, in both rural and urban contexts, that “the to acquire these abilities been violent in some way or another, land is the Law”. The logic of this system has immense survival value. It contin- because they live in both because they are afraid those relatives ues to provide security and balance for Aboriginal people, including in difficult Aboriginal and Western will die in police custody. circumstances such as the one described in the “Brokering Peace” story. This worlds, their potential in- Morgan: As we are meeting today, the Austral- same system, if engaged respectfully, is also able to teach valuable lessons for terlocutors are frequently ian government is planning to send military and the police into Northern wider security and conflict management. unskilled at stepping aside Territory Aboriginal communities, from a mainstream West- and just this morning there has been Prospects for Dialogue: Implications of Aboriginal Law for Conflict ern world. So there is a another Aboriginal death in police Resolution need for the development custody. Polly: So if you went with an approach Aboriginal approaches to security and conflict management are routinely of worldviewing skills based on the principles we have ignored or marginalised in mainstream Australian political and social debates, within conflict resolution discussed in this chapter, if you were and little Indigenous philosophy has made its way into the disciplines of politi- and disciplines such as looking for balance and relatedness, cal and international studies. Current levels of violence in Aboriginal communi- political and international I think there could be a bit more willingness to explore alternative ways ties are often used by commentators to problematise or attack Aboriginal culture studies, as a prerequisite of dealing with conflict to see how and justify interventions in communities. There seems little immediate pros- for productive exchange. things fall. You can’t get balance if you pect, in these circumstances, for a sustained and respectful dialogue between These skills may also just overlay it with a Western system. Aboriginal and mainstream approaches to security and conflict resolution. Yet go some way toward ad- You can get some kind of order . . . exchange is also happening on an everyday basis. The engagement of the Abo- dressing the sensitivities Mary: You get order, but not balance. With an imposed system you only get or- riginal community with the Western justice system in the aftermath of the girl’s around sharing knowledge der . . . Actually, an Aboriginal approach death refers us to a range of ongoing cross-cultural negotiations and encoun- in a colonised setting, would help mainstream develop a ters. These include the involvement of Aboriginal Elders alongside judges with- which we discussed at the broader worldview; it would open up a in the criminal justice system and restorative justice programs. Such engage- beginning of this chapter. whole range of other possibilities. ments are characterised by recognition, understanding, and accommodation as At the level of onto- well as misunderstanding and disjuncture. The following chapter explores a logical assumptions, our range of these intercultural encounters to illustrate some of the issues at stake paper has outlined a philosophy grounded in Place and explained how related- in concrete engagements between Western and Australian Aboriginal approach- ness through Place forms a template for social relations. Might such a philoso- es to order and conflict resolution. Our task, to conclude this chapter, is to pro- phy help us to rethink the assumptions that inform the current knowledge dis- vide broader observations about how Aboriginal approaches to security and con- ciplines dominating our attempts to pursue security and conflict resolution? flict management can be engaged to enhance mainstream conflict resolution. Whereas elements of current mainstream Western security studies work from— There are prospects for an interesting and important engagement between and threaten to bring on—a Hobbesian state of nature, Aboriginal traditions do Aboriginal and Western approaches to expand our approaches to security and not pitch people against each other or against the world in an isolationist or conflict resolution both in Australia and more widely. Yet pursuing such ex- competitive mode. Are there benefits to grounding ourselves—our very selves— pansion requires ‘worldviewing’ skills: capacities for respectful engagement in particular physical locales, which are in turn connected in a networked fash- 94 mediating across difference ion with other places and peoples? What type of securi- Morgan: The three of us started out writing ty is engendered by this “rela- this chapter as a dialogue, but I feel we’ve lost something of our tional” philosophy? Might it conversations in the academic find resonance elsewhere? format. What form of “cosmopolitan- Polly: It’s a political decision that we ism” might emerge from made and I respect that decision, but it’s just sad that we lost some- these alternative ontological thing which is present in dialogu- assumptions? ing with each other. Principles of network Morgan: It’s a loss that’s bound with and flow are now beginning colonialism . . . to play a greater role in our Mary: Where did that come from? Is it something to do with the idea understandings of globalised that a harder approach is a must, relationships. Can Aboriginal so emotions have to be disci- approaches to managing re- plined? Or disallowed? Holding lationships within networks the line . . . Perhaps there is the notion that the real truth comes help us reconfigure domi- only through a quite disciplined nant approaches to conflict approach. management? Western ap- Polly: When I’m walking in the moun- proaches tend to subordinate tains, and I imagine when you are walking through your country, conflict in the name of peace Mary, we don’t need someone through institutions that find to point the way to A, B, then C, their apotheosis in the notion because we know the country, and of sovereignty and the state’s the country knows us. I think it’s monopoly on violence, but possible to write in that way too, but academia is not yet ready for what about possibilities for it. And obviously, not everyone the controlled expression of from every culture is going to violence that recognises the understand that way of writing, role of relatively independ- but a lot of that livingness that is in the musing and openness that ent and multiple perspectives you have in dialogue, that you have in moving toward balance? in story, that you have in poetry, What of Aboriginal stress could perhaps also live in aca- on autonomy and resistance demic text. to hierarchy? Contemporary motifs and relations—those facilitated by the Internet, for example—as well as research about complexity and emergence at the cutting edge of a variety of disciplines are beginning to teach us that large-scale organisation is not incompatible with limited hierarchy when based in the actions of relatively autonomous but interconnected agents. Many of the conflicts across difference that we currently face are moral or conflict murri way 95 value conflicts. They are at least partly animated by people’s sense that they are adhering to the one ‘true’ way. Can Aboriginal philosophy and principles of social organisation round out or expand upon postmodern and related understandings of ‘multiple perspectives’? Aboriginal logic maintains that there is no division between the observing mind and anything else: there is no ‘external world’ to inhabit. There are distinctions between the physical and the spiritual, but these aspects of existence continually interpenetrate each other. All perspectives are valid and reasonable, so there is no single way or meaning of life. Yet each way is also connected with other ways in an overall ordering schema through the role of Place as a template for social life. Perhaps sociopolitical security could be enhanced amidst diversity by directly investing in relationships as a networked process of connection to Country and to other humans. Over vast periods of time, Aboriginal people have invested creative energy in trying to understand what makes it possible for people to act purposively or, in other terms, in asking, What is it exactly that makes us human? The result is a mapping of the repertoire of human feeling in terms of its continuities with the wider world. Aboriginal Law is grounded in the perception that the ‘natural’ world is characterised by a type of psychic behaviour that resonates with and can be accessed by people. People are connected and made through relationships with a wide range of beings, and it is thus of prime importance to maintain and strengthen these relationships. Senior Aboriginal people have used the expression ‘White people have no Dreaming’ to remark on the Settler Australian tendency to neglect this element of existence. Collective self-knowledge is typically not seen as very important in mainstream society; it could even be viewed as a chore or burden best avoided. To the extent that this is true, Aboriginal people might suggest that Settlers are missing the benefits of Aboriginal Law, a system that is an action guide both to living and to understanding reality itself. This Law celebrates life in all its ups and downs while using the downs to point to moral formulae. The foregoing points are possible entryways for exploring paths for exchange between Aboriginal approaches to Place, relatedness and multiplicity, and mainstream thinking about security and conflict resolution. Our focus at the level of social and political organisation identifies rich possibilities, but these require further discussion and elaboration, including concretising at the level of conflict management processes. Some of the exchanges necessary for these developments are now beginning to occur in Australia,59 and some are discussed in the next chapter. The survival value of Aboriginal culture leads us to believe that the dialogue beginning here and among others can guide us to new and innovative approaches for expanding conflict resolution across difference. 96 mediating across difference

Notes 1. Mary Graham, “Some Thoughts about the Philosophical Underpinnings of Aboriginal Worldviews,” Worldviews: Environment, Culture, Religion 3, no. 2 (1999): 105–118. 2. Lilla Watson, “An Aboriginal Perspective: Developing an Indigenous Social Work” (paper presented at the Australian Association of Social Work Educators, Fifth National Conference, Emmanuel College, Brisbane, July 10–12, 1986), p. 15. 3. W. E. H. Stanner, White Man Got No Dreaming: Essays, 1938–1973 (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1979), p. 40. 4. See AIATSIS, “Consensus, Meetings and Moots” (compiled by the Indigenous Facilitation and Mediation Project, Native Title Research Unit, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 2004), http://ntru.aiatsis.gov.au/ifamp/ stories/pdfs/ifamp_consensus.pdf; Larissa Behrendt, Aboriginal Dispute Resolution (Sydney: Federation Press, 1995); Kenneth Liberman, Understanding Interaction in Central Australia: An Ethnomethodological Study of Australian Aboriginal People (Boston, London, and Melbourne: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985); Nancy Williams, Two Laws: Managing Disputes in a Contemporary Aboriginal Community (Canberra: Australian In- stitute of Aboriginal Studies, 1987); Gerald Clair Wheeler, The Tribe, and Intertribal Relations in Australia (London: J. Murray Johnson Reprint, 1910). 5. Stanner, White Man Got No Dreaming, p. 40. 6. Ronald M. Berndt and Catherine H. Berndt, The Speaking Land: Myth and Story in Aboriginal Australia (Ringwood, Victoria: Penguin Books, 1989), p. 5. 7. Mary Graham, “Introduction to Kummara Conceptual Framework: A Discourse on a Proposed Aboriginal Research Methodology” (Kummara Stronger Families Com- munity Organisation, 2006). 8. Mary Graham, “On Correct Behaviour” (unpublished paper, Brisbane, 1990); Stanner, White Man Got No Dreaming, pp. 23–30; Tony Swain, A Place for Strangers: Towards a History of Australian Aboriginal Being (Oakleigh, Victoria: Cambridge Uni- versity Press, 1993), p. 25. For discussion of the politics of this term and its use, see Patrick Wolfe, “On Being Woken Up: The Dreamtime in Anthropology and in Aus- tralian Settler Culture,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 33, no. 2 (1991): 197–224; Howard Morphy, “Empiricism to Metaphysics: In Defence of the Concept of the Dreamtime,” in Tim Bonyhady and Tom Griffiths (eds.), Prehistory to Politics: John Mulvaney, the Humanities and the Public Intellectual (Carlton, Victoria: Melbourne University Press, 1997). 9. Nancy Munn, “The Transformation of Subjects into Objects in Walbiri and Pitjantjatjara Myth,” in Ronald M. Berndt (ed.), Australian Aboriginal Anthropology: Modern Studies in the Social Anthropology of the Australian Aborigines (Nedlands: published for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies by the University of Western Australia Press, 1970); Swain, Place for Strangers, p. 32. conflict murri way 97

10. Deleuze and Guattari’s distinction between rhizomatic and arborescent systems—between multiplicitous networks and treelike hierarchical systems—evokes ontological differences similar to those discussed here. See Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1987), p. 15. For one use of this heuristic in relation to Aboriginal Austra- lia, see Alan Rumsey, “Tracks, Traces, and Links to Land in Aboriginal Australia, New Guinea, and Beyond,” in Alan Rumsey and James F. Weiner (eds.), Emplaced Myth: Space, Narrative, and Knowledge in Aboriginal Australia and Papua New Guinea (Hono- lulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2001). 11. Swain, Place for Strangers, p. 35. 12. Morgan Brigg, “Biopolitics Meets Terrapolitics: Political Ontologies and Gov- ernance in Settler-Colonial Australia,” Australian Journal of Political Science 42, no. 3 (2007): 403–417. 13. W. E. H. Stanner and John Hilary Martin, People from the Dawn: Religion, Home- land, and Privacy in Australian Aboriginal Culture (Antioch, CA: Solas Press, 2001), p. 34; Swain, Place for Strangers, p. 51. 14. Settler-Colonial impacts are the most notable. People’s relationship to Place has in many cases been severely disrupted. The loss of land, economies, the impact of drugs and alcohol, and constant interventions into social and cultural traditions through government social policy often have a type of chain or domino effect. With dislocation comes loss, and with the removal of responsibility and obligation comes reduced control of selves, surroundings, and environment (Diane Bell, Daughters of the Dreaming [North Melbourne: Spinifex Press, 2002], p. xiii). Satisfactory regulation and management of social matters, including the capacity to make decisions and manage conflict, become increasingly difficult as a result. 15. Swain, Place for Strangers, p. 51. 16. Graham, “Some Thoughts,” p. 105. 17. Mary Graham, “On Customary Law: An Outline of the Philosophical Under- pinnings of Western Law and Customary Law” (Brisbane: self-published, 1995). 18. From Graham, “Introduction to Kummara Conceptual Framework.” 19. Deborah Bird Rose, Dingo Makes Us Human: Life and Land in an Aboriginal Australian Culture (Cambridge, UK, and Melbourne, Victoria: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 165–179. 20. See Michael Christie, “Grounded and Ex-Centric Knowledges: Exploring Aboriginal Alternatives to Western Thinking” (paper delivered at Fifth International Conference on Thinking, Townsville, Australia, July 7, 1992); Rose, Dingo Makes Us Human. 21. Christie, “Grounded and Ex-Centric Knowledges,” p. 25. 22. Ibid. 23. See Rose, Dingo Makes Us Human, p. 172. 98 mediating across difference

24. Ibid., p. 223. 25. Ibid., p. 220. 26. Ibid. 27. Fred R. Myers, Pintupi Country, Pintupi Self: Sentiment, Place, and Politics among Western Desert Aborigines (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991). 28. Ibid., p. 16. 29. Ibid., p. 22. 30. Rose, Dingo Makes Us Human, pp. 56, 165. 31. Graham, “Some Thoughts,” p. 116. 32. Fred R. Myers, “Reflections on a Meeting: Structure, Language, and the Polity in a Small-Scale Society,” American Ethnologist 13, no. 3 (1986): 431–447 at 431. 33. Bell, Daughters of the Dreaming. 34. Ibid., p. 7. 35. Graham, “On Correct Behaviour.” 36. Berndt and Berndt, Speaking Land, p. 3. 37. Myers, Pintupi Country, Pintupi Self, p. 16. 38. Ibid., p. 22. 39. Rose, Dingo Makes Us Human, p. 166. 40. Ibid., p. 174; Graham, “On Correct Behaviour.” 41. Myers, Pintupi Country, Pintupi Self. 42. Deborah Bird Rose, “Indigenous Ecologies and an Ethic of Connection,” in Nicholas Low (ed.), Global Ethics and Environment (London and New York: Routledge, 1999), p. 181. 43. Graham, “On Correct Behaviour.” 44. Stanner, White Man Got No Dreaming, p. 39. 45. Rose, “Indigenous Ecologies,” p. 168. 46. Myers, Pintupi Country, Pintupi Self, p. 161. 47. Gaynor Macdonald, “A Wiradjuri Fight Story,” in Ian Keen (ed.), Being Black: Aboriginal Cultures in ‘Settled’ Australia (Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, 1988), pp. 179–199; Gaynor Macdonald, “Where Words Harm and Blows Heal,” Australian Dispute Resolution Journal 1, no. 3 (1990): 125–132. 48. Macdonald, “Wiradjuri Fight Story,” pp. 182–187; Macdonald, “Where Words Harm.” 49. Myers, Pintupi Country, Pintupi Self, p. 161. 50. Graham, “Some Thoughts.” 51. Myers, Pintupi Country, Pintupi Self, p. 161. 52. Diana Eades, “Communicative Strategies in Aboriginal English,” in S. Ro- maine (ed.), Language in Australia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). 53. Marcia Langton, “Medicine Square: Swearing and Fighting as Dispute Process- conflict murri way 99 ing Mechanisms in Aboriginal Society and Their Illegality under the Australian Legal System,” in Keen, Being Black, pp. 201–225. 54. Ibid., pp. 210–212. 55. Graham, “Some Thoughts,” p. 114. 56. Constance Campbell Petrie and Tom Petrie, Tom Petrie’s Reminiscences of Ear- ly Queensland: Constance Campbell Petrie (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1992), pp. 46–47. 57. In a different community or context, Aboriginal people may have taken or sought greater involvement in dealing with the boy, but in this case he was dealt with by the police. 58. Jayne Seminare Docherty, Learning Lessons from Waco: When the Parties Bring Their Gods to the Negotiation Table (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2001), p. 51. 59. See, for instance, Federal Court of Australia’s Indigenous Dispute Resolu- tion and Conflict Management Case Study Project, Solid Work You Mob Are Doing: Case Studies in Indigenous Dispute Resolution and Conflict Management in Australia (Melbourne: Federal Court of Australia, 2009); and Morgan Brigg and Anke Tonnaer, “Mawul Rom Project: Openness, Obligation and Reconciliation,” Australian Aboriginal Studies 2 (2008): 3–15. In chapter 4, Mary, Morgan, and Polly have provided an elegant exposition of Aboriginal Australian epistemology and ontology and the beginnings of a cross-cultural dialogue. In this chapter I seek to carry on the dialogue. Some of the stories are based on my long-term learning relationships with the Aboriginal people of the Northern Territory community of Yarralin, and Chapter 5 many of them involve dealings in relation to the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Conflict Resolution and Decolonisation Act 1976. Between 1982 and 2004, I worked Aboriginal Australian Case Studies in ‘Enlarged Thinking’ on eighteen Aboriginal claims to land under this act. In some of the claims I assisted the Aboriginal traditional owners in the prepara- Deborah Bird Rose tion of written materials, in negotiating the peculiarities of the procedure, and by acting as an expert witness. In a majority of claims I was the consulting anthropologist for the Aboriginal land commissioner—a Federal Court judge Australian Aboriginal people manage conflict and seek resolution in and the person responsible for conducting the ways that challenge mainstream Western practice and worldview. Attentiveness inquiry and making the findings. In this capac- to place, relatedness, violence, emotions, and the inclusion of ancestral and non- ity I had the opportunity to observe and try to human others are in many respects incompatible with key Western institutions understand the event from the perspective of the court. that dominate Aboriginal and Settler people’s lives as a result of colonisation. And yet mutual accommodation between Australian Aboriginal and Western institutions and practices is possible. Globalised commitments to Indigenous people’s rights and the flexibility of institutions—when they are committed to fairness—help generate mutual accommodations across difference. Some West- ern institutions, particularly the law, have shown a willingness to be open to such mutual accommodation, and Aboriginal people are extremely adept at working with new contexts in ways that preserve their values. Such accommodations are never perfect, but they exemplify an important factor in conflict resolution: the achievement of mutual change across difference in the interest of longer-term justice. I want to frame these mutual accommodations in terms of what Hannah Arendt calls enlarged thinking. With this term, Arendt refers to thought that situates itself in the presence and place of others. This is deep conversation involving moral persons, which does not have consensus or unanimity as its purpose but rather holds itself open to challenge and to change.1 Enlarged thinking is required in cross-cultural conflict resolution to address differences of epistemology and ontology such as those discussed in the previous chapter. The examples I will discuss show Anglo-Australian law enlarging its thinking in its efforts to achieve fairness in relation to Aboriginal people and their Law,

100 conflict resolution and decolonisation 101

and I take this to be an extremely positive social In chapter 4, Mary, Morgan, and Polly have provided an elegant exposition of Aboriginal fact. At the same time, Australian epistemology and ontology and the I explore ways in which beginnings of a cross-cultural dialogue. In this Aboriginal people resolve chapter I seek to carry on the dialogue. Some of conflicts through another the stories are based on my long-term learning form of enlarged thinking. relationships with the Aboriginal people of the Northern Territory community of Yarralin, and Chapter 5 In both directions, this many of them involve dealings in relation to process is a matter, not of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Conflict Resolution and Decolonisation thinking in the place of Act 1976. Between 1982 and 2004, I worked Aboriginal Australian Case Studies in ‘Enlarged Thinking’ others, but rather of think- on eighteen Aboriginal claims to land under this act. In some of the claims I assisted the ing across difference in Aboriginal traditional owners in the prepara- Deborah Bird Rose both short- and long-term tion of written materials, in negotiating the time frames simultaneous- peculiarities of the procedure, and by acting as ly. Such enlarged think- an expert witness. In a majority of claims I was ing enables the successful the consulting anthropologist for the Aboriginal land commissioner—a Federal Court judge Australian Aboriginal people manage conflict and seek resolution in management of conflict and the person responsible for conducting the ways that challenge mainstream Western practice and worldview. Attentiveness events in their specificity inquiry and making the findings. In this capac- to place, relatedness, violence, emotions, and the inclusion of ancestral and non- while keeping in mind ity I had the opportunity to observe and try to human others are in many respects incompatible with key Western institutions that events are part of understand the event from the perspective of the court. that dominate Aboriginal and Settler people’s lives as a result of colonisation. larger processes that lead, And yet mutual accommodation between Australian Aboriginal and Western through conflict, toward institutions and practices is possible. Globalised commitments to Indigenous restoration of balance. people’s rights and the flexibility of institutions—when they are committed to Throughout this chapter I draw on my work with Aboriginal people in the fairness—help generate mutual accommodations across difference. Some West- Northern Territory of Australia. I engage with real-world stories that highlight ern institutions, particularly the law, have shown a willingness to be open to Aboriginal approaches to managing conflict and amplify many of the points such mutual accommodation, and Aboriginal people are extremely adept at made in the previous chapter. Readers may find it valuable to read these two working with new contexts in ways that preserve their values. Such accommoda- chapters as complements of one another. (For instance, an explanation of the tions are never perfect, but they exemplify an important factor in conflict resolu- term ‘Country’, a term I use throughout, is given in the previous chapter.) By tion: the achievement of mutual change across difference in the interest of noting a series of principles and providing vignettes, I seek to bring social proc- longer-term justice. esses to life and to embed them in the actual conditions of people’s lives. The I want to frame these mutual accommodations in terms of what Hannah vignettes are not intended to criticise individuals; my purpose in recounting Arendt calls enlarged thinking. With this term, Arendt refers to thought that them is to give grounding to the principles I introduce here and to complement, situates itself in the presence and place of others. This is deep conversation in concrete terms, the discussion of Aboriginal social principles presented in involving moral persons, which does not have consensus or unanimity as its the previous chapter. Negative events and encounters highlight moments when purpose but rather holds itself open to challenge and to change.1 Enlarged cross-cultural communication breaks down; positive events and encounters thinking is required in cross-cultural conflict resolution to address differences show moments when something new and constructive happens in people’s lives of epistemology and ontology such as those discussed in the previous chapter. and institutions. I draw on my work in cross-cultural contexts of decolonisation The examples I will discuss show Anglo-Australian law enlarging its thinking and restoration and speak from the position of one who has tried to facilitate in its efforts to achieve fairness in relation to Aboriginal people and their Law, positive flows of information. 102 mediating across difference

Adversarial Processes and the Achievement of Flexibility The Aboriginal Land Rights Act (1976) of the Northern Territory (NT) was signed into law on a wave of public support for Aboriginal people and their aspirations. The legislation was specifically intended to benefit Aboriginal people, and at the same time the process was designed to ensure fairness as conceived within Anglo-European law. An Aboriginal land commissioner was appointed to conduct inquiries, traditional owners offered evidence of ownership that was relevant under the terms of the act, and that evidence was tested under cross-examination. Persons or institutions (such as the NT government) that perceived that a successful claim would be detrimental to their interests were allowed to make their case for detriment. The land commissioner considered the evidence and cases put forward and then made a finding. In every claim brought before the commissioner, at least some portion of the land under claim was returned to traditional Aboriginal owners. Any successful mediation across difference requires that people be able fully and fairly to articulate their position. I want, therefore, to briefly consider the lengths to which Aboriginal land commissioners went in order to ensure that Indigenous people were accorded a fair hearing. In the course of the first few hearings it became clear that the judicial process was responsible for un- dermining Aboriginal people’s capacity to articulate their position and bring forward their evidence. The land commissioners drew on a principle that is firmly embedded in Anglo-Australian legal thought and is one to which none of the opponents to the claim could reasonably object: natural justice. Abo- riginal people do not in my experience articulate this abstraction, but they are entirely familiar with the concept of a ‘fair go’, and they were confident that, given a fair go, they could explain to an outsider their system of belonging to Country. In order to ensure that the claimants received a fair hearing, various legal practices had to be modified, and over a period of two decades the following new and innovative body of practice came into being.

• Evidence was given on-site. It was presented ‘in Country’ and in the presence of many of the sacred and historical sites being discussed. The judge sat on the ground with the Aboriginal witnesses, walked through Country with them, and listened to stories that were confronting and challenging. The court ‘went bush’ in every sense of the term. • Evidence was given by groups. The witnesses were not segregated from each other but sat together. Everyone listened to everyone’s evidence. This practice reflected the recognition of several wider principles in the hearings. First, the knowledge being presented is not strictly an individual per- conflict resolution and decolonisation 103

spective but is a body of knowledge owned and transmitted by a group of people. Furthermore, while knowledge may be widely shared, it is the right and duty of Elders to talk about country in formal contexts. In addition, events that matter must be witnessed, as I explain further below. The idea of secrecy is integral to Aboriginal knowledge management, but at the same time, those who spoke always wanted their words to be witnessed by the appropriate people. • Evidence that was gender-specific and secret-sacred was given in gender- separated groups and treated in particular ways where necessary. Gender- separated Law, ceremony, and knowledge constituted the deepest forms of proof of Aboriginal relationships with country for many claimants, and although the act does not specify that people must share such knowledge, many people wanted to. In order for that to happen, evidence had to be heard in confidential sessions, and some of the transcript became restricted. (Gender separation has tended always to disadvantage women because all the Aboriginal land commissioners have been men. This serious issue was never fully overcome. Nevertheless, that Anglo-Australian law was able to accommodate secret-sacred evidence within what was in all other respects a public hearing marked an improvement on standard practice. Here, too, the issue for the land commissioners was natural justice—i.e., if this was how Aboriginal proof was organised, then in fairness to the claimants the judge should hear that evidence, even if that meant restricting the hearing and the transcript.) • Intellectual property was protected. It came to be understood that much of the material prepared for the hearing, such as site lists, site maps, and genealogies, was intellectual property. Accordingly, these documents too were restricted and did not become part of the public record of the event. (In claims involving disputes among the Aboriginal claimant groups, this issue became particularly acute because people were concerned about members of other groups stealing their knowledge. Provisions were made to enable each group to present its evidence without fear that its knowledge would be stolen.)

In sum, in thinking about the land claim process, we get a glimpse of two important points. First, cross-cultural communication can be more complicated and demanding than people might imagine at the outset. Second, where there is a determination that fairness be achieved, many changes can be made to existing practices—including to apparently fixed and formal practices such as those of Western law. Both points are crucial to managing conflict across difference through enlarged thinking. 104 mediating across difference

Principles in Practice I turn now to more specific cases and principles. Here I will draw out a number of major points, many of them implicit in the preceding land claim discussion.

Place Within Indigenous Australia, where things happen is every bit as important as what happens. Justice Peter Gray, Aboriginal land commissioner for two terms, saw this principle in action when he heard the second Borroloola land claim. The first Borroloola claim was one of the first claims to be brought to hearing. That event took place in 1977 in the Borroloola community hall and was heard by J. Toohey. Of the hundreds of pages of evidence, only a small proportion was evidence offered by the Aboriginal claimants.2 The claim was not fully successful, and the Northern Land Council appealed the decision. The claim was reheard in 1992.3 This time the hearing took place on the land be- Mary, Morgan, and Polly provide ing claimed, which consisted of a a diagram in chapter 4 that shows group of islands in the Gulf of Carpen- “Land, Place, Origin, Beginning/ taria. The whole party—claimants, End” at the centre of everything. judge’s party, Land Council lawyers They offer a philosophical account and support staff, opposition lawyers of the centrality of Place, and they are clear in stating that Country and their support staff—travelled to “participates in reciprocal rela- the main island and camped there for tion with humans”. The second about a week. We slept on the sand, Borroloola land claim hearings il- ate in a bush kitchen, and visited sites lustrate how the centrality of place came to be accommodated within on several islands, travelling by boat, the processes of Western law. scrambling across mudflats, climbing hills, and hiking through jungle. It was not work for the fainthearted. I recall Justice Gray remarking as we strug- gled through knee-deep mud to get from the boat to an island that there are many creatures better adapted to this environment than humans, among them saltwater crocodiles. Large amounts of evidence were heard at the sites we visited, requiring the recordist to work with equipment that was readily portable, as he too had to scramble through the mud and the jungle. The claimants were in their own country and were perfectly at home. The rest of us had to adapt. At the conclusion of presentation of the claimants’ evidence, the hearing moved to the community hall in Borroloola, and those opposing the claim called their witnesses and laid out their positions. The result was a transcript in which Aboriginal evidence far outweighed non-Aboriginal evidence and in which the greatest proportion of evidence was heard within the claim area. Justice Gray conflict resolution and decolonisation 105 found that the claimants had indeed proved traditional ownership within the terms of the act, and the islands are now Aboriginal freehold land. As this case clearly shows, land commissioners began to realise that Abo- riginal people are empowered to speak most forcefully and authoritatively when they are in their own Country. That people are empowered to speak within their own country goes to the heart of Indigenous knowledge and authority. One reason for this is that everyone belongs somewhere, and that to belong somewhere means that one does not belong elsewhere. The right to speak emerges from one’s place of belonging. It is not an abstract right but an emplaced right, and in order to be heard fairly, people need to be in the places where they are empowered to express themselves. A further reason, perhaps less accessible to Western law but full of significance for Aboriginal claimants, is that there is always an ‘audience’. (Mary Graham’s statement of the Aboriginal precept ‘You are not alone in the world’ says this perfectly in seven words.4) One’s authority to speak is authorised by the Dreamings, by the ancestors who are in country, and by the country itself. When one speaks, ancestors and Country are listening. It would not be Lawful to speak deeply about matters affecting the Country and the group without including nonhuman sentient beings who are themselves emplaced.

Other-Than-Human Participants Many disputes between Indigenous people and Settlers concern damage to Country, perhaps most specifically to sacred sites. With Country at the centre, damage hurts everything and everybody. These issues came up in evidence given in the Kidman Springs–Jasper Gorge land claim. Alan Griffiths, now a well-regarded artist living in Kununurra (Western Australia), spoke of his Owl- et Nightjar Dreaming ancestor, Jirrikik, and some of the sites associated with the Dreaming. He used the word ‘photograph’ to refer to designs used in body painting for ceremony (and perhaps other contexts as well). His evidence was elicited by barrister Ross Howie.

Alan Griffiths (AG): At Kangkiji [a place-name] they knocked one rock, Jirrikik. Ross Howie (RH): And what knocked it down? AG: The bulldozer. RH: And how did you feel when that happened? AG: No good. RH: Why not? AG: Well, that’s when— As soon as we tell the old fella, Old Dan, that’s when he died from the dreaming. 106 mediating across difference

RH: When you told him that that had been knocked down, you say he died? AG: Yes . . . RH: And why did he die? AG: Well, he was thinking about for the dreaming, you know. RH: All right, and is that Jirrikik still there? AG: Yes, he’s still there, but he’s been moved from the tree. We lift him up and put him in the tree now. RH: He’s a stone, is he? AG: Yes, a stone. RH: And was there a tree knocked down there at VRD [Victoria River Downs Station]? AG: Yes, one been get knocked off right in the middle, right at the airstrip. One bloodwood. RH: And how did you feel when that happened? AG: No good. We still using a photograph every year on the ceremony time, on the ring place time, tell them that the bloodwood be still gone but we can dream. . . . They shouldn’t touch the tree, but they done it. We still got the photograph.5

There are few (if any) matters that affect country and do not also affect people, few matters that affect people and do not also affect Country. While effects ramify, the core of the issue, as explained in the previous chapter, is to sustain relationships. Alan Griffiths spoke about their efforts to hold on—to the stone, the designs, the songs, the knowledge. But at the same time he was telling a terrible story of how a bulldozer caused the death of one of his fathers. There are many good reasons why sacred sites should be protected, most basically because respect for the religious life of others is central to a successfully plural society. Yet the point that is particularly important in this context is that the parties to conflict and to peacemaking are not all human. How their presence can be brought into conflict management remains an open and challenging question, which, I believe, does not need to be answered. It is enough for now to understand that for Aboriginal people nonhuman others are part of the process, and it is enough to leave negotiating space, as occurred in the land claim hearing, within which Aboriginal people can manage the participation of their nonhuman kin. Conflict resolution that is responsive to difference must take into account the sentience of other-than-human creatures, as well as the relationships among people, Country, and Dreamings.

Time and Stories Not only must conflict resolution take account of place and the relationships that ramify through it, but it also needs to work with the right story. Abo- conflict resolution and decolonisation 107 riginal people understand that stories organise our lives and relationships. What stories are drawn on to account for the present? When do they begin? What moral valence do they carry? How do they situate the different participants in events of today? For Aboriginal people, these questions must always arise and be dealt with. Amidst conflict they are more than vendetta questions of who did what to whom. They are expressions of power, and the power to determine the time frame and the relevant story can either occlude fairness or facilitate it. Enlarged thought does not determine the time frame and story in advance but, rather, opens discussion of these issues as part of the process. I saw this principle in action frequently in encounters between Anglo- Australians and Aboriginal people. More often than not, Anglo-Australians with the power to intervene in Aboriginal people’s lives worked within a short time frame and with a story of Aboriginal deficiency. This typically generated conflict. A good example is the time some Anglo-Australian health workers came to Yarralin to run a slide show and a question-and-answer session about childhood nutrition. They asked all the mothers of young children to assemble in the schoolhouse for the slide show. The program had been developed specifically for Aboriginal people and was fully intended to be culturally sensitive. I do not know if any information was effectively communicated, but I know that the women came out of the session very upset. They had two big complaints: the wrong story and the wrong people. The story the women heard was a story about how Aboriginal women are not taking adequate care of their children’s nutrition and health. But, as the women explained, the right story does not begin with them and their children. It begins with Captain James Cook, the figure used to identify European colonisation. For them, the whole issue of childhood nutrition was embedded within the broader story of colonisation, and unless that story was acknowledged, the women were not interested. The right story would provide the appropriate context and, under the best of circumstances, would situate health within a context of reconciliation. That is, health would be an area in which Settlers and Aborigi- nal people would work together to change the Captain Cook story of dispossession and oppression. In the preceding chapter Mary, Morgan, and Polly make brief reference to the use of ‘problems’ in Aboriginal communities as justification for state intervention. Such interventions regularly fail to recognise that problems are relational and that Anglo-Australian people and their institutions are part of the relationship and thus part of the problem. The health worker case draws our attention to conflicts that arise through the imposition of truths that appear commonsensical from the dominant worldview. Such ‘truths’ become instruments of colonisation, imposed on others under a guise of benevolence.6 The phrase “for their own good” has justified a great many colonising interventions 108 mediating across difference that have worked to the detriment of Aboriginal people,7 including, as noted in the first boxed section of chapter 4, the “breeding out” of Aboriginality. In the case presented here, attachment to a universal value labelled “health” displaced local knowledge, local power and authority, local stories and time frames. By obscuring a conflict situation embedded in a one-hundred-year-long relationship of colonial injustice, it foreclosed on dialogue. It thus curtailed opportunities for enlarged thinking amongst all parties and obliterated any vision of collaborative reconciliation and mutual change.

The Right People In the preceding vignette, the women were also angry about who had been selected to attend the meeting. Not only was the story wrong, but the people were wrong too. The mothers believed that they had been unfairly singled out for blame because their children are cared for by a range of relatives. Mother’s brothers have particular responsibilities for their sisters’ children, and grand- mothers do a lot of the work of child raising. Older sisters and brothers are also caregivers, and fathers too have responsibilities. If a matter concerning children is going to be discussed, it should be discussed with all the people who have the responsibilities. Mary, Morgan, and Polly write about relatedness, with their case study “Bro- kering Peace” involving relations among individuals within family groups. Re- latedness also extends through practices of care. Responsibilities are also rights; to grow into responsibilities is to grow into Law. The anger of women in my health worker case study illustrates similar points from slightly different perspectives: anger at the blame, anger at the story of deficiency, anger at the exclusion of others who also have responsibilities, anger at having their own nurturing and sustaining work denigrated. As we learn from the preceding chapter, to impugn someone’s caregiving is to impugn that person’s integrity, place in the Law, and place in Country, and these are harmful imputations indeed. Had the women felt safe from the police and the accompanying white institutions, they would surely have chased the health workers from the community with heavy wooden fighting sticks.

Necessary Violence Many grievances call for violence as a way of satisfying people’s feelings. This satisfaction leads to peace. Fights are not meant to be free-for-alls, and most are contained because there is a rule-governed process and because people have multiple aims: to satisfy their feelings, of course, and at the same time to restore the possibility of good relationships. To be successful, fights must sustain paradox at their core. Good fights involve formalised and controlled conflict resolution and decolonisation 109 violence, but to generate satisfaction for those who are aggrieved, they are also tense affairs that have the potential to go out of control. Fights often look quite uncontrolled to outside eyes, but good fights are beautifully orchestrated and rule-governed. Of course, there is a risk that fights can go badly wrong—a risk that increases greatly when people are under the influence of alcohol. Divorce offers a good example of fighting to restore peace. For a marriage to be terminated, a fight must take place between husband and wife. As Yarralin people explained to me, a man does not have the right to kill his wife, nor does a woman have the right to kill her husband. Refusing to remain married is an offence, but not a capital offence. I witnessed one divorce at close range. In this instance the woman had run away from a nearby community with her lover (the standard way of initiating divorce). They had come to Yarralin because they both had relations there. The woman’s husband followed a few days later, with a truck full of fearsome-looking relations. He had come to get her back. The actual fight had High Noon overtones as the wife, her relations, and her lover approached the centre of Yarralin from one end of camp and the out- raged husband and his relations approached from the other end. I sat on an overturned drum about thirty feet from where the fight took place. The husband told the wife to come back. She said no. She didn’t want to, she said, because she didn’t like him anymore. He closed in for a fistful of her hair, four or five boomerangs gripped in his other hand. One of her relations stepped forward and inserted herself between husband and wife. Over the course of the fight, the person in this vulnerable in-between position changed several times, but someone was always between the two contestants, and the message was clear: whilst acknowledging the husband’s right to express his feelings through violence, they did not want their relative killed and were prepared to retaliate if anything happened to her. The husband broke several boomerangs over his wife’s back, shouting at her all the time, but as she steadfastly refused to accompany him, his own relations began to give him advice. “Leave her”, they said. “If she doesn’t want you, let her go”. “Plenty more women”, they told him. And so he did let her go. He drove off in his truck, making dire threats; his wife was now his ex-wife, free to do as she pleased.8 In a good fight, expressions of violence must be countered by containment of violence. The most important people in this and other disputes are the people in the middle. Conflict resolution requires both the parties to the dispute and the people who are in between. Following on from the previous sections, a good fight requires the right people, the right story, the right opportunities to express the emotions that are simmering, and, perhaps most urgently, the right people to be positioned in between. 110 mediating across difference

Two Laws and Local Mediators The Aboriginal term ‘different and same’ is apt for describing those who take up in-between conflict resolution roles. Those who are different and same are potential mediators. Their role is not to reject or deny emotions but to facilitate the process in ways that keep it from spiralling into even greater conflict. Courts have been dealing with local mediations in criminal cases for some time. The cross-cultural efforts to observe both Anglo-Australian criminal law and Aboriginal Law often create numerous conflicting expectations. But often, too, there is an outcome that satisfies Aboriginal people, at least to some degree. Where blood has been shed, many Aboriginal people have both the right and the deep need, at the very least, to see the aggressor’s blood also shed through a process commonly termed ‘payback’. Some of the payback events in the NT enable people to achieve this level of satisfaction, and although courts try to keep some control over these court-sanctioned events, they acknowledge that the conflict between the groups (family of aggressor, family of victims) cannot be resolved simply by putting the perpetrator in jail. One of the saddest events I witnessed was that of a young man who had been the driver when a car crashed and another young man was killed. His community was in grief, his own family was in grief, Having been raised in a far less overtly violent and the family of the dead tradition, I found numerous events disturbing. boy, their only son, was Indeed, in the case of ‘payback’ of the young utterly distraught. The driver whose actions resulted in the death of another, I shall never forget the sound of blood judge in Darwin included squishing in his shoes as he limped away, alive in the boy’s sentence that and through the worst of it. Yet, with difficulty, he be sent home after the I came to understand that fear of violence can trial and before jail so that itself impede justice aimed toward balance. I local payback could take came to understand that systems of autonomy require people to take up weapons on their own place. Subsequent to the behalf, and I came to respect that the right to payback, he would return achieve justice in the form of punishment is to Darwin to serve an ad- not handed over to outside authorities. I also justed jail term. respected that a person who has injured others does not pay a ‘debt to society’ but rather pays The distressing vio- the debt to the people who have been injured. lence of the car crash Many of the people who were involved in this required significant vio- event ended up feeling sorry for the boy. He had lence to process the re- paid his debts to the family he had wronged, and it seemed unnecessary that he should then have sulting grief. The boy’s to go to jail. Much better, people said, for him to own family was at risk have stayed home and taken care of the people and had to defend them- whose son had died. selves. Fights were organ- conflict resolution and decolonisation 111 ised by gender. One by one the women of the victim’s family fought the women of the boy’s family. This was no mere formality; there was a lot of anger. And yet someone was always between the two women who fought. The orchestration of violence was impressive, and while no one stayed in the vulnerable middle position for long, someone was always there. After the women fought, it was the men’s turn, and the same structure applied. Finally, no one stood between the young man and the men who represented the victim’s family. He was guilty, and he was there to submit. In principle they had the right to kill him, and his own family did not have the right to dispute this. Although no one stood in the middle, people watched closely; and there were people who were prepared to intervene if it went too far, and who spoke up when they thought it had gone far enough. At the same time, there were many people who were witnesses, who had no particular stake in one side or another, and who would go away able to say that the payback had occurred and that the terrible thing was finished. Necessary violence had led to peace. When Aboriginal people manage conflict among themselves without the intervention of the state, conflict pits one group of people against another. In fact, the process of differentiation and ‘squaring off’ is necessary to the process of managing conflict. The role of the other key actors, the people in between, is both necessary and dangerous. These are people who are both different and same: different enough to not be a member of a party to the dispute, and same enough to have an interest in seeing the matter resolved. Getting the right people, therefore, is not just a matter of finding the specific parties to the dispute but also a matter of enlisting the people who are situated so as to be able to mediate. These people are Law people who understand that violence is important in both short- and long-term frames: in the short term to express emotions and to effect a balance, and in the long term to provide a pathway toward peace.

The Power of Ritual The processes of Aboriginal conflict resolution, involving the right groups of people, in the right place, with the right story, and the right set of complementary and cross-cutting relationships, are possible because people are working with a form of reason based in connection. Stephen Muecke offers the view that connection is a way of reasoning that leads to commitment. He provokes us to decentre (not abandon) Cartesian rationality in favour of a more inclusive set of logics. Connections are nonlinear, and conflict resolution calls for getting the right story, and working with it to generate new stories that curve through groups and back into Country, giving rise to emplaced stories that finish the conflict and restore balance.9 I offer one final land claim story that shows Aboriginal people twisting 112 mediating across difference an event back into their own form and bringing outsiders into a ritual that communicates many messages: social commentary on the hearing, reclama- tion of agency, restoration of gender balance, and restoration of relationships between people and country. In the Kidman Springs–Jasper Gorge land claim, the women had been severely disadvantaged. They had decided not to show any of their secret Law because the judge, the lawyers and barristers, and the judge’s consulting anthropologist were all men. The women put it this way: “From Dreaming right up till now no man has looked at this. We can’t lose that Law”. On the last day of the hearing, the claimants announced that they intended to put on a ‘show’ for the land commissioner that would involve music, dance, and body art. Their purpose, as stated by the women, was to show the land commissioner that women and men work together in the management of knowledge. In other words, they wanted to bring some gender balance into an event that had become quite unbalanced. Their final ‘show’ was a ritual inversion of the hearing. The reversals were so marked and humorous that the intent could not be missed. It was held in the evening outside the bough shade where the hearing had been held. The spatial organisation was determined totally by the claimants. The judge and all other non-Aboriginal participants (lawyers, anthropologists, field assistants) were told that we would be summoned when the claimants were ready for us. In the meantime we were to simply sit and wait. When called, we were told to collect our chairs from the bough shade and to then come forward halfway and sit at that place. After waiting, we were told to bring our chairs further forward and to arrange ourselves in a row facing the area that had been designated as a dancing ground. The claimants used the headlights of their vehicles as spotlights for the dancers, and with imaginative use of space, lighting, and personnel they created a show that was by turns impressive, sweet, and humorous. The children provided humour inadvertently (in part), and some of the men took up the clowning role with exuberance. The women danced. It was their first opportunity to show the judge that they had Law underpinning their knowledge and standing. At the close of the proceedings a senior regional Law woman grouped the women together to voice the calls that speak to country, and with her hands and arms she gestured with downward motions. Then she turned to the ‘audience’ and said: “We opened the Country up for you, and now we are closing it down again”.

Conclusion The resolution of conflict stretches everyone. It calls on people to focus their thinking, to express the immediacy of the conflict, and to imagine a future conflict resolution and decolonisation 113 in which peace is restored. In cross-cultural conflicts, people are called to press their institutions, customs, and rituals beyond the norm and into new domains of engagement and action. The role of witnesses is intensely important, as I have shown here by presenting stories that offer witness to real events and by discussing the roles of human and nonhuman witnesses. The deep significance of witnesses is that they provide a standpoint for enlarged thinking. Because they are not so involved as to be wholly caught up in the moment, their presence enables those directly involved to focus on the moment and at the same time holds in place the knowledge of alternatives. The knowledge that events are being witnessed, that the witnesses will remember, and that Country and nonhuman beings with long-term interests in balanced outcomes are present offers ways of balancing the needs of the moment with the needs of the future. In the story about brokering peace that Mary, Morgan, and Polly have presented, we see that the dead, too, are witnesses. They have an interest in the outcome, and their interest includes finding peace. Two of the foregoing stories in this chapter stand out particularly strongly as illustrations of the possibilities of enlarged thinking across cultural difference for conflict resolution. The first vignette shows judges, the chief practitioners in a major Anglo-Australian institution of power, finding within their own traditions the basis for opening the law dialogically. The result has been the return of homelands to Indigenous people in legally sanctioned restorations. That the law is able to stretch itself in the interests of natural justice is a significant social fact, telling us that even in cross-cultural encounters that are fraught with histories of oppression, uncontrolled violence, and immiseration, it is still possible to generate new stories and new relationships. The second and final vignette shows Indigenous people opening their traditions to engage with Anglo-Australian law and to restore damaged relationships. The power of ritual cannot be forced or demanded, and whether it communicates or not depends in large part on who is paying attention. Aboriginal Aus- tralians are masters of the arts of ritual and transformation, and this, more than anything else in the tough domain of conflict resolution and peacemaking, suggests that cross-cultural alternatives continue to be possible and that the stories of how we enlarge our thinking are not over.

Notes 1. Discussed in Seyla Benhabib, Situating the Self: Gender, Community and Post- modernism in Contemporary Ethics (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1992), pp. 9–10. 2. J. Toohey, Borroloola Land Claim No. 1: Report to the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and to the Minister for the Northern Territory (Canberra: Australian Government Print- ing Service, 1978). 114 mediating across difference

3. P. Gray, Warnarrwarnarr-Barranyi Borroloola No. 2 Land Claim No. 30 (Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1997). 4. See chapter 4 in this volume. 5. Transcript of Proceedings, Re the Kidman Springs–Jasper Gorge Land Claim (Ad- elaide: Commonwealth Reporting Service, 1988), pp. 162–164. 6. See, for example, Jim Cheney, “Nature/Theory/Difference: Ecofeminism and the Reconstruction of Environmental Ethics,” in K. Warren (ed.), Ecological Feminism (London: Routledge, 1994), pp. 158–178. 7. Anna Haebich, “For Their Own Good”: Aborigines and Government in the South- west (Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press, 1998). 8. Deborah Rose, Dingo Makes Us Human: Life and Land in an Australian Aborigi- nal Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 135. 9. Stephen Muecke, No Road (Bitumen All the Way) (Fremantle, Western Austra- lia: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1997), pp. 184–185. Chapter 6 Ma¯ori Dispute Resolution Traditional Conceptual Regulators and Contemporary Processes

Carwyn Jones

One of the key questions debated in Aotearoa/New Zealand today is how well the Crown has met its obligations under the terms of the Treaty of Wai tangi. The treaty requires the Crown to protect Māori interests, including land, natural resources, and cultural interests such as the Māori language. As a result of mounting Māori activism and protest in relation to these issues, a commission of inquiry, the Waitangi Tribunal, was established in 1975 to hear Māori claims. The tribunal, an independent body made up of judges, historians, Māori elders, and other experts, makes recommendations to the government. A separate arm of the government conducts negotiations to settle historical land-based claims. In recent years, redress for breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi has been provided to a number of Māori groups as part of these negotiated settlements, and this has resulted in a re-establishment of tribal infrastructure. The relationship between Māori and the New Zealand government is mediated by a blend of Māori and Anglo-European conflict resolution processes in the Waitangi Tribunal. The conceptual regulators of Māori society lead to distinctly Māori approaches to resolving disputes, but aspects of these approaches are also found within official quasi-judicial Aotearoa/New Zealand processes such as the Waitangi Tribunal. They also appear as important components of modern Māori commercial organisational structures. Indeed, some of the choices that Māori groups are making within the treaty settlement process suggest that Māori dispute resolution processes will be preferred when addressing issues that relate closely to the cultural identity of the group. Although the application of Māori dispute resolution processes generally takes place within a wider, often Western, structural context, this blending of values and practices shows that a reconcilia-

115 116 mediating across difference tion of dispute resolution processes derived from different cultural foun- Aotearoa/New Zealand is a country dations is possible and valuable. of approximately four million people. The Indigenous Māori population This chapter discusses key ele- numbers about 600,000, or ap- ments of Māori dispute resolution, proximately 15 percent of the coun- with particular reference to aspects try’s total population. Māori society of the treaty settlement process was traditionally organised around kinship networks, such as the tribe, used to address conflicts internal or iwi. Though the majority of Māori and external to Māori tribes. The people now live in urban centres, first part of the chapter explores perhaps outside their traditional tribal some fundamental principles that boundaries, these kinship networks guide Māori conflict resolution and remain an important part of Māori society and cultural identity. Centred provides a brief overview of Māori on these kinship networks, internal social organisation as the founda- tribal relationships and relationships tion on which Māori conflict resolu- between tribes tend to incorporate tion is based. It also outlines some distinctly Māori approaches to dispute resolution. important aspects of the operation The relationship between Māori of the system of tikanga (practices and the New Zealand government in accordance with a Māori world- is framed by a document called the view), which encompasses Māori Treaty of Waitangi, signed in 1840 between Māori chiefs and the British customary law. Five ‘conceptual Crown. While there is much debate regulators’ central to the operation about the specific terms of the treaty, of tikanga and Māori dispute reso- this instrument essentially paved the lution are identified and described. way for the introduction of a colo- The second part of the chapter nial government in return for British guarantees that Māori interests would examines three areas of cultural dif- be protected. ference that highlight key characteristics of Māori dispute resolution processes: differences in conceptualising relationships with people, attitudes to time, and attitudes to the environment. In some instances these areas of cultural difference illustrate significant contrasts between Māori dispute resolution processes (driven by the identified conceptual regulators) and orthodox Western dispute resolution processes. These differences are illustrated by referring to some Treaty of Waitangi processes. The third and final part of the chapter considers how aspects of Māori dispute resolution processes have been used within the treaty settlement process. It discusses how conceptual regulators operate within the Waitangi Tribunal’s procedure and how the tribunal has attempted to address cultural difference relating to conflict resolution processes. The chapter concludes by noting the value of mutual accommodation of conflict resolution approaches for achieving māori Dispute resolution 117 durable resolution of cultural conflict. Blending processes must be handled in a respectful rather than tokenistic manner, but the Aotearoa/New Zealand experience shows that similar accommodation can likely contribute to mediating across difference in other settings. A conversation between two Māori friends appears in boxes throughout the chapter to illustrate key themes.

Guiding Principles: Ma¯ori Social Structures and Conceptual Regulators To understand the key principles that guide Māori dispute resolution processes, some familiarity with Māori social structures is necessary. Māori society is structured around genealogical links, or whakapapa. These kin relationships are central to Māori society. Historically, the orthodox anthropological view of Māori social organisation was of a hierarchy of tribal groupings, with the whānau (ex- Iwi/Hapū/Whānau “Talking to yourself again, eh?” tended family) at the bot- Kahu hadn’t realised that his friend Maui tom of the hierarchy, had come into the room and so turned with followed by the hapū (usu- something of a start. ally described as the sub- “No, I’m just . . . ” “Fair enough. I talk to myself all the time. tribe, which was made up Only way to get intelligent conversation. Don’t lis- of a number of whānau, ten to people who tell you it is a sign of madness”. and finally the iwi (tribe), “No, Maui. I’m just trying to learn some comprising various hapū. more of my whakapapa. My grandmother told me that if I’m going to Wellington, I should make The whānau, hapū, and sure I know how my whānau and hapū connect iwi are effective social with some of the whānau and hapū there. Even structures and are the though they are from a different iwi from me, my fundamental aspects of Nan says there are close kinship connections Māori relationships and and that I can whakapapa to hapū down there as well. She says that is why the hapū name is an identity. However, to view ancestor that I can trace back to as well”. these groups as a simple “Well, it certainly is important to know your hierarchy misrepresents whakapapa and be able to make those connec- Māori social dynamics. tions. But you know whānau can mean ‘birth’ as well as ‘family’, right? And hapū and iwi can This point is persuasively mean ‘pregnant’ and ‘bones’, respectively, as argued in Angela Ballara’s well as different forms of kinship groupings?” comprehensive analysis “Yeah. So?” of the dynamics of Māori “You’re sure your Nan wasn’t trying to hook tribal organisation from you up with some bony pregnant woman who is about to give birth or something?” the eighteenth to the Kahu sighed. Maui could never let anything twentieth century.1 be straightforward. Māori social organi- 118 mediating across difference sation is, and has always been, far more fluid than the orthodox three-tiered model allows. It should be noted that this fluidity is closely connected with the Tikanga operation of Māori leadership, which derives from the flexibility of whakapapa. “So, why are you going down to Wellington anyway?” Ballara suggests that in many ways it is more accurate to think of the hapū as the “To go to university down there, remem- tribe, because it is the hapū that operates most regularly as the corporate group.2 ber?” Kahu had told Maui this a million times. Better too to understand iwi as alliances of hapū, rather than as constant, un- He wasn’t sure whether Maui kept asking just to changing entities. Hapū would join together for major projects that could not be wind him up or whether it was simply because Maui never paid attention to his answer. undertaken by separate groups. Such projects might include war or large-scale “You’ll say a karakia [a prayer] before your fishing operations within a limited season. In any case, the paramount chief of journey, won’t you? And you’ll make sure you an iwi did not automatically command the obedience of constituent hapū. follow the ways of the people down there, right? The autonomy of the hapū is therefore one of the main checks on the power And you won’t eat in the meetinghouse? Or sit of the head of the iwi. This same principle operates through the hapū itself and on tables? And you’ll greet the people down there properly? And acknowledge those who the whānau as well. Leadership in Māori society is very much dependent on have gone before if you ever get up to speak? public opinion and close relationships with the people.3 The leaders at each level And . . . ” have different responsibilities but usually wield control only within their own “Yes, yes, yes! I know how to behave”. spheres. The way that leadership and authority are circumscribed contributes to “Well, sometimes people forget the little stuff or get a bit scared of the big stuff, but it the nature of traditional Māori dispute resolution processes. is all important, and it all keeps things running Māori dispute resolution is always subject to the rules and norms of Māori smoothly in the Māori world”. tikanga. Tikanga is not equivalent to customary law, though the two concepts “I know. I get it. You don’t need to bang on share many characteristics. The term ‘customary law’ is generally used to de- about it. Gee, you’re worse than my Nan!” scribe a system that focuses primarily on social control and that has developed through continued practice. It often incorporates the idea of a definite set of rules that apply to discrete areas of social life. The word tikanga comes from the Māori word tika, meaning that which is right or just. Tikanga can therefore be described as Māori principles for determining justice,4 but the scope of justice is much broader than that suggested by customary law.5 Tikanga operates in every aspect of Māori life. There is no particular jurisdiction for tikanga, nor is there a special act or category of action that demands tikanga be called into play. Tikanga operates at all levels: criminal and civil, spiritual and profane. An act of violence and an act of negligence both endanger the balance of relationships between the individual, the group, and the ancestors; both offend against the same basic order.6 Tikanga is perhaps best understood simply as “the Māori way of doing things—from the very mundane to the most sacred or important fields of human endeavor”.7 Tikanga is not a codified system of laws promulgated by a legislature and published as statutory instruments; it reflects an ideal way of behaving.8 That is not to say that the way tikanga is practiced is always the ideal manifestation of that tikanga. Hirini Moko Mead has suggested that this gap between the understanding of the ideal and the way that the tikanga is practically carried out accounts for regional variations.9 There may be a common understanding of what māori Dispute resolution 119 sation is, and has always been, far more fluid than the orthodox three-tiered the ideal is, even if varia- model allows. It should be noted that this fluidity is closely connected with the tions in the physical and Tikanga operation of Māori leadership, which derives from the flexibility of whakapapa. social environment pro- “So, why are you going down to Wellington anyway?” Ballara suggests that in many ways it is more accurate to think of the hapū as the duce different end results “To go to university down there, remem- tribe, because it is the hapū that operates most regularly as the corporate group.2 in trying to achieve that ber?” Kahu had told Maui this a million times. Better too to understand iwi as alliances of hapū, rather than as constant, un- ideal. Similarly, contact He wasn’t sure whether Maui kept asking just to changing entities. Hapū would join together for major projects that could not be with people from other wind him up or whether it was simply because Maui never paid attention to his answer. undertaken by separate groups. Such projects might include war or large-scale ethnic groups is likely to “You’ll say a karakia [a prayer] before your fishing operations within a limited season. In any case, the paramount chief of result in changes to the journey, won’t you? And you’ll make sure you an iwi did not automatically command the obedience of constituent hapū. outward manifestation follow the ways of the people down there, right? The autonomy of the hapū is therefore one of the main checks on the power of tikanga whilst the un- And you won’t eat in the meetinghouse? Or sit of the head of the iwi. This same principle operates through the hapū itself and derlying values remain on tables? And you’ll greet the people down there properly? And acknowledge those who 10 the whānau as well. Leadership in Māori society is very much dependent on constant. have gone before if you ever get up to speak? public opinion and close relationships with the people.3 The leaders at each level Eddie Durie has de- And . . . ” have different responsibilities but usually wield control only within their own scribed the operation of “Yes, yes, yes! I know how to behave”. spheres. The way that leadership and authority are circumscribed contributes to tikanga as being reliant “Well, sometimes people forget the little stuff or get a bit scared of the big stuff, but it the nature of traditional Māori dispute resolution processes. on fundamental values is all important, and it all keeps things running Māori dispute resolution is always subject to the rules and norms of Māori that he terms ‘conceptual smoothly in the Māori world”. tikanga. Tikanga is not equivalent to customary law, though the two concepts regulators’11—the princi- “I know. I get it. You don’t need to bang on share many characteristics. The term ‘customary law’ is generally used to de- ples that form the basis of about it. Gee, you’re worse than my Nan!” scribe a system that focuses primarily on social control and that has developed the Māori order. There is through continued practice. It often incorporates the idea of a definite set of no definitive list of these conceptual regulators, but Joe Williams suggests that rules that apply to discrete areas of social life. these principles can be encompassed within five key concepts:12 The word tikanga comes from the Māori word tika, meaning that which is right or just. Tikanga can therefore be described as Māori principles for deter- Whanaungatanga, the centrality of relationships to Māori life; Mana—the im- mining justice,4 but the scope of justice is much broader than that suggested portance of spiritually sanctioned authority and the limits on Māori leader- by customary law.5 Tikanga operates in every aspect of Māori life. There is no ship; Utu, the principle of balance and reciprocity including the accompanying particular jurisdiction for tikanga, nor is there a special act or category of action values of aroha [love] and manaakitanga [taking care or looking after people] that demands tikanga be called into play. Tikanga operates at all levels: criminal requiring respect, empathy and generosity; Kaitiakitanga, the obligation of and civil, spiritual and profane. An act of violence and an act of negligence both stewardship and protection of one’s own; Tapu, respect for the spiritual char- endanger the balance of relationships between the individual, the group, and acter of all things. the ancestors; both offend against the same basic order.6 Tikanga is perhaps best understood simply as “the Māori way of doing things—from the very mundane Exploring these conceptual regulators in more detail helps provide a better un- to the most sacred or important fields of human endeavor”.7 derstanding of their significance in Māori conflict resolution processes. Tikanga is not a codified system of laws promulgated by a legislature and Whanaungatanga, the centrality of relationships, is seen as the single most published as statutory instruments; it reflects an ideal way of behaving.8 That important aspect of Māori social organisation. Indeed, kinship links will usually is not to say that the way tikanga is practiced is always the ideal manifestation have primacy in determining an appropriate course of action in any given situa- of that tikanga. Hirini Moko Mead has suggested that this gap between the un- tion.13 A second and closely related term, whakapapa, or genealogy, is important derstanding of the ideal and the way that the tikanga is practically carried out ac- here. For instance, whanaungatanga guides the formulation of rights through counts for regional variations.9 There may be a common understanding of what the application of whakapapa. An essential property of both whanaungatanga 120 mediating across difference and whakapapa is their flexible nature. Of Whanaungatanga Mana course, a person can- “Your Nan sounds like a very smart lady”. “I don’t know that you want to compare your “Why? Because she thinks the same as you?” own mind to my Nan’s”. not change his or her “Well, there is that. But telling you to make “Have a bit of respect, eh? She might have genealogy, but whaka- sure you know your whakapapa connections with some funny ideas about a few things, but she is papa is flexible in the people you’ll be with down there makes good still a woman of great mana. She’s spent a lifetime terms of which genea- sense. People will look after you, make sure you quietly working away for her people, and that has won’t get into any trouble”. garnered her enormous respect. You see the way logical lines are em- “As if I’d ever get into any trouble”. people defer to her decisions about how events phasised. As Durie ob- “But you’ll need to look after them too”. should be run, what sorts of things should be hap- serves, “Well developed “Of course”. pening with the family land, and so on”. whakapapa gave the in- “If there is a funeral or a wedding or any- “I just thought that was because she was dividual an entry to nu- thing like that, they’ll probably need helpers in the scary”. kitchen”. “Well, that obviously helps. And her whaka- merous communities, “Right”. papa helps too. She is connected to all the big and allowed the com- “And seeing as you have a car, you might get families around here and can link into the family munities to claim the called on if one of the old fellas needs a ride to a lines of various chiefs. And all that gives you more adherence of widely doctor’s appointment”. mana too”. “Sure”. “Nobody would listen to me if I tried to tell scattered persons”.14 “And if one of the cousins is starting a new them what to do”. Joan Metge notes that job, or giving a talk, or playing in a music recital, it “You’re right there. But your Nan doesn’t tell today most Māori can would be good if you would go along and support”. people what to do either”. identify hundreds of “Will I get any time for my university courses?” “No, but she does have quite a knack of leav- “If you make sure you do all those things, then ing no doubt as to what she expects to happen. I relatives by name, giv- I guarantee you’ll get all the support you need with certainly wouldn’t try and contradict her”. ing them a large “kin- your own work”. “Me neither, now that you mention it”. ship universe”.15 There “That is what my Nan said”. are rights and obliga- “Great minds think alike, you see”. tions associated with kinship, and although there is great latitude for the individual to choose the degree to which these duties are carried out, the pre-eminence of whanaungatanga ensures that the fulfilment of kinship responsibilities is seen as fundamentally important by all. Wil- liams has described whakapapa as “the glue that holds Māori society together”.16 Because the identity of the individual is defined in relationship with others, it follows that Māori understandings of social order and justice place emphasis on the responsibility of the individual to the collective.17 The corollary of this is community responsibility for its members.18 The significance of this ethic of collective responsibility is further discussed later in this chapter. Mana is the primary concept that underlies Māori leadership. It includes ideas of power, authority, and prestige. Cleve Barlow has defined it as “the en- during, indestructible power of the gods”.19 Today three aspects of mana are commonly identified: mana atua—god-given power; mana tupuna—power from the ancestors; and mana tangata—authority derived from personal at- māori Dispute resolution 121 and whakapapa is their tributes.20 Understand- flexible nature. Of Whanaungatanga ing mana as originating Mana course, a person can- “Your Nan sounds like a very smart lady”. from these three sourc- “I don’t know that you want to compare your “Why? Because she thinks the same as you?” own mind to my Nan’s”. not change his or her “Well, there is that. But telling you to make es is essential to under- “Have a bit of respect, eh? She might have genealogy, but whaka- sure you know your whakapapa connections with standing Māori author- some funny ideas about a few things, but she is papa is flexible in the people you’ll be with down there makes good ity. Every person has still a woman of great mana. She’s spent a lifetime terms of which genea- sense. People will look after you, make sure you mana that comes from quietly working away for her people, and that has won’t get into any trouble”. garnered her enormous respect. You see the way logical lines are em- the gods and is there- “As if I’d ever get into any trouble”. people defer to her decisions about how events phasised. As Durie ob- “But you’ll need to look after them too”. fore entitled to respect. should be run, what sorts of things should be hap- serves, “Well developed “Of course”. As mana is also derived pening with the family land, and so on”. whakapapa gave the in- “If there is a funeral or a wedding or any- from a person’s ances- “I just thought that was because she was dividual an entry to nu- thing like that, they’ll probably need helpers in the tors, that person in ef- scary”. kitchen”. “Well, that obviously helps. And her whaka- merous communities, “Right”. fect becomes accounta- papa helps too. She is connected to all the big and allowed the com- “And seeing as you have a car, you might get ble to previous and families around here and can link into the family munities to claim the called on if one of the old fellas needs a ride to a subsequent genera- lines of various chiefs. And all that gives you more adherence of widely doctor’s appointment”. tions in the way that mana too”. “Sure”. “Nobody would listen to me if I tried to tell scattered persons”.14 power and authority “And if one of the cousins is starting a new them what to do”. Joan Metge notes that job, or giving a talk, or playing in a music recital, it are maintained. The “You’re right there. But your Nan doesn’t tell today most Māori can would be good if you would go along and support”. third source of mana, people what to do either”. identify hundreds of “Will I get any time for my university courses?” the mana derived from “No, but she does have quite a knack of leav- “If you make sure you do all those things, then ing no doubt as to what she expects to happen. I relatives by name, giv- personal attributes, is a I guarantee you’ll get all the support you need with certainly wouldn’t try and contradict her”. ing them a large “kin- your own work”. key driver in Māori so- “Me neither, now that you mention it”. ship universe”.15 There “That is what my Nan said”. ciety. By behaving in a are rights and obliga- “Great minds think alike, you see”. way that inspires re- tions associated with spect and achieves the support of others, one is able to build up one’s own mana kinship, and although as well as the authority of one’s people. This respect and authority are not abso- there is great latitude for the individual to choose the degree to which these du- lute and need to be maintained by continued demonstration of leadership qualities are carried out, the pre-eminence of whanaungatanga ensures that the fulfil- ties. Thus, the concept of mana illustrates the pattern of leadership and account- ment of kinship responsibilities is seen as fundamentally important by all. Wil- ability that exists in Māori society. liams has described whakapapa as “the glue that holds Māori society together”.16 Utu is often translated as ‘revenge’, but this is an incomplete translation of Because the identity of the individual is defined in relationship with others, it the concept and distorts its meaning. The term ‘reciprocity’ is more accurate. follows that Māori understandings of social order and justice place emphasis on Metge has described the concept as follows: “ ‘utu’ refers to the return of what- the responsibility of the individual to the collective.17 The corollary of this is ever is received: the return of ‘good’ gifts (taonga [treasures] and services) for community responsibility for its members.18 The significance of this ethic of good gifts, and the return of ‘bad’ gifts (insults, injuries, wrongs) for bad gifts”.21 collective responsibility is further discussed later in this chapter. While utu is about reciprocity and balance, it also acts to maintain continued Mana is the primary concept that underlies Māori leadership. It includes relationships through imbalance. When applied to gift exchange, the custom in ideas of power, authority, and prestige. Cleve Barlow has defined it as “the en- traditional Māori society is to return the obligation imposed by a gift by giving during, indestructible power of the gods”.19 Today three aspects of mana are something that is of greater value. This ensures that the relationship continues commonly identified: mana atua—god-given power; mana tupuna—power as it would not be proper for either side to end the gift exchange relationship from the ancestors; and mana tangata—authority derived from personal at- while there is an imbalance.22 The concept of utu meant that these reciprocal ob- 122 mediating across difference

Utu Kaitiakitanga “It’s funny the way people listen to my Nan, you know. Especially on deci- “Anyway, doesn’t your Uncle Sid just buy and sell property?” sions about our land. It is not as though she has ever owned land herself. You’d “Well, he claims that there is more to it than that, but that seems to be the think Uncle Sid would be the man they’d all listen to. After all, he obviously basic idea”. knows how to manage his property. He is loaded and has heaps of contacts”. “There you go, then”. “That isn’t always a recommendation. Anyway, you’d be surprised at the “What?” networks your Nan has built up”. “Have you ever heard of your Nan buying and selling property?” “Really?” “She’s not exactly a property tycoon, Maui”. “Yeah, you know she has lived on your family land for ages, right?” “No. She has quite different ideas to your Uncle Sid’s, doesn’t she?” “Since the beginning of time, I thought”. “I suppose so. She does talk a lot about how we belong to the whenua “Well, she has always made sure that land has provided whatever the fam- [land] and not the other way around”. ily needs—farmwork for your cousins, a place to stay when your aunties visit, “You know that as well as ‘land’, whenua also means . . . ” meat and veggies for all kinds of community events. She even makes all that “Yes, I know the whenua is the placenta too. But there is that connection woven flax stuff as gifts for visiting groups”. with the land. We bury the placenta after a child’s birth to reconnect that child “I know. She makes me help with all of that stuff”. with the earth. Nan says that really makes us part of the place where we are from, “Think of all those relationships she has set up. And think about how her a part of the natural world, and reinforces the link with our ancestral lands”. mana has been built up by ensuring all these people are provided for. That all “I bet that your Uncle Sid doesn’t put that in his investors’ prospectus”. creates layers of obligations”. “Well, Uncle Sid always makes sure that he is provided for”. “It seems all those contact lenses haven’t enabled him to see things as clearly as your Nan”. Tapu “Eh? She has terrible catara— Oh, I see what you mean”. “Uncle Sid isn’t much into a lot of the old Māori ways, though”. “He’s still very careful about not breaking tapu, isn’t he? He wouldn’t mess about with any sacred stuff. He always says ligations were maintained between individuals, between one descent group and a karakia before having his food. Remember, before he’d let another, and between the living and the departed. “Thus in traditional Māori anybody in, he had that blessing done for that new building he had built in town? And have you seen him at a funeral?” terms, mana was not achieved through the acquisition of material wealth but “Yeah, that’s true. I guess he’s no different to the rest 23 rather by distributing that wealth to others”. of us in that way. Nobody wants to bring about any harm to Kaitiakitanga is the obligation of stewardship and protection. Although it is themselves through not appropriately dealing with the tapu only a relatively recently coined word, it reflects an implicit aspect of long-stand- of something. I wouldn’t go into a newly built meetinghouse ing Māori worldview.24 Today it is most often used to express the obligation of a until the spiritual power had been acknowledged with the appropriate ritual”. community to nurture and protect the natural resources within its authority and “It is like anything I suppose. The spiritual aspect of all care.25 This includes protection of the spiritual well-being of the lands and wa- things that are part of our world need to be given their due, ters as well as their physical integrity. and if you’re going to muck around with them, then you Tapu is very closely related to the concept of noa. Although these terms are need to make sure that you’ve made it safe to do so”. “It is funny really, for all the times my Nan tells me that often translated as ‘sacred’ and ‘profane’, respectively, this does not convey any I have to do something in a particular way because it is tapu, real sense of how these concepts operate. Tapu and noa are complementary op- she doesn’t really explain what tapu is”. posites, which together constitute a whole.26 Tapu operates on a spiritual level, “Do you ever ask her about it?” and it seems clear that its efficacy as a concept derives from understanding it in “Sometimes”. “What does she say?” sacred terms. Noa has its own and separate importance, evoking the value of “Says she doesn’t want to talk about it”. 27 everyday, ordinary, relaxed human activity as a counter and antidote to tapu. At “Why not?” the same time, tapu is also connected to everyday life because an aspect of tapu “Too tapu”. behaviour involves keeping safe and avoiding risk in social conduct.28 māori Dispute resolution 123

Kaitiakitanga “Anyway, doesn’t your Uncle Sid just buy and sell property?” “Well, he claims that there is more to it than that, but that seems to be the basic idea”. “There you go, then”. “What?” “Have you ever heard of your Nan buying and selling property?” “She’s not exactly a property tycoon, Maui”. “No. She has quite different ideas to your Uncle Sid’s, doesn’t she?” “I suppose so. She does talk a lot about how we belong to the whenua [land] and not the other way around”. “You know that as well as ‘land’, whenua also means . . . ” “Yes, I know the whenua is the placenta too. But there is that connection with the land. We bury the placenta after a child’s birth to reconnect that child with the earth. Nan says that really makes us part of the place where we are from, a part of the natural world, and reinforces the link with our ancestral lands”. “I bet that your Uncle Sid doesn’t put that in his investors’ prospectus”.

Whanaun gatanga, mana, Tapu utu, kaitiaki- “Uncle Sid isn’t much into a lot of the old Māori ways, though”. tanga, and tapu “He’s still very careful about not breaking tapu, isn’t he? are all essen- He wouldn’t mess about with any sacred stuff. He always says ligations were maintained between individuals, between one descent group and tial concepts a karakia before having his food. Remember, before he’d let another, and between the living and the departed. “Thus in traditional Māori for the opera- anybody in, he had that blessing done for that new building he had built in town? And have you seen him at a funeral?” terms, mana was not achieved through the acquisition of material wealth but tion of tikanga. “Yeah, that’s true. I guess he’s no different to the rest 23 rather by distributing that wealth to others”. Though they of us in that way. Nobody wants to bring about any harm to Kaitiakitanga is the obligation of stewardship and protection. Although it is have been pre- themselves through not appropriately dealing with the tapu only a relatively recently coined word, it reflects an implicit aspect of long-stand- sented sepa- of something. I wouldn’t go into a newly built meetinghouse ing Māori worldview.24 Today it is most often used to express the obligation of a rately in this until the spiritual power had been acknowledged with the appropriate ritual”. community to nurture and protect the natural resources within its authority and chapter, these “It is like anything I suppose. The spiritual aspect of all care.25 This includes protection of the spiritual well-being of the lands and wa- concepts are things that are part of our world need to be given their due, ters as well as their physical integrity. i n e x t r i c a b l y and if you’re going to muck around with them, then you Tapu is very closely related to the concept of noa. Although these terms are linked, each need to make sure that you’ve made it safe to do so”. “It is funny really, for all the times my Nan tells me that often translated as ‘sacred’ and ‘profane’, respectively, this does not convey any contributing to I have to do something in a particular way because it is tapu, real sense of how these concepts operate. Tapu and noa are complementary op- the operation she doesn’t really explain what tapu is”. posites, which together constitute a whole.26 Tapu operates on a spiritual level, of the others. “Do you ever ask her about it?” and it seems clear that its efficacy as a concept derives from understanding it in Tikanga Māori “Sometimes”. “What does she say?” sacred terms. Noa has its own and separate importance, evoking the value of could not op- “Says she doesn’t want to talk about it”. 27 everyday, ordinary, relaxed human activity as a counter and antidote to tapu. At erate if any “Why not?” the same time, tapu is also connected to everyday life because an aspect of tapu one of these “Too tapu”. behaviour involves keeping safe and avoiding risk in social conduct.28 concepts were 124 mediating across difference removed. It would be an overstatement to suggest that any one of these conceptual regulators was of a completely different order of significance in Māori society from that of the others. No one concept overrides the others. Nevertheless, it is commonly accepted that whanaungatanga is the most pervasive of these concepts. Mana, utu, kaitiakitanga, and tapu each work to reinforce whanaungatanga. So within the closely interconnected system of conceptual regulators, whanaungatanga is not a governing principle, though it may be said to be a central principle.

Difference in Dispute Resolution: Relationships, Time, and Environment The application of the foregoing conceptual regulators to social relationships leads to conflict management processes that differ from prevalent West- ern ways of viewing and solving conflict. Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hamp- den-Turner have identified three broad categories of cultural difference that are useful for identifying important characteristics of Māori conflict resolu- Relationships tion, as well as some con- “Because tapu can all seem a bit vague and trasts with dominant people can be a bit reluctant to talk about it, it can be a bit bewildering, eh?” Western ways of address- “Well, until you get a bit of a feel for it, I sup- ing conflict discussed in pose. I remember doing things when I was a kid the introduction to this for which I’d get growled at, things I didn’t know volume.29 These catego- were tapu. But the old people soon point that out to you”. ries are relationships “Yeah, me too. But even though you get a bit with other people, atti- of a growling, it seemed like their main concern tudes towards time, and was making sure the tapu was restored. I think attitudes towards the the old folks saw it as their own responsibility environment. if we were doing something we shouldn’t have been. And they always took it upon themselves to Two significant make sure things were put right, eh?” characteristics of Māori “That’s true. I saw your Nan just the other social interaction dem- day talking to those kids from down the road, onstrate how relation- explaining to them why they shouldn’t play in that paddock over the back there”. ships are viewed within “And then keeping an eye out to make sure Māori disputes. The they didn’t, right?” first characteristic il- “I sometimes think that even though we’re lustrates the contrast adults now, the old people are still keeping an eye between universalist on us”. “I don’t think that”. and contextualised ap- “No?” proaches. One approach “I know it for sure”. to resolving a dispute is māori Dispute resolution 125 to assume and apply some sort of objective standard that operates aside from particular situations and relationships. But as discussed above, Māori culture tends to emphasise relationships and maintaining a balance within those relationships (whanaungatanga and utu). This results in disputes being resolved by reference to the maintenance of the relationships, rather than to a universal standard. The flexibility allowed to traditional decision makers, even within some organisations and processes that are not themselves traditional Māori structures, is a reflection that Māori society is ‘principle-based’ as opposed to ‘rule-bound’.30 The second characteristic, emphasis on the group rather than the individual, is equally significant. Western dispute resolution often focuses on the individual and the individual’s rights and responsibilities. Māori dispute resolution is, however, based on a strong sense of collective responsibility. An illustration of this can be seen in a case study identified in the Ministry of Justice’s Hinatore ki te Ao Māori report.31 This case study analyses a dispute that took place between two old women in a small Māori community. The events are recounted by the grandchild of one of the women, who recalls that, after a lot of shouting, one of the community’s elders intervened and suggested that the women go home and wait until the afternoon, when they would have a meeting to resolve the dispute. The meeting was attended not only by the parties directly involved in the dispute but also by members of the wider community. This reflects the collective nature of Māori dispute resolution processes. As the Ministry of Justice report noted, “The whole community is responsible for maintaining and sustaining the values of that community”.32 The importance of collective responsibility can also be seen in the Wait- angi Tribunal process. The tribunal makes good use of the fact that tribunal hearings are community events. One example of this is a prehearing judicial conference that took place in the year 2000. A single tribunal member, who was also a Māori Land Court judge, presided over the conference, which was held to determine which claims would be included in a particular tribunal inquiry. In attendance were six separate claimant groups, represented by lawyers, plus the Crown, and hundreds of gathered community representatives. In order to flush out any questions of mandate, the judge began by asking the lawyers to identify themselves according to the individual or organisation they represented—a sensible practice in any forum like this. However, the judge added another level of identification, addressed perhaps more to the gathered elders than the lawyers, by asking that the traditional Māori descent group that each organisation or individual claimed to represent also be identified. This process worked very well. Each lawyer would stand and say, “I represent Trust Board A, or Incorporated Society B, or individual C, who speaks for the interests of family X, or tribe Y”. The 126 mediating across difference judge would then ask if there was any dispute about this, from the other lawyers or from the floor. When the mandate was disputed, the judge was able to encourage groups to bring their claims jointly or to establish agreement over which parts of a tribe or claim were represented by whom, basing such encouragement or recommendations on the traditional kinship links and community structures as best he could determine them. This also had the advantage of discouraging frivolous claims. Individuals who might have been prepared to try their luck with a mandate dispute in a letter were much less likely to stand up in front of their community and make unsupportable assertions. They would be well aware that their own elders would not support them, and that lack of support would speak volumes to everyone present. By using Māori concepts about group membership and representation alongside Western public law rules of fair procedure, these matters were able to be worked through in a satisfactory way. Moreover, this process actually seemed to make good sense to the Māori community. An important aspect of Māori relationships to time, in conflict resolution, concerns the aforementioned emphasis on relationships and the role of whanaungatanga as a fundamental conceptual regulator. In Māori dispute resolution processes the focus is on maintaining the balance between relationships rather than bringing about a compromise that, for instance, distributes resources among competing parties. The length of time that it takes to arrive at a resolution is therefore a subordinate concern. This was underscored dramatically when an elder was giving evidence at a Waitangi Tribunal inquiry in the early

Time “So, where are you off to now anyway?” “I’m just heading down to this meeting to decide whether we should go for Uncle Sid’s plan for the family land”. “How long do you think it will take?” “Who knows? There are some people from out of town coming with Uncle Sid, so there’ll probably be a big welcome, and depending on how long that goes for, we might not get started on the discussion until quite late”. “Oh yeah, if they bring lots of people who want to get up and greet you in the welcome, then that could go on for some time. But I guess it is important to acknowledge the ancestors properly in the welcome”. “And then, you know how it goes, the discussion will last as long as it takes to reach a decision of some sort. I don’t think we could really set a finish time. You need to make sure that everyone has their chance to speak”. “Yeah, and if you set a time limit, I am sure that some people would feel they hadn’t had a chance to say all they wanted to say”. “Especially if they let Uncle Sid talk first. He could use up the whole meeting time by himself”. māori Dispute resolution 127

1990s. He began his testimony, logically enough, at the beginning—the very beginning: the creation of the world. He then started to give his entire genealogy from the gods through the generations right down to himself. As he started, the Tribunal members recognised the creation story, could see what was happening, and understood that this elder would be on the stand for some time. Given the constraints on hearing time, perhaps some were even a little irritated by the prospect. But by the end of his testimony, the elder not only had set out his family’s long-standing connection to the land but also had shown how he was actually a part of the land, a part of the natural environment of his tribal area. It was at this stage that the significance, the relevance, and the interconnectedness of the issues in the claim were made manifestly clear.33 Perhaps more significantly the close connection with both the past and the future tends to shift the focus away from the present in Māori disputes. The importance of genealogical connections reinforces this. Ancestors will always have a role in Māori dispute resolution processes. This is not simply because the values that ancestors have expressed by their actions may be relevant but also because the present and future generations are viewed as the living faces of the ancestors. Strong links exist between past, present, and future. In the case of a conflict in relation to the burial rites for a deceased person, for example, the family at the centre of the dispute presented a prized artefact made of greenstone to the community with which they had been in dispute. Within the Māori world, greenstone is highly valued and seen as representing permanence. The bereaved family undertook the presentation of the greenstone artefact to “reaffirm, confirm and re-establish the kinship ties because the whanaungatanga of the communities and their future generations was of paramount importance”.34 This demonstrates that the context of the dispute was such that it involved past and future generations and not simply members of the current generation who had a direct connection with the dispute. The presentation of the greenstone artefact, with its symbolism of permanence, points to the importance of the re-establishment of durable relationships between these two groups. This example not only shows the importance that is placed on future generations within Māori disputes but also suggests that the accountability of the current generation runs forward to future generations as well as back to the ancestors. This perspective affects both the process of dealing with disputes and the types of outcomes that will provide durable resolutions. Again, relationships are the priority, but in both this example and that of the elder’s tribunal testimony, time is also conceptualised in such a way as to bring the needs of past, current, and future generations into proximity to each other. The foregoing discussion of conceptual regulators indicates that Māori attitudes to the relationship between the environment and people are quite differ- 128 mediating across difference ent to prevalent Western views, and this has an Environment impact on the way dis- “What do you think will happen with the land?” putes are approached. A “Well, there are a couple of different views number of the concep- about that. Uncle Sid reckons that we could make tual regulators discussed more money for the family if we sold the land and above affect Māori atti- invested that money elsewhere”. “But not everyone agrees?” tudes to the environ- “Some people disagree passionately. My ment. Whanaungatanga Nan for one. I don’t think she can even really get is the centrality of rela- her head around the idea of selling that land. She tionships and kinship has stories about almost every rock and stream connections within Mā and hill on that land—all about our ancestors. It seems to me as though she is worried about los- ori society, but it does ing those connections. And of course everyone in not simply connect peo- my family has their whenua, their placenta, buried ple to each other. Rather somewhere in this area. So there is that physical the whole of the Māori connection that she wants to protect as well”. “So, some slightly different motivations world is interconnected there than those your Uncle Sid has?” by these relationship “You can say that again. When it comes to links. People are con- our land, Nan will accept only benefits to the land nected to atua, or gods, itself to be counted against any cost to the land. It produces a different kind of cost-benefit ratio as well as to the natural from the one Uncle Sid argues for”. environment. People are “I’m not sure I’d want to be in his shoes therefore not simply au- right now, then”. tonomous individuals “I suspect that shortly he’ll be thinking the but are in fact a part of very same”. the natural environment. The concepts of utu (reciprocity or maintaining balance), tapu/noa (the sacred and the profane), and most particularly kaitiakitanga (guardianship) are all closely connected with the natural world and in many ways these can be seen as values that derive from the natural world. Therefore, parties within a dispute, and the values governing their behaviour, are not isolated actors disassociated from the physical, or natural, environment. In the context of resource management and Māori decision making and conflict resolution about land, this means that every action must be environ- mentally justified. Everything in the natural world, be it a tree, a river, or the land itself, has an intrinsic value. To use these resources changes their intrinsic value, and if the change does not increase their value as part of the natural world, then the change is not justified.35 Clearly, this does not mean that natural resources can never be used. However, it does require that serious consideration māori Dispute resolution 129 be given to any environmental effects. If the action is to be justified, the benefits must outweigh the damage. This balancing test is not simply an economic cost- benefit analysis, for any change to the natural world automatically involves a high cost. It is more than just sustainable development; it restricts development, or use of natural resources, to those measures that actively reinforce the natural environment.

Treaty Settlements and Ma¯ori Dispute Resolution The treaty settlement process includes inquiry into claims by Māori groups, the reporting on them that is undertaken by the Waitangi Tribunal, and the negotiation of such claims by the Office of Treaty Settlements. The Office of Treaty Settlements negotiates redress packages with mandated Māori groups to settle claims, but before the Crown will transfer any settlement assets, the negotiating group must establish a governance entity to receive the assets and manage them on behalf of those who are to benefit from the settlement. This part of the chapter considers aspects of Māori dispute resolution within a tribunal-facilitated mediation that arose out of the settlement process, as well as in the constituting instruments of post-settlement governance entities that are established by Māori groupings to manage settlement assets. The Waitangi Tribunal incorporates Māori values and tikanga in its processes. So while it is true that many of the tribunal’s procedures would not be out of place in the ordinary Anglo-European courts, Māori values and tikanga are reflected in many areas of the tribunal’s practice. This application of Māori values and processes is not mere window dressing. It has an important influence on the way Māori groups are able to express their claims and, as a consequence, the way rights and obligations are articulated within this forum. As a commission of inquiry, the tribunal has always had a great deal of flexibility in setting its own procedures. The particular role of the Waitangi Tri- bunal within New Zealand’s political and legal system is perhaps the reason that these procedures draw on Māori values and processes.36 While the tribunal has the role of a land claims commission, it also has a function akin to a truth and reconciliation commission. A land claims commission might be able to give effect to its decisions through standard court procedures, but the process of reconciliation—the effective resolution of grievances and the acknowledgement of past wrongs—requires a forum that has credibility and legitimacy amongst those who hold the grievances. In the case of the Waitangi Tribunal, part of this legitimacy comes from the application of Māori values and processes. The membership of the Waitangi Tribunal also contributes to its credibility among Māori. The tribunal is composed of a chairperson and sixteen part-time members and usually hears claims as panels of four or five members. Each 130 mediating across difference panel is chaired by a member who has a Western legal background (often a judge of the Māori Land Court). Other members are historians, geographers, social scientists, or senior public administrators. Each panel, and the tribunal as a whole, aims to keep an approximately equal number of Māori and non-Māori members and male and female members. Each panel also has at least one Māori elder to provide expertise on matters of Māori law and custom and to ensure that Māori protocol is followed. The tribunal aims to operate in accordance with local Māori protocol as much as possible. The involvement of Māori elders is essential for this purpose, and oral histories are a significant component of every claim and inquiry as a result. Elders also shape the process in other ways. When the tribunal investigates a claim, the panel that hears the claim will usually travel to the community and will often sit in a meetinghouse. The tribunal encourages the local community to be as involved as possible, and tribunal hearings are usually important community events. The tribunal tries to create a space for Māori people to voice their concerns in a way that is appropriate for them. Even the The Tribunal Hearing physical arrange- “Didn’t you guys talk about all of this at the Wait- angi Tribunal hearing?” ments reflect a “That was about different kinds of issues. That was desire to include when we had to prove our claim against the Crown, not the community in Uncle Sid”. the process. Ta- “Your Nan talked about some of the same issues, though, didn’t she?” bles are set up in “Oh yeah. Her arguments always revolve around a U shape, with her kinship connections and her relationship with the the tribunal at the land around here. I was surprised how much she talked, middle section though”. and the lawyers “I wasn’t”. “No, I know she is usually only too happy to chat for claimants and about the family and the land, but one time when she the Crown along had to talk to the city council about some issues with both sides. This our land, she didn’t mention any of the old stories at all”. leaves the tribu- “Maybe she thought the tribunal would be better able to hear her stories in the way she wanted to tell them”. nal directly fac- “I think she also saw the tribunal hearing as a chance ing, and speaking to tell her stories to the rest of the community as well”. to, the gathered “And hear their stories too”. community. “Of course”. The tribunal “And hear their stories verify her stories”. “Yes”. process clearly is “Which didn’t really help Uncle Sid’s plans”. not a Māori prac- “Exactly”. tice. However, the māori Dispute resolution 131 tribunal is well respected by the Māori community, and Māori have confidence in the tribunal as a fair intermediary between themselves and the Crown. With- out a doubt, much of this respect comes from the way the tribunal operates. It is very powerful indeed to have this commission of inquiry following Māori procedure, behaving in a way that shows respect for Māori values and institutions, recognising tikanga, and being guided by important Māori conceptual regulators. The significance of all these seemingly small issues of practice can be overlooked in thinking about how Māori rights are discussed substantively within the tribunal process. But it is precisely these points of practice that allow Māori people to tell their stories in their own way and that provide a space to explore Māori understandings of rights, obligations, and relationships. The way the Waitangi Tribunal dealt with a dispute between two neighbouring tribes in the year 2000 further demonstrates possibilities for flexibility in dominant institutions and responsiveness to different cultural approaches. Although ultimately unsuccessful, this effort demonstrates the possibilities for blending Māori and Western approaches that are currently being further explored by the tribunal. The two tribes involved were Ngāti Tama and Ngāti Maniapoto. The dispute arose from the settlement negotiations between Ngāti Tama and the Crown. Ngāti Maniapoto claimed that their interests would be prejudiced if the settlement of Ngāti Tama’s claims progressed as outlined in the heads of agreement that Ngāti Tama had negotiated with the Crown. In essence, this was a boundary dispute between the two tribes, although the dispute came to the tribunal as a claim against the Crown’s settlement process. The Crown accepted that Ngāti Maniapoto traditionally held rights in areas that geographically overlapped with the area in which Ngāti Tama held rights. But the Crown argued that the settlement would not preclude Ngāti Maniapoto rights from being recognised within this overlapping area. Ngāti Maniapoto, on the other hand, argued that the area in which they held rights extended further than the overlapping area recognised by the Crown and that there was no protection for those rights. The Waitangi Tribunal was not in a position to make any determinations on the extent of Ngāti Maniapoto’s rights or where the boundary of its traditional tribal area lay without a full historical inquiry. Such an inquiry would take several years to complete, and it was felt that Ngāti Tama’s settlement should not be delayed unnecessarily. The tribunal suggested that a mediation process might be able to achieve an outcome that met the interests of all parties. The tribunal appointed a mediator to work with the parties. It also appointed a Māori elder to work with the mediator to guide the process and advise the mediator on how conceptual regulators such as whanaungatanga, mana, and kaitiakitanga would operate within the context of the mediation. Effectively this elder was a co-mediator. This mediation may have helped the parties under- 132 mediating across difference

Two Mediators Membership “Well, maybe I could help out with your meeting. You know, act as a sort of “The discussion could get pretty heated, independent mediator”. though. It could get down to an argument “I think they already have a mediator coming up from town. And he probably about who really should be benefiting from has some training in mediation, rather than just being an enthusiastic amateur”. this land. In other words, who is entitled to “I’ll admit I’ve never been to mediator’s school, but . . . ” identify as part of our hapū?” “You’ve never been to any school, have you?” “Ah, then maybe I don’t have the exper- “That might be true, but I have hung around this community long enough tise for that”. to learn a few things”. “You see—it is useful to have someone “Like what?” who is properly trained as a mediator”. “Like who has mana around here. Like how the various networks of rela- “Oh, I am sure it is. But a trained media- tionships operate. Like which people have particular connections to particular tor won’t have the expertise for this sort of parts of the whenua”. issue either. You need the real experts in “Would you still be independent then?” whakapapa for this. Only the old folks who “Of course. All that information doesn’t necessarily make me biased one know all the kinship lines and connections way or the other. But understanding all of this does help me figure out sensible throughout your iwi could ever confidently ways of approaching the discussion, ways in which the relationships can be guide a discussion about who is entitled to strengthened, mana will be respected, and special connections with the whenua claim membership of your hapū”. will be acknowledged”. “I think you’re right actually. Whakapapa “But do you have any dispute resolution skills?” is the very key to Māori identity, and the “What do you think I’ve just been talking about?” rights and responsibilities that flow from that are fundamental to the way our communities operate. Only the people most steeped in that knowledge could ever hope to arrive stand each other’s positions better, but ultimately it did not result in an agree- at a resolution that was seen by the parties ment between the parties, and the issues eventually returned to the tribunal involved as being a legitimate decision”. for a determination. Despite the obvious efforts of the tribunal to incorporate “For once we agree on something”. tikanga, the reflections of the mediators suggest that there was “insufficient “Just shows what can be achieved with exploration of Māori processes of dispute resolution”.37 It appears that one party a shared understanding of these important values, eh?” may have been approaching this mediation as a Māori dispute resolution proc- “Yes. And what can be achieved when ess, concentrating on tikanga and rights and practices according to fundamental people have the good sense to agree with me”. conceptual regulators while the other was engaging on a narrower basis.38 This “Of course, Maui. Of course”. may have been because of the terms of reference that the tribunal had set for the mediation or because of the reasonably formalised way that the mediators had been entered into the process. There are clearly lessons to be learnt as to how aspects of Māori dispute resolution processes can be more effectively incorporated, but the attempt that the tribunal made to establish a mediation process that recognised tikanga and operated according to conceptual regulators is in itself instructive. It indicates that the tribunal and Māori groups clearly perceive value in applying Māori dispute resolution processes to issues such as these.

Post-settlement Governance Entities Aspects of Māori dispute resolution processes are also incorporated in the emerging tribal structures often referred to as ‘post-settlement governance enti- māori Dispute resolution 133

ties’. The Crown requires that any governance entity Membership that is to receive settlement “The discussion could get pretty heated, though. It could get down to an argument assets must fulfil certain about who really should be benefiting from 39 structural criteria. To meet this land. In other words, who is entitled to the criteria set out by the identify as part of our hapū?” Crown, negotiating groups “Ah, then maybe I don’t have the expertise for that”. will usually establish a trust “You see—it is useful to have someone relationship by way of a trust who is properly trained as a mediator”. deed or will perhaps use an “Oh, I am sure it is. But a trained media- incorporated society or simi- tor won’t have the expertise for this sort of lar entity. These entities have issue either. You need the real experts in whakapapa for this. Only the old folks who structures that are not de- know all the kinship lines and connections rived from Māori custom or throughout your iwi could ever confidently practice. Rather, they are the guide a discussion about who is entitled to orthodox Western models claim membership of your hapū”. “I think you’re right actually. Whakapapa that are used for the manage- is the very key to Māori identity, and the ment of collectively held as- rights and responsibilities that flow from that sets. However, some aspect are fundamental to the way our communi- of Māori dispute resolution ties operate. Only the people most steeped in that knowledge could ever hope to arrive stand each other’s positions better, but ultimately it did not result in an agree- processes is usually included at a resolution that was seen by the parties ment between the parties, and the issues eventually returned to the tribunal within the trust deed, char- involved as being a legitimate decision”. for a determination. Despite the obvious efforts of the tribunal to incorporate ter, or constituting instru- “For once we agree on something”. tikanga, the reflections of the mediators suggest that there was “insufficient ment. This is not always the “Just shows what can be achieved with exploration of Māori processes of dispute resolution”.37 It appears that one party primary mode of dispute res- a shared understanding of these important values, eh?” may have been approaching this mediation as a Māori dispute resolution proc- olution that is adopted, and it “Yes. And what can be achieved when ess, concentrating on tikanga and rights and practices according to fundamental is more overt in some cases people have the good sense to agree with me”. conceptual regulators while the other was engaging on a narrower basis.38 This than in others. However, “Of course, Maui. Of course”. may have been because of the terms of reference that the tribunal had set for the where disputes are referred mediation or because of the reasonably formalised way that the mediators had to customary decision mak- been entered into the process. There are clearly lessons to be learnt as to how ers or decision-making processes, it is clear that Māori groups are deliberately aspects of Māori dispute resolution processes can be more effectively incorpo- choosing to incorporate traditional dispute resolution mechanisms. rated, but the attempt that the tribunal made to establish a mediation process Conflicts relating to tribal membership are the disputes most commonly that recognised tikanga and operated according to conceptual regulators is in referred to customary decision makers. The New Zealand Law Commission has itself instructive. It indicates that the tribunal and Māori groups clearly perceive recently issued a report on Māori governance entities, including a number of value in applying Māori dispute resolution processes to issues such as these. recommendations that relate to dispute resolution processes within those governance entities.40 The commission notes that decisions about membership are Post-settlement Governance Entities often referred to traditional decision makers, and although traditional process- Aspects of Māori dispute resolution processes are also incorporated in the ing of these disputes is not yet the norm, the commission makes it clear that emerging tribal structures often referred to as ‘post-settlement governance enti- for the range of other disputes that might arise within the tribe, “it is vital to the 134 mediating across difference long-term success of [Māori governance entities] that they are able to resolve the inevitable differences that will arise within their own tribe by reference to their own culture and traditions”.41 This assessment is mirrored in responses gathered from a range of Māori tribal, social service, and commercial organisations.42 The success of these organisations is seen to be closely linked to their ability to operate in accordance with tikanga Māori. To allow the tribe to maintain flexibility and control over its dispute resolution processes, there is often very little that is prescribed within a trust deed or charter about the procedure by which traditional decision makers must make their decisions. There may be some requirements set out to address natural justice issues, but otherwise the procedure is usually left to the traditional decision makers to determine. Therefore the procedures may vary from tribe to tribe as well as from dispute to dispute within a single tribe. However, this does not mean that we cannot make any useful comments about Māori dispute resolution processes within these organisations. In order to draw some generalised conclusions it is helpful to consider the reasons why governance entities have chosen to refer these disputes to traditional decision makers and to leave them relatively free to determine their own procedures. The key rationale for referring disputes about membership to traditional decision makers relates to recognition of their capacity to hold the knowledge and expertise necessary to make informed decisions on this subject. Similarly, the reason for allowing those decision makers to determine their own procedure is that it is understood that they collectively hold the knowledge and expertise about the best way to arrive at a decision on the sorts of issues in question. As with aspects of Māori ceremony and other processes, the specific practices and procedures may vary over time and from place to place, but the key principles that underlie and drive these procedures remain constant. The constitution of the Ngāti Kahungunu Iwi Incorporated (NKII) illustrates the types of choices that many iwi are making in regards to dispute resolution.43 Ngāti Kahungunu is an iwi with approximately sixty thousand members. The iwi has adopted the incorporated society model for its tribal governance entity. NKII manages a range of commercial fishing operations and is a social service provider. The NKII constitution establishes a committee to resolve any disputes that are referred to it by the board of governors. The constitution requires that members appointed to this committee must have “proven expertise in mediation and alternative dispute resolution” and/or “expertise in te reo Māori [Māori language] and tikanga Māori”. Although the committee’s jurisdiction is not limited to particular types of disputes, the constitution specifies three areas that it envisages the committee will be called upon to address: disputes about membership, disputes about tribal boundaries, and disputes arising in relation māori Dispute resolution 135 to the Māori Fisheries Act, which deals with the recognition of customary fishing rights.44 Each of these three areas is central to the cultural identity of Ngāti Kahun- gunu and its members and affects their customary rights and obligations. The dispute resolution committee is required to convene and facilitate a meeting involving parties who have an interest in the dispute, but aside from ensuring that all parties are entitled to be heard, the exact process is left to the committee to determine. It should also be noted that even though members of the dispute resolution committee are expected to have expertise in tikanga Māori, there is also provision for the committee to seek advice on any particular matter from a committee of elders. In the provisions of the constitution relating to membership, it is clearly anticipated that advice from the committee of elders will be sought in relation to any membership dispute. In fact, the constitution provides that “unless there are compelling reasons to the contrary”, advice provided by the committee of elders should be the principal factor to be taken into account by the board when it considers applications for membership.45 So NKII is one example of a Māori governance entity adopting an orthodox Western structure but also ensuring that aspects of traditional dispute resolution processes are incorporated within it. The mechanisms that NKII have employed to achieve this show that the tribe is attempting to bring the knowledge and expertise of traditional decision makers to bear on matters that are central to the cultural identity of Ngāti Kahungunu and its members.

Conclusion The New Zealand Law Commission, writing of proposed laws in relation to Māori governance entities, has noted that justice, for Māori people, “means allegiance to the integrity of our spiritual values”.46 The reconciliation role of the Waitangi Tribunal similarly requires that Māori see it as a forum that can produce justice in their dealings with the Crown. This is the reason that the tribunal has chosen to adapt its processes to reflect Māori values. Such a conceptualisation of justice also appears to be the key motivation for Māori groups to choose to apply dispute resolution processes that are based on tikanga. Similarly, key conceptual regulators are used within the structures of new Māori governance entities that are established to receive settlement assets. It is no coincidence that these principles are applied in situations where the dispute involves an issue that goes to the very heart of cultural identity, such as traditional rights or group membership. This chapter began by describing the operation of tikanga and examining some of the central conceptual regulators that guide Māori dispute resolution processes. The second part of the chapter explained how the application of these conceptual regulators leads to approaches to relationships, time, environment, 136 mediating across difference and dispute resolution processes that embody cultural values quite different from those informing orthodox Western dispute resolution processes. The third part then considered how those different approaches have been expressed within the context of the treaty settlement process. The examples discussed throughout showed that the blending of Western and Māori institutions and approaches through the Treaty of Waitangi and associated processes is valuable. The blending of Māori processes and orthodox court procedures assists the Waitangi Tri- bunal as it strives to enhance relationships between Māori and the Crown as a component of its reconciliation function. As a Law Commission report has pointed out, “Solutions which reflect these [Māori] values tend to be both more creative and long-lasting, and to preserve future relationships between the parties”.47 In disputes relating to cultural identity, whether the dispute is with an external group or an internal dispute within the tribe, durability and the preservation of future relationships are always likely to be vitally important indicators of a successful resolution. The treaty settlement process in Aotearoa/New Zealand demonstrates, then, that there are possibilities for developing processes that reflect the values of distinct cultural groups, including those within mainstream institutions. Ac- knowledging and reflecting key cultural values of parties within a conflict resolution process is an important but often under-recognised step in ensuring processes that are acceptable to parties and maximise the durability of resolutions. This will be particularly true in cases where the dispute itself touches on key issues of cultural identity. Māori are not unique in understanding the concept of justice as deriving from adherence to their cultural values, so the Aotearoa/New Zealand experience suggests broader possibilities. It is important, of course, that any blending of processes be substantive—it must be more than mere trappings if it is to achieve genuine legitimacy of process. Yet this does not mean that small matters of practice cannot alter the substance of the resolution process. The Māori experience shows us that there is a wide range of possibilities for blending conflict resolution processes, including within mainstream institutions, and that these can provide ways of both respecting Indigenous worldviews and mediating across difference.

Notes 1. Angela Ballara, Iwi: The Dynamics of Māori Tribal Organisation from c.1769 to c.1945 (Wellington, New Zealand: Victoria University Press, 1998). 2. Ibid. 3. Maharaia Winiata, The Changing Role of the Leader in Māori Society: A Study in Social Change and Race Relations, edited by Merran Fraenkel (Auckland, New Zealand: Blackwood and Janet Paul, 1967). māori Dispute resolution 137

4. Eddie Durie, “Custom Law” (unpublished, 1994). 5. Joe Williams, “He aha te tikanga Māori” (paper presented at Mai I Te Ata Hāpara Hui, Te Wananga O Raukawa, Otaki, New Zealand, 2000). 6. Moana Jackson, The Māori and the Criminal Justice System: A New Perspective— He whaipaanga hou (Wellington, New Zealand: Department of Justice, 1988). 7. Ibid., p. 43. 8. New Zealand Law Commission, Māori Custom and Values in New Zealand Law (Wellington, New Zealand: New Zealand Law Commission, 2001). 9. Mead, “The Nature of tikanga” (paper presented at Mai I Te Ata Hāpara Hui, Te Wananga O Raukawa, Otaki, New Zealand, 2000). 10. Joan Metge, The Māoris of New Zealand (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967); Eddie Durie, “Constitutionalizing Māori,” in Grant Huscroft and Paul Rish- worth (eds.), Litigating Rights: Perspectives from Domestic and International Law (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2002), pp. 241–266. 11. Durie, “Custom Law,” 4. 12. Williams, “He aha te tikanga Māori,” p. 8. 13. Durie, “Custom Law.” 14. Ibid., 7. 15. Metge, Māoris of New Zealand. 16. Williams, “He aha te tikanga Māori,” p. 9. 17. New Zealand Law Commission, Māori Custom and Values. 18. Moana Jackson, “Labels, Reality and Kiri Te Kanawa: The Origins of the Cul- ture of Colonisation and Their Influences on tikanga Māori” (paper presented at Mai I Te Ata Hāpara Hui, Te Wananga o Raukawa, Otaki, New Zealand, 2000). 19. Cleve Barlow, Tikanga whakaaro: Key Concepts in Māori Culture (Auckland, New Zealand: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 61. 20. Māori Marsden, “God, Man and Universe: A Māori View,” in Michael King (ed.), Te Ao hurihuri—The World Moves On: Aspects of Māoritanga, rev. ed. (Wellington, New Zealand: Hicks Smith and Sons/Methuen N.Z., 1977), pp. 143–164. 21. Joan Metge, “Commentary on Judge Durie’s Custom Law” (unpublished, 1996), p. 6. 22. New Zealand Law Commission, Māori Custom and Values. 23. Williams, “He aha te tikanga Māori,” p. 13. 24. New Zealand Law Commission, Māori Custom and Values. 25. Waitangi Tribunal, The Whanganui River Report (Wellington, New Zealand: GP Publications, 1999). 26. New Zealand Law Commission, Māori Custom and Values. 27. Metge, “Commentary on Judge Durie’s Custom Law.” 28. New Zealand Law Commission, Māori Custom and Values. 29. Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner, Riding the Waves of Culture: 138 mediating across difference

Understanding Cultural Diversity in Business, 2nd ed. (London: Nicholas Brealey Pub- lishing, 1997), pp. 27–28. 30. Nin Tomas and Khylie Quince, “Māori Disputes and Their Resolution,” in Peter Spiller (ed.), Dispute Resolution in New Zealand (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 205–234. 31. Ministry of Justice, He hinatore ki te Ao Māori—A Glimpse into the Māori World: Māori Perspectives on Justice (Wellington, New Zealand: Ministry of Justice, 2001), pp. 89–92. 32. Ibid., p. 90. 33. Joe Williams, “Truth, Reconciliation and the Clash of Cultures in the Waitangi Tribunal,” Australia and New Zealand Legal History E-Journal (2005): 234–238. 34. Ministry of Justice, He hinatore ki te Ao Māori, p. 96. 35. John Patterson, People of the Land: A Pacific Philosophy (Palmerston North, New Zealand: Dunmore Press, 2000). 36. Richard Boast, “Waitangi Tribunal Procedure,” in Janine Hayward and Nicola R. Wheen (eds.), The Waitangi Tribunal: Te Roopu Whakamana i te Tiriti o Waitangi (Wellington, New Zealand: Bridget Williams Books, 2004), pp. 53–64 at 63. 37. Colin McKenzie and Amster Reedy, “A Treaty of Waitangi, Overlapping Claim Mediation: ‘A Prospective Hindsight,’ ” Resource Management Journal 9 (2001): 1–6 at 6. 38. Mereana Hond, “Resort to Mediation in Māori-to-Māori Dispute Resolution: Is It the Elixir to Cure All Ills?” Victoria University of Wellington Law Review 33 (2002): 155–166. 39. Although there is some difference between the criteria that apply to fisheries settlements and historical land-based settlements, those differences need not concern us for the purposes of this chapter. 40. New Zealand Law Commission, Waka Umanga: A Proposed Law for Māori Governance Entities (Wellington, New Zealand: New Zealand Law Commission, 2006). 41. Ibid., p. 111. 42. Ministry of Māori Development and Federation of Māori Authorities, Hei Whakatinanana i te Turua Po (Wellington, New Zealand: Ministry of Māori Develop- ment and Federation of Māori Authorities, 2004). 43. Constitution of Ngāti Kahungunu Iwi Incorporated (July 2006). 44. Ibid., cl. 22. 45. Ibid., cl. 6.5.7. 46. New Zealand Law Commission, Waka Umanga, p. 111. 47. Ibid. III Melanesian Approaches to Conflict Resolution

Chapter 7 Christianity, Custom, and Law Conflict and Peacemaking in the Postconflict Solomon Islands

Debra McDougall with Joy Kere

In recent years the area of the Western Pacific known as Melanesia has been dubbed part of a geopolitical ‘arc of instability’ by Australian policy makers and political scientists.1 Challenges arise in part because Melanesian states are young—Papua New Guinea gained independence from Australia in 1975, Solo- mon Islands from Britain in 1978, and Vanuatu from both Britain and France in 1980. National boundaries also cut across older cultural affinities and trade net-

Solomon Islands comprises a double chain of rugged volcanic islands situated between Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu to the northeast of Australia. Most Solomon Islanders practice subsistence agriculture and fishing in rural areas. Though not dependent on the country’s formal economy for their livelihood, they nonetheless struggle to earn money for clothing, transportation, and school fees. Most islands in the Solomons archipelago became a British protectorate in 1896, but colonial rule left little state infrastructure at the time of independence in 1978. Most islanders have relatively minimal interaction with state institutions. Colonial Christian missions were more effective than the government in penetrating Solomon Islands society, with approximately 98 percent of residents now identifying as Christian. Missions also provide infrastructure, including schools, clinics, transportation, and commercial networks. The current national capital, Honiara, was located near Henderson Field, the airfield built by the US Army on Guadalcanal after the bloody battles that marked a turning point of World War II. Honiara draws citizens from all provinces who are seeking work, education, and medical care. Most return home after a short stay, but increasing numbers are settling near Honiara on Guadalcanal. This is particularly true for residents of the island of Malaita, the most densely populated island in the Solomons.

141 142 mediating across difference works in a region with the highest degree of cultural and linguistic diversity in the world.2 Politics is fluid, even chaotic, with a combination of traditional “big man” and Westminster systems of government.3 The situation is worsened by reliance on external sources of income in the form of foreign aid and revenue from the export of primary resources, typically timber, minerals, and fish. As a result Melanesian governments and their politicians are often beholden to foreign governments and corporations. Melanesian states are weak, and their politics is fragmented. So much is clear. But equally important—and far less recognised—is the strength of nonstate social institutions and the role played by Indigenous ways of dealing with cultural difference. Solomon Islands is one of the most troubled nations in the region, having suffered a civil conflict from 1998 to 2003 that destabilised the state and led to great hardship for many citizens.4 Yet even during the period of civil Between 1998 and 2000, the Guadalcanal plains, the site of bloody World War II battles, crisis, most Solomon Is- once again became the location of violent conflict landers lived in situa- in a small-scale civil war that initially pitted an In- tions of relative peace digenous Guale insurgency against Malaitan set- because local institu- tlers. Despite peace treaties in 2000 that followed a de facto coup, violence continued in Malaitan- tions were able to main- dominated Honiara and among rival Guale mili- tain social order despite tants in southern Guadalcanal. Over the period of the weak reach of the crisis, the Solomon Islands state largely ceased to state into a scattered ru- function, and the economy stagnated. In 2003 the Australian government finally reversed a policy of ral population.5 When nonintervention and, at the invitation of the Solo- armed conflict ended in mon Islands prime minister and with enabling 2003 with the arrival of legislation enacted by the Solomon Islands Parlia- an Australian-led assist- ment, Australia initiated the Regional Assistance ance mission, members Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI). RAMSI is a regional exercise involving personnel from fifteen of communities affected Pacific Islands Forum nations. Its mission is to by the violence began restore law and order, strengthen government processes of reconcilia- institutions, reduce corruption, and rebuild the tion independent of gov- economy. Following the deployment of RAMSI in July 2003, there was a dramatic improvement in ernment or other out- law and order, and the mission was widely lauded side support. as an unmitigated success. Following election Moreover, contrary riots in 2006 that led to the burning of Chinatown, to what one would think however, relations between Australia and Solomon about a country suppos- Islands soured. A recent change of government in both countries has restored friendly relations, but edly torn apart by ethnic questions about Solomon Islands sovereignty and conflict, Solomon Is- exit strategies for RAMSI remain. landers are quite good at Christianity, Custom, and Law 143 mediating cultural difference. As many observers have pointed out, the conflicts were only partly ‘ethnic’ in nature. Tensions between Indigenous inhabitants of Guadalcanal and migrants from the densely populated island of Malaita sparked the civil conflict. Yet after late 2000 much of the violence in the Solomons was committed by Malaitans against Malaitans and by Guadalcanal people against others from Guadalcanal.6 In this chapter we consider conflict and dispute resolution in two different contexts within the Solomon Islands. The main body of the essay focuses on case studies from the quiet rural island of Ranongga in Western Province, where Debra McDougall has conducted ethnographic research since 1998. This area was much less directly affected by the civil conflict than other areas in the Solomons.7 The text in boxes throughout the chapter offers comments by Joy Kere about the region and the ongoing processes of reconciliation in the more conflict-torn eastern provinces of Guadalcanal and Malaita. Joy was involved in conflict mediation as a peace monitor for the National Peace Council from 2000 to 2002 and is now the permanent secretary of the Ministry of National Unity, Reconciliation, and Peace. This government ministry is charged with foster- ing reconciliation between Guadalcanal and Malaita provinces and within each province itself.8 A number of commonalities resonate across these different conflict and peacemaking situations. First, ethnic or cultural difference is not, in and of itself, a problem. Solomon Islanders are quite accustomed to interacting with people from other islands, including people who speak different languages and understand social relationships in different ways. As cases from Ranongga show, people of different island groups are interested in learning how other groups use customary means to solve disputes, and they are adept at adapting existing models to fit intercultural circumstances—even in the context of tensions between local people and newcomers. This leads to a second commonality across our cases: pragmatism and pluralism in local approaches to conflict resolution and peacemaking. Both indigenous and exogenous techniques, structures, and institutions are used to resolve conflict. This is true of the ‘weather coast conflict’ on Guadalcanal, for example, which was unprecedented in terms of the scale of violence and the degree to which it divided those who would normally be allied. Community leaders, with the encouragement of government agencies, are now engaged in the process of crafting reconciliation ceremonies. Nearly all of these ceremonies involve both customary peacemaking, including exchanges of food and valuables between opposed groups, and Christian rituals that foster forgiveness between victims and perpetrators through prayer. Both Christian and customary forms of reconciliation involve so-called restorative justice. Here the goal is to re-establish good 144 mediating across difference relations between and among disputants through processes typically framed in contrast to the retributive style of justice, aimed at punishing criminals, that dominates Western legal systems. Yet the pragmatism and pluralism of local actors also leave room for retributive justice. Solomon Islanders see the punishment meted out through Western law as complementary, not antithetical, to local processes aimed at restoring good relations. Indeed, most islanders lament the weakness of the country’s formal police and justice system.

The Ministry of National Unity, Reconciliation, and Peace has a mandate to foster reconciliation between the two provinces that were involved directly in the ethnic conflict. So those of us in the ministry are helping to foster open dialogue between the leaders of the provinces about our differences and about the way we view one another. There is an upcoming meeting of the premiers of the two provinces most involved in the conflict, for example, that will be two days of dialogue. Occurring before provincial leaders attempt to resolve the key issues, this is a forum to reaffirm a general desire to reconcile and to say sorry to each other without taking positions and laying blame. But reconciliation has to happen within the provinces, not just between them—it has to happen within communities and families. One of our programs focuses on some of the wards in South Guadalcanal that were worst affected by the conflict. After the signing of the Townsville Peace Agreement in 2000, the Guadalcanal Liberation Front, headed by Harold Keke, split from the Isatabu Freedom Movement. That was where the conflict on Guadalcanal turned inwards and Guadalcanal people started killing each other. Much of the killing, atrocities, and violence occurred within extended families. We have to rebuild, ward by ward, community by community, tribe by tribe, family by family. This applies in Malaita too. We recently had a leaders’ summit about reconciliation between the two provinces of Guadalcanal and Malaita, but during the meeting it became clear that Malaita needed to look at intraprovincial reconciliation, especially between the former combatants and the communities they returned to. When combatants went back, they engaged in criminal activities—stealing property and destroying things. There were also shootings over land disputes. So we’ve drawn up a framework for reconciliation within Malaita. We’ll be focusing on key areas—North Malaita, where most of the Malaita Eagle Force come from, and Central Kwara‘ae and East Malaita.

Perhaps the most important commonality across our cases is the self-reliance and initiative shown by those involved in conflict resolution and peacemaking. Few rural leaders expect the police, the formal legal system, or outside agencies to help them re-establish order in their communities. In the case of Guadalcanal and Malaita, it was necessary for outside forces to restore law and order after violence had gotten out of hand, but no one waited for outsiders or the government to come in and begin to rehabilitate communities torn apart by conflict. Christianity, Custom, and Law 145

The lessons here for the agencies of the Solomon Islands government, overseas aid donors, and nongovernmental organisations are in one sense straightforward, and in another sense they require innovation by some would-be inter- veners. In the modern Solomons a reliable police force and a functional justice system are required to deal with violence that gets out of hand. While local leaders have moral authority and a range of conflict resolution mechanisms at their disposal, since the colonial pacification of the Solomon Islands they no longer have the authority to use violent force. So even though the state may not often be visible in rural areas, its role in exercising legitimate violence is critical. Conven- tional state-building and institution-building measures readily recognise this need. What they often fail to recognise, however, is the role that local approaches and processes can play and the importance of working with them. Crucial here is the ability of Solomon Islanders to work across difference by drawing from within and beyond their traditions as circumstances require. Recognising local processes and providing the resources and forums for local people to expand their existing capacities for mediating across difference may be the most valuable way of pursuing encompassing and sustainable postconflict reconciliation.

Ethnic Conflict? The small-scale civil war known in the Solomons as ‘the tensions’ or the ‘ethnic conflict’ has usually been viewed, within and beyond the Solomons, as a conflict between Guadalcanal and Malaita. The ethnic dimension of the conflict was most important during its early stages. In 1998 a group known as the Guad- alcanal Revolutionary Army—later renamed the Isatabu Freedom Movement, or IFM—began to attack the settlements around Honiara town (the capital of Solomon Islands, on Guadalcanal) that were inhabited largely by migrants from the island of Malaita. This violence was motivated by anger at offenses against people of Guadalcanal committed by Malaitans, as well as a desire to gain more from the development of their island’s natural resources and more autonomy for the province of Guadalcanal. A large number of settlers—probably around twenty-four thousand—fled rural Guadalcanal in 1998–1999, many of them returning home to Malaita.9 In the meantime, a countermilitia, known as the Malaita Eagle Force (MEF), was formed. The MEF gradually took control of Honiara, engaging in skirmishes with the IFM beyond the town boundary. On June 5, 2000, the MEF and a faction of the Solomon Islands police took control of the police headquarters and deposed the prime minister. A few months later, after a number of cease-fires, the Townsville Peace Agreement was signed, bringing an end to the formal hostilities between the MEF and the IFM.10 Despite the explicit tensions between Guadalcanal people and Malaitans, it is problematic to characterise these hostilities as a confrontation between ethnic 146 mediating across difference groups. First, Guadalcanal and Malaita are not distinct ethnic groups. Each is composed of different language and culture groups that were not united prior to colonisation. Second, there is a very long history of interaction and inter- marriage between the two islands. Third, many of the residents of Guadalcanal and Malaita share the same Christian faith.11 Finally, many of the Guadalcanal and Malaitan men who were involved in the hostilities had grown up and gone to school together in Honiara. The combatants were often ‘enemy friends’. A former Guadalcanal militant recalled:

I remember once during the height of the crisis one of my best Malaitan friends manning the enemy banker [bunker] on the other side passed his greetings, good luck and best wishes across to me. The Melanesian Brotherhood (Tasiu) who brought me the message told me that my ‘enemy friend’ really wanted to see me and cautioned me to take extra care during the firing. The next I heard about him was that he had died during one of the shootouts.12

Distrust and fear between Malaitan and Guadalcanal people resulted from the conflict, but they were not necessarily the most important causes. The characterisation of the conflict as ‘ethnic’ is also problematic in light of the intracommunity violence that dominated the conflict’s later phases. The fighting in 1998–2000 had occurred across what appeared to be ethnic lines: Guale militants attacked Malaitan settlers, a Malaitan militia formed to regain control of Honiara, and then the opposed militias engaged in skirmishes outside of town. After 2000, however, much of the violence occurred on the weather coast of Guadalcanal among Guale people. After refusing to sign the Townsville Peace Agreement, Ha- rold Keke formed the Guadalcanal Liberation Front and began a reign of terror in which he and his men killed, among others, Guadalcanal men who remained loyal to the IFM. Between 2000 and 2003, Malaitan ex-combatants also threatened, looted, and murdered back home in Malaita and intimidated citizens who had remained in Honiara or returned there after the peace agreement. The civil strife in the Solomons was not one conflict but multiple conflicts; violence occurred not only between strangers of different ethnic groups but also among friends, neighbours, and families. The Solomon Islands case is not unique. In many of the ‘ethnic conflicts’ of the postcolonial world, the lines of conflict gradually emerged over a period of colonial rule when certain ethnic or religious groups were privileged over others and were hardened with independence when the groups competed for control over the national state. Anthropologist Stanley Tambiah has made this case very clearly for the violence between Tamil and Sinhalese citizens of Sri Lanka, which he refers to as “ethnic fratricide”.13 The decades-long conflict in Sri Lanka did not originate between Christianity, Custom, and Law 147 pre-existing or primordial ethnoreligious groups who had no relations prior to the formation of the modern state. These groups, though distinct, had been living together for a long time. Their histories and genealogies were entwined for more than a thousand years. In the process of fighting and forming a modern state, the two groups became ‘other’ to one another. The “fratricide” that Tam- biah describes for Sri Lanka could also characterise the relationship between Guadalcanal people and Malaitans in the Solomons and highlights the crucial importance of addressing the structural causes that have drawn the parties into the conflict and identifying the processes through which a kind of brotherhood could be re-established.

Melanesian Approaches to Difference Popular and scholarly sources often portray Melanesian societies as isolated from the so-called modern world, even attributing the diversity of the region to such isolation. Yet it has been the constant movement of people, objects, and ideas along these chains of islands for millennia—not their apparent isolation— that has led to the diversity of languages and cultures.14 Even rural Melanesian villages can be strikingly cosmopolitan places, where residents are constantly dealing with people who speak different languages and where intercultural marriages are common. Although Solomon Islands never formed a political unity prior to colonisation, the societies that make it up were never isolated from one another. There were dense networks of trade and interaction in the western part of the Solo- mons, including the New Georgia group, Choiseul, Isabel, the Shortlands, and Bougainville—networks that are now crosscut by the Solomons–Papua New Guinea national border. Similarly, the eastern islands of Guadalcanal, Malaita, and Makira were complexly linked. Indeed, islanders interacted more readily with neighbours across a short stretch of ocean than across a rugged landmass. (As the Tongan anthropologist Epeli Hau‘ofa has pointed out, only landlubbers see the ocean as a barrier rather than a road.)15 This is not to say that interaction was always positive. Trade networks often overlapped with warfare alliances. Many of the traditional forms of exchange that are now being revived in the Solomons were previously aimed at transforming enemies into allies. Forms of warfare varied from the large-scale raids organised by chiefs in the politically hierarchical societies of the western Solo- mons, to the smaller-scale endemic skirmishes that characterised warfare in much of the eastern Solomons. Enemies were dehumanised, spoken of as prey or food rather than persons, tortured, and murdered. Yet many war captives were adopted into their host societies and treated as kin. Within this apparently paradoxical process enemies were valued precisely for their foreignness.16 148 mediating across difference

In significant ways, these patterns of interacting with different people continued after the arrival of Europeans. While some people of Melanesia appar- The Ministry of National Unity, Rec- ently were shocked by the arrival of Europeans, many Solomon Islanders seem onciliation, and Peace understands that the churches have the structure that makes to have taken them as simply new kinds of ‘different people’, and they worked to reconciliation possible. Over and over, we’ve engage with them in relations of trade and interaction—or, less frequently, war- heard from people in communities that the fare.17 Prior to European contact, everything from house building techniques, language of reconciliation comes from the bodily adornment, ritual techniques, and even deities moved between allies and Bible and that the church must play a leading role in reconciliation. That is the message enemies. In interacting with Europeans, islanders attempted to obtain what that keeps coming back to us. they found useful or simply interesting from these new kinds of foreigners. The During reconciliation ceremonies in enthusiastic adoption of Christianity throughout most Solomon societies in the South Guadalcanal, speakers often quote late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries provides perhaps the best example Corinthians and the Gospel of Matthew, of something foreign that was made local without ever losing its foreignness.18 which teaches about God’s message of reconciliation. The speeches by women Perhaps the biggest changes in how Solomon Islanders understand and re- and men, youth, church leaders, and chiefs late to cultural difference—changes that have great significance for how island- emphasise over and over that if it wasn’t for ers think about and deal with conflict—arose through Christianity. In striking our Christian principles—our belief in God, contrast to an older worldview in which others were either friends or enemies love, forgiveness, and all of these things—it would be very difficult for them to forgive one (and could move from one status to another), Christianity posits a generic hu- another. So the churches play that role, pre- manity that is neutral—all united under God. The accompanying exhortation paring the heart and the soul for forgiveness. to love and value everyone, not just relatives and friends, is evident in passages And then the traditional exchanges comple- from the Gospel of Matthew that are often quoted in peacemaking ceremonies ment it very nicely. Some of the victims of violence in in Guadalcanal. Jesus is reported to have said: “You have heard that it was said, Malaita also told me, “If it wasn’t for the ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy’. But I tell you: Love your enemies churches, I wouldn’t have forgiven anything”. and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in I’ve seen a lot of people cry. Hard militants, heaven”.19 This possibility of universality—the possibility that all people ought to former MEF—you see them crying and full of be treated as one would treat one’s own relatives and that everyone could be part remorse. They are genuinely sorry about what they’ve done. of a single powerful polity—appears to be one of the most attractive features of the faith for many Melanesian Christians. In addition to opening new ways of thinking about enemies and strangers, Christianity has become an important part of a shared national culture20 and a crucial part of peacemaking in the contemporary Solomons.

Christianity, Custom, and the Law Christianity and custom are entwined throughout the Solomon Islands. Nearly all customary exchanges, for example, are opened and closed by Christian prayers. Most Solomon Islanders emphasise the compatibility of Christianity and custom in contexts of dispute resolution, seeing them as complementary or alter- nate paths to the same end goal. The same is true of formal state law, where it is available. Yet on the level of ideology, custom and Christianity are distinct: they are seen by participants to have different logic and to involve different sorts of actors. In church-based dispute settlement, the social order to be restored is an Christianity, Custom, and Law 149

In significant ways, these patterns of interacting with different people con- undifferentiated community tinued after the arrival of Europeans. While some people of Melanesia appar- unified under a single God. The Ministry of National Unity, Rec- ently were shocked by the arrival of Europeans, many Solomon Islanders seem Solving conflicts through the onciliation, and Peace understands that the churches have the structure that makes to have taken them as simply new kinds of ‘different people’, and they worked to church foregrounds unity reconciliation possible. Over and over, we’ve engage with them in relations of trade and interaction—or, less frequently, war- by reminding disputants heard from people in communities that the fare.17 Prior to European contact, everything from house building techniques, that no one is totally free language of reconciliation comes from the bodily adornment, ritual techniques, and even deities moved between allies and of sin and that all humans Bible and that the church must play a leading role in reconciliation. That is the message enemies. In interacting with Europeans, islanders attempted to obtain what are brothers and sisters in that keeps coming back to us. they found useful or simply interesting from these new kinds of foreigners. The Christ. The ritual is almost During reconciliation ceremonies in enthusiastic adoption of Christianity throughout most Solomon societies in the entirely verbal—prayer, con- South Guadalcanal, speakers often quote late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries provides perhaps the best example fessions, apologies, and ad- Corinthians and the Gospel of Matthew, of something foreign that was made local without ever losing its foreignness.18 monishment.21 God is under- which teaches about God’s message of reconciliation. The speeches by women Perhaps the biggest changes in how Solomon Islanders understand and re- stood to be the active agent and men, youth, church leaders, and chiefs late to cultural difference—changes that have great significance for how island- in this form of dispute man- emphasise over and over that if it wasn’t for ers think about and deal with conflict—arose through Christianity. In striking agement: it is God who cools our Christian principles—our belief in God, contrast to an older worldview in which others were either friends or enemies people’s anger and allows love, forgiveness, and all of these things—it would be very difficult for them to forgive one (and could move from one status to another), Christianity posits a generic hu- them to forgive one another. another. So the churches play that role, pre- manity that is neutral—all united under God. The accompanying exhortation Conflict management paring the heart and the soul for forgiveness. to love and value everyone, not just relatives and friends, is evident in passages through Christian prayer of- And then the traditional exchanges comple- from the Gospel of Matthew that are often quoted in peacemaking ceremonies ten happens in contexts that ment it very nicely. Some of the victims of violence in in Guadalcanal. Jesus is reported to have said: “You have heard that it was said, might not be recognised by Malaita also told me, “If it wasn’t for the ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy’. But I tell you: Love your enemies outsiders as ‘conflict reso- churches, I wouldn’t have forgiven anything”. and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in lution’, such as prayers for I’ve seen a lot of people cry. Hard militants, heaven”.19 This possibility of universality—the possibility that all people ought to health. In Ranongga, illness former MEF—you see them crying and full of be treated as one would treat one’s own relatives and that everyone could be part can be blamed on worry remorse. They are genuinely sorry about what they’ve done. of a single powerful polity—appears to be one of the most attractive features of about unhappy relationships the faith for many Melanesian Christians. In addition to opening new ways of or more sinister issues such thinking about enemies and strangers, Christianity has become an important as sorcery. Thus, attempts to part of a shared national culture20 and a crucial part of peacemaking in the con- help those who are sick or dying through prayer often bring hidden conflicts temporary Solomons. to light. A change in the health of a young man, for example, brought out the complexity of social conflict in the Solomon Islands and the role of Christianity Christianity, Custom, and the Law in its management. Christianity and custom are entwined throughout the Solomon Islands. In early March 2007 in Pienuna village, a chronically ill young man be- Nearly all customary exchanges, for example, are opened and closed by Christian came acutely ill. The man’s family, particularly his father, had been involved in a prayers. Most Solomon Islanders emphasise the compatibility of Christianity and number of conflicts over land boundaries and was generally thought to be quar- custom in contexts of dispute resolution, seeing them as complementary or alter- relsome. Just the week before, the chairman of the village chiefs’ committee had nate paths to the same end goal. The same is true of formal state law, where it is mediated a dispute between the father and the son, who both claimed to own the available. Yet on the level of ideology, custom and Christianity are distinct: they are same canoe. The young man had had symptoms of hyperthyroidism and was seen by participants to have different logic and to involve different sorts of actors. given medicine the previous year, but stopped taking it because of side effects. In church-based dispute settlement, the social order to be restored is an Without denying the possible physical causes of the disease, most of his fam- 150 mediating across difference ily and neighbours focused on the sociological, psychological, and supernatural reasons for why he had become so ill at that particular time. He was admitted to the village clinic early on Sunday morning and was planning to go to the regional hospital on Monday. After church on Sunday evening the pastor and about a dozen church members went to the clinic to pray for him. Following initial prayers (fifteen minutes or so of participants praying simultaneously and passionately), the patient’s sister revealed a dream in which a man took the shape of a dog and attacked her and her brother. This was interpreted by some as a sign that ancestral spirits were angry about false land claims. The sick young man himself confessed that he was upset over the conflict with his father and was also distraught because community members had seen him as unfit for the position of church elder because of his chronic illness. After these revelations and confessions, all of those involved in the various sorrows and worries asked for and received forgiveness from one another and prayed again to God to forgive their anger or wrongdoing and allow them to live again in unity. This case illustrates the complexity of the various conflicts that this young man and his family were involved in, and the ways that problems in one realm of life (for example, land disputes) are thought to have ramifications in apparently unrelated areas (illness). This was not formal dispute settlement (the aim was healing), but it brought out underlying conflicts and led to a sort of reconciliation. In much Christian thought, it is not only wrong action but also wrong thought—especially anger—that is sinful. For this reason almost everyone involved in a dispute will have something for which to seek forgiveness.22 This leads to a kind of reciprocity in Christian settlement that is not entirely dissimi- lar to the reciprocity involved in ‘customary’ settlement, discussed below. All kinds of problems can be dealt with, often simultaneously, through Christian forms of confession and prayer. Moreover, many different kinds of people—men and women, young and old, local people and outsiders—can initiate and direct this kind of peacemaking. Pastors and ministers are generally men, but women’s fellowship is very powerful throughout the region, and women take leading roles in ministering to people through prayer. In contemporary Ranongga, and perhaps the Solomons more generally, peacemaking through prayer may be both the most foundational and the most prevalent form of conflict mediation.23 It is incorporated in all other forms of dispute settlement because nearly all residents appeal to God as the ultimate judge of right and wrong and the ultimate source of peace and joy. At the same time, prayer and the intervention of church leaders are not always considered to be adequate. Sometimes church leaders may not be assertive in intervening in disputes, instead seeing this as the role of the village or clan Christianity, Custom, and Law 151 chiefs. While some disputes (including those caused by fights, insults, gossip, destruction of property, and even accusations of sorcery) can be solved by either the church or the chief, other offenses, like those involving incest, adultery, or land disputes, are almost always addressed by chiefs. Disputants often feel that some kind of the material exchange favoured in customary dispute resolution is necessary to ‘cover’ the events and, in such instances, are not willing to solve disputes through the church alone. While church resolution usually aims to reaffirm the unity of the disputants as a family or as a community under God, customary dispute settlement often aims to redefine group boundaries and reinstate productive relations between distinct groups. Much anthropological research has highlighted that ‘custom’ (kastom in neo-Melanesian pidgin) has become a political symbol in modern Melanesia—it often can refer to anything that is indigenous rather than exogenous.24 When people mention ‘doing custom’, this almost always refers to some sort of ceremonial exchanges in the context of marriages, funerals, and dispute settlement. Customary exchanges articulate distinctions between groups and bind them in a productive relationship. Despite variation across the Solomons, customary exchanges share important features. First, in contrast to Christian talk, custom involves the giving and receiving of material goods—food and valuables, both traditional and modern. Much care is taken to gather the appropriate type and number of valuables and amount of food, but equally important are the speeches that always accompany such gifts. Words must transform mere piles of food into meaningful signs of a sincere desire for reconciliation. Second, participants are organised as two sides so that the complicated relationships are simplified (at least temporarily) into opposed sides. Third, few ceremonial exchanges are one-sided. The recipient will often give a return gift to acknowledge that the message of the gift is accepted, to put both sides on equal footing, and to open the possibility for further interaction. When there is no reciprocity, the exchange is usually considered unsuccessful. Finally, even aside from what is given and what is said in the speeches, customary exchanges are important insofar as they open up a space for interaction. After conflict, and especially violent conflict, bringing people together for the first time is significant in itself. Customary dispute resolution is particularly important when social groups have been torn apart. This can occur through real physical violence like that which split kin groups and communities in South Guadalcanal after 2000. It can also occur through other means. In Ranongga, incest is viewed as symboli- cally tearing apart kin groups in similar ways. In the past, it is said, offenders were killed as they would have been if they had murdered their kin. Today the customary exchange carried out to set the problem straight in a sibling group 152 mediating across difference

In the wake of the conflict, chiefs have been important in reminding people about the meaning of traditional forms of reconciliation. In South Guadalcanal, ‘Rasi’ is the highest form of exchange and was used in the past as customary compensation for killing. Rasi are wooden platforms with food, pigs, and special forms of shell money. For this form of exchange, now there is modern rice, tinned goods, and cash of not more than about SI$13,000. ‘Chupu’ is the next level of compensation, used for lower levels of offence. In reconciliation ceremonies, it is also used as a return gift. After the family of a murder victim receives the Rasi from the perpetrator and his family, they will give back a Chupu. It acknowledges the Rasi they received and shows that they accept it. During the speeches, you see old people—the chiefs, the elders—now explaining how this custom works because many young people today no longer know. “Before you kill”, they say, “in custom, you must make sure that you have all this. It doesn’t come back easy, all of these things. All of these things are needed to compensate for death. We want you young people to know and hear about it”. The process of reconciliation has brought back a respect for the meaning behind the exchanges. It is not just the hard cash that was demanded as a type of extortion during tense times. Rasi and the Chupu will hold meaning only if the givers really mean to re-establish good relations—desire for reconciliation has to come from the heart. True forgiveness, true reconciliation, comes from the heart—our Christian principles reinforce that. That pile of food will be only as meaningful as what comes from the heart.

is called puku tari soga (tying back together). The case of a sexual affair between second cousins illustrates the use of this type of customary resolution. As second cousins, the offending young man and young woman should have treated one another with even more respect than brothers and sisters. It was their shared classificatory grandmother who called together senior male relatives and village chiefs to address the breach of custom by carrying out the customary resolution. In the prayer that opened the puku tari soga ceremony, the village pastor pro- claimed, “Whatever is proper on earth is proper in heaven; whatever causes joy on this earth causes joy in heaven”. Another speaker invoked the pre-Christian past, when such offenses would have resulted in the death or exile of the offending parties and reminded us that Jesus died on the cross to “tie back together” a sinful humanity. The participants divided themselves into two ‘sides’, each with a spokesman and other important people. The offending boy and girl were also present but were silent and had little to do with the proceedings. The ceremony involved the exchange of valuables that, given the circumstances of the conflict, needed to be equivalent. In this particular case, this requirement caused considerable delay and confusion because the boy’s side had a bakia (a large ring made of fossilised clamshell that is a form of traditional Christianity, Custom, and Law 153 currency), but the girl’s side did not. The girl’s family had to scramble to find an appropriate amount of cash to match bakia from the boy’s side. Such compensation serves as a material sign of the reconciliation and is understood to ‘cover’ the offense; after an offense is thus covered, it is not appropriate to speak of it again. After the exchange and the closing prayer, the parties to the conflict considered it successfully resolved. The woman who had set the resolution in motion had been silent during the ceremony. Weeping at its conclusion, she thanked everyone for coming to straighten out the offense so that they could live as a family once again. This ceremony was considered effective insofar as the material objects that were exchanged as compensation symbolised the participants’ desire to restore proper relationships. The threatening demands for compensation that were so common during the period of crisis do not have this effect. Today chiefs in South Guadalcanal appear to be at pains to make youth understand the difference. Demands for cash compensation under the name of custom are not limited to those areas directly affected by the crisis, however—there have been many cases in Ranongga in which local leaders were not able to successfully negotiate such ceremonies. In these cases, the two parties did not achieve genuine reconciliation; instead, one or the other felt cheated, threatened, or exploited. Such failed customary resolutions highlight that skill, tact, and sincere commitment are necessary for these ceremonies to be successful. One notable feature of customary processes in contrast to Christian processes is that the most visible and vocal actors are usually senior men. Yet, as this example illustrates, women may be integrally involved behind the scenes, even providing the impetus for the resolution. Legal resolution does not bring people together in a collectivity as the church does, nor does it clarify differences so that the parties can once again enter into productive relationships in the way that customary exchange does. Instead, like older punishments of death or banishment, it cuts off an offender who is dangerous to the well-being of the community. Since colonial times, the formal legal system has not been available for most Solomon Islanders in rural areas because of the weak reach of the state beyond the capital. Yet on rare occasions when violence gets out of hand in rural villages and when the police have transport and fuel available to get there, their intervention can be important. The case of a fight among young men shows that in certain circumstances local Solomon Islanders are willing to draw on external institutions and processes. On Christmas Day 2006, a number of young men in Pienuna village drank distilled home brew (kwaso), and a fight broke out. The most violent of the disputants had only recently returned home after spending several years in jail af- 154 mediating across difference ter he nearly killed a man in neighbouring Vella Lavella in a knife fight. He was angry with some other young men of the village who had, in the previous year, assaulted his brother, who in turn had been accused of committing adultery with the wife of one of these men. The matter had been settled with a customary exchange between elder men of the two families, but tensions were still obvious. Brandishing a very large samurai-style machete, this recently released man threatened not only the boys he was arguing with but also the senior men of the village who had intervened. He kept shouting that he was not afraid to kill anyone and would be happy to go to prison. Eventually he calmed down, and no one was hurt. That night, the village chiefs used the health clinic radio to contact the police in the provincial capital. The next morning, four police officers and personnel of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) arrived and arrested the offender, with no resistance from anyone in the village. The offender’s own father led the police to where his son was sleeping. The police also apparently said that they would return to arrest all of the men who had been drinking kwaso. To my surprise, the parents and relatives of these men were very willing to have their wayward sons and kinsmen arrested. They seemed to feel that they could not control the young men and that they ought to be taught a lesson. To everyone’s disappointment, however, the police did not return. Similar sentiments were expressed in neighbourhoods in Ho- niara where drunken fighting is a much bigger problem but the police refuse to arrest those causing disturbances even when their own families support an arrest. Some theorists of restorative justice have argued that the structures of Western law are not culture neutral and may be inappropriate in other cultural contexts.25 It is true, of course, that formal Western law tends to be adversarial rather than consensual, assumes a winner and a loser, focuses on individuals in isolation rather than as members of communities, and often punishes offenders by removing them from the community rather than attempting to restore social relationships. Yet while the argument about the cultural inappropriateness of Western law is valid to a point, it is important not to overlook the desire that many Solomon Islanders have for such a legal system. Citizens of Honiara and the country as a whole were overjoyed when RAMSI arrived and restored formal law and order to the capital; local authorities and even relatives of offenders welcomed police intervention when it occurred in response to a local request for assistance, as in the case described above. Moreover, although law, custom, and Christianity may be opposed in principle, in practice they overlap. Prison, for instance, is the constant focus of Ho- niara church ministries. While some prisoners certainly suffered there or perhaps became even more established in criminal ways, some ex-militants have Christianity, Custom, and Law 155

In working for reconciliation, we have to understand where the retributive justice of the formal legal system fits in. This form of justice is not necessarily opposed to the principles of customary reconciliation or Christian forgiveness—law can go hand in hand with church and custom. One man from South Guadalcanal told me that he had been among the combatants who hid out in the bush when RAMSI arrived. He added, “But now I’ve gone back to church, and church has helped me. I came back and surrendered myself because now I feel that otherwise I wouldn’t have any closure—I had to pay for my sins”. He turned himself in! And it is the same with some of those hardened MEF combatants who have come out from the prisons. One of them confessed, “I’m happy that I’ve gone through the law and the prison there. Being detained and going through that process helped straighten me out”. They are changed by the prison, by the law, by the retributive justice system. But the churches were important here too, particularly with their visits to the incarcerated. Some of the prisoners were so bitter—they felt that they had been used by some leaders and that they were political prisoners. They hated those who were outside but who, in their eyes, should have been in prison. Then the churches went in, complementing the work of the prison and helping the prisoners forgive those who had used them. Some of those I interviewed said, “We are now reformed; we are healed. We want to go and say sorry”. The churches went in to help and pray for the prisoners, and after their release, they’ve come back and said, “No way am I going to get back in there again. No way again. I want to move on in life”.

spoken about how spending time in prison transformed them, brought them back to God, and made them want to return to apologise to the people in their communities whom they offended.

Mediating across Cultural Difference In the Solomons civil conflict, violence was directed against Malaitans because they were Malaitan. And violence was directed at Guadalcanal people because they were Guale. But this was only one facet of the conflict. As we have demonstrated, the situation was more complex, with violence often not directed at those who were ethnically or culturally different. Rather, violence occurred within communities and even within families. We thus raised the question of how conflict is mediated and managed within and across identity and difference. The challenges are particularly significant when parties to a dispute have different understandings of what constitutes an appropriate exchange, as occurs among different cultural groups within the Solomons. At the same time and despite real differences in culture, nearly all Solomon Islanders (98 percent of the overall population) identify as Christian.26 Although an increasing number of denominations are present in the Solomon 156 mediating across difference

Islands, most Solomon Islanders share basic doctrines, can quote the same Bi- ble verses, and even talk in very similar ways about how Christian peace ended traditional warfare. As noted above, Solomon Islanders are adept at blending customary and church approaches in processing conflict. We now illustrate the issues at stake through a brief presentation of a case that involved conflict between Ranonggans and Malaitans who were living on the island of Ranongga. We do so to highlight how local people can directly manage differences among them. Malaitans and people of Western Province have notably different ideas about marriage and rules of sexual behaviour, and this is a constant source of conflict between them.27 In most of Western Prov- ince, people belong to the clans of their mothers. Married couples may reside with either the husband’s or the wife’s side, and marriages have never involved large payments of bridewealth. A woman’s brothers, however, are expected to become enraged unless they are given a token payment (compensation) when they are notified that their sister is to be married. In Malaita, in contrast, children generally belong to the clans of their fathers, women are expected to live with their husband’s side, and large bridewealth payments are the norm. Differ- ent churches have different rules about allowable amounts of bridewealth, but in Malaita it can run into thousands (even tens of thousands) of dollars. When sexual affairs become known in Malaita, a woman’s brothers or cousin-brothers are likely to aggressively confront her partner or his family, demanding large amounts of compensation—many times the amount of compensation expected when similar events occur in Western Province societies. When conflicts arise, many people of the Western Solomons feel that migrant Malaitans should abide by the custom of the region where they have come to live. A young Ranonggan man, whom I will call Joseph, had begun to live with a young woman whose mother was Ranonggan and father was Malaitan. Ran onggan-style compensation had been paid to this woman’s cousin-brothers, and her parents had consented to the marriage and, as Seventh-day Adventists, did not want any bridewealth payment. But apparently not all of the girls’ relatives had heard of this agreement. When Joseph went to the young woman’s home village to attend a big soccer competition, he was confronted by a number of his fiancée’s cousins, who threatened him. One of them did so with a bush knife. Apparently they accused him of ‘stealing’ their sister for ‘free’ instead of ‘buying’ her and said that they would kill him unless he paid several hundred dollars of compensation. The young man was forced to leave. Angry that these Malaitan men did not accept Ranonggan custom and that they were starting a fight when they were guests on the island, Joseph and other villagers prepared to return and fight them. Two of Joseph’s uncles stopped the boys, however, and went to speak to the Christianity, Custom, and Law 157 girl’s senior relatives. They talked to the uncles of the young Malaitan men about how Malaitan compensation is different from Ranonggan compensation—in short, Malaitans claim much more than they expect to receive and Ranonggans often do the opposite. As a result of the discussion, Joseph’s uncles gave the girl’s Malaitan uncles SI$70, much less than the amount originally demanded. This was payment for the Malaitan uncles to inform the girl’s cousins who had not been properly notified about her impending marriage. Then the Ranonggan boy’s uncles, in turn, asked for compensation for the offense of threatening Joseph with a bush knife. They reminded the Ma- laitans that it was not only Malaitans who had, prior to Christian conversion, settled arguments with violence. Ranonggans had also been warriors. But now, their argument went, they were all Christian and none of them had the right to threaten violence. The Malaitan men responded by giving back to the Ranong- gans an amount equivalent to the compensation the Ranonggans had paid the Malaitans. The problem was solved, all parties shook hands, and plans for marriage were back on track. Other, similar conflicts have not been resolved with such equanimity: Ranonggans do not always successfully negotiate their conflicts. Nonetheless, this case highlights some of the broader The Ministry of National Unity, Reconciliation, themes in Solomon and Peace is more or less consolidating the work that Islands conflict reso- has been done through local peacemaking. Consoli- lution that we have dating, representing people, pulling them together, putting an official state stamp of approval on what touched on through- people have already done—giving them that official out this chapter. Peo- recognition. I think that is what has come back to ple are often able to us from a lot of these reconciliation ceremonies that work through diffi- we’ve been to: that people want the government to culties at a local level be there, to take the lead. What the government is doing now for a lot of and are frequently those involved in the conflicts is providing a symbolic comfortable doing so endorsement of people saying sorry. The government by exploring mutual is now working toward a National Day of Reconcilia- differences. In this tion and Healing, which will involve churches leading prayer groups, prayer sessions, and specific prayer sort of process, Solo- points for national healing and reconciliation. mon Islanders may The mandate is huge—a really big task. But on simultaneously dif- the other hand, our work is limited in the sense that ferentiate themselves the communities have already taken the initiative. from others and in- They have built on the mediation and reconciliation work begun by the churches, the chiefs, and even voke a shared Chris- other NGOs like the former National Peace Council, tian faith with these World Vision, and the Red Cross. same others. This is 158 mediating across difference not to suggest that Solomon Islanders can always or easily negotiate conflicts that arise across difference. But the type of local pluralist and pragmatist approach that is embedded throughout much of the Solomons does appear to be a valuable resource to help a recently independent nation deal with the tensions and challenges of development and change.

Conclusion The recent conflict in the Solomon Islands was sparked by a clash between the people of Malaita and Guadalcanal. At first sight it seems to affirm the prop- osition that cultural difference is a major problem. Yet, as we have demonstrated in this chapter, ethnic or cultural difference alone cannot explain the conflict on Guadalcanal or other everyday conflicts throughout the Solomons. As Joy Kere emphasises, reconciliation between Malaita and Guadalcanal is only one part of what the Solomon Islands government is trying to achieve. For a lasting peace, broken relationships between brothers and sisters, parents and children, and in- laws, friends, and neighbours must also be mended. Where it is relevant, ethnic difference overlays these more intimate relationships. This discussion of dispute settlement in both Western Province and the conflict-torn eastern Solomons highlights the robustness of local processes of dispute management. Local processes in this culturally diverse nation, however, can differ from one another in significant ways. In situations involving disputants from different islands and regions, disagreements about In a lot of speeches that I write, I whose local custom should be emphasise that the ownership of the followed can exacerbate the ini- reconciliation process has to come from tial conflict. Yet such disagree- the people themselves—it has to be their ments are not always irresolva- own initiative, their planning. It has to ble, and where there is a genuine come from the heart, and it is not something that the government can impose. will to mend relationships and We wonder whether reconciliation live peacefully together, Solo- will hold. Will we respect it? Reconcili- mon Islanders are amenable to ation will hold only if it emerges out of using different principles, ac- a desire for true peace and true forgiveness. True reconciliation comes from the cording to what the situation heart, because nobody else will enforce calls for. Compromising with it. The police and other law enforcement people who have different tradi- are not in our villages; state institutions tions of conflict and peacemak- are not there. Reconciliation, I tell them, must be your initiative, must be your ing is difficult, but it is some- process, must be your own heartfelt thing that they are accustomed desire. Otherwise, it won’t work—it just to doing. Despite denomination- won’t work. al differences, Christian princi- Christianity, Custom, and Law 159 ples of reconciliation are shared by the vast majority of islanders who identify as Christians. While conflict—even violence—has always been a part of Melane- sian life, particularly prior to colonial pacification,28 their faith gives Melanesian Christians hope for lasting and sustainable peace. Because local leaders no longer have access to violent force, a strong and reliable state that can intervene when criminal behaviour gets out of hand is crucial. This chapter explored the pragmatic ways in which Solomon Islanders use both indigenous and exogenous techniques, from exchanges of traditional shell money and pigs to prayers directed to Jesus. What is essential is not abstract custom but local knowledge of particular relationships, situations, processes, and histories. This kind of knowledge is unlikely to be held by outsiders. The latter may be helpful, but the best way they can be helpful is by working to recognise, strengthen, and consolidate what is already being done on a local level.

Notes 1. For critical evaluations of the term “arc of instability,” see Robert Ayson, “The ‘Arc of Instability’ and Australia’s Strategic Policy,” Australian Journal of International Affairs 61, no. 2 (2007): 215–231; R. J. May (ed.), “Arc of Instability”? Melanesia in the Early 2000s (Canberra: State, Society, and Governance Project in Melanesia Project, Australian National University; Christchurch, New Zealand: Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, University of Canterbury, 2003); and Dennis Rumley, Vivian Louis Forbes, and Christopher Griffin (eds.), Australia’s Arc of Instability: The Political and Cultural Dynamics of Regional Security (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer, 2006). 2. Robert J. Foster (ed.), Nation Making: Emergent Identities in Postcolonial Melane- sia (Ann Arbor: Michigan University Press, 1995); Christine Dureau, “Decreed Affini- ties: Nationhood and the Western Solomon Islands,” Journal of Pacific History 33, no. 2 (1998): 197–220. 3. R. J. May, State and Society in Papua New Guinea: The First Twenty-Five Years, new ed. (Canberra: ANU E Press, 2004); Peter Larmour (ed.), Solomon Islands Politics (Suva, Fiji: Institute of Pacific Studies of the University of the South Pacific, 1983); J. S. Steeves, “ ‘Unbounded Politics’ in the Solomon Islands: Leadership and Party Alignments,” Pacific Studies 19, no. 1 (1996): 115–138. 4. For overviews of the crisis, see Clive Moore, Happy Isles in Crisis: The Historical Causes for a Failing State in Solomon Islands, 1998–2004 (Canberra: Asia Pacific Press, 2004); Jonathan Fraenkel, The Manipulation of Custom: From Uprising to Intervention in the Solomon Islands (Wellington, New Zealand: Victoria University Press, 2004); and Sinclair Dinnen, “Winners and Losers: Politics and Disorder in the Solomon Islands 2000–2002,” Journal of Pacific History 37, no. 3 (2002): 285–298. 5. An emerging body of literature on governance in the Pacific has begun to critique the state-centric assumptions of political philosophy, pointing out that even 160 mediating across difference if Melanesian states are weak, many of the functions of governance are carried out through societal institutions that remain strong; these include extended families and other kin groups, as well as Christian church organisations. Much of this work has been generated by the State, Society, and Governance in Melanesia centre at the Aus- tralian National University (http://rspas.anu.edu.au/melanesia/); see, for example, Sinclair Dinnen, Anita Jowitt, and Tess Newton Cain, A Kind of Mending: Restorative Justice in the Pacific Islands (Canberra: Pandanus Books, 2003); and Bronwen Doug- las, “Weak States and Other Nationalisms: Emerging Melanesian Paradigms?” State, Society, and Governance in Melanesia, Discussion Paper 00/03 (Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, 2000). 6. The point is made for the Solomons by Tarcisius Tara Kabutaulaka in “Beyond Ethnicity: The Political Economy of the Guadalcanal Crisis in Solomon Islands,” State, Society, and Governance in Melanesia, Discussion Paper 01/02 (Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, 2001). In a similar manner, the conflict in Bougainville initially seemed to occur along ethnic lines (Bou- gainvilleans versus other Papua New Guineans) or even racial lines (red Papua New Guinea versus black Bougainville). But soon the conflict pitted Bougainvilleans in the Bougainville Revolutionary Army against other Bougainvilleans in the Resistance, and then factions within each against one another (see chapter 8 in this volume). 7. But see Ian Scales, “The Coup Nobody Noticed: The Solomon Islands Western State Movement in 2000,” Journal of Pacific History 42, no. 2 (2007): 187–209. 8. A note on our collaboration: Morgan Brigg has worked with Joy Kere in the context of peace monitoring and has been engaging in a long-term dialogue with her over these issues. After our initial conference in March 2007, he suggested to Debra McDougall that she contact Joy Kere. After a few phone conversations, McDougall re- corded an interview during a visit with Kere on October 12, 2007. The comments included with this essay have been transcribed, edited, and thematically arranged. The body of the essay, initially drafted by McDougall in March 2007, was substantially revised in light of this conversation. 9. The Global IDP project estimated in 2002 that up to thirty-five thousand people had been displaced during 1998–1999: twenty-four thousand Malaitans who fled rural Guadalcanal to Honiara and Malaita and eleven thousand Guadalcanal people who fled the capital for interior areas. Profile of Internal Displacement: Solomon Islands (Geneva: Norwegian Refugee Council/Global IDP Project, 2002); Oxfam Community Aid Abroad, Australian Intervention in the Solomons—Beyond Operation Helpem Fren: An Agenda for Development in the Solomon Islands (Oxfam Community Aid Abroad, 2003). 10. For discussions of the grievances of Guadalcanal militants, see Fraenkel, Ma- nipulation of Custom, pp. 44–52; Moore, Happy Isles in Crisis, pp. 103–110; and George Gray, “Habuna Momoruqu (the Blood of My Island): Violence and the Guadalcanal Christianity, Custom, and Law 161

Uprising in Solomon Islands,” State, Society, and Governance in Melanesia, Work- ing Paper 02/4 (Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, 2002). For an ethnography of a peri-urban Malaitan settlement on the eve of the crisis, see Jolene Marie Stritecky, “Through a Moral Lens: Morality, Violence, and Empathy in Solomon Islands” (PhD thesis, University of Iowa, 2001). 11. Many are also of the same denomination, since Catholic, Anglican, South Seas Evangelical, and Seventh-day Adventist missions all gained adherents in both areas. See Debra McDougall, “Religious Institutions as Alternative Structures in Post-Con- flict Solomon Islands: Cases from the Western Province,” State, Society, and Gover- nance in Melanesia, Discussion Paper 08/5 (Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, 2008). 12. Gray, “Habuna Momoruqu.” Compare this with the discussion in the boxed text (p. 152) about the Rasi and the Chupu in South Guadalcanal. 13. Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah, Sri Lanka: Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986). 14. On prehistoric migrations, see Matthew Spriggs, The Island Melanesians (Ox- ford and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1997). An innovative discussion of identity, difference, and conflict with reference to Melanesia can be found in Simon Harrison, Fracturing Resemblances: Identity and Mimetic Conflict in Melanesia and the West (New York: Berghahn Books, 2007). 15. Epeli Hau‘ofa, “Our Sea of Islands,” in Eric Waddell, Vijay Naidu, and Epeli Hau‘ofa (eds.), A New Oceania: Rediscovering Our Sea of Islands (Suva, Fiji: School of Social and Economic Development, University of the South Pacific, 1993). 16. Debra McDougall, “Paths of Pinauzu: Captivity and Social Reproduction in Ranongga,” Journal of the Polynesian Society 109, no. 1 (2000): 99–113. 17. For Western Province, see Edvard Hviding, Guardians of the Marovo Lagoon: Practice, Place, and Politics in Maritime Melanesia (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1996); and Christine Dureau, “Recounting and Remembering ‘First Contact’ on Simbo,” in Jeannette Marie Mageo (ed.), Cultural Memory: Reconfiguring History and Identity in the Postcolonial Pacific (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2001). 18. See, for example, Ben Burt, Tradition and Christianity: The Colonial Transforma- tion of a Solomon Islands Society (Philadelphia: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1994); Michael W. Scott, The Severed Snake: Matrilineages, Making Place, and a Melanesian Christianity in Southeast Solomon Islands, Carolina Academic Press Ritual Studies Monographs (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2007); and Geoffrey M. White, Identity through History: Living Stories in a Solomon Islands Society (Cambridge: Cam- bridge University Press, 1991). 19. Matthew 5:43–45 (New International Version). 20. Douglas, “Weak States and Other Nationalisms.” See also Bronwen Douglas, “Christian Custom and the Church as Structure in ‘Weak States’ in Melanesia,” in 162 mediating across difference

H. James (ed.), Civil Society, Religion and Global Governance: Paradigms of Power and Persuasion (London and New York: Routledge, 2007). 21. Joel Robbins, “God Is Nothing but Talk: Modernity, Language, and Prayer in a Papua New Guinea Society,” American Anthropologist 103, no. 4 (2001): 901–912. 22. See Joel Robbins, Becoming Sinners: Christianity and Moral Torment in a Papua New Guinea Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004). 23. Indeed, some adherents of more fundamentalist Christian denominations in the Solomons find customary forms of exchange to be theologically troubling. As a Seventh-day Adventist from Ranongga explained, Jesus’ death on the cross was the compensation payment to end all compensation payment—there is no need to exchange money or food to cancel the debt of sin. 24. See, for example, Roger Keesing and Robert Tonkinson (eds.), “Reinventing Traditional Culture: The Politics of Kastom in Island Melanesia,” special issue, Man- kind 13, no. 4 (1982). 25. For discussions of restorative justice in Melanesia, see Sinclair Dinnen, “Re- storative Justice in Papua New Guinea,” International Journal of the Sociology of Law 25, no. 3 (1997): 245–262; Dinnen, Jowitt, and Cain, Kind of Mending; Patrick Francis Howley, Breaking Spears and Mending Hearts: Peacemakers and Restorative Justice in Bou- gainville (Annandale, New South Wales: Federation Press, 2002). More generally, see John Braithwaite and Heather Strang, Restorative Justice and Civil Society (Cambridge and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 26. B. J. De Bruijn, Solomon Islands 1999 Population and Housing Census: Main Results; Report to the Government of the Solomon Islands (The Hague: Netherlands In- terdisciplinary Demographic Institute, 2000); Manfred Ernst, Globalization and the Re-Shaping of Christianity in the Pacific Islands (Suva, Fiji: Pacific Theological College, 2006). 27. Differences between Guadalcanal and Malaita are discussed in Moore, Happy Isles in Crisis, pp. 103–104. 28. Sinclair Dinnen and Allison Ley (eds.), Reflections on Violence in Melanesia (Leichhardt, New South Wales: Hawkins Press; Canberra: Asia Pacific Press, 2000). Chapter 8 Bougainville A Source of Inspiration for Conflict Resolution

Volker Boege and Sr. Lorraine Garasu

After almost a decade of war (1989–1998) and the bloodiest violent conflict in the South Pacific since the end of the Second World War, Bougainville has gone through a comprehensive peacebuilding process. This process is a rare success story in contemporary postconflict peacebuilding. Because the conflict occurred during a time of statelessness in Bougainville, space was opened for a renaissance of nonstate customary institutions and processes. In the absence of state institutions, local practices resumed their central role in the life of the communities. In many places elders and chiefs, assisted particularly by women and local church people, became responsible for the organisation of political and social order and the regulation of conflicts. In doing so, they very much referred to customary norms and methods, often to the satisfaction of the members of their communities. The application of local processes by committed individuals managed to create and sustain ‘islands of peace’ within the ocean of violence that had consumed Bougainville. In this chapter we posit that peacebuilding on Bougainville was successful mainly because of the extensive application of Indigenous customary institutions, methods, and instruments of conflict resolution and reconciliation. In the transition from war to peace in the late 1990s, elders and chiefs were entrusted with important roles in settling violent conflicts at the local level. Because the fighting parties were closely tied into customary life, they were willing to accept the authority of traditional leaders and customary ways of dispute settlement. Traditional authorities also participated in ‘high-level’ political approaches to finding solutions to the Bougainville crisis. Principles and methods rooted in

163 164 mediating across difference

Indigenous custom supported constructive conflict resolution in the context of broader political negotiations and agreements. The main characteristics of conflict resolution and peacebuilding that were emphasised on Bougainville were reconciliation, process orientation, participation, inclusiveness, and long time frames. The aim is the restoration of social harmony within the community and of relationships between former adversar-

Bougainville is an island in the South Pacific, with an area of approximately nine thousand square kilometres and approximately 180,000 inhabitants. Geo- graphically it belongs to the Solomon Islands archipelago. Politically, however, it is part of the state of Papua New Guinea. Today’s ‘Autonomous Region of Bougainville’ consists of the main island of Bougainville, the island of Buka in the north, and several small islands and atolls. It is believed that it was first inhabited some thirty thousand years ago. Over time a complex web of cultures, languages, and social systems evolved. Today more than twenty languages are spoken on Bougainville and adjacent islands. European whalers and traders first came to Bougainville in the nineteenth century. So-called blackbirders recruited labourers (often forcibly) for white plan- tation owners in Queensland and elsewhere. Germany and Britain competed over this part of the world in the colonial era, and in 1886 they set a boundary that divided Bougainville from the other Solomon Islands, with Bougainville allocated to German rule and the latter to British rule. Australians took over the German colony, including Bougainville, in World War I, and the island became a major battleground for Japanese and Allied forces in World War II. Island life was again severely disrupted from the 1960s on, after large deposits of copper and gold were discovered, and an Australian mining company established a huge copper mine in 1972. The Panguna copper mine was an extraordinary success story for the company and the government in Port Moresby, but mining also caused enormous environmental degradation and social disintegration, leading to the war of 1989–1998. Bougainville has changed with colonial and other external impacts, but ‘traditional’ life continues in many respects. Many people’s lifestyles continue to be based around subsistence agriculture, supplemented by fishing and European ‘store’ goods. Matrilineal descent is widespread. This provides an important role for the women in the social life of the groups, particularly as rights to land and other resources are mainly based on descent. Women are in control of the land, and they administer gardens. Gender relations tend towards complementarity rather than hierarchy, although this tendency has altered with external influences and conflict. Land is at the heart of life on Bougainville. Not only does land provide livelihood and the most reliable security for the group, but it is also the source of cultural and spiritual well-being. Balanced reciprocity governs relations within and among social groups and with the spirit world. The continuity of these Indigenous Bougainvillean institutions allowed the re- emergence of local conflict management following the conflict at the end of the twentieth century. Bougainville 165 ies. This restoration proceeds on the basis of principles of restorative justice and is ratified by rituals that include both a spiritual dimension and an exchange of material gifts. Many peace processes and ceremonies have taken place at the local level over the last decade. Conflicts have been resolved within and between extended families, clans, villages, and ethnolinguistic groups. These processes decisively contributed to the stabilisation of the postconflict situation. Custom- ary ways were successfully used for postconflict peacebuilding and are used today for a new type of state-building and for managing and resolving conflicts that emerge in everyday community life. This chapter commences by discussing the place of reciprocity and violence in Bougainvillean society. Traditional patterns of violence and reciprocity have been substantially transformed through outside impacts—particularly the assimilation of Christianity—but both continue to influence contemporary Bougainvillean society. Reciprocal systems of exchange, in particular, continue to influence Bougainvillean reconciliation processes. The chapter’s second section provides an overview of reconciliation, discussing topics ranging from the importance of relationship to the role of ritual and ceremony. The third section considers elements of Bougainvillean conflict resolution in more detail. We discuss the place of spirituality and emotion, the importance of taking time, restorative justice principles, gift exchange through ceremony, and the need for both trusted leadership and full community participation. In the final two sections of the chapter we address some problematic aspects of customary conflict resolution and highlight the importance of constructive interaction between In- digenous customary and introduced Western conflict resolution approaches. A number of boxes present, through Sister Lorraine Garasu’s personal experiences, a mini case study regarding conflict and conflict resolution in Bougainville during the time of war and postconflict peacebuilding.

Reciprocity and Violence Reciprocity was the guiding principle of social relations in traditional Bou- gainvillean societies. The exchange system created mutually binding obligations to give, and these obligations tied people together in reciprocal relationships, providing social order and harmony. If obligations were not met, conflict arose and could lead to violence. Insulting behaviour, swearing, and various forms of sorcery were considered violence alongside physical fighting and warfare. Violence necessitated a violent response, yet violence was not necessarily perceived as contradicting order. Violence could contribute to restoring order—if it was pursued according to the rules of reciprocity as another form of exchange. The legitimacy of the recourse to violence and the capacity to use violence were vested in every single community. Communities were forced and 166 mediating across difference entitled to help themselves by violent means when they perceived their rights were challenged. This violent self-help was legitimised and regulated by customary law. One may thus speak of ‘orderly’ violence—violence that aimed at restoring order and was highly ritualised, following very strict customary rules of fighting. Nevertheless, vicious circles of violence could also evolve as violence followed the logic of retribution—or ‘payback’. So it “would be a mistake to believe that the traditional village was an earthly paradise”, as Pat Howley has observed.1 Violent conflict was ended by a return to peaceful exchange. The exchange of gifts substituted the exchange of violence, upholding the principle of reciprocity while also transforming it. After the establishment of colonial and later state rule, violent self-help was legally forbidden and negatively sanctioned—ironically, by the use of violence through colonial administrators, the police, and the prisons. Furthermore, missionaries preached the Gospel and taught people that the Christian faith is a nonviolent religion, delegitimising the use of violence on ethical grounds. As most Bougainvilleans turned to Christianity, they adopted this repulsion toward violence. Of course, violent intergroup conflict did not stop altogether after colonial pacification.2 However, people began to see violence as morally unaccept- able. This attitudinal change was not an entirely new perspective on violence. Although violence had been an integral part of traditional life, it had been perceived as an unwelcome disturbance of relationships within and between communities, since the very survival of communities depended on peaceful order and a functioning exchange system.

Reconciliation: The Restoration of Relationships The ultimate aim of Bougainvillean conflict resolution is to restore peaceful relationships through processes of reconciliation geared toward the future. Although ‘reconciliation’ is a term rooted in the Christian faith, it also describes the customary Melanesian approach to conflict resolution wherein relationship- based peacebuilding and reconciliation were very much part of community life. Contemporary reconciliation has integrated both Christian and customary elements.3 In this long-term and multifaceted process, past wrongs are acknowledged, responsibility for them is shared and accepted, and the basis for a common future is created. The conflict parties striving for reconciliation usually invite a third party to intervene. Parties are typically self-motivated in some way, but they also can be encouraged and cajoled into reconciliation processes by their relatives and communities. Traditional Melanesian notions play an important role here, including encouraging self-analysis and reflection. In the Halia language that is spoken on Bougainville 167

Buka Island and the northern tip of Bougainville, for instance, there is a peace- related word—‘Hamaraha’. This term is a reminder to stabilise, keep calm, and retrace your steps, to look around you. Why are the waters around you rough and disturbed? Calm down, think, and act accordingly and responsibly. Individual commitment is crucial, but so are broader communal relations. While conflicts affect particular relationships between family and clan members, they also resonate throughout clan networks, sometimes involving entire communities. Conflicts can be very complicated as a result, with an original very simple incident spreading concern among many people and (potentially) escalating into violence and armed combat. Conflicts often also affect the spirit world through the spirits of ancestors. When there is a conflict between parties and someone is hurt, people can be heard to say that the spirits of the dead are unhappy because of what has happened. So when a conflict emerges, it no longer remains the issue of particular individuals; it involves the whole community, including the dead. The reconciliation process is run by community leaders—typically chiefs, ‘big men’ or elders whose authority is derived socially rather than by descent. These authorities take up the roles of mediators, facilitators, negotiators, and peacemakers. They are highly esteemed for their knowledge of custom, the history of the communities and the relationships of the parties in conflict, kinship ties, and social circumstances prevailing in the conflict setting. Their rich experience in conflict regulation, their skills in setting and interpreting signs of reconciliation, and their abilities as orators as well as their social capital as leaders of the community or communities empower them to negotiate a resolution to the conflict that is acceptable to all. Their knowledge of stories and skills in storytelling are crucial in Bougainville’s oral culture. They set the conditions for a peace agreement and determine the form and amount of gifts necessary to restore relationships. In the reconciliation process a common understanding of the causes and the history of the conflict has to be developed. Parties have to negotiate a consensus about how to interpret history that takes into account events and the spirits of the dead. This is often very time-consuming. Facts have to be established, and truth has to be revealed. Only then can reconciliation take its course. Per- petrators are helped to see their roles in the conflict more clearly, retrace their steps, acknowledge that they have created disharmony and violence, and realise that they are no longer trusted by the community. This is the foundation for apologising to the ones they wronged and for asking forgiveness. Victims must develop a willingness to accept apologies, forgive, and reconcile. Parties thus can overcome hate and mistrust, achieve reconciliation, and heal relationships. Finally, peace can be built on a shared perception of what is just. 168 mediating across difference

In my current work with the rehabilitation of people from trauma and other issues I often find that a particular problem that a person wants to deal with through counselling is connected to other issues affecting the wider community. What started as individual counselling can lead to family group counselling. Since I work closely with village mediators, I ask them to help other family members to participate willingly and genuinely in the process. My experience tells me that only by proceeding in this manner can total rehabilitation and true reconciliation occur.

Peacebuilding in Sokela Village, 2005 In 2005, I was facilitating a community survey for the Bougainville Inter- Church Women’s Forum (BICWF) as part of a project to help Bougainvilleans establish safe, secure, and just communities and move through the process of autonomy smoothly. The survey took a month to complete, a month to prepare, and another month to present to the community. The day that I went to present the report to the community I found there were unresolved conflicts that dated back ten years. The community wanted to start a housing project, which meant that issues of land and timber needed to be addressed. However, this could not occur because of outstanding conflicts. The day I presented the report, chiefs, elders, women, and youths were present. They agreed that a process of negotiation and reconciliation needed to occur. We agreed that the process would begin at family level, then clan level, community/village level, and church level. The issues to be dealt with were internal displacement, land disputes, family/marriage disputes, clan disputes over leadership titles, and religious disputes. A team was appointed to facilitate the process, and I was asked by the community to assist them in ensuring that the chosen process would be implemented. The team would report to me weekly and monthly. It was agreed that a period of three months be allowed for the reconciliation process to be completed. I was beginning to get impatient because this did not fit in very well with the time frame of the BICWF’s donor. I was also very conscious that reconciliation in our villages does not normally align well with donor time frames. Five steps were identified for dealing with conflicts. First, conflicts within families would be dealt with in a facilitated process that called upon both God and ancestors. Second, family-to-family conflicts would be resolved through a similar method. Third, clan disputes were to be dealt with by facilitators appointed from outside the clan. Fourth, clan-to-clan conflicts would be handled through a lengthy process of community mapping that would involve key leaders, chiefs, women, elders, and youth before bringing in outside mediators. During this process it became clear that it did not matter how much time was lost on the housing or water projects so long as all the conflicts in the community were resolved. Finally, a church service was organised. On the day of the service the clans met outside the church for a ritual of handshaking and asking for forgiveness from each other and God. Then they proceeded into the church, where there was another ritual for asking forgiveness from those present from other churches. After the service a feast was shared with people from nearby villages. Bougainville 169

(continued)

In order to maintain the peace a meeting was held just before the final ceremony to agree on a strategy for addressing conflict if it re-emerged. It was agreed that since the shell money exchanged in the ceremony would remain in the clans, it was important that clan leaders ensure that their members did not create conflict or disharmony. If conflicts broke out, clan leaders would have to facilitate an opportunity for the parties to maintain peace and harmony and to work on resolving the conflict together with the mediators. In late 2006 some conflicts did break out in the village when members of a church devotion group introduced a new form of prayer. The people were disturbed and afraid because a situation of disharmony was present in the community. In consultation with the mediators from the next village and the elders, a successful meeting resolved the issue.

Participation in the process and the approval of results is voluntary. Negotia- tors have few if any sanctions at their disposal that would allow the enforcement of a settlement. Sanctions are confined to the social realm (shaming, stigmatising) and the supernatural (cursing, sorcery). Spirits of the dead play an important role: they will be called on to remove any illness and bring back healing to the sick and the broader community. Parties can reject any settlement that they are not happy with, so conflict resolution is based on voluntary consensus and agreement. Once solutions are found, they are ratified in highly ritual forms. The whole community usually participates. Ceremonies that encompass customary rituals are significant as a means of conflict transformation in their own right, but in contemporary peacebuilding they are often combined with Christian prayers for reconciliation and healing. James Tanis notes that “Christian principles of reconciliation have conveniently found their place in the culture and have, indeed, added a great deal to the process, through the incorporation of prayers and public acknowledgments by priests and church ministers”.4 Ceremony is an important vehicle for cleansing and purification. It creates an environment for the parties to build trust, and signals that the conflict has ended and harmony has been restored. Usually there are a series of ceremonies loaded with spiritual meaning according to the progress of the stages of reconciliation. Gifts are exchanged, breaking the cycle of payback. These symbolic activities express commitment and trust and are more important and more powerful than mere spoken or written words.

Ingredients of Bougainvillean Conflict Resolution To extend our discussion, we now examine elements of Bougainvillean conflict resolution in more detail. We consider the spiritual and emotional nature of 170 mediating across difference

Bougainvillean ways of dealing with conflict, the importance of taking as much time as necessary, the restorative approach to justice, and the need to exchange gifts through ceremony. Finally we touch on the need for both trusted leadership and full community inclusiveness. Conflict resolution on Bougainville is a deeply emotional and spiritual experience. Emotion is both a powerful obstacle to and vehicle for resolution. Imag- ine in a tight-knit community a mother whose beloved son was killed by a youth from a neighbouring village. Imagine the pain she is feeling and the shame the perpetrator is feeling. Imagine how difficult it is for him to ask for forgiveness, and for the mother to forgive. Imagine the shame of the relatives of the perpetrator, and their difficulties to set in motion a process of My experience working in and coordinat- reconciliation. Imagine the ing the work of the BICWF is that religion has anger of the relatives of the never been a cause of conflict for those who mother and her son, and remain in their churches. It is always those their difficulties to join in a who break away who tend to cause conflict. I process of reconciliation. myself work very well with the leaders from all churches and always feel welcomed in their This was the situation in churches. many communities in Religion also played a big part in ending Bougainville after the war. the conflict in Bougainville. Christians all over The parties at war with Bougainville prayed and still today pray for the end of the war and lasting peace. each other were not anony- It was our premier, Theodor Miriung, who mous armies but rather really encouraged me to mobilise the women small units whose mem- from all the churches. He was very aware that bers often were related or in Bougainville most communities organise around their churches and that it was worth knew each other. organising women from the churches to work Shame, in particular, for peace. is crucial to Bougainvil- Seven hundred women of all the churches lean conflict resolution. in Bougainville organised a peace forum Shame is felt much more in Bougainville, advocating the opening of dialogue and negotiations when there was a powerfully than in West- deadlock between the Papua New Guinea govern understandings and is ernment and the Bougainville Interim Govern- the primary sanction for ment (and Bougainville Revolutionary Army). achieving individual conformity to social expectations.5 Shame can be more painful than physical violence. Howley notes that people “experience shame when they fail in their obligation or behave in a way which reduces the quality of life for others or is contrary to the established customs and traditions of the ancients”.6 Shame is not an individual issue. Rather, when one member of a group behaves in a shameful way, the other group mem- Bougainville 171 bers share the disgrace. As Howley explains, “In repairing the damage, they feel obliged to take the shame on themselves and recompense the victim”.7 Reconciliation, then, is about deeply felt guilt, shame, and a desire for forgiveness. It is about restoring harmony so that people can live in peace with each other. Harmony is achieved only when people feel no anger against one another, trust each other, and live together happily. Reconciliation is “not a matter of forgive and forget”, Howley points out. “We cannot forget and it would be wrong to do so but each time that we remember, we must renew our forgiveness”.8 The Christian value of forgiveness combines with and adds legitimacy to customary Bougainville ways of conflict resolution. God is present in reconciliation, and one cannot experience the presence of God rationally. It is impossible to reconcile, to resolve conflicts, and to build peace without including the spiritual dimension. The dead have to be included too, which is why burying the dead properly is of utmost importance for reconciliation. Attending to emotional and spiritual dimensions of conflict resolution on Bougainville can take significant time. Indeed, ‘Melanesian time’ differs from European time regimes and is a powerful influ- I have observed that, in the Western world, ence within Bougainvil- solving conflict is measured according to lean reconciliation proc- time and money. This can be seen in the way esses. Even if there is an Australia was involved in the peace process in urgent desire to reconcile, Bougainville. Australian-supported peacekeeping was winding up in Bougainville in 2003, be- the concept of urgency it- fore all the weapons had been disposed of. Most self does not aid reconcili- Bougainvilleans recognised that more time was ation. Only in a protracted needed for full weapons disposal. process can people nur- We Bougainvilleans appreciate the confi- ture the desire for recon- dence that the United Nations, Australia, and New Zealand had in the Bougainville people, but ciliation and peace. The it is a shame that some people do not recognise process is as important as that time is necessary to do good conflict reso- the outcome, and in the lution. There were issues that we could deal with traditional context any ‘re- on our own, but managing and facilitating the process of totally disarming those in possession sults’ achieved are only of of guns were other issues completely. a temporary nature. They are subject to repeated re- negotiations and revisions. Although people have the desire to settle conflicts ‘once and for ever’, this is rarely possible. Slowness, breaks, and ‘time-outs’ are deliberately built into conflict resolution processes to give parties time to calm down, assess the state of the process so far, reformulate their position, and prepare themselves spiritually and emotionally for a resolution. Reconciliation processes take years rather than weeks. 172 mediating across difference

Today, more than a decade after the official end of the war on Bougainville, many groups have not completed their reconciliation processes. With reconciliation at the heart of conflict resolution and peacebuilding on Bougainville, justice is “restorative” rather than punitive. This modern term, and the accompanying restorative justice movement, mirrors the approaches to justice that were and are an integral part of Bougainville customary conflict resolution. As one chief states: “Restorative justice is not a new method in our societies. It is what our ancestors used for thousands of years to resolve minor and major disputes, up until colonial times”.9 The restoration of social harmony within and between communities and the restoration of relationships between the communities of offenders and victims are seen as the main aims of reconciliation. Punitive justice destroys relationships by focusing on individual perpetrators. Bougainvilleans, however, perceive people as embedded in, and bound through, (kin) relations. These relations extend not only to other members of their community but also to other living things, to spirits, and not least to God. In taking into account these complex relationships, conflict resolution is not so much about addressing individuals and their interests as about dealing with individuals as members of communities. According to custom, an offender was dealt with as a member of his or her clan. Compensation was payable by the clan from which the offender came. This meant that clan members had to work together to supply the resources needed for the compensation payment. A Bougainville Constitutional Commis- sion report notes, “In doing so, the clan members created obligations owed to them by the ‘offender’. S/he became responsible to them. The clan members then had their own interests in making sure that the ‘offender’ did not get into trouble again in the future and so was brought under a form of social control enforced by the clan chief and elders”.10 This way of dealing with antisocial or ‘criminal’ behaviour reintegrates perpetrators and is an effective means of social control. The commonplace Western practice of imprisonment is problematic, Howley states, “because it marks the offender as a criminal and when he returns to the community, he is not healed or forgiven and is bigger trouble than before”.11 Howley adds that the most important quality of restorative justice is “that the offenders are forgiven and returned to the community where they have the chance to re-establish themselves as healthy contributing members”.12 In the context of restorative justice and reconciliation, the exchange of gifts plays an important role. Gifts to compensate for damage done and wrongs committed serve to cement reconciliation. Traditionally those gifts were items held precious by the communities such as shell money, pigs, and food. Nowadays cash and modern goods are also exchanged. Gifts are a symbol of the restoration of relationships between once-feuding communities, and of the re-estab- Bougainville 173 lishment of social harmony. The exchange is an outward sign of reconciliation. It is not ‘compensation’ in the sense of ‘blood money’. An elder explains: “When we make peace, it is not the food and it is not the pigs and it is not the speeches. It is the people saying ‘I forgive you. You forgive me. Let us get on with our lives’. All the rest . . . are just the outward signs of our peace making”.13 Nowadays there is a tendency to distort the customary meaning of compensation. Some people try to use compensation for making quick, easy money. This is not what compensation is about, and such a misperception can lead to new conflicts. Bougainvilleans who value traditional forms of peacemaking are highly critical of phony ‘reconciliation’, which is superficial, hollow tokenism, a way to make money, and not binding. Such an act could mean “nothing because the organizers used government money and the preparation and the discussion essential to any genuine reconciliation did not take place”, Howley points out. “There was no giving of self and no reconciliation”.14 This outcome itself can cause conflict if people “are angry because the value of the traditional form has been debased by people in high places” who use government money and thus make reconciliation a sham.15 The exchange of gifts takes place in the context of peace ceremonies that mark the culminating point of the whole conflict resolution process. On Bou- gainville, ritual is an essential part of everyday life. In the case of conflict resolution, the rituals may vary across areas, but generally adversaries feast together, eating, drinking, dancing together, shaking hands, chewing betel nut, symboli- cally breaking spears and arrows, and exchanging gifts. Reconciliation ceremonies bring together the people, the past and the present and the future, the ancestors, and God for the sealing of the conflict resolution process. Finally, trusted leadership and comprehensive community participation are essential in successful conflict resolution processes. Although traditional leaders were to a certain extent sidelined in the process of colonial rule and later modern state structures, they continued to play an important role in village life. They remained responsible for settling disputes throughout the colonial and early postcolonial period and became even more important during the war and its aftermath. State institutions and representatives almost entirely withdrew from Bougainville during the war, making space for a renaissance of customary leadership. Traditional leaders took control in many parts of the island. Building on their traditional authority and legitimacy, they frequently referred to customary ways when regulating conflicts and organising community life. Strong chiefs often managed to keep their villages neutral in the war, saving them from the fighting. It comes as no surprise, then, that elders and chiefs were vital contributors in the transition to peace. “In many areas the dispute settlement role of the 174 mediating across difference chiefs was of great importance to the peace process. . . . Some played major parts in initiating reconciliation between groups in conflict”.16 These traditional authorities were much closer to their people than were politicians, bureaucrats, or external mediators. This also holds true for women representatives and church people who often displayed leadership in conflict resolution as well. The strong societal status of women in the mostly matrilineal societies of Bougainville means that they are in a position to negotiate peace in their communities and use their influence as go-betweens with warring factions to initiate and maintain dialogue.17 As Roselyne Kenneth points out, “The traditional position of women, although rarely exposed in public, included the power to exercise authority, especially in matters concerning land and other inherited rights. Thus, if women remain silent during public meetings, it does not mean that they lack the power to exercise authority in certain matters”.18

In my experience women were always seen as a vital part of the peace pro cess. Even when I was growing up in the days when the chieftain system was still very strong, I saw my aunties stick around when there was big negotiation going on. The women were often there to cook and coordinate the food preparation for the meeting, but whether it was in relation to a marriage or a land settlement, there was always behind-the-kitchen-door consultation. Whenever an elder would come to the kitchen for a cup of water or to light his smoke, they would always give him their views and offer their wisdom. During our peace negotiations I remember how often I or one of the other women would bring that practise into the process. At a meal or break time I would offer my thoughts on how I or the other women viewed the situation and what our concerns were. Often during the crisis women were called on to go and negotiate with the warring factions. Women were valued for what they could offer to the peace process, even though there were always some men who did not look favour- ably on women’s participation. I think that we would not have gotten very far if women’s views had not been valued in the Bougainvillean peace process. As a woman living and working in a society that is matrilineal and yet dominated by male decisions, I think it is worthwhile to challenge men to make my presence felt and to ensure that my skills, capacity, and wisdom are valued. If it is not taken on board, then there is something missing. Experience has also taught me that I do not have to fight for this opportunity and that there is value in a gentle approach. I think this is how the women of Bougainville made our mark in the peace process. We made our presence felt by the small things that we did—like organising peace prayer days and peace marches and taking initiative to go and negotiate with the warring factions. We did not start by going to peace meetings or negotiations. Slowly our men began to realise that we were very much a part of society and the peace process. In that way they started involving us more and more in high-level peace negotiations. So we see a progression from behind-the-kitchen-door consultation to roundtable consultation. Bougainville 175

There are customary limits to the public appearance of women. In violent conflict women are not exposed to the other side. Often they act behind the scenes, with their male kin speaking for them in public. Although the role of the leaders is important, they do not and cannot impose peace outcomes. It is also the case that conflict affects everyone rather than representative leaders or combatants. As fighters engaged in violent conflict act on behalf of their group and are perceived as members of it, the whole group is accountable for their deeds. Because every member of a social group can become a legitimate target of retribution, the whole group is the victim of conflict. For these reasons, customary conflict resolution has to encompass all of the group members. This is a major challenge. Often it is difficult to persuade everybody to join in the peace process, or people have moved and cannot be contacted. It can be difficult and time-consuming to bring everybody on board. But this is required if a stable settlement is to be achieved. Often certain members of the group go ahead in the process and others follow only hesitantly, but in the end an all-encompassing consensus has to be built. Although this might be a very costly approach in terms of effort and time, the outcomes are robust and reliable. The resulting agreements do not have to be enforced by sanctions or pressure because they rest on the consensus reached by the previously conflicting groups.

Ending War through Customary Conflict Resolution The war on Bougainville was not only a secessionist war between the government of Papua New Guinea and the Bougainville Revolutionary Army but also a complex mix of ‘mini wars’ in local contexts. It was therefore impossible to end the war solely by political negotiations. It was also necessary to terminate the local conflicts and build peace in the villages. This could be done only by drawing on customary conflict resolution, a process that occurred throughout Bougainville in the years after the war’s end and continues today. Anthony Re- gan, one of the most knowledgeable non-Bougainvillean observers of the peace process, says that these “local reconciliation efforts have done more to consolidate popular commitment to peace than any other aspect of the process”.19 According to the principles of customary dispute settlement, the Bougain- ville peace process was and is framed in a long-term perspective. This holds true for the process as a whole as well as for its single elements. Peacebuilding on Bougainville has been ongoing since 1998 and is not yet complete. Dozens of rounds of talks and negotiations and a host of intermediate agreements, memo- randa of understanding, protocols, and so forth were necessary to make progress. The time spent on every step helped stabilise the peace. To enable full participation and compliance, it was of utmost importance, for instance, that no time frame was given regarding demobilization and weapons disposal, highly critical 176 mediating across difference dimensions of postconflict peacebuilding as worldwide experience shows. There was only general agreement on a three-phase, open-ended weapons disposal process. The real weapons disposal did not start I think that in the escalation of many conflicts, the actors forget to take on board those involved as until December a people. That was the case at the very beginning of 2001, four years af- the Bougainville crisis when the Papua New Guinea ter cessation of government deployed security forces to Bougainville. armed conflict, and These actions paid no attention to who people were, what they were concerned about, what their worries the process dragged and fears and their values were, what they wanted, and on beyond 2005. what was important to them. Although the Bou- Sometimes these questions are forgotten in peace gainville Peace processes too. If those mediating peace settlements give Agreement of Au- thought to which people they are dealing with, I think a lot will be achieved without much violence. I saw this gust 2001 was a clearly at our peace negotiations at Burnham when we as crucial milestone, Bougainvilleans recognised that we were concerned with this agreement en- peace, that we were a peace-loving people. We asked visaged another ten ourselves how come we were now involved in so much violence. This made us rethink our values as a people. I to fifteen years of a feel that is what made it possible for us to end the civil transitional period, war using traditional approaches for making peace. still in process, un- Our peacebuilding was mostly based on what we til a final settle- felt was most important to us as people. This enabled us to deal with combatants using our cultural ap- ment shall be proaches, talking to them about the need for protection achieved via a refer- of our children who would be our future generation. endum on the fu- This made them change their approach to war. ture political status of Bougainville. The extended time frames for peacebuilding in Bougainville allowed a broad process of political debate. Stakeholders at all levels of society were involved. Peace talks and negotiations were each attended by dozens, if not hundreds, of Bougainvilleans—not only by the political and military leadership of the warring sides. Broad participation guaranteed the stability and implementation of agreements. Truce and cease-fire agreements were signed not only by the top political and military representatives of the conflicting parties but also by the local commanders of the Bougainville Revolutionary Army and the Resistance Forces as well as by representatives of civil society and by traditional authorities. By putting their signatures to the agreements, the lower-ranking commanders had more of a stake in them and felt a greater obligation to observe them. Likewise, the representatives of communities and civil society took a shared responsibility for keeping the cease-fire and stabilising the situation. Women’s involvement Bougainville 177 was of special importance. Although women were mainly active in peacebuilding at a local level and in the background, women representatives also attended all of the decisive high-level rounds of talks and negotiations in the first phases of the peacebuilding process. They spoke out strongly for peace. Male political and military leaders of the conflicting parties found themselves compelled to welcome and support women’s peace initiatives and to get women further involved in the process.20 Challenges arise, though, with the incorporation of customary reconciliation in the context of political negotiations. Reconciliation is a painful and complicated psychological and spiritual healing process, and these dimensions of conflict resolution are usually excluded from the political realm. Nonetheless, the Bougainvillean people have put considerable effort into reconciliation and have insisted that leaders dealing with the high-level political processes also pay due attention to the necessities of reconciliation. Although one might criticise as hollow tokenism the inclusion of gestures of reconciliation into political negotiations and agreements, there is little doubt that this form of paying tribute to customary and Christian symbols of reconciliation has made a major contribution to ending war and advancing postconflict peacebuilding in Bougainville.

Limitations of Customary Conflict Resolution We have so far painted a very positive picture of Indigenous Bougainvillean conflict resolution practices and their role in the recent peacebuilding process. However, we cannot ignore the problematic aspects. It must be noted that customary conflict resolution does not have answers to all the questions raised by modern forms of conflict. One pressing question is how to deal with serious human rights violations and crimes, such as torture or pack rape, that were committed during the war. Such atrocities were not part of traditional warfare. Customary approaches to conflict resolution did not take them into account, and whether they can appropriately be dealt with by customary forms of reconciliation and restorative justice is questionable. This raises the broader issue of the relationship between custom and the concept of human rights in general, and women’s rights in particular. Women and girls are often the victims of direct physical and sexual violence in contemporary conflicts. There was a lot of sexual violence against women during the war in Bougainville, much of which is still difficult to discuss. As in many other settings, men in Bougainville dominate not only violence but also the negotiations to resolve conflict. Compensation negotiations include exchanges for the rape of women or girls. Women and girls are thereby degraded as objects of male negotiation. And although women played a decisive part in building peace both at local and higher political levels in recent Bougainvillean 178 mediating across difference history, men today often continue to try to sideline women in social and political life. This is exacerbated by the fact that women and girls on Bougainville are the main victims of everyday violence, including domestic violence. The issue of women’s rights and the meaningful participation of women in political life, then, are significant challenges. Youth issues are also important. Young people bore the brunt of much of the fighting during the war. They were seriously affected by violence, as both perpetrators and victims. But given their relatively low status in traditional Bou- gainville societies, young people were not meaningfully included in processes of conflict resolution and peacebuilding. These processes were controlled and steered by adults, with youth included in only a rather passive way. This situation both underestimates the peacebuilding potential of youth and increases the danger that young people will become future troublemakers. A further limitation on Indigenous Bougainvillean conflict resolution derives from the general attitude towards violence. Fighting could traditionally serve as a means of re-establishing harmony. Traditional violence and warfare were ritualised, well-controlled, and relatively easily brought to an end by using the principles of reciprocity and the exchange of gifts to substitute for violent retribution. But in the context of modern war, it was much more difficult to maintain the customary rules of warfare and the enshrined limitations on the conduct of violence. A ‘culture of violence’ evolved during the war and still can be felt today. Violence against weak members of the community, in particular domestic violence against women and children, is a ‘normal’ feature of contemporary ‘peaceful’ life in many Bougainville communities. Although violence has been outlawed by modern state law and ethically discredited by Christianity, a notion of violence as a ‘normal’ part of life, dating back to the precolonial past, still exists despite its becoming much more problematic and dangerous. Finally, we cannot escape the conclusion that Indigenous Bougainvillean conflict resolution to some extent struggles with differences introduced from ‘the outside’. It is true that Bougainvilleans have assimilated Christian principles and values over time. But it is also the case that customary Bougainville conflict resolution hinges on the existence of a community of relationships and values that are rooted in a common view of the world and a shared acknowledgement of customary institutions that people rely on to provide context for their actions and decisions. This means that Indigenous conflict resolution works well within and among relatively small communities in the local context. Conflicts among the members of the ‘we-group’ of the community can be addressed and solved by customary ways. Conflicts between neighbouring local communities pose relatively small problems, for some overarching customary principles can usually be developed and applied that allow for the creation of common ground. Bougainville 179

However, dealing with outsiders is much more difficult. Conflicts between ‘us’, who share common customs and a common culture, and ‘them’, who adhere to another customary or formal statutory law, are much more difficult to tackle. Often conflict resolution among ‘us’ is geared towards gaining strength against ‘them’. Reconciliation “is our traditional way which we used before the white man came”, one chief explains. “We had to do it this way for the sake of peace because, if we did not have peace in our villages, we would be open to attack from our enemies. We have developed this method of reconciliation so that we can bring the people back into the community and make the community strong again”.21 This type of conflict resolution operates along the lines of inclusion and exclusion—and hence can cause new conflicts. The recent history of Bougainville has demonstrated that conflicts between local communities and outside actors such as state authorities, non-Bougainvilleans, or business enterprises pose big problems with regard to the applicability of traditional approaches. If outsiders do not understand, do not respect, or are unwilling to be included in Bougainville’s ways of conflict resolution, Indigenous methods cannot readily bridge the accompanying differences and conflicts. Of course, Bougainvilleans cannot be held responsible for outsiders, but it is important to acknowledge the limitations of ‘we-group’ approaches to conflict resolution. The inclusion of faraway external actors such as mining companies or state authorities within Indigenous conflict resolution will probably pose grave difficulties in the future, particularly when Indigenous approaches clash with external interests and systems. The experience so far is that it is always the locals who are supposed to adjust to the outside ways, and not vice versa. Bougainvilleans, however, hold the strong belief that they, as the original inhabitants of the land, have the right to demand respect for their ways and customs from outsiders.

The Way Ahead: Combining Indigenous and Introduced Conflict Resolution? We have outlined some features of Bougainvillean approaches to conflict resolution and discussed some limitations, in accordance with Western academic conventions. However, such generalisations do not entirely capture the complexity and fluidity of local approaches. Bougainvillean conflict resolution is always context specific, depending on the people involved, the history of relationships, and local customs and ways of doing things. Western approaches tend to aim at formal procedures and universal applicability through a ‘tool box’ of conflict resolution instruments with formalised results. Bougainvillean experiences make us sceptical about tool boxes. Nevertheless, there may be some lessons learned from the Bougainville experience that could be helpful in other cases. The most important observation 180 mediating across difference is that peacebuilding on Bougainville in the postconflict phase drew on both In- digenous and introduced methods. There was constructive interaction of local customary institutions and mechanisms and their Western counterparts. This process of positive mutual accommodation continues today, including in the establishment of new state structures. People on Bougainville are pursuing a new form of state-building that does not simply copy the Western model so highly recommended by politicians and political scientists from the developed world. A homegrown variety of ‘the state’ is in the making, built on the combination of Indigenous customary institutions and introduced Western state institutions with a strong emphasis on the role of chiefs and elders, restorative justice, and community-based citizenship.22 Such a homegrown state will most probably provide the framework for a stable society, sustainable internal peace, and the nonviolent resolution of conflicts. The blending of local and introduced processes is also occurring in the conflict resolution endeavours of various civil society organisations, with churches and women’s groups at the forefront of these endeavours.23 In the Catholic Church, for instance, retreats aimed at mutual forgiveness and reconciliation were well attended by a great variety of people, including former combatants and members of all churches. Women’s nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), such as the Bougainville Women for Peace and Freedom or the Lei- tana Nehan Women’s Development Agency, also contributed valuable work to the peace process. Special mention should be made of the Peace Foundation Melanesia, which ran workshops to train people as mediators in conflicts at the local level. Each of these and many other initiatives avoided simply introducing Western-style conflict resolution approaches into the Bougainvillean environment. Rather, they built on the customary Indigenous experiences by referring to and drawing upon Bougainvillean approaches to restorative justice.24 In those instances where leaders of the warring parties were introduced to Western conflict resolution, as was the case through negotiation skills courses taught by the Australian lawyer Leo White, participants were encouraged to take what was useful for their context and blend it with their local traditions. Today several NGOs on Bougainville work on issues of conflict resolution and overcoming violence. For instance, the Rehabilitation Centre in Chabai village addresses the needs of women and children in situations of violence, and of young people confronted with the issues of drugs and alcohol. The issues that the centre is addressing indicate that people are now confronted with problems that cannot be resolved by customary ways alone. Most of the young people badly affected by alcohol are male ex-combatants, often deeply alienated from their communities of origin and highly traumatised by the violence they conducted and/or experienced during the war. Today they have no jobs, no status, and Bougainville 181 limited prospects. When they are not accepted back by their villages and communities, they turn to alcohol and drugs and consequently become involved in antisocial behaviour and uncontrolled violence. These patterns of behaviour are foreign to traditional life. Dealing with the accompanying problems and reintegrating individuals into society cannot be achieved by customary means alone. Elders and chiefs often have lost their influence upon ex-combatants, many of whom no longer know or respect custom. These youths are the products of a ‘culture of violence’, a new phenomenon that must be addressed in new ways, through the combination of Indigenous and introduced approaches. They need trauma healing programs and counselling as well as customary healing rituals. The current problems of youth and women demonstrate that customary ways will have to adapt to new challenges. Given the fluid and changing character of custom, this is possible. Part of what makes Bougainville a fascinating and promising example of postconflict peacebuilding and conflict resolution are efforts to deliberately harmonise Indigenous customary approaches and introduced Western approaches in order to build new types of political and societal order that provide a framework for the nonviolent processing of conflicts. Bougainvilleans are actively searching for ways and means of constructive interaction and positive mutual accommodation of introduced and Indigenous mechanisms and institutions of governance and conflict resolution. In the process they acknowledge community resilience and customary institutions as assets that can be drawn upon in building sustainable peace. This is, then, a lesson that can be learned from Bougainville—a lesson that can be of use for the resolution of conflicts and political crises in a range of different political or cultural contexts.

Notes 1. Pat Howley, Breaking Spears and Mending Hearts: Peacemakers and Restorative Justice in Bougainville (Annandale, New South Wales: Federation Press, 2002), p. 22. 2. Anthony J. Regan, “Identities among Bougainvilleans,” in Anthony J. Regan and Helga M. Griffin (eds.), Bougainville before the Conflict (Canberra: Pandanus Books, 2005), pp. 418–446 at 442. 3. Lorraine Garasu, “Women Promoting Peace and Reconciliation,” in Andy Carl and Lorraine Garasu (eds.), “Weaving Consensus—The Papua New Guinea–Bougain- ville Peace Process,” Accord, no. 12 (London: Conciliation Resources, 2002): 28–31; Howley, Breaking Spears and Mending Hearts. 4. James Tanis, “Reconciliation: My Side of the Island,” in Carl and Garasu, “Weav- ing Consensus,” pp. 58–61 at 60. 5. Howley, Breaking Spears and Mending Hearts, p. 129. 6. Ibid., p. 31. 182 mediating across difference

7. Ibid. 8. Ibid., p. 73. 9. John Tombot, “A Marriage of Custom and Introduced Skills: Restorative Justice Bougainville Style,” in Sinclair Dinnen (ed.), A Kind of Mending: Restorative Justice in the Pacific Islands (Canberra: Pandanus Books, 2003), pp. 255–264 at 259. 10. Bougainville Constitutional Commission, Report of the Bougainville Constitu- tional Commission (Arawa and Buka, Papua New Guinea: Bougainville Constitutional Commission, 2004), p. 195. 11. Howley, Breaking Spears and Mending Hearts, p. 137. 12. Ibid. 13. Peter Mekea, quoted in ibid., p. 103. 14. Howley, Breaking Spears and Mending Hearts, p. 17. 15. Ibid., pp. 117–118. 16. Anthony J. Regan, “ ‘Traditional’ Leaders and Conflict Resolution in Bougain- ville: Reforming the Present by Re-writing the Past?” in Sinclair Dinnen and Allison Ley (eds.), Reflections on Violence in Melanesia (Annandale, New South Wales: Hawkins Press; Canberra: Asia Pacific Press, 2000), pp. 290–304 at 297. 17. Garasu, “Women Promoting Peace and Reconciliation.” 18. Roselyne Kenneth, “Land for Agriculture—Silent Women: Men’s Voices,” in Regan and Griffin, Bougainville before the Conflict, pp. 374–387 at 374. 19. Anthony J. Regan, “Why a Neutral Peace Monitoring Force? The Bougainville Conflict and the Peace Process,” in Monica Wehner and Donald Denoon (eds.), With- out a Gun: Australian’s Experiences Monitoring Peace in Bougainville, 1997–2001 (Can- berra: Pandanus Books, 2002), pp. 1–18 at 15. 20. Volker Boege, “Bougainville and the Discovery of Slowness: An Unhurried Approach to State-Building in the Pacific,” ACPACS Occasional Paper 3 (Brisbane: ACPACS, 2006). 21. Peter Mekea, quoted in Howley, Breaking Spears and Mending Hearts, p. 103. 22. Boege, “Bougainville and the Discovery of Slowness.” 23. Volker Boege and Lorraine Garasu, “Papua New Guinea: A Success Story of Postconflict Peacebuilding in Bougainville,” in Annelies Heijmans, Nicola Simmonds, and Hans van de Veen (eds.), Searching for Peace in Asia Pacific: An Overview of Con- flict Prevention and Peacebuilding Activities (Boulder, CO, and London: Lynne Rienner, 2004), pp. 564–580. 24. Howley, Breaking Spears and Mending Hearts. IV East Asian Approaches to Conflict Resolution

Chapter 9 Crossing Borders Indonesian Experience with Local Conflict Resolution

Frans de Jalong and Muhadi Sugiono

Several centuries of interaction across ethnic and religious difference in the Indonesian archipelago have been accompanied by the evolution of local ways of resolving communal disputes and violence. We term the resulting norms and practices ‘local conflict resolution’. The development of these ways of mediating across difference has itself sometimes been violent, yet the accompanying local conflict resolution processes are dynamic and pluralist. They are open to revision and adaptation, including to the input of outside and new forces and actors. For this reason our use of the term ‘local’ does not connote a bounded space that excludes outsiders. Rather, we want to emphasise that processes have evolved in a particular time and place. While this particular context is necessary for concrete social interaction leading to the development of conflict resolution processes, it is not exclusive of other places and locations, as the term ‘Indigenous’ can sometimes imply. Our pluralist approach to culture explores the characteristics and efficacy of Indonesian local conflict resolution in the context of long-standing local interaction across difference and more recent nation-state building projects. The chapter begins by discussing long-term interactions and intergroup adjustments that shape how people deal with disagreement and threat in many local Indonesian settings. Here diversity has more to do with relatedness than with difference that distances or excludes. Such relatedness among diverse cultures is dynamic and is sometimes sustained through conflictual and violent relation. Yet it also results in the emergence of social norms that bind the groups in common practices at neighbourhood, village, subdistrict, and district levels. These take the form of sets of prohibitions and the promotion of certain attitudes and behav-

185 186 mediating across difference

Indonesia is strikingly diverse. Several hundred cultural and linguistic groups reside in approximately three thousand of more than seventeen thousand islands. All major religions are represented alongside many less-recognised belief systems. This diversity is the result of periodic immigration from Southeast Asia, South China, Oceania, and, to a lesser extent, India and North Africa. Relatively recent colonisation by the Portuguese and Dutch has added further diversity. Overarching maritime and agrarian cultures, found respectively in coastal areas and hinterlands, have emerged through the interaction of different groups and become interdependent over time. Intercultural norms, a sense of shared identity, and locally derived rites for sustaining peaceful coexistence become necessary and possible in these circumstances. The existence of heterogeneous groups in localities has founded, in turn, peaceful interactions among groups throughout the archipelago. While particular islands or regions often bear distinctive cultural forms that make them unique and distinguishable from other regions in the country, such uniqueness is typically constituted out of cultural interaction, and most localities are populated by diverse ethnic and religious groups. Javanese culture, for instance, reflects Hindu, Buddhist, and Islamic influences within its belief system. The high level of social cohesion among different cultural groups served as the platform for the emergence of new political identity through twentieth- century anticolonial nation-building. Resistance against the Dutch and Japa- nese declared Indonesia to be one nation with one unified language (Bahasa). Indonesia is, in this respect, a culturally constructed political entity accepted by many heterogeneous groups who shared the common experience of colonisation. But the new nation-state order also saw the repression and disenfranchise- ment of some groups by the central regime, and not all groups accepted the national order. From the mid-1990s, relations between ethnoreligious groups began to become more problematic with the advent of a series of violent intercommunal conflicts. iours that strengthen peaceful relations and dictate the importance of tolerant ways of life. The second section discusses two frequently noted practices, Pela Gandong and Motambu Tana. Dynamic, pluralist, and situated in a multicultural locality, the norms and rites of these practices provide a way of understanding Indone- sian local conflict resolution practices. We contextualise these practices within both long-term interactions across difference and their recent revival to address intercommunal ethnic conflict. The final section examines the impact of four decades of nation-state building on local conflict resolution. We highlight some of the negative impacts of the nation-building project in order to emphasise the importance of vibrant local cultures and continued interactions across difference at the local level. The chapter concludes by recapping key themes and emphasising the importance of Crossing Borders 187 drawing upon local approaches to conflict resolution in contemporary conflict resolution and peacebuilding processes.

The Development of Local Conflict Resolution in Indonesia Local conflict resolution methods in Indonesia have their roots in the complex and sometimes turbulent interactions across difference.1 Migration during precolonial and colonial eras brought ethnically and culturally diverse groups and traditions into contact, initially through the activities of fishers and traders. These interactions were accompanied by conflict, but over time they also led, alongside significant changes in the demographic composition and social structure of local societies, to the development of a body of norms and rituals for managing and processing intercommunal relations and conflict. These norms and rituals were initially developed through trading relationships and associated economic activities before expanding into noneconomic domains. Interactions between coastal dwellers and those in the hinterlands further facilitated the development of local conflict resolution for contributing to peaceful coexistence among different groups. Ethnic and religious leaders and trading elites with strong social networking capacities were significant actors in the development of local conflict resolution norms and rites. Despite the divergent sources of legitimacy and authority of such leaders and elites,2 their work across difference laid the foundations for dealing with the yet more complex diversity of later periods. Two elements are crucial to the development of local Indonesian conflict resolution. First, frequent and relatively intense interaction allows a conver- gence of interests through face-to-face encounter. Pela Gandong in Ambon- Lease, Motambu Tana in Poso, Larvul Ngabal in southeast Maluku, and many others across the country have developed in close and dynamic social contexts. Direct encounters across difference, typically through daily interaction, facilitate the symbolic deterritorialisation of earlier values and practices. This allows the adaptation of existing norms (of each group) to meet the need for sustainable cooperation. Because the resulting norms are beyond the ownership of any specific religious, ethnic, or cultural group, they emerge through and within cultural diversity itself. The second element, operating in parallel with local interaction, is the pre- dominant sense of being human inhabitants of a shared space—in contrast to being Indigenous or non-Indigenous. This is seen in Pela Gandong. As a peace norm, Pela Gandong signifies an absence of a sense of authority or ownership over land or territory. Its goal, as we will explain later, is to keep inhabitants integrated and to reaffirm and refresh their relations after violent conflict. Shar- ing the same space revives a sense of fraternity among inhabitants. While respecting ethnic and religious difference, this practice brings people back to the 188 mediating across difference locality in which they were born and grew up—in short, to the place where they became human. In this way, Indonesian traders (pedagang), peasants (petani), and fishermen (nelayan) of different religious and ethnic origins have been able to negotiate and manage their shared interests through the development of an implicit set of rules to manage conflicts that arise among them. The sense of sharing the same space asserts the locality as a site for interaction and exchange rather than an area of mere occupation. Locality is simultaneously the limit and the space for transgression of identity. This productive am- biguity and volatility in identity formation needs to be sustained if the cultural diversity in the locality is to be permanently meaningful for everybody. Ethnic- ity and religion are not, then, the absolute markers of identity or its propel- ling forces. Rather, they are essentialising moments, perceived as such by local people, before and during a long, productive engagement with diversity, which generates a pragmatic type of pluralist cooperation and tolerance that comes to predominate in local ways of thinking, behaving, and perceiving. Daily interaction, based on a sense of being human inhabitants of a shared space, is fundamental to the early development of local conflict resolution methods in Indonesia. The challenges posed by more complex diversity seen in later periods further developed and modified local conflict resolution methods through interaction in shared local space. Where waves of migration significantly changed demographic composition and social structure of local society in coastal areas, peace norms and rites arose and developed accordingly. While these models vary from one locality to another, they share common themes, often drawn from religious and cultural beliefs. Systems of animism and pantheism, and Islam and Christianity (arriving from the fifteenth century onwards), provide important moral guidance and ritual elements for Indonesian local conflict resolution. Both Pela Gandong and Motambu Tana draw on religious teachings to emphasise respect for difference, restorative justice, sincere pardon, shared living, and finally, cooperation. Re- ligious elements—synthesised from relevant local traditions—are deployed at two levels to resymbolise relationships and manage conflict. The first level involves mystical restoration of the relationship between living humans (victims and perpetrators) and the ghosts of their multiple ancestors (who transfer wisdom to the living), as well as their relationship with a multiform God who has put the protagonists into violence to test the strength of their faith. The second level requires the restoration of their relationship as a preliminary but propel- ling step toward regaining common understanding and practical consensus (mufakat). Participation of all conflicting parties—to different extents, depending on their level of involvement—is crucial to realise these cosmological and social dimensions of reconciliation. Crossing Borders 189

The combination of the mystical and the social through personal involvement re-empowers individuals and serves as a prerequisite for the emotionally absorbing steps in completing relevant rituals. The religious dimension, though, deserves particular mention for its centrality to the reconciliation process. Indeed, in Motambu Tana, the religious dimension is decisive in determining beforehand if the continuing hostility can be ended. Religious elements are also used in a range of local areas to purify the places associated with prior violence. This addresses local beliefs that evil spirits inhabit both human hearts and places. A range of ethnic and religious influences, then, are synthesised in the development of local conflict resolution practices. This heterogeneous genealogy prevents any one group from claiming sole ownership over the locally developed conflict resolution practices and helps ensure fairness in application. We understand ways of preventing violence and resolving conflict as taking two interrelated forms. The first relates to norms and associated behaviours. In West Kalimantan, Ambon-Lease, and Poso, norms for nonviolent conflict resolution help resist pro-conflict behaviours and attitudes. These norms promote tolerance and inclusion of others. Such norms also guide specific patterns of interpersonal relations for managing conflict. The widely used Indonesian term tahu adat, for instance, means that whenever a dispute between two or more individuals from different ethnic-religious backgrounds emerges, they should resolve it through ways that have become customary in their localities.3 Tahu adat is not a set of strict rules nor is it endorsed by formal authority. The commonly accepted objective of this practice is to reconcile parties to the conflict and prevent its spread among extended families, lineages, and clans. The person or party who initiated the conflict or committed the wrong deed is obliged to take the initiative by asking for the victim’s pardon. The victim and his or her family also need to honestly pardon the perpetrator. Gifts are offered or exchanged as compensation and for reparation of relationships in line with principles of restorative justice and the magnitude of the conflict. Most local cultures in the Nusa Tenggara Province, for example, make use of a local alcoholic drink, tuak, alongside gifts of pigs or buffalo in reconciliation processes. The perpetrators will bring tuak and gifts, and if the victim’s family accepts the accompanying apology, they will drink the tuak. The families of perpetrator and victim will then eat together one or more pigs in a night or more of long and af- fectionate conversation. Tahu adat, then, constitutes a measurement of goodwill from both sides. If the victim resists reconciliation, he or she can be blamed for violating community norms and can invite growing antipathy, including from his or her own circle. The application of the norms of local conflict resolution through notions such as tahu adat helps manage low-level interpersonal conflict and prevent the 190 mediating across difference escalation of conflict to a communal level. While Relations between ethnoreligious groups these norms help regu- started becoming manifestly problematic with a series of communal conflicts that erupted a few late interaction on a daily years before the sudden fall of Soeharto’s regime basis and hence often in 1998. The conflicts between Dayak ethnic manage everyday ten- groups (Indigenous people) and Madurese sions, they can also facil- (migrants from Madura Island, part of East Java Province) in 1997 and 1999 were largely inspired itate extraordinary acts by ethnic sentiments. Religious sentiments pri- for preventing violence marily caused the communal violence in Ambon in local areas. Our re- (capital of Maluku Province) and Poso (a district search shows that these in Central Sulawesi Province) in late 1998. Several norms proved capable of other conflicts of smaller scale and intensity occurred in Papua, East Nusa Tenggara, and West encouraging people to Nusa Tenggara provinces. put themselves in harm’s These conflicts have disturbed pre-existing way during recent con- harmonious intercultural interaction. Villagers no flict to protect their longer felt secure to live with others from a different ethnic and religious background. Prejudice, neighbours from being hatred, and past grudges began to manifest in killed by those from out- intergroup interactions. Triggered by contem- side the local territory.4 porary policies and developments, the cultural The second mani- diversity that was once the basis of mutual recognition and daily cooperation became the ‘source’ festation of local conflict of hostility and violent aggression by groups. resolution takes the form of ritualised practices. The standing and efficacy of these rituals depends on the status of above-described peace norms that operate through practices such as tahu adat. These rites involved in these practices indicate that peace norms have binding effects on most if not all members of the diverse local community. The application of rites such as Pela Gandong and Motambu Tana, then, extends beyond the interpersonal level. They typically occur during or following a conflict in which the norms that regulate peaceful coexistence are violated. As a medium of reconciliation, they require all parties to the conflict (either directly involved or only implicated) to take part. Due to the existence of peace norms, the parties are often already bound by sacred vows they (or their ancestors) have made in past conflicts. Participation in ritual facilitates local people coming ‘back to earth’, to the village in which they have grown up and the form of pluralism developed in the particular locality. The rituals aim for reconciliation on multiple levels. As we discuss in the following section, ritualised practices can end violence and imbue political interactions with shared hope. Rituals can do so by restoring relations between parties as well as between them and their ancestors who had previously reached Crossing Borders 191 a peace agreement. The ritualised practices, then, typically entail a significant spiritual dimension, which is facilitated by purifying the land of evil spirits and even the weapons involved in the conflict. In the rites, dances and songs articulate people’s lamentation about recent events and their longing for reunifica- tion. This helps to replace violence and crime with peace and to prioritise the human potential for fraternity over fratricide.

Pela Gandong and Motambu Tana Two of Indonesia’s most noted forms of local conflict resolution are Pela Gandong and Motambu Tana. The former is mostly practiced in areas outside Ambon City, including Saparua and the Haruku Islands. The latter’s influence increased with the ritual held in Poso in August 2000. Both are simultaneously peace norms and rituals of reconciliation. They have recently made a remarkable entry into Indonesian discussion—particularly within academia and activism—as a result of the communal violence that occurred in the Ambon-Lease and Poso (Central Sulawesi) areas in 1999–2002. The national and international community has largely focused on the violence and linked its causes to ethnic and religious differences. But local conflict resolution processes engendered through these same differences provided Muslim and Christian villagers with mechanisms to limit and control the extent of violence. It is thus important to consider these mechanisms more closely.

Pela Gandong Pela Gandong consists of two closely linked and ritualised forms of reconciliation—pela and gandong—practiced in the Ambon-Lease region.5 The difference between pela and gandong lies in their scope of application and the origins of the participants. Pela is an agreement and process practiced among communities, including quite large groupings of different genealogical (or clan) origins. Gandong, on the other hand, is typically practiced among those who share genealogical affinities. Nonetheless, both terms loosely translate as ‘brother’ (gandong is closer to ‘biological brother’). Local people also usually refer to pela and gandong as one, partly because of their shared contribution to peacebuilding in the area by binding communities that have made peace agreements in the past. Within the academic literature, Frank Cooley traces the historical roots of Pela Gandong to precolonial times.6 He argues that Pela Gandong developed and became institutionalised during Portuguese and Dutch colonisation alongside frequent and intense cross-cultural encounters. Pela Gandong retains the force of this institutionalisation, but both practices, and pela in particular, have also been significantly affected over time by a range of social and political chang- 192 mediating across difference es. Before we trace these changes, it is helpful to consider the social groupings in which the two practices function. Pela and gandong operate within and among negeri, the largest form of territorial community that is populated by numerous clans of different ethnic and religious origin. More than two negeri can live on a single island, and each negeri has peace agreements with negeri of other islands. Both rituals also operate through soa, a smaller territorial unit that, led by a wiser elder, is an integral part of a negeri. This smaller territorial unit, similar to a village, is occupied by a large number of families, called rumahtau. It is at this smaller unit of societal organisation that the spirit of pela takes predominance, helping people from different rumahtau to interact and work for common prosperity. Due to the heterogeneous ethnoreligious background of those in a soa, its leader is elected, not according to genealogical connections, but for the necessary wisdom and charisma to influence the soa. Over the past two centuries dramatic changes in demographic composition saw the gradual concentration of Muslims and Christians into separate negeri. Consequently negeri came to be referred to as negeri Salam and negeri Sarani, populated respectively by mainly Muslims or Christians. Importantly, though, this demographic stratification appears not to significantly affect the collective community perception (and memory) of belonging to one pela. Muslims and Christians remain tied by common sacred obligations to protect each other and to respect their ethnic and religious differences. Muslims in negeri Salam are obliged to give physical protection to their Christian neighbours. The same applies to Christians in negeri Sarani who will feel extremely ashamed if they fail to make their Muslim neighbours feel well protected and secure. Apart from its use to bind two or more negeri, pela is also performed to unite a number of soa, those smaller societal units that are an integral part of negeri. Here it is the task of the leader of the soa to initiate and conduct the pela rite and to ensure that the set of prohibitions established as part of the agreement is upheld. The pela rite takes one of two forms, depending on the intensity and the impact of an incident to be managed. The most crucial of these two is pela keras, or pela tulen (strong, or pure, pela), also called pela darah (blood pela). This terminology evokes both the beginning of new alliances during peaceful periods—based upon territory rather than genealogy—and the purification (and/or restoration) of relationships after violent conflict ends. A rising awareness of the importance of unity in diversity within the context of local interaction is at the core of the move to embrace or reinstate the pela relationship. The pela rite requires an elaborate procedure. The members of the negeri or soa involved attend the rite, although they are usually formally represented by Crossing Borders 193 their leaders. At the centre of the rite is the shared drinking of diluted blood to assert brotherhood. Blood is taken from the leaders’ fingers and put into a nam- pan (large traditional glass) that is already filled with tuak (a popular traditional alcoholic drink). Before the leaders drink the mixed blood, traditional weapons that have the potential for evildoing or have already killed humans in conflict are dipped into the glass while the leaders verbally promise to protect each other or to stop attacks. The declaration to protect others or end the conflict becomes binding with the drinking of the tuak-blood mix. This establishes the strongest possible form of brotherhood and functions as a curse against fratricide. The effectiveness of the pela rite is closely associated with its public nature: everyone in the community sees the blood drunk and listens closely to the vows declared. This requires them to live with diversity and to uphold the pela promise as a sacred debt to be maintained both in times of peace and crisis. With the end of the rite, the tension or the conflict also ends. The communities are considered connected to each other through and within territory, but this does not mean that they refuse to acknowledge the workings of the kinship system. As we will see, the genealogical bonds affirmed in the gandong rite make the pela norms even more powerful and binding. Indeed, the quality of connection established through pela parallels that of genealogical bonds insofar as moral ingredients of the latter are drawn upon. The emphasis on being together in a place, creating a strong sense of commonalities in praxis, reasserts equality as a fundamental merit of cosmopolitan society in the sense that those tied by the norms are interdependent in their economic activities and social affairs. The rite brings on memories of alliance through words, but concrete everyday connection is the conditionality for reflecting and re-realising the words. If anyone violates the promise, he or she will be seen as an enemy of his or her brothers and must be ready to bear the sanctions enforced by the combined chiefs. The second form of pela is pela tempat sirih, currently called pela lunak (soft pela). Pela of this sort does not arise out of bloodshed and does not require blood drinking, complex practices, or vows in the ritual. It aims to reassert connection among those who have been tied by pela keras. When smaller groups from two or more soa and negeri fight, community leaders will invite them to perform this rite. It takes the form of a daily traditional meeting of negeri and soa and reminds the conflicting parties about their (or their ancestors’) former vows. This rite is reflective, emphasising that there is no reason for conflict to take place among them. In contrast with pela darah, which aims to reconcile parties to communal violence, pela lunak is held to prevent them from taking part in a conflict in which one or more of their clans are directly involved. Besides conflict resolution and conflict prevention, this rite can also be performed to build 194 mediating across difference solidarity among the groups by conducting tasks such as constructing a church or a mosque. While pela rituals are used to manage tensions and conflict among those of different kins or clans, gandong is a peace agreement between negeri that share genealogical affinity. But this affinity can link different religious groups because one ethnic group can have both Muslim and Christian members. Negeri Salam (predominantly Muslim groups) and negeri Sarani (predominantly Christian groups) can, in other words, have a gandong relationship. As gandong literally means saudara (biological brother), it is used to reunite ethnicities and clans that are dispersed across the region. The (re)integrative capacity of this local wisdom lies in its emphasis on genealogical affinity and the original place of the ancestors, irrespective of their religion. Members of soa are obliged to help members of other soa who are facing problems. Though separated by seas, they will come and offer assistance to brothers and sisters who need it. Similar to the solidarity of pela lunak, gandong also addresses the need to build a church, mosque, school, or a baileo (traditional meetinghouse where people gather to resolve daily problems). In 2005, for instance, Negeri Seith (a negeri Salam located in Ambon Island) and Negeri Ouw (a negeri Sarani in Saparua Island) performed Panas Gandong—a process for reactivating the norms and reconciling people from the two communities that have taken part in violent conflict. Their compassion is stimulated by deeply reflecting, through gandong norms, upon how cruel and unreasonable their conduct has been in the past, and it is driven by accompanying senses of both immense regret and hope. Pela Gandong has received renewed recognition for its role in limiting recent violence. During 2000–2001, when communal violence was at its highest in and around Ambon, a considerable number of negeri did not take part. Instead they sought to protect their territory from outside infiltration and incitements to join the war. This is a remarkable outcome, considering that in Ambon City, the capital of Maluku Province, communal violence became the order of the day. Increasing numbers of killings polarised many inhabitants into Laskar Jihad (Muslim combatants) and Laskar Kristus (Christian combatants). Laskar Kristus from the city tried to enter negeri Sarani, seeking to kill Muslim inhabitants, while Laskar Jihad sought Christian inhabitants in negeri Salam. But in each case their violent infiltration and provocation were resisted by the majority. Our research findings make clear that most of these negeri have long had Pela Gan- dong relationships. Muslims and Christians safeguarded their villages (soa), and if the Laskar succeeded in entering the village, community members would quickly take the minority into safer places within or outside the area, mostly to negeri whose majority shared religious beliefs with the displaced.7 In doing this, Crossing Borders 195

The Power of Pela Gandong Conflict escalated in Ambon City in early 1999. Rumours about the conflict spread in Iha-Kulur, a dominantly Muslim village in the region. The people of Iha-Kulur had several Christian families living with them, mostly working as elementary school teachers. The Christian families came from Iha-Mahu, a village on a nearby island. The Christians were treated as brethren because they taught the children of Iha-Kulur and because of the historical relationship their ancestors had through the Pela Gandong rite. The teachers and the local inhabitants shared both territorial and genealogical bonds. One day in the late afternoon a rumour was heard that Muslims from neighbouring villages were at the border of Iha-Kulur, waiting for nightfall to enter and kill the Christians. Iha-Kulur’s Muslims removed the Christian families into their own houses and, armed with traditional weapons, marched to the border where the aggressors had gathered. Standing face-to-face with them, the village chief said, “If you want to kill our Christian families, you have to kill us first. We will never let you kill them”. The aggressors were shocked by these words, felt threatened, and departed. Nevertheless, the situation remained uncertain. Knowing that a sudden attack could happen anytime or that some other violent tactic could be used, the Iha-Kulur chief contacted Iha-Mahu’s chief, asking him to send some people to escort the Christians back. Six days later, three villagers and a military officer came to visit the chief and escorted the Christians back to their island. Muslim villagers accompanied them to the beach. The Christians left, promising to return when the situation improved. Note: A full version of this story can be found in Helen Jenks Clarke (ed.), Nonviolent Resistance: People’s Stories from Indonesian Conflicts (Yogyakarta, Indonesia: CSPS Books, 2006).

the saviours took extreme risks, transporting potential victims through dangerous streets or by sea to other islands. For them, their own safety and the accusa- tion of siding with the ‘enemy’ were secondary. There are many other stories of local people saving their neighbours from the threat of serious violence, including likely death. What all these stories communicate is that Pela Gandong remains a driving force for preventing violence. Both pela and gandong serve as memories of alliance and kinship formed in shared space. Leaders of the negeri who had Pela Gandong relationships did not send their people into Ambon City or other towns, and combatants who committed violence in the name of their religion came from negeri without Pela Gandong relationships. In the postconflict period (2003–present), many negeri with Pela Gandong relationships have reperformed rites to end grudges and revitalise their genealogical-territorial relationship. Central and local governments are beginning to recognise the significance of this local custom and have begun to use it to fa- 196 mediating across difference cilitate reconciliation. Although somewhat belated, this response has helped the government to establish some community trust in its capacity to manage conflict—trust lost during the conflict period. Religious organisations, particularly Christian and Islamic groups, have also played a considerable role in re-em- powering Pela Gandong as a practiced norm. In recent years, nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) involved in conflict resolution have also been focusing their attention on advocating for this ‘local wisdom’ in place of recently introduced resolution methods that rarely fit with the causes and characteristics of communal conflict. One of the most influential peace movements pioneered by local NGOs is Gerakan BakuBae.8 This multilayered forum includes the government, raja (king) leaders from negeri Salam and negeri Sarani, ex-combatant commanders, local academics, media, and many other social groups. While not directly associated with Pela Gandong, it encourages kings and the combatant leaders to make use of local norms and practices. At the village level, this forum organises systematic dialogue between ethnic and religious groups that have been involved in violent conflict for almost four years. Pela Gandong is significant in the Ambon-Lease region and Indonesia more broadly. Beyond its capacity to prevent and resolve conflict, it helps perpetrators and victims of recent conflict to have a common hope for a better future by facilitating cooperative ventures such as building new churches and mosques. Pela Gandong also makes it possible for refugees to return to their homes and lands without fear of being killed and terrorised. The reintegrative capacity of this practice is superior to the ‘social reintegration’ favoured by government, which sees refugees relocated to new areas. Pela Gandong is a calling to live in places where one is needed by fellow neighbours. The principle of basudara treats local territories as a place for dwelling together as siblings, and this helps make peacebuilding possible and sustainable across difference.

Motambu Tana Motambu Tana is a reconciliation rite developed and practiced in the mixed ethnic context of Poso, a large district in Central Sulawesi Province and also the name of the district capital. Motambu Tana literally means ‘burying something in the ground’. Due to its location in the centre of the Sulawesi Islands, Poso is surrounded and constituted by a great diversity of ethnic—and religious— groups. As with Pela Gandong, Motambu Tana was developed as a local mechanism to end communal violence and reconcile parties to conflict. Literature on the history of Poso indicates that Motambu Tana was used for the first time at the end of the tribal war between the Pamona and Lore ethnic groups from 1892 to 1902. Being tired of the protracted war and its devastating effects, chiefs from Crossing Borders 197 both sides came to an agreement for peace. To make their agreement binding, they performed a reconciliation event in 1905. Since then, the reconciliation process has been called Motambu Tana and is practiced in times of communal conflict. Over the past century Motambu Tana has undergone significant transformation, particularly as a result of changes in demographic composition since Indonesian independence. New values and practices have been incorporated as Poso has become a more multicultural society through the arrival of peoples from beyond the region, including from Java and Bali. Nonetheless, the spirit of Motambu Tana appears to have been broadly accepted by newcomers and retained in the reworked social circumstances. It is likely that the welcome extended to outsiders contributes to this situation. The Indigenous norm pekasiwia, meaning ‘making humans equal’ in local languages, upholds equality and tolerance for outsiders. It means that whoever brings to Poso new knowledge and productive skills should be received as equals for their role in educating local people and exposing them to the wider world, qualities that also endow them with rights to seek fortune in the area. Thus, pekasiwia aims to make the migrants feel at home, generating mutual respect between locals and newcomers. It is within this inclusive local context that the new ethnic and religious groups accept and appreciate Motambu Tana as an integral part of their existence in Poso. Motambu Tana is usually performed to address communal conflict with large-scale social impacts, including loss of human life. It requires the involvement of combatants, victims, ethnic and religious groups, and also third parties such as the government. All the parties must actively take part in the process. Motambu Tana held in August 2000, for instance, involved all concerned ethnic and religious groups and the government, represented by the Indonesian president, Abdurrahman Wahid. Moreover, the initiative for reconciliation must come from conflicting parties. The rite will be considered fake or a failure if it is revealed that the initiative came from outside or from parties influenced by other forces. At the centre of the ritual is a series of vows and sacrifice, both guided by the principle mampaka simadago ne’emo ndapau-pau anu liumo (be brothers again and let the past conflict be gone). First, a vow known as porapa is declared. It states that peace is what they yearn for and that war will never recur. After the vow is declared and written on white sheets, two or more selected buffaloes are slaughtered. The heads of the sacrificed animals are buried together with the traditional weapons used in conflict, and the participants eat the buffalo meat together.9 With the end of the rite, the violence is over—at least for as long as the joint promise of the participants is upheld. 198 mediating across difference

The rite initiates peacebuilding efforts at interpersonal and intercommu- nity levels, with participants obliged to continue working for reconciliation in their own communities at the village and subdistrict levels. In the context of Poso conflict, the Motambu Tana rite held in 2000 set a strong basis for achieving the formal, decisive meeting called Deklarasi Malino (Malino Declaration) in December 2001. In this one-week meeting, the Indonesian central government mostly took the role of a mediator, directly led by Jusuf Kalla (the Indonesian vice president). Another effect of the 2000 rite was the creation of the Forum Si- wagilemba in 2004, a large informal organisation that included representatives of all warring parties and ran a series of dialogues and discussions that year. Activists who work for peacebuilding in Poso attended, including local NGO representatives who mostly work with internally displaced people. At this forum the youth from various ethnic and religious groups were encouraged, in another example of drawing upon blended traditions, to hold Temu Akbar. This large- scale ceremonial gathering, historically a part of Islamic tradition in Indonesia, is used to discuss matters of great urgency for the participants. Today Temu Akbar can be used for political, cultural, and social purposes, including for finding solutions to communal violence. Both Christians and Muslims use the term despite its Islamic heritage. In contrast to Pela Gandong, which binds negeri and soa through past peace agreements, Motambu Tana is likely to accommodate a wide range of actors involved in conflict without the need for participation in prior rites. It nonetheless relies upon and reasserts local norms. In this case the notion of sintuwu maroso ri tana Poso (unity and brotherhood in Poso lands) makes the participants responsible for preventing a recurrence of communal violence. Its effective contribution to peace is found in its concrete capacity to deal directly with the source of communal violence by challenging the logic of payback, which creates a vicious circle of violence. Grudges are addressed by reminding Christians and Muslims (in this case) that they have lived together and have become Poso people with locally binding customs. Amidst the rising religious sentiments among the inhabitants, Motambu Tana reminds them of their interdependence in almost all domains of interaction—it reminds them that the loss of one party is also the loss of the other. As with Pela Gandong, Motambu Tana does not supplant formal court processes.10 During the porapa phase of Motambu Tana the leaders of warring parties agree to hand over to the police any combatants who committed large-scale violence, including massacres, during the conflict. The choice to involve the state—by disclosing combatants—depends to a significant degree on a range of factors, including the level of violence, whether premeditation was a factor, and whether the victims were other combatants or were women, children, refu- Crossing Borders 199 gees, or people en route to safer places. Motambu Tana can be successful only if everyone is committed to take responsibility for the human loss he or she has caused—including by making use of state criminal law as a mechanism for punishing certain offenders. If the parties continue hiding the actors, Motambu Tana can be deemed insignificant and fake.

(Re)Tracing Cultural Diversity in Nation-State Building Our discussion thus far confirms the potency and value of Pela Gandong and Motambu Tana for mediating across difference and undertaking a range of associated peacebuilding efforts in local Indonesian contexts. Yet an important question remains: If these norms and rites are truly successful, how is it that the communal violence that requires these practices arises in the very area where the norms and rites have developed? How does cultural diversity shift from being the basis of mutual recognition and daily cooperation into the ‘source’ of a group’s violent self-assertion? In our view, rapid modernisation and the formali- sation of state-based political forms, including those relating to the (de)valuing of local culture and ways of resolving conflict, have compromised the capacity of local conflict resolution practices to respond to demographic and other changes of recent decades. In this final section we discuss some of the negative effects arising from how Indonesian nation-state building projects have treated local conflict resolution and cultural diversity. In the first twenty years of Indonesian independence, local cultural practices were relatively unaffected by the state. National politics had little connection to cultural affairs of local communities across the archipelago. But from the beginning of Soeharto’s New Order rule in the late 1960s, local cultures and the question of cultural diversity became deeply and problematically affected by Indonesia’s effort to build a strong nation-state. Two features stand out. First, ethnic and religious difference among Indonesians was considered as a national asset, as a heritage that contributes to the nation-ness of Indonesia. Dances, rites, and many other local practices were relentlessly co-opted (and confined) as resources in a program of national tourism and nation-building. Meanwhile, cultural materials symbolic of local culture were put into museums. Across the archipelago, the Ministry of Culture sought to formalise diversity and subordinate it to national, economic, and modernist goals. Cultural exhibition- ism by political design was thus the order of the day for almost three decades. This period saw cultural practices increasingly detached from their local context, thereby removing them from the social relations necessary for their ongoing revision and development. The second way in which the Soeharto state regime approached cultural diversity was by excessively portraying local cultures as different to each other, 200 mediating across difference rather than stressing their affinities. With this treatment, cultural diversity became understood by the government as a potential and actual threat to national integrity and security. The central government’s infamous transmigration policy—which from the 1970s saw people transferred from densely populated areas (predominantly Java) to lightly populated areas remote from their home islands and alien to their culture—was in part an effort to domesticate and control this ‘threat’. The state used its repressive security apparatus to facilitate the transmigration policy and to deal with intercommunal conflict. When cultural diversity is seen as a problem, conflict between ethnic and religious groups is directly perceived to be indicative of the state’s political instability. Indeed, from the late 1970s onwards Indonesians from the westernmost Aceh to easternmost Papua were introduced and made accustomed to SARA (suku, agama, ras, antar-golon- gan—matters pertaining to ethnic, religious, and racial relations), an acronym that summarised the assumed propensity of cultural diversity to fuel national insecurity from within. This understanding permitted the Indonesian Armed Forces, particularly the Indonesian Army, to intervene heavily in the public affairs of citizens. When conflict escalated, the police and military personnel were immediately deployed to arrest the perpetrators. Parties to the conflict were separated, punished, and disciplined in ways that made local reconciliation irrelevant. One of the unintended consequences of transmigration and economic growth, beginning in the late 1980s, was the increasing segregation of people in local areas along ethnic and religious lines. Social cleavages emerged in many coastal towns as a result. In Ambon City, for instance, ethnic and religious groups began to live in separate areas, with new settlers concentrated in trade activities that placed them in a position of wealth. Meanwhile, more long-standing locals came to occupy the administration and accompanying institutions but enjoyed fewer economic benefits.11 As a result, groups began to reside relatively separate from each other, resulting in low levels of daily interaction relative to past levels of interaction. In these circumstances it is unsurprising that collective resentments arose through radicalised ethnic-religious sentiments. When conflicts emerged as a result, the state attributed them—rather erroneously—to cultural diversity. During Soeharto’s regime, economic growth and development were seen as the single most effective path to national integration. In this context most local cultures came under increased pressure to modernise. The local content of each culture was to be replaced by something rational, profit-driven, and subservi- ent to the branding of a politically invented national culture. The state became the source of resolution, while conflict was assumed to originate from within Crossing Borders 201 society. The enforcement of state law and policy took priority; and because local culture had already been deemed the laggard, its norms and rites for resolving dispute and reconciling disputants were considered highly insignificant. Modernising local culture also meant modernising local ways of thinking, behaving, perceiving, and processing communal conflict. In this shift, local processes were seen as outdated, costly, and inefficient. The new regime set a new context and new institutions for transferring new knowledge and procedures for resolving conflict. Over time, local people came to prefer court processes for dealing with conflict between ethnic and religious groups. At the same time, local elites and religious leaders became incorporated into the state apparatus as they took up appointments in local administration. Within three decades, the village had been transformed from a cultural site into the lowest political unit of the state. This had numerous consequences for both intercommunal conflict and the capacity of local cultural practices previously used to resolve such conflict—including those efforts pursued through post-Soeharto political orders. From 1998 onwards more democratic Indonesian regimes have brought different ways of coping with the issue of national integration. In 1999 the central government began to implement political decentralisation policies, according to which people were given more space to articulate their aspirations in local politics. But instead of overcoming the problems left by the old regime, this policy fuelled the rise of an ethnic politics that worsened the underlying conflictual relations—facilitated during the Soeharto era—between ethnic-religious groups in many localities. With decentralisation, people became prone to mobilisation and affiliation as political elites sought to manipulate group affinities for political gain. Ethnic violence during directly held general elections in many districts across the country emerged as cultural identity became political ‘capital’ for local politicians to gain support in elections. Decentralisation and local politicking has also generated social tensions by creating an ‘Indigenous versus non-Indigenous’ divide. Cultural groups who have resided longer in a location claim to be the holders of rights over land and natural resources, while migrants assert that they are also Indigenous, for they were born and have lived there and have shared similar customs with the former group. The creation of new provinces and districts has been highly conflictual and in some cases has led to communal violence between cultural groups. In this political context, cultural leaders who joined the state two decades ago have tended to be partial towards their own cultural communities. Elections to se- lect a district head and a local parliamentarian have become contests of cultural power. The elected candidate often knows only how to meet the needs of his or her constituency. This results in privileging particular cultural groups in the form of access to local administration, land, and natural resources. One of the 202 mediating across difference effects of post-1998 reforms, then, has been to fuel rather than manage intercommunal conflict. Two generations of Indonesian nation-state building projects have fuelled conflict and had negative impacts upon local conflict resolution practices. Im- posing abstract, groundless images of national integration while problematising and attempting to control cultural diversity have heightened tensions among groups. So-called problems of diversity arise, then, at least partly out of nation- state-building. At the same time, nation-state building hollows out and disem- powers local practices for managing conflict by denigrating them and imposing state-based processes that displace the ongoing grassroots interaction that is necessary for local conflict resolution practices to evolve and flourish. The recent revival of practices such as Pela Gandong and Motambu Tana after approximately four decades of nation-building is quite remarkable. When state-based and state-sponsored conflict resolution—including imported West- ern processes—failed to stop the escalation of violence, local people turned to local processes. They were then followed by NGOs, and the state giving greater attention to and room for practices such as Pela Gandong. After four decades of neglect this revival is not smooth, in part because local practices have not had time to evolve. Younger people, in particular, often question the relevance of these practices, in part by objecting that many aspects of the peace rites are barbaric because they involve drinking blood, demonstrating weapons, and so on. Nevertheless, it is also interesting that the recourse to customary conflict resolution in conflict-torn localities has mainly been pioneered by youths who are disappointed with the state’s security-centred approach and other efforts at third-party intervention. Such contradictions are likely to take time to work through, but we can at least say that, for now, local people have begun to re-empower their cultural heritage in ways that reconnect them with localities across the Indonesian archipelago.

Conclusion Our chapter has explored the characteristics and efficacy of Indonesian local conflict resolution in the context of long-standing local interaction across difference and more recent nation-state building projects. We have taken a pluralist approach to culture by emphasising the role of difference in the development of local Indonesian conflict resolution processes, including Pela Gandong and Motambu Tana. Indeed, we want to stress that cultural difference and diversity have been the crucial context for the development of cosmopolitan culture and accompanying conflict resolution processes in localities across the archipelago over several centuries. Recent nation-state building and the associated impact of the state on local Crossing Borders 203 cultures have detached local norms and rites for mediating across difference from their very foundation: interethnic and religious encounter and interaction. When local cultures become disconnected in this way, they can be mobilised in instrumental and often problematic manners. There is great value in supporting rather than marginalising or suppressing local conflict resolution processes. They may, in fact, be far more cosmopolitan than is typically thought. This is why, despite recent outbursts of communal violence, the revival of local conflict resolution practices offers hope both within Indonesia and elsewhere.

Notes 1. While our focus in this chapter is on mediating across difference, there are, of course, intraethnic forms of conflict resolution throughout Indonesia that focus on preventing and resolving conflict among families, lineages, and clans within particular groups. Such forms occur, for instance, in highly stratified monarchical Javanese culture. They also occur among less hierarchically organised Dayak peoples of Central Ka- limantan. Here the rites of adat tamabang and basaru/nyaru samangat were practiced in 1997–1999 to prevent Dayak villagers from doing violence when Dayaks in West Kalimantan killed hundreds of Madurese. It is also the case that not all relations across difference in Indonesia are managed through these processes, with the Chinese dias- pora experience with difference and intercultural relations as one notable exception. 2. In the coastal areas of northern Java, for instance, charismatic Islamic preach- ers (walisongo and kyai), local traders, and aristocratic rulers (raja, sultan, and bang- sawan) played similarly significant roles in the formation of social groups and the development of norms for peaceful coexistence. 3. The state offers the victims and the perpetrators the opportunity to resolve their conflict in local ways as a supplement to formal processes. These provisions are laid out in Indonesia’s criminal code (KUHP). 4. See Helen Jenks Clarke (ed.), Nonviolent Resistance: People’s Stories from Indone- sian Conflicts (Yogyakarta, Indonesia: CSPS Books, 2006). 5. The region is ethnically diverse. For a detailed report on the demographic composition of ethnic groups residing in Ambon-Lease, see Ziwar Effendi, Hukum Adat Ambon Lease (Jakarta: PT Pradya Paramita, 1987), pp. 11–24. 6. See Frank L. Cooley, “Altar and Throne in the Central Moluccan Societies” (PhD thesis, Yale University, 1961). 7. See Clarke, Non-Violent Resistance, pp. 87–117. 8. See Ichsan Malik, Lucia Ratih Kusumadewi, Sukma Widyanti, and Suwendi, Learning to Manage Conflict: Lesson Learned from the Development of Community-Net- work Based Conflict Early Warning and Early Response System in Indonesia (Jakarta: Insti- tut Titian Perdamaian, 2007). 9. The original rite, performed in 1905, made use of a human sacrifice. The in- 204 mediating across difference fluence of Christianity and other forces prompted the move to use buffalo instead. So while Islam and Christianity have become the dominant religions in the area, traditional pantheistic and animistic influences remain present in the rite. For an account of the original rite and sacrifice, see George Junus Aditjondro, “Motambu Tana, Pra- nata Resolusi Konflik atau Landasan Pelebaran Konflik?” in Alpha Amirrachman (ed.), Revitalisasi Kearifan Lokal: Studi ResolusiKonflik di Kalimantan Barat, Maluku dan Poso (Jakarta: International Center for Islam and Pluralism, 2007), pp. 309–318. 10. In Ambon-Lease, local norms bind people to the principle Adat ni dok nain ne hukum niwai. It means that customary law and the state’s law have different domains of application and that people must obey the rules of the laws of each domain. It recognises that an individual is both a member of a local community and a citizen of a sovereign state. 11. See Lambang Trijono, “Structural-Cultural Dimension of Ethnic Conflict: To- ward a Better Understanding and Appropriate Solution in Managing Ethnic Conflict,” in L. Trijono (ed.), The Making of Ethnic-Religious Conflict in Southeast Asia: Cases and Resolution (Yogyakarta, Indonesia: CSPS Books, 2004), pp. 23–47. See also Riza Sih- budi, Bara dalam Sekam: Identifikasi Akar-Akar Masalah dan Solusi atas Konflik-Konflik Lokal di Aceh, Maluku, Papua, dan Riau (Bandung, Indonesia: Mizan, 2001); Riza Sih- budi, Bara dalam Sekam: Identifikasi Akar-Akar Masalah dan Solusi atas Konflik-Konflik Lokal di Aceh, Maluku, Papua, dan Riau (Bandung, Indonesia: Mizan, 2001). Chapter 10 Mediating Difference in Uchi Space Conflict Management Lessons from Japan

Jacqueline Wasilewski and Norifumi Namatame

In Japan, the term uchi (内) is used to denote ‘inside’ or ‘us’ space, as opposed to soto (外), which is ‘outside’ or ‘them’ space. Japan’s relatively recent conflict-prone colonial past revolved around the tension between uchi and soto, between inside and outside. As a result, scholars and practitioners have largely forgotten, or at least neglected, that Japan also possesses a long, unique, and potentially very useful cultural tradition designed to manage conflict within uchi space. In this chapter we explore the ensuing insights and ask: what might be the broader value of uchi for rethinking our approaches to managing conflict? We are not arguing that the Japanese concept of uchi and the customary practices within uchi are a recipe that can be applied automatically to the international order. We are simply suggesting that some of the values and dynamics that operate within uchi in Japanese society provide clues as to how to construct human relations that produce safe and secure societies, a kind of human relations that is implied in another Japanese term, kyosei (共生), the ability to coex- ist, to productively live together.1 Our aim in this chapter, then, is to investigate customary Japanese modes of conflict prevention, management, and transformation/resolution within uchi. We contemplate how the ensuing insights may be of relevance among today’s globally integrated societies. We begin by exploring three distinct, but interrelated, customary Japanese themes that we believe could provide valuable insights that are of relevance to scholars and practitioners who deal with conflict in different parts of the world. These themes centre on Japanese ideas concerning consensus, dialogue, and fairness. We then bring these three themes in contact with an important Japanese principle: takakuteki (多角的), which means multi-

205 206 mediating across difference angled or multidimensional. We do so because takakuteki offers a uniquely Japa- nese take on conflict management, founded on multilateral, multidimensional relations. Such an emphasis would bypass the requirement that all stakeholders have to agree on “the” truth, that cornerstone of Western European consciousness. As paradoxical as it may seem, the relaxation of this requirement could enable stakeholders to reach agreements on how, as a practical reality, they could relate constructively to and behave harmoniously towards one another. The key moment of conflict management can thus be said to take place before any conceptual agreement is reached but while the parties in conflict are in the process of creating a takakuteki, that is, a multilateral and multidimensional engagement. We then examine what happened to these customary conflict resolution ideals when Japan started to interact with the West and embarked on aggressive imperial projects. The latter generated extensive violence across much of the Asia-Pacific region and stands in sharp contrast to the principles of consensus, dialogue, fairness, and harmony we identify as being traditionally Japanese. We seek to explain this contradiction and then offer a few final suggestions about the extent to which traditional Japanese approaches to conflict resolution can, after all, be of potential use in understanding and addressing contemporary political conflict.

Customary Japanese Concepts in Conflict Management within Uchi Three customary themes—consensus, dialogue, and fairness—form a triadic foundation for Japanese conflict management within uchi. We discuss these three themes before introducing the principle of multiplicity, which offers a direct engagement with traditional Japanese conflict management practices.

Consensus Japan has a reputation as a society in which decisions are made by consensus. It is one of the only ‘advanced’ industrial societies to have this reputation. To understand Japanese ideas of consensus, one needs to consider the nature of circles. Circles in Japan establish uchi/soto (inside/outside) boundaries.2 Accord- ing to Chie Nakane, uchi (inside, or my house) refers to the family/institution/ department/section to which one belongs.3 In Japan, cooperative relationships are the norm ‘inside’, in uchi, and competitive relationships are the norm ‘outside’, in soto. In uchi, cooperation, especially the ability to harmonise with others, is a primary value. One of the bases of uchi cooperative dynamics, however, is the assumption of a unified moral community,4 which certainly is not a condition of our current world. But, of course, neither can that be said for any modern so- Mediating Difference in Uchi Space 207

The World from Inside the Japanese Cultural Frame, or Ba The concept of ba (場; social frame) was first widely introduced to the English-speaking world by Chie Nakane in 1970. She analysed Japanese society using two key concepts, ba and shikaku (資格; attribute). Groups in Japan are organised by the shikaku that individuals have in common and by their situ- ational position in a given ba. Shikaku include name, age, gender, academic background, occupation, and social status. Ba is “a locality, an institution or a particular relationship which binds a set of individuals into one group”. Taking school as an example of ba, ‘professor’, ‘office clerk’, and ‘student’ are shikaku that identify people within that ba. Each ba has its own social logic, and all Japa- nese belong to more than one ba or uchi (inside space). Note: See Chie Nakane, Japanese Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970; quotation, p. 1). ciety, even one like that of Japan, which is often self-described as homogeneous. And yet consensus in Japan is still valued and pursued. So, in contemporary uchi, how is this unified (although not necessarily uniform) moral community constructed? In fact, the emphasis on similarity (and thus the emphasis in Ja- pan on ‘homogeneity’) is key to the dynamics involved in the Japanese style of consensus construction. The idea is to identify and focus on as much similarity as possible and to realise mutual gains through strategies of reciprocity, which confirm mutually cooperative positions and make repetition of cooperation easier in the future. In this process, issues and factors and, therefore, groups are linked in an inclusive fashion. However, there is an important theoretical question: can there be an uchi without a soto? If uchi requires that soto exists, we human beings may need a common enemy—for instance, enemies from outside—in order to cooperate effectively on a large scale. The global environmental crises might be a good candidate for such a common ‘enemy’, although in this case the enemy is us. In fact, managing the global resources on which we all depend, such as energy and water, or combating common threats to health, such as HIV/AIDS, SARS, and the H1N1 virus, all provide such common causes. Historically, the most cooperative large-scale groups of people in the world have been those who, over millennia, have had to manage vast irrigation systems, whether the irrigated crop was rice in what is now China and Japan or corn in what is now the US Southwest. It was obvious to everyone in the community that everyone’s well-being depended upon large-scale cooperation, and cooperating could not depend on whether you liked your neighbour or not or whether you and your neighbour thought exactly the same and had exactly the same opinions. Maruyama claims that Japanese wa (和; harmony) is based not on love and 208 mediating across difference friendship among equals but on vertical power and status Japanese Social Space as a Cone relationships.5 Status rela- In 1964 Masao Maruyama described Japanese society as a set of concentric tionships exist even within circles with the emperor in the middle and groups of relative equals, as people surrounding him in various positions in a group of farmers or a according to their rank and mandates. The team of workers in a compa- midpoint of the set of circles is not a dot, however, but a line that vertically penetrates ny. Such relatively homoge- the circle, “leaking absolute responsibilities neous groups are largely toward infinite space”. So, actually, Japanese structured according to gen- social space is more like a cone made up of der, age, and seniority. So if hierarchically arranged concentric circles, as you are male, older, and/or described by Takeshi Ishida twenty years later, in 1984. have been in the work set- Note: See Masao Maruyama, Gendai ting longer, it is more likely seiji no shiso to kodo [Contemporary Political that others will acquiesce to Thoughts and Actions], enlarged ed. (Tokyo: you. But underlying this Miraisha, 1964), pp. 24–27 (quotation, p. 27); and Takeshi Ishida, “Conflict and Its Accom- practice is the idea that one modation: Omote-Ura and Uchi-Soto Rela- day I will be the older, senior tions,” in Ellis S. Krauss, Thomas P. Rohlen, person, and so one day oth- and Patricia G. Steinhoff (eds.), Conflict in ers will acquiesce to me. Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1984), pp. 16–38. It is true that patriarchal relations are typically reproduced through Japanese power and status relationships. It is a fact that women and youth are rarely privileged in the existing Japanese pattern of vertically—that is, hierarchically— arranged concentric circles of social belonging. So this existing system in its present form does not provide an adequate pattern for global society. After all, states that might find themselves lower on this vertical continuum may feel they have been left outside inner, high-status, decision-making circles or otherwise denied a just role to play. What is important here, however, is that there is a well-agreed-upon turn-taking system. When Japanese society is functioning well, everyone understands when they will get their turn within the system. The only exception to this basic rule are issues of gender and age, which, for obvious reasons, do not offer the same level of upward flexibility. In Japan, vertical relationships have the parent-child relationship as their model and so tend to have a nurturing aspect to them that has been extensively described by Takeo Doi in his concept of amae (甘え; indulgence).6 While building some sort of harmonious relationship is desirable, it would clearly be problematic to apply this model in a literal way, especially in light of postcolonialist concerns that some countries in the international domain would be treated like Mediating Difference in Uchi Space 209 children by others. However, the ethic of care embedded in this nurturing relationship style could be a valuable contribution to the organisation of global relationships. The key idea here is the realisation that we need each other to maintain the system upon which everyone depends and that the system has to benefit us all, an idea that, hopefully, is becoming more apparent to the world’s reigning elites in this era of climate change. There are, in fact, many practical barriers to the implementation of existing Japanese ideas of consensus in the global system. We should point out, for example, that the setting of strategic goals for a society is a very important consideration. In Japan this is the job of relatively invisible Does a Circle Need a Boundary? elites, and the process For fifteen years before coming to Japan, is highly opaque. How- Jacqueline Wasilewski worked with Americans for ever, consensus methods Indian Opportunity (AIO), a national US Native American advocacy group. Founded by LaDonna are also used among the Harris, a Comanche (descendant of the horse reigning elites in their nomads of the southern plains of North America) own dynamics, and, par- from Oklahoma, AIO focuses on participation in adoxically, these elites governance and has done a lot of work on trying are effective in the long to harmonise mainstream US adversarial discussion processes and Native American consensus- run only when they suc- constructing discussion processes. One of the cessfully identify and ar- reasons Wasilewski came to Japan was to explore ticulate the ever-emerg- Japanese consensus-building practices. During ing consensus in society. her study she discovered a startling contrast between Native American—particularly Coman- But it is only after the che—and Japanese practices. The contrast was strategic goals have been on the attention paid to the boundary. Every identified that the much Japanese circle has a clear boundary dividing talked about Japanese insiders from outsiders. The Comanche concept bottom-up input and of an ideal set of social relations is one that expands infinitely to the horizon in all directions. consensus-constructing It is so extensive you cannot see the boundary. In practices become visible effect, there is no boundary. The ideal Comanche in the design of imple- ‘inside’ actually includes our relationships with mentation tactics. everyone and everything, human and nonhuman. Other barriers also exist. In Japanese society there is a further social category, tanin (他人), beyond uchi and soto. This category refers to people who are so ‘outside’ that one has no social relationships with them at all, and one does not have to take them into consideration at all. Unfortunately, this was often the aspect of Japanese social relations that the rest of Asia experienced during Japan’s imperial period in the first half of the twentieth century. This continues to be the case with the relatively invisible minorities in contemporary Japan, such as the Ainu, the Okinawans, 210 mediating across difference the Korean-Japanese, and the Burakumin, Japan’s own class of untouchables. In short, the tanin concept affects all the groups that do not fit the reigning ‘Japan- is-a-homogeneous-nation’ ideology. The continued existence of such outsider social categories obviously does not fit well with the concept of consensus. In order to implement the uchi concept in a wide-ranging way, it would have to be combined with concepts drawn from other cultures—such as the Comanche approach to boundaries discussed in the box “Does a Circle Need a Boundary?” Every ‘inside’ need not have an ‘outside’. Indeed, in certain perspectives every outside helps form an adjacent inside. In reality, individual Japanese belong to more than one uchi (inside group), more than one ba (social frame). Each is a member of a family, a graduate of a particular school, a worker in a certain kind of department in a particular company, and so on. The resulting pattern of belonging is thus a complex one of multiplying and overlapping uchi circles that operate at different levels in the internal hierarchy of uchi space.

Dialogue The Japanese value of consensus is deeply connected with an emphasis on dialogue. The distribution of dialogic responsibility merits particular consideration. The primary responsibility to understand lies with the recipient. She or he has to guess (sasshi; 察し) the real intention or message of the sender, particularly if the recipient is young, female, or less senior in or an outsider to the social context. However, the communicator, who is considered to have greater status and therefore more power, also has an obligation to be more understanding of the less powerful and to take their needs into consideration, a manifestation of Doi’s amae/indulgence concept. Given the highly visible gap in income and power in today’s world, and given that in Japan the wage gap between execu- tives and workers on the assembly line is the smallest of any among ‘advanced’ industrial societies, such practical acknowledgment that ‘superiors’ are actually dependent on the performance of those way down the hierarchy could contribute toward building a more just global society. Exploring some other traditional Japanese concepts aids in understanding how dialogue is to occur. People are expected to maintain social smoothness, so they have to convey their true thought or intention (honne; 本音) in a smooth (sunao; 素直) way. In order to maintain this smoothness, what in English we would call white lies are sometimes necessary. This is the famous Japanese tatemae (建前), the polite fictions that enable people to maintain face. People can enter the social pool with their true intentions, their differences, their honne, but they should do so without causing any ripples on the surface of the social pool. If they wish to behave according to their honne, they have to do it in a smooth, sunao way. The ability to do this takes time and is considered to Mediating Difference in Uchi Space 211 be an extremely high social skill. This is the process through which one is able to become transparent in a nontransparent society. The basic principle is that one always takes care to avoid impinging on or penetrating the social spaces of others in an uninvited way. The practice of nemawashi (根回し), or prior consultation, is an absolute necessity in this effort to coordinate actor expectations. It consists of one of the participants in the system, sometimes a go-between, speaking dyadically with each of the other participants in the system. The result of these dyadic conversations is, ideally, to gradually bring the concerns of all the parties into a set of complementary relationships. Managing multilateral relationships can be a complex and challenging task, but successfully doing so has been a key to sustaining Japanese society. Even arranging a traditional Japanese wedding requires managing at least sixty-four separate relationships.7 What is more, the go-betweens in these wedding arrangements are responsible for those relationships from that point onward, whether or not the marriage actually takes place and whether or not the marriage relationship itself is eventually a success or a failure.

Fairness The third theme considered here is fairness, since notions of what it means influence the way conflict resolution takes place. There are a number of taboos in the Japanese system of conflict resolution. For instance, it is not advisable in this cooperative space ‘to win big’. If you do, when it is someone else’s turn to win, then you have to pay back big too. Winning big is also a potential source of humiliation, or at least of loss of face, to another member of the group. There is a great deal of turn taking, often modulated, as described earlier, by given structural realities, such as seniority by age or time in the organisational space. Such structural realities are considered fair, based on the perception that the order they produce was created by fate. A factor central to Japanese ideas of fairness is the concept of evenness, and this concept is intimately related to Japanese concepts of beauty. Stuart Pickens, former professor of philosophy at International Christian University in Tokyo, argues that the centre of Western philosophy has always been epistemology, or what is truth? By contrast, the centre of Japanese philosophy has always been aesthetics, or what is beauty?8 This involves not so much a concern for the physical beauty of people and objects but rather a concern for what constitutes a beautiful society. In Japan a beautiful society is a harmonious society, one that functions smoothly. For this to exist, there has to be a distribution of goods that affords everyone enough space and a decent living. If this fundamental issue is not addressed, then people become unhappy and disturb society, and then, since society is not harmonious, it is not beautiful. In Japan it is notable that, 212 mediating across difference unlike in the United States, the government cannot deprive people of their living space for the so-called ‘public good’. Over and over again in Tokyo you will Religious Multiplicity: Yaoyorozu no kami, or Eight Million Gods see roads going around and high rises towering over a small, old wooden house. Many Japanese declare that they are not religious. I, Norifumi Namatame, was one of them, but such a statement is not exact. Our lives are full of religious If an older person who lives in such a house chooses not to move, then the state events and ceremonies. When I was born, my parents hung a piece of paper cannot deprive them of their living space. So, in this case, ‘collectivist’ Japanese with my name on a Shinto shelf at home for a month. I did the same for my society honours individual members’ basic needs more evenly than ‘individual- daughter when she was born. Every year I visit a Shinto shrine on New Year’s ist’ Western societies do. Day to pray for health, safety, and good academic and baseball performances for myself, my family, and my teams. When I was preparing to get married and planned a wedding ceremony, Multiplicity I wanted to be traditional, wearing Japanese kimono. But the bride wanted to We have so far discussed the triadic foundation of conflict management wear a Western wedding dress. We started the ceremony both wearing kimono, within uchi: consensus, dialogue, and fairness. But to understand the signifi- but in midcourse we changed into a tuxedo and a gorgeous white wedding cance of these concepts to traditional Japanese notions of conflict management, dress. In fact, many Japanese young couples like Christian-style wedding ceremonies regardless of their religious background, and they often mix different we need to engage a crucial fourth concept, that of takakuteki, which signifies religious traditions. ‘multiangled’ or ‘multilateral’. Central to the related conceptual framework are When I die, my body will be cremated, put in an urn, and entombed in the two seemingly paradoxical aspects: (1) there is no absolute need to be consistent Buddhist way. My family and offspring in the following generations will visit my across all contexts, and (2) there is no need to engage directly when this will only grave at a Buddhist temple every year, just as we do for our ancestors. Where will I go after that? I do not know. Many Japanese would not know. For instance, result in conflict. The fundamental concern is to create and maintain a harmoni- war criminals executed in the Tokyo War Crimes Trial died testate. Many of them ous multiplicity. stated that they would go to Heaven, to the Pure Land, and to their old country To understand the significance of multiplicity, it is useful to employ Kazuko to watch their family forever, all at the same time (Kazuko Tsurumi, Kokishin to Tsurumi’s well-known Japanese approach to conceptualising conflict resolution. nihonjin [Tokyo: Kodansha, 1972]). She separates conflict resolution into four types: monopoly, competition, unifi- The Japanese in general do not see inconsistency in the coexistence of Christianity, Buddhism, indigenous Shintoism, and other traditions. In Christi- 9 cation, and multiplicity. anity and Buddhism the God or spirits exist apart from this world, while in Shin- Monopoly eliminates contradiction through domination. Competition toism people believe in intimate communication with the gods. Even humans, emphasises, escalates, and justifies the contradiction and wins over the other, such as saints, masters, and others who have some kind of spiritual power, are preferably through nonviolent striving against the other. Both of these are mani- objects of worship. People believe whatever works for their lives. They call in and absorb all sorts of various effects according to the ability of gods and goddesses fest in US foreign policy—though not always in a nonviolent manner. Tsurumi or heroes and heroines to produce good results, and it does not matter whether identifies the third approach, unification, with Chinese attitudes. Unification their principles or doctrines contradict one another. These effects are all equal; involves recognising contradiction and creating new principles and values. Ac- people do not discriminate among their differences. cording to Tsurumi, unification can generate new, positive, and creative values There are eight million gods on earth (yaoyorozu no kami; 八百万の神). The sun, winds, and thunders; roads, rivers, and mountains; gods for philoso- and thoughts, and it is superior to the other types. However, it requires a tre- phy, safe birth, and even traffic safety. People pray to gods when in trouble or mendous amount of time and effort. Unification cannot be expected in terms of when feeling something ambiguous but overwhelmingly powerful. The Japanese immediate conflict resolution. people may have developed such a tendency toward ‘multiplicity’ because the Traditional Japanese approaches are best identified by the fourth type of culture developed from an agricultural society that was quite passive in the conflict resolution, that of multiplicity. It differs from the other three in that it face of the threat of natural disasters and because people were forced to accept severe realities in their lives with equanimity. We often say, “Jinji o tsukushite does not begin by focusing on eliminating the contradiction inherent in con- tenmei o matsu” (人事を尽くして天命を待つ; Just do your very best and wait flicting principles and values. It understands that harmonising all differences for your destiny). It seems to me that all those ‘gods’ converge in people’s own may not be possible, at least not anytime soon, so the best we can do at the mo- ‘fatalism’, a sense of acceptance based on the concept that one ‘cannot push ment is to allow these differences to continue to exist as harmlessly as possible the river’. in the same social space. Multiplicity is a quicker and easier approach to conflict resolution because the parties involved in the conflict are not compelled to re- Mediating Difference in Uchi Space 213 unlike in the United States, the government cannot deprive people of their living space for the so-called ‘public good’. Over and over again in Tokyo you will Religious Multiplicity: Yaoyorozu no kami, or Eight Million Gods see roads going around and high rises towering over a small, old wooden house. Many Japanese declare that they are not religious. I, Norifumi Namatame, was one of them, but such a statement is not exact. Our lives are full of religious If an older person who lives in such a house chooses not to move, then the state events and ceremonies. When I was born, my parents hung a piece of paper cannot deprive them of their living space. So, in this case, ‘collectivist’ Japanese with my name on a Shinto shelf at home for a month. I did the same for my society honours individual members’ basic needs more evenly than ‘individual- daughter when she was born. Every year I visit a Shinto shrine on New Year’s ist’ Western societies do. Day to pray for health, safety, and good academic and baseball performances for myself, my family, and my teams. When I was preparing to get married and planned a wedding ceremony, Multiplicity I wanted to be traditional, wearing Japanese kimono. But the bride wanted to We have so far discussed the triadic foundation of conflict management wear a Western wedding dress. We started the ceremony both wearing kimono, within uchi: consensus, dialogue, and fairness. But to understand the signifi- but in midcourse we changed into a tuxedo and a gorgeous white wedding cance of these concepts to traditional Japanese notions of conflict management, dress. In fact, many Japanese young couples like Christian-style wedding ceremonies regardless of their religious background, and they often mix different we need to engage a crucial fourth concept, that of takakuteki, which signifies religious traditions. ‘multiangled’ or ‘multilateral’. Central to the related conceptual framework are When I die, my body will be cremated, put in an urn, and entombed in the two seemingly paradoxical aspects: (1) there is no absolute need to be consistent Buddhist way. My family and offspring in the following generations will visit my across all contexts, and (2) there is no need to engage directly when this will only grave at a Buddhist temple every year, just as we do for our ancestors. Where will I go after that? I do not know. Many Japanese would not know. For instance, result in conflict. The fundamental concern is to create and maintain a harmoni- war criminals executed in the Tokyo War Crimes Trial died testate. Many of them ous multiplicity. stated that they would go to Heaven, to the Pure Land, and to their old country To understand the significance of multiplicity, it is useful to employ Kazuko to watch their family forever, all at the same time (Kazuko Tsurumi, Kokishin to Tsurumi’s well-known Japanese approach to conceptualising conflict resolution. nihonjin [Tokyo: Kodansha, 1972]). She separates conflict resolution into four types: monopoly, competition, unifi- The Japanese in general do not see inconsistency in the coexistence of Christianity, Buddhism, indigenous Shintoism, and other traditions. In Christi- 9 cation, and multiplicity. anity and Buddhism the God or spirits exist apart from this world, while in Shin- Monopoly eliminates contradiction through domination. Competition toism people believe in intimate communication with the gods. Even humans, emphasises, escalates, and justifies the contradiction and wins over the other, such as saints, masters, and others who have some kind of spiritual power, are preferably through nonviolent striving against the other. Both of these are mani- objects of worship. People believe whatever works for their lives. They call in and absorb all sorts of various effects according to the ability of gods and goddesses fest in US foreign policy—though not always in a nonviolent manner. Tsurumi or heroes and heroines to produce good results, and it does not matter whether identifies the third approach, unification, with Chinese attitudes. Unification their principles or doctrines contradict one another. These effects are all equal; involves recognising contradiction and creating new principles and values. Ac- people do not discriminate among their differences. cording to Tsurumi, unification can generate new, positive, and creative values There are eight million gods on earth (yaoyorozu no kami; 八百万の神). The sun, winds, and thunders; roads, rivers, and mountains; gods for philoso- and thoughts, and it is superior to the other types. However, it requires a tre- phy, safe birth, and even traffic safety. People pray to gods when in trouble or mendous amount of time and effort. Unification cannot be expected in terms of when feeling something ambiguous but overwhelmingly powerful. The Japanese immediate conflict resolution. people may have developed such a tendency toward ‘multiplicity’ because the Traditional Japanese approaches are best identified by the fourth type of culture developed from an agricultural society that was quite passive in the conflict resolution, that of multiplicity. It differs from the other three in that it face of the threat of natural disasters and because people were forced to accept severe realities in their lives with equanimity. We often say, “Jinji o tsukushite does not begin by focusing on eliminating the contradiction inherent in con- tenmei o matsu” (人事を尽くして天命を待つ; Just do your very best and wait flicting principles and values. It understands that harmonising all differences for your destiny). It seems to me that all those ‘gods’ converge in people’s own may not be possible, at least not anytime soon, so the best we can do at the mo- ‘fatalism’, a sense of acceptance based on the concept that one ‘cannot push ment is to allow these differences to continue to exist as harmlessly as possible the river’. in the same social space. Multiplicity is a quicker and easier approach to conflict resolution because the parties involved in the conflict are not compelled to re- 214 mediating across difference solve anything immediately. As a result, the parties gain time, which often helps cool down antagonism and allows for a type of gradual rapprochement that might otherwise not be possible. Although Chinese and Japanese traditions both hold the Confucian value of social harmony very highly, they then construct harmony in society very differently. While Japanese tend to construct harmony by minimising difference and emphasising similarity, the Chinese do so by focusing on orchestrating the differences from the beginning. After all, say the Chinese, one cannot play interesting music on a one-stringed lute. One cannot have an interesting soup based on one flavour.10 The Japanese, however, focus on similarity in the beginning in order to buy the orchestration time necessary to bring disparate elements into a new relationship with one another. Japanese fully understand that it is extremely difficult to pursue a peaceful process in the face of violence that causes pain and death. Anger and sorrow often lead to a desire for vengeance. A peaceful settlement requires time, patience, and endurance, while a war tends to break out in a rushed and thoughtless manner.11 It is a basic Japanese concept that creating and maintaining wa, or harmony, require great strength. This parallels the old bushido (武士道; code of the warrior) ethic in which actually having to draw one’s sword was a kind of failure. In practice, multiplicity works in several ways. First, it separates confronting groups, principles, and values. It attempts to minimise contact between groups and to avoid head-on collisions. Second, it ignores logical contradictions, using opposing principles in separate cases or contexts. For instance, in 1868, soon after Japan opened its market to foreign countries, the Meiji government issued two laws in a couple of days, one that promoted open debate and democracy and the other that strictly prohibited them. The former was to demonstrate Ja- pan’s political development to the outside world, whereas the latter was to warn its people not to challenge government policies. Third, the Japanese proclivity to ignore contradictions appears in their syncretism. In the following sections, the sources of multiplicity, of takakuteki, as a concept in Japanese practice are explored, and based on these sources we offer an alternative approach to peaceful conflict prevention, management, resolution, and transformation in international relations.

The Problematic Legacy of Imperialism Many reading this chapter will be asking themselves questions about Ja- pan’s imperial behaviour in the first half of the twentieth century. How was it that these uchi dynamics, which offer seemingly insightful takes on conflict management, failed to prevent the colonial violence that was unleashed through Japan’s imperial ambitions? Japan’s ‘Co-Prosperity Sphere’ sounded positive and Mediating Difference in Uchi Space 215 inclusive, but many fellow Asians (as well as others) experienced death and destruction, not prosperity and inclusion. The keys to understanding these dynamics can be found in Japan’s encounter with the international relations practices of Western colonial empires during the Meiji period in the nineteenth century. This interface eventually resulted in Japan’s developing its own aggressive imperial regime and war-oriented apparatus. In the Meiji period it became evident that customary Japanese consensus- based values and conflict management mechanisms were not effective in dealing with the West. In addition, in the Showa era, both before and during World War II, many customary consensus-building practices were co-opted by the militarist regime to suppress internal dissent. This accommodation to imperialism was reinforced by the protocols for entering out-group, or soto, space in Japan itself. The West, beginning with Admiral Perry and his Black Ships, rudely im- pinged itself upon Japan in the second half of the nineteenth century. Key here is to remember, as discussed above, that even in everyday social interactions, rudely penetrating the social spaces of others is a big social faux pas in Japan. In fact, Japan had no choice but to enter international space. Japan did not at that time—and, to a rather large extent, still does not—see international space as its own, and in that ‘other’, ‘outside’ space there are different rules, and very aggressive ones, at least relative to ideal Japanese norms. However, as with any soto space, there were and are protocols for entering it. It is a matter of respect that one first adapts to the existing social practices in the new context. This is simply a question of good manners, and this is especially true, once again, if one is lower in status—that is, young, female, or simply junior in the sense of having spent less time in that context. At the time of its entrance into international space, Japan was certainly a junior member of the existing international community. Thus, Japanese social logic dictates that even if Japan had not been a rather forced entrant, as a new- comer and junior member it had no choice but to adapt to the existing colonial/ imperial norms. Even when Japan succeeded in being just as colonial and imperial as Britain, particularly after it had developed a first-class navy and had defeated Russia in the Russo-Japanese War, Japan was still not accepted as a full member of the international community. One could thus argue that the lack of full inclusion in the early twentieth-century world order was one of the factors that drove Japan in the militarist and imperialist direction that eventually resulted in the dynamics of the World War II era. We would like to stress, however, that drawing attention to these factors is not to legitimise or defend the often brutal Japanese colonial project; it is to find possible explanations for it and to place it in the context of broader colonial practices. 216 mediating across difference

At the end of World War II, the United States, quite unknowingly, behaved like ‘good’ Japanese victors had always behaved in Japanese history. The United States acted benevolently by including the loser, the Japanese, in the new order.12 Takeshi Ishida identifies this enlargement of the in-group to include opposing parties as a common Japanese conflict management strategy.13 In addition, he identifies a co-strategy, and that is the introduction of an ura (裏; backstage, informal) relationship to ease tensions and work out practical solutions, so that omote (表; the surface, the formal level) is not disturbed by those tensions. Again, the principle is not to disturb the surface of the pool. Naka found, for instance, that successful rounds of trade negotiations between the United States and Japan coincided with the existence of constructive daily communication between midlevel staff of the Japanese Ministry of Finance and the US Treasury Department.14 Thus, the concepts of benevolence, inclusion, and continuous discursive activity are key to creating stable and humane social orders, and these customary Japanese ideas about expanding who can be in the in-group and how to do it are also in line with some of the current thought around the pragmatics of creating contemporary cosmopolitan social spaces.15

The Contemporary Relevance of Traditional Japanese Conflict Resolution Approaches A story from the Tokugawa era, called “Sambo Ichi-ryo Zon” (三方一両損; All Three Lost One Pound Each), illustrates the potential for applying traditional Japanese approaches regarding conflict resolution to situations in the contemporary world. The story is about a trial during the Tokugawa era (a period whose major feature was approximately 250 years of peace) and shows how consensus, dialogue, fairness, and multiplicity interact in a conflict situation.

One day . . . a plasterer picked up a purse on the road containing three ryo. (A ryo is an old Japanese gold coin.) The purse also contained a piece of paper identifying a certain carpenter as its owner. The plasterer took the trouble of locating the carpenter to return the purse. For all his pains, the plasterer was told by the carpenter: “Since the purse elected to slip out of my pocket, I don’t want such ungrateful money. Go away with the money.” The plasterer insisted that the money belonged to the carpenter. Thereupon a brawl started, and finally they agreed to take the case to arbitration by the Lord Ooka of Echizen. Having heard the story from both sides, the lord added one ryo to the three ryo, split the sum in two, handed two ryo to each party, and announced: “My good men, this is my decision. The plasterer could have gained three ryo if he had walked away as the carpenter told him to do. By this decision, he will end up with two ryo, so he is to lose one ryo. The carpenter could have recovered all Mediating Difference in Uchi Space 217

three ryo if he had accepted the plasterer’s kindness with good grace. Instead, he refused to accept the purse. By this decision, he is to lose one ryo. I also have to contribute one ryo. So, each of the three of us is to end up with one ryo less.16

The implicit message in the story of this negative compromise (i.e., everybody loses something) is that if the carpenter and plasterer had been able to solve their problem themselves, at their own level, they might have gained more. On the other hand, the lord did not stay out of the problem as a neutral arbiter either but became part of the problem and ended up ‘losing’ along with everyone else. Thus, when people fall into disharmony, everybody loses. It is exactly the Japanese capacity for living with contradictions without overt violence that is what the world needs right now. Thus, à la Nakane, our transnational, global shikaku would be that we are all humans, and our trans national, global ba would be the planet itself. Just as in Japan at the end of the Era of Warring States and the beginning of the Tokugawa Shogunate and its three hundred years of peace, we should all check our weapons at the prover- bial door of this new era, just as the samurai (侍; warriors) had to do when they entered Edo. Nakane observed that the Japanese have not had a tradition of making common rules and following them.17 Rather, they have obeyed or have been susceptible to a person. Likewise, some may say that the problem with implementing the above approach today is that there is no international power to make all nations or people do what they are supposed to do. That is, there is no equivalent of a powerful person, no daimyo (大名; lord) or shogun (将軍; military leader). However, if we accept the necessity of creating extensive relationship networks, if we accept the value of mutuality, of kyosei (living together productively), we can move beyond seeing the lack of a person or a power as an inherent barrier. We have to work together to have a sustainable system. Once again, the centre of this way of being in the world is not new. It is the cooperative consciousness that has been maintained by the world’s farmers of crops requiring extensive irrigation. It is a way of being in the world that understands that well-being can be achieved only collectively (i.e., we all do well when we all do well), and sometimes, maintaining the collective means adopting Tsurumi’s multiplicity consciousness. A central part of the multiplicity approach to conflict management is the Japanese aversion to the European Enlightenment orientation that promulgates ‘one Truth’. Japanese ideally behave as if they were all one family-like community and as if they believe that the entire community should move together into the future. This is how we can continue working together even if we do not agree conceptually. In promoting the uchi concept, we have to pragmatically reconcile 218 mediating across difference wa (harmony) with the emphasis on standing up for a principle, a truth. That is, in a Japanese context, we have to reconcile tatemae, the polite fictions that enable social harmony to be maintained, with honne, true intentions. And that is the point. Very often differing true intentions cannot be reconciled, at least not immediately, and in the meantime we often have to preserve social smoothness (in contrast to true harmony) if we are all to survive. Despite their inevitable association with problematic colonial ambitions, one could argue that traditional Japanese approaches to conflict resolution could potentially show us ways of lessening violence associated with value conflicts. Such conflicts cannot be argued logically to a resolution because values determine that which we consider to be logical in the first place. In the Japanese view, time and some new information, not only cognitive but affective as well, are required to enable a transformation in the atmosphere, in the ki (気), which in turn enables a transformation of consciousness on all sides. This attention paid to ki is reflected in the Japanese love of cherry blossoms. One of the reasons Japanese people admire cherry blossoms so much is that they all bloom together—there is no ‘lead’ cherry blossom. And what is it that enables each blossom to contribute itself spontaneously to a mutual, emerging present? It is the fortunate coming together of light, temperature, and moisture—a beneficent atmosphere, equally affecting all the blossoms—that enables them to bloom together in a spontaneous, and simultaneous, response.

Conclusion We have argued, following Tsurumi, that there are four approaches to solving or managing conflict: monopoly (simple domination), competition (striving against another), unification (working through profound contradictions to a new synthesis), and multiplicity (tolerating contradiction until it can be resolved). Traditional Japanese approaches favour the last approach, that of multiplicity, enacted through values of consensus, dialogue, and fairness. In so doing they can provide the global community with a transition strategy between the US confidence in competition and the Chinese preference for unification. We have demonstrated how this could be done. But we would like to stress that much of the wisdom that the Japanese could potentially contribute to a more cooperative world order has to do with the dynamics prevalent in uchi, the in-group. The key challenge, then, consists of overcoming inside/outside thinking and to ask: how would we handle our relations if the entire world were uchi— one common in-group? If we can do that, then the traditional Japanese focus on consensus, dialogue, fairness, and multiplicity can offer us useful ideas about how to enrich contemporary conflict resolution debates and how to create a mutually beneficent global space for all. Mediating Difference in Uchi Space 219

Notes 1. Y. Murakami, N. Kawamura, and S. Chiba (eds.), Toward a Peaceable Future: Re- defining Peace, Security, and Kyosei [Conviviality/Symbiosis/Coexistence/Living Togeth- er] from a Multidisciplinary Perspective (Pullman: Washington State University Press, 2005). 2. Jane Bachnik and Charles Quinn, Situated Meaning: Inside and Outside in Japa- nese Self, Society and Language (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994). 3. Chie Nakane, Japanese Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970). 4. H. Befu, “Four Models of Japanese Society and Their Relevance to Conflict,” in S. N. Eisenstadt and Eyal Ben-Ari (eds.), Japanese Models of Conflict Resolution (London and New York: Kegan Paul International, 1990). 5. Masao Maruyama, Gendai seiji no shiso to kodo [Contemporary Political Thoughts and Actions], enlarged ed. (Tokyo: Miraisha, 1964), p. 145. 6. Francis L. Hsu, Psychological Anthropology (Cambridge, MA: Schenkman, 1972); Takeo Doi, “Dependency in Human Relationships,” in Daniel I. Okimoto and Thomas P. Rohlen (eds.), Inside the Japanese System: Readings on Contemporary Society and Political Economy (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988), pp. 20–25. 7. Mitsuko Saito, “Observations on the Style of Japanese Negotiations” (paper presented at the Third International Conference on Cross-Cultural Communication: East and West, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan, April 1–7, 1991). 8. Stuart Pickens, Introduction to Philosophy lectures and personal conversations, International Christian University, Tokyo, early 1990s. 9. Kazuko Tsurumi, Kokishin to nihonjin [Curiosity and the Japanese] (Tokyo: Ko- dansha, 1972). 10. Wei Zheng, “Contrasting Conceptions of Harmony in China and Japan” (presentation at the Annual Communication Association of Japan Conference, 2004). 11. Norifumi Namatame, “Japan’s Missile Defense” (PhD thesis, University of Denver, 2008), p. 193. 12. B. Shillony, “Victors without Vanquished: A Japanese Model of Conflict Reso- lution,” in S. N. Eisenstadt and Eyal Ben-Ari (eds.), Japanese Models of Conflict Resolution (London and New York: Kegan Paul International, 1990), pp. 127–137. 13. Takeshi Ishida, “Conflict and Its Accommodation: Omote-Ura and Uchi-Soto Relations,” in Ellis S. Krauss, Thomas P. Rohlen, and Patricia G. Steinhoff (eds.), Con- flict in Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1984), pp. 16–38. 14. Norio Naka, Predicting Outcomes in United States–Japan Trade Negotiations: The Political Process of the Structural Impediments Initiative (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1996). 15. Kwame Anthony Appiah, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (New York: Norton and Co., 2006). 16. Takeyoshi Kawashima and Yoshiyuki Noda, “Dispute Resolution in Contem- 220 mediating across difference porary Japan,” in Daniel I. Okimoto and Thomas P. Rohlen (eds.), Inside the Japanese System: Readings on Contemporary Society and Political Economy (Palo Alto, CA: Stan- ford University Press, 1988), p. 192. 17. Chie Nakane, Tate shakai no ningen kankei [Japanese Society] (Tokyo, Japan: Kodansha, 1967), p. 146. Chapter 11 Shu and the Chinese Quest for Harmony A Confucian Approach to Mediating across Difference

Chengxin Pan

In traditional Chinese culture, conflict is often resolved through mediation. Labelled by some scholars as “the most heavily mediated nation on earth”, China has a long and rich tradition of community mediation that can be traced back to Confucianism.1 Best represented by the sayings and teachings of Confucius (551–479 BC) and Mencius (c. 372–289 BC), Confucianism argues that “harmony is most precious” (he wei gui) and believes in “harmony with difference” (he er bu tong). While this Confucian emphasis on harmony has long informed China’s community mediation tradition in the past, it has now attracted a renewed interest from the Chinese government, which faces an increasingly challenging task of calming social unrest and maintaining social stability.2 For example, two recent policies outlined by Beijing—building a ‘harmonious society’ within and promoting a ‘harmonious world’ without—have drawn explicitly on Confucianism. While Confucianism has been intimately linked to mediation, conflict resolution, and conflict prevention in China, its relevance to international relations in general and conflict resolution in particular has yet to receive extensive scholarly attention in the West. Some notable exceptions notwithstanding,3 Ole Wæver has rightly observed that the “most obvious candidate for an independent IR [international relations] tradition based on a unique philosophical tradition is China”, but “very little independent theorizing” has taken place.4 Even in Chinese international relations literature, where there has been a growing interest in building a Chinese school of international relations based on traditional Chinese culture,5 reference to Confucianism remains largely confined to generalised discussions of Confucian sayings on harmony. Such discussions, while

221 222 mediating across difference valuable, have yet to provide a systematic analysis as to how Confucianism could contribute to harmony and peace in contemporary global politics. This chapter seeks to partially address this lacuna by exploring how a particular Confucian concept—shu (恕)—could offer a promising approach to mediation across difference and conflict resolution. According to conventional Western theories of international relations, war and conflict are products of structural and exogenous factors: the egoistic human nature, political or cultural difference, ‘ancient hatred’ between different ethnic groups, the anarchical nature of the international system, and so forth. Determined or constrained by these factors, states or aspiring states often find themselves at loggerheads with one another. To resolve such conflict, many pundits argue that solutions can be found through an objective, rational, and scientific understanding of those factors. This approach, however, stands in contrast to how Confucianism understands human conflict. If the conventional perception of human nature and conflict in the West is characterised by an assumption about how people and things are, the Confucian approach revolves around how people ought to be. In one of the key Confucian texts, the Analects, conflict (zheng or dou) and its resolution are linked, not with some ahistorical or structural factors beyond human control, but with human virtue—or the lack of it. We are told that exemplary people (junzi) are dignified but do not wrangle, for they have nothing to con- tend for (or against).6 Here, conflict is not so much a result of some inherent human tendency as it is due to the lack of adequate development in human moral character. Thus, conflict could be solved by deliberately taking particular decisions and adopting particular behaviours. For such deliberate ethical decision making and behaviour, Confucianism has a particular term: shu. As the most unifying theme in Confucian thought, shu is inextricably intertwined with such important Confucian concepts as ren (humaneness), he (harmony), and li (propriety). While it is commonly interpreted as ‘do not do to others what you yourself do not desire’, its meaning in Confu- cian ethics is much broader. As well as being expressed in a negative fashion, shu also has both positive and introspective manifestations. In positive terms, it means ‘do to others what you yourself desire’. Also known as zhong, this positive expression calls for doing one’s utmost for others. In introspective terms, shu means ‘self-reflection’ and ‘self-cultivation’ (xiushen). I argue that shu represents a valuable ethical approach to mediating across difference and promoting harmony, an approach that does not rely on the intervention of third parties or external forces but insists on the need for those who are involved in conflict to act in the spirit of shu. This Confucian concept is far from unique. Similar ethical beliefs seem to Shu and the Chinese Quest for Harmony 223 have existed in almost all of the world’s major religions, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. For example, the Christian equivalent of shu is known as the Golden Rule: “All things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, you do even so to them”.7 Peace, it is believed, can be achieved through living by the Golden Rule. And yet two things, I believe, make the concept of shu both uniquely Confucian and ethically powerful. First, as an ethical code of conduct that is predicated on reciprocity, shu rests on a distinct Confucian cosmology that treats the world and human relations as inherently reciprocal. Second, shu is based on and enabled by an intersubjective conception of human nature, which is again unique to Confucianism. As a result, in distinction from its counterparts in other world religions, the Confucian notion of shu comes with a solid metaphysical and ontological foundation and, as such, seems to offer a more holistic and promising solution to conflict resolution. But before delving into the concept of shu and its implications for mediating across difference, let us take a close look at this dual foundation: Confucian cosmology and the intersubjective treatment of human nature in Confucianism.

Mutual Responsiveness in Confucian Cosmology We cannot fully understand Confucianism without understanding its unique cosmology, which Jane Geaney calls “the locus of Chinese distinctive- ness”. For reasons of space here, it is impossible to offer an in-depth analysis of this Confucian cosmology, but suffice it to say that Confucianism assumes an organismic, nondualistic, and nontranscendent cosmos where heaven (tian), earth (di), and human (ren) together form one continuous, holistic body.8 For example, it is often argued in Confucian texts that “the benevolent person naturally feels inclined to form one body with [all] things” (renzhe hunran yu wu tongti) and that “the Great Person holds that Heaven, Earth and the ten thousand things form one body” (daren zhe yi tiandi wanwu wei yiti). During the Han dynasty, this cosmology found expression in the now well-known notion of “the unity of heaven and humans” (tian ren he yi).9 He Xiu (Ho Hsiu), a Han scholar of Confucian classics, said, “The whole world, far and near, great and small, was like one”. Similarly, neo-Confucianist scholar Zhang Zai (Chang Tsai) wrote, “Heaven is my father and Earth is my mother, and even such a small creature as I finds an intimate place in their midst”.10 On the basis of this Confucian cosmology, the main reference point of traditional Chinese political thought is not class, race, or the nation-state but rather the all-encompassing tianxia (all under heaven). According to Tingyang Zhao, the notion tianxia reflects a Confucian ontology that is fundamentally about relations, as opposed to the Western ontology of things.11 This is not to suggest that Western ontology has no reference to relations. Far from it. Rather, my point 224 mediating across difference is that relations have a more fundamental ontological status in Confucianism than in Western ontology. While the latter believes that various relations exist among pre-existing things, Confucian cosmology sees relations as something not epiphenomenal to being but intrinsic to it. Such relations, moreover, are not just those concerning physical attributes or cause-effect connections but are also characterised by an intersubjective or “valuationally appreciative” connection in which the myriad things under heaven are believed to be inherently mutually responsive.12 Neo-Confucianist scholar Wang Yangming hints at human responsiveness when he notes that humanity, being one body with the world, is able not only to sympathise with the plight of human beings, animals, and plants but also to feel the pain of tiles and stones when they are broken.13 Such responsiveness, furthermore, is not unidirectional but mutual, for human ‘response- ability’ to the world, to borrow Robert Neville’s term,14 is juxtaposed with and reciprocated by a similar response-ability of the ‘objective’ world to humans. This phenomenon of mutual responsiveness has been observed in quantum physics. For instance, quantum physicists discovered that a photon appears as a particle or a wave depending on what the supposedly objective scientist hopes to see.15 Mutual responsiveness (intersubjective reciprocity) is not only characteristic of the relationship between humans and the nonhuman world but also integral to relations among humans. According to Confucianism, human society comprises five cardinal relationships (wu lun): ruler and subject, father and son, husband and wife, elder and younger brother, and friend and friend. In all these relationships, Confucianism maintains that “propriety values reciprocity” (li shang wang lai).16 For example, when Confucius was asked about the way of good government, he made clear reference to the logic of reciprocity, or mutual responsiveness: “when the prince is prince, and the minister is minister; when the father is father, and the son is son”.17 In other words, where positive mutual responsiveness exists between ruler and subject and between father and son, there is good government and social harmony. Indeed, one original meaning of he (harmony) is ‘mutual responsiveness’. In the ancient etymological dictionary Shuowen, he is defined as xiang ying, ‘responding (to one another)’.18 To the extent that (positive) mutual responsiveness gives rise to harmony, harmony (and for that matter, conflict) takes on a nontranscendent quality. Arising from ‘this-worldly’ reciprocity among differences, harmony is neither preordained nor dependent on certain transcendental forces. As the most valuable function and product of propriety (li zhi yong, he wei gui), harmony in the Confucian sense is inherently immanent, having its roots in human behaviour. It is “both a state of mind and a state of things, both an act of doing things by a person and a result of such doing”.19 Indeed, the immanence of harmony can be seen in the same manner as the Way (tao). Confucius says, “The tao is not Shu and the Chinese Quest for Harmony 225 far from man. Where someone takes as tao something distant from man, it cannot be the tao”.20 This “denial of transcendence” is significant in that it “shifts the onus of providing ethical foundations from a source outside humanity to humanity itself (perhaps in conjunction with the natural cosmos)”.21 In this way, Confucianism, which itself is “a way of life to be lived, not an esoteric text to be understood”,22 underscores the notion of human responsibility. In search of harmony and a way out of conflict, human beings should look no further than themselves and have no excuse but to behave in line with their objective. It is in this context that the concept of shu as a particular way of regulating human behaviour comes to the fore. If there is one word that can best summa- rise the coherence of Confucian ethics, it is shu. Confucius once says that his Way “is bound together with one continuous strand”. By this, his disciple Zeng Zi (Tseng Tzu, or Master Zeng) explains that “the way of the Master is doing one’s utmost (zhong 忠) and putting oneself in the other’s place (shu 恕), nothing more”.23 Asked whether there is “one word that may serve as a rule of practice for all one’s life”, Confucius replies: “Isn’t it shu? What you yourself do not desire, do not do to others”.24 Translated sometimes simply as ‘mutuality’ or ‘reciprocity’, shu directly speaks to and best epitomises the mutual responsiveness of human relations.25 To further illustrate this point, it is useful to look at the etymological roots of shu in Chinese. The upper half of the character is ru (如), which means ‘like’ or ‘to resemble’, and the bottom half is xin (心), meaning ‘heart-and-mind’ or, in modern terminology, ‘subjectivity’.26 Taken together, this character literally implies that people’s heart-and-mind is alike, hence the possibility of ‘extending one’s desire to others’ (shu). By invoking one’s subjectivity to understand the subjectivity (thinking, feeling, and desire) of others, the way of shu presupposes a ‘subject-subject’ relationship between self and other, which enables the establishment of an intersubjective relation of mutual understanding and mutual trust from which a harmonious order can emerge.27 It is worth noting, however, that an assumption of similar human subjectivity per se does not necessarily entail the moral principle of shu. Thomas Hobbes, for instance, assumes the similarity of human subjectivity and suggests that the understanding of others should start with self-understanding (“Read thy self”).28 Yet, based on a self-understanding of human selfishness, Hobbes extrapolates that understanding to other humans. As a result, human relations in the Hob- besian sense bear little resemblance to harmony but instead are characterised by a state of nature. In this sense, what enables shu to be an ethical basis for the quest for harmony is not just an intersubjective understanding of human relations as mutual responsiveness but also an intersubjective way of conceptualizing human nature. Kevin Avruch points out that “understandings of human nature and personhood (self and others)” are at the core of different cultural 226 mediating across difference approaches to conflict resolution.29 It is thus appropriate to spend a little more time on comparing both Western and Confucian notions of human nature and their ethical implications for conflict and harmony.

An Intersubjective Conception of Human Nature in Confucianism Although the issue of human nature is subject to various interpretations in the West,30 the assumption of the a priori existence of individual human beings is commonplace in conventional Western understanding of human nature. Indeed, human nature, often defined in terms of what I call an objectification or reification of human subjectivity, is widely equated with a biological or instinctive desire for survival. As Hans Morgenthau notes, there is “an irreducible minimum of psychological traits and aspirations which are the common possession of all mankind”, including these: “All human beings want to live and, hence, want the things necessary for life. . . . All human beings seek power and, hence, seek social distinctions . . . that put them ahead of and above their fellow men”.31 In this sense, the fulfilment of human nature depends on material conditions and human ability (power) to make use of those conditions. What sets human beings apart from animals is the existence of human reason. Human beings alone, it seems, possess the ability to think. But this rational aspect of human nature functions primarily as a unique instrument to the human desire for survival and self-interest.32 In the end, human nature comes to be reduced to self-interestedness, with the modern human being perceived as “a bearer of rights; an insatiable ensemble of passions; a calculating satisfier of wants; or a rational pursuer of manifold interests”.33 This materialist-cum- instrumentalist reading of human nature in general and modern humankind in particular is highly significant in that it lays the groundwork for a parallel conceptualisation of the sovereign state, whose subjectivity, or raison d’état, is similarly reduced to the national interest. The point here is not about whether this conceptualisation has captured some important aspects of human (and state) nature; it does. Rather, at issue here are its practical implications for human and international relations. The implications, simply put, are that this theorisation of human nature and the nature of states gives rise to a subject-object dichotomy of self and Other in social and international relations. As Hobbes famously describes, “if any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies”. Without a sovereign ruler (the Leviathan), such a situation will result in a “war of every man against every man”.34 To the extent that all nation-states, like human beings, are self-interested, not only is it logical for these states to objectify other states as potential enemies or threats, but they also necessarily engage in a constant struggle for survival, power, and freedom. Not that Hobbes Shu and the Chinese Quest for Harmony 227 ignores the relevance of honour, respect, and recognition to human desire or state interests, but for him they are corollary and reducible to power and material interests.35 Based on a similar definition of human subjectivity, Rousseau reaches the same pessimistic conclusion, regarding society as the very source of evil and conflict. Even Immanuel Kant, who believes that people should be treated as ends rather than just as means, perceives an acute dilemma of the “unsocial sociability of men”.36 Here, with human conflict considered part of human nature, it is no wonder that self-help, rather than the Golden Rule, has been a mantra for international relations scholars and practitioners. However, the Western conception of ‘man’, for all its claims of scientific objectivity, is “a rather peculiar idea within the context of the world’s cultures”.37 This is certainly so when it is compared to the Confucian notion of human nature. In understanding what makes human beings distinctively human, Confu- cianism also takes human subjectivity (desire or needs) as its starting point. But rather than focus on objective human desires that can be met in an impersonal, subject-object fashion, Confucianism highlights the reciprocal and intersubjective dimension of human subjectivity. In other words, what is distinctively human about human subjectivity is human desire to be treated by others as human in an intersubjective context, not their desire for mere survival or material satisfaction, though the latter is no doubt part of human subjectivity. For Confu- cianism, the ultimate characteristic of humaneness is an intersubjective need for respect, trust, love, and care from other humans. In the words of Mencius, “To desire to be honoured is the common mind of man”. He goes on to say that those who are satiated with benevolence and righteousness do not envy the enjoyment of fine food from others, and those who receive a good reputation and praise do not desire other people’s elegant garments.38 Similarly, when discussing human desire (yu) or will (zhi) with his disciples, Confucius implies that human nature is defined primarily by human desire at the intersubjective level, rather than at the material, physical, or biological level. For him, becoming an exemplary person entails more than sharing “chariots and horses, and light fur dresses” with others or feeding one’s parents with food, for “even dogs and horses are fed”. Rather, it means that “in regard to the aged, to give them rest; in regard to friends, to show them sincerity; in regard to the young, to treat them tenderly”.39 Clearly, central to all these examples about being human is intersubjective reciprocity. Thanks to this intersubjective reading of human nature, human relations in the Confucian sense are neither individualistic nor dualistic. According to Confucianism, human nature or humaneness (ren; 仁), as the graph of the Chi- nese character indicates, denotes at least two persons. As a central virtue in Confucianism, ren essentially means “the relationality and interdependence of 228 mediating across difference human beings”.40 Without the presence and participation of an other or others, the individual self alone cannot fulfil his or her humaneness. Perhaps for this reason, the classic Chinese lexicon does not have a term corresponding to the Western notion of ‘individual’, nor is there a “distinction between the first person singular, ‘I,’ and the first person plural, ‘we.’ An ‘I’ is always a ‘we’ ”.41 Thus, contra the Hegelian perspective, human self-consciousness cannot exist in itself and for itself but always consists in “an image of self determined by the esteem with which one is regarded in community”.42 For the self to be self-conscious as a human, his or her intersubjective connection with other humans and their consciousness is indispensable. Instead of dreading the unsocial sociability of men, Confucius maintains that while walking in the company of even just two other persons, he is bound to find a teacher.43 Understood this way, even the term ‘human sociability’ falls short of conveying such an inherently relational nature of humaneness, for that term still denotes the a priori existence of individualistic, complete humans before and independent of society (namely, the ‘first man’ in the state of nature). From the outset, Confucians would argue, there is only contingent, contextual humanity within or after society. An observation made by Tu Wei-ming captures this human-relatedness of humanity well:

It is only through the continuous opening up of the self to others that the self can maintain a wholesome personal identity. The person who is not sensitive or responsive to the others around him is self-centered; self-centeredness easily leads to a closed world, or, in Sung-Ming terminology, to a state of paraly- sis. . . . Therefore, to encounter the other with an open-minded spirit is not only desirable; it is as vital to the health of the self as is air or water to one’s life.44

It is precisely because of the Confucian conception of human nature in terms of intersubjective needs for deference that shu as an ethical principle of human relations becomes necessary. Each person, in order to become a human, requires the treatment of shu from others. At the same time, given the reciprocal logic of human relations, the self’s clamour for shu from others cannot be secured unless the self itself is simultaneously committed to the same practice towards others. In this sense, acting in the spirit of shu is neither an exercise of pure altruism nor a sign of weakness. Rather, it is an essential step towards the self-realisation of humanity in Confucian ethics. As a consequence, although shu in Confucianism is mainly concerned with good government in a domestic context, this ethical principle and its implications for social harmony are nevertheless highly relevant to contemporary conflict resolution at the international level. Shu and the Chinese Quest for Harmony 229

The Three Forms of Shu: Implications for Social Harmony Having linked the concept of shu to Confucian cosmology and the intersubjective conception of human nature, this chapter now turns to an analysis of the three interrelated dimensions of shu—the negative form (shu), the positive form (zhong), and the introspective form (xiushen, or self-cultivation)—and examines how in each case shu has the potential to help mediate across difference and bring about harmony.

The Negative Form of Shu As mentioned earlier, the prototypical meaning of shu is its negative form— ‘do not do to others what you yourself do not desire’. The reason it is suggested that this is a negative form is that the starting point of shu here is self-subjectivity in a negative sense, namely, what the self does not desire (ji suo bu yu). This negative expression of shu, almost in identical language, appears no less than three times in the Analects (5:12; 12:2; 15:24). And in the Great Learning, the idea is explained in even greater detail:

Do not use what you dislike in your superiors in the employment of your inferiors. Do not use what you dislike in your inferiors in the service of your superiors. Do not use what you dislike in those who are before, to precede those who are behind. Do not use what you dislike in those who are behind, to follow those who are before. Do not use what you dislike on the right, to display toward the left. Do not use what you dislike on the left, to display toward the right. This is called the principle of applying a measuring square.45

In what sense, then, could this form of shu contribute to harmony? A simple answer is that, by following this principle, one “will not incur personal or political ill will”.46 Where there is no ill will, a virtuous cycle of mutual responsiveness between self and others may ensue, thus bringing about a necessary condition for cooperation and peace. Among its many implications for harmony, of particular significance is an implicit message on the use of force. While there are many different ways of social interaction that the self does not desire, perhaps chief among them is the use of violence. Insofar as the self would not like to be treated with violence, it is then only logical that the self should not use it against others. It is thus safe to say that it is the negative form of shu that has justified the Confucian disapproval of the use of force. Confucianism has high regard for civilian virtues, not military might. Traditionally, the military profession is looked down upon in China, so much so that it does not even make it into the four categories of people (si min), namely, shi (scholar), nong (farmer), gong (artisan), and shang (merchant).47 Confucius prides himself on 230 mediating across difference being a man fond of learning, but he has no qualms about his lack of interest in studying military matters.48 When it comes to effective governance, Confucius believes that weapons, though not unimportant, are the first thing a state can do without.49 To realists, of course, this Confucian aversion to the use of force is naïve at best and dangerous at worst. The strong can do what they have the power to do, argues Thucydides. “Let them hate, as long as they fear”, proclaims the Roman emperor Caligula. In Confucian thought, however, the aversion to force is neither an act of naïveté nor a matter of expediency for the weak. In a world of inherent mutual responsiveness, power does not absolve the strong from the consequences of ill will from the weak. If used in disregard of the advice of shu, force is ultimately counterproductive and self-defeating. Xun Zi (Hsün Tzu, or Master Xun), one of the original Confucian philosophers, summarises the consequences of power politics well. “With the people of other states growing daily more eager to fight against him, and his own people growing daily less eager to fight in his defense, the ruler who relies upon strength will on the contrary be reduced to weakness”, he admonished more than two thousand years ago.50 Commonplace in Confucianism, this warning is perfectly encapsulated in the ancient Chinese story of nan yuan bei zhe (see box below). Thanks in part to this negative form of shu, there has been “a prejudice against the use of force which runs throughout Chinese history”,51 a prejudice that has to some extent been reflected in China’s foreign relations. During the Ming dynasty, when Confucianism experienced a resurgence, the first emperor

Nan yuan bei zhe and the Principle of Shu During the Era of Warring States, the king of the state of Wei planned to invade the state of Zhao. Upon hearing the news, one of his ministers, Ji Liang, rushed back to the capital to dissuade the king from carrying out the plan. To press his case against the attack, Ji Liang told the king a story: A man on his horse cart was headed north while telling people that he was travelling to the state of Chu, which was located in the south. When warned that he was going in the wrong direction, the man repeatedly countered that his horse was superb, his travel allowance sufficient, and his cart driver extremely skilled. But of course none of those advantages mattered, for the man was heading in the opposite direction. Because the use of force to establish Wei’s hegemony was against the principle of shu, it was also going in the wrong direction. The minister reasoned that the better equipped one’s army was, the more elusive one’s objective of establishing a kingly kingdom would become. Note: See Liu Xiang, Zhanguo ce: Wei ce IV [Annals of the Warring States: The Annals of Wei, no. 4], vol. 2 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1978), p. 907. Shu and the Chinese Quest for Harmony 231 set the tone for the dynasty’s largely pacifist policy. Worried that “future generations, relying on the wealth and power of China and tempted by the chance of quick victory, might initiate military operations to kill people”, the emperor decreed that “this be strictly forbidden”.52 Witnessing firsthand Ming China’s lack of ambition for expansion and conquest, the famed Jesuit Matteo Ricci observed that “though they [the Chinese] have a well-equipped army and navy that could easily conquer the neighboring nations, neither the king nor his people ever think of waging a war of aggression”.53 To be sure, China’s Three King- doms period (220–265) may be an exception, often cited as the prototype of “an amoral interstate system characterized by constant maneuver and ruthless competition” based on “the classic realist calculus”.54 But even then, power was more often than not viewed as evanescent, and if devoid of morality or lacking the proper use of ‘stratagems’, greater forces might not always prevail.55 Even when dealing with the increasing challenge of Western powers and their norm of power politics, China’s Qing dynasty continued to rely on the moral principle of shu. In 1839, on the eve of the Opium War between Britain and China, Commissioner Lin Zexu (Lin Tse-hsü), who was responsible for implementing the ban on opium trade, wrote a letter to Queen Victoria. In that letter, he appealed to the British monarch precisely on the ground of the negative logic of shu: “Suppose there were people from another country who carried opium for sale to England and seduced your people into buying and smoking it; certainly your honorable ruler would deeply hate it and be bitterly aroused. . . . Naturally you would not wish to give unto others what you yourself do not want”.56 Of course, at a time when England and other European powers were more convinced by social Darwinism than anything else, this dose of Confucian moral advice fell on deaf ears. Although the dominant ideology of the People’s Republic of China in its early days was Marxism rather than Confucianism, the influence of the negative principle of shu remained palpable in Chinese foreign policy, as exemplified by its vow not to seek hegemony or interfere with other countries’ internal affairs. Whether or not China has lived up to such pledges is a different matter, but it cannot be denied that those pledges were to some extent predicated on the deep-seated Confucian idea of shu. During the first Asian-African Conference held in Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955, Chinese premier Zhou Enlai, a statesman with considerable upbringing in Confucian classics, explained the rationale of the noninterference policy by directly quoting Confucius: “One should not do to others as he would not wish done to himself. . . . We oppose foreign interference, [so] how can we interfere with other countries’ own affairs?”57 And the principle of noninterference, for all its contemporary shortcomings, has played a key role in maintaining international stability. 232 mediating across difference

Zhong: The Positive Logic of Shu While the negative form of shu focuses on what not to do to others, its positive logic sets parameters for what to do, namely, ‘do to others what you yourself desire’. Clearly, this version of ethical behaviour is based on a positive form of self-subjectivity: what the self desires (ji suo yu). More commonly known as zhong, it calls for doing one’s utmost for others or being conscientious towards others. As evident in the term zhong shu zhi dao (the way of zhong and shu), zhong is often paired with the way of shu in Confucian classics. In this sense, zhong and shu are the two sides of the same coin, or the two dimensions of the same continuous strand. As D. C. Lau notes, “it is through chung [zhong] that one puts into effect what one had found out by the method of shu”.58 As with its negative counterpart, the point of departure for zhong is self-subjectivity, from which the desire of others is inferred. To the extent that the self’s intersubjective need focuses on deference from others, the essence of zhong entails both extending this self-need to others and taking appropriate action to meet their such needs. The Analects describes zhong as follows: “The man of jen [ren] is one who, desiring to sustain himself, sustains others, and desiring to develop himself, develops others. To be able from one’s own self to draw a parallel for the treatment of others; that may be called the way to practise jen”.59 To drive home this message, Confucius specifies four common scenarios in the Doctrine of the Mean: “To serve my father as I would expect my son to serve me. . . . To serve my ruler as I would expect my ministers to serve me. . . . To serve my elder brothers as I would expect my younger brothers to serve me. . . . To be the first to treat friends as I would expect them to treat me”.60 Remarkably, Confucius admits that he has yet to adhere fully to any of them. Contrary to the conventional criticism of zhong as a kind of one-way, unconditional loyalty, this positive manifestation of shu is in fact inherently reciprocal. That is, not only should subjects follow the way of zhong, but rulers, too, ought to do their utmost for their subjects. This is clearly what Mencius has in mind when he advises the prince, “Loving one’s parents is benevolence; respecting one’s elders is rightness. What is left to be done is simply the extension of these to the whole Empire”. Should rulers fail to treat their subjects in the spirit of zhong, they would have lost their “mandate of heaven” and the subjects would be entitled to treat them as strangers or even enemies.61 In a way, there is a close resemblance between zhong and the doctrine of jian’ai (universal love) proposed by Mo Zi (Mo Tzu), the founder of the Moist school. But unlike Mo Zi’s impartial altruism, which rejects family-based love as selfish, the positive mode of shu takes the family as its logical starting point and emphasises the importance of xiao (filial piety), ci (parental kindness), and ti (fraternal love). This special treatment of the family in Confucianism has much Shu and the Chinese Quest for Harmony 233 to do with the Confucian view that the family is the archetype of all social relationships, being the foundation of the state, which in turn is the foundation of the world.62 In this Confucian cosmological order, there is no zero-sum relationship nor clear-cut, impenetrable boundary between the family and the state, private and public, or the state ‘inside’ and the world ‘outside’. Rather, similar to the unity between heaven and humans, the family, the state, and the world form a continuum. For example, the contemporary Chinese term ‘nation’ or ‘country’ (guojia) consists of two characters, ‘state’ (guo) and ‘family’ (jia). As such, the family can function as “the first and basic training ground for the individual’s future ethico-social interaction” in the wider community.63 “Only when an exemplary person loves his parents”, argues Mencius, “can he treat other people with benevolence. Only when he shows benevolence to other people can he cherish all the creatures”.64 Based on positive reciprocity and the power of moral example, zhong also has important implications for social harmony. As filial piety and fraternal love in the family context are expanded to the outer and broader community, they are in turn reciprocated and multiplied so as to spin a harmonious social web of mutual love and respect. Whilst the negative form of shu can avoid provoking ill will, the positive form of shu, often codified and embodied in ritual propriety (li), helps create goodwill. In the Analects this point was made clear by a disciple of Confucius. Comforting a man who lamented that he had no brothers, the disciple told him about the magic of zhong, saying that exemplary persons (junzi), by respecting others and observing propriety, would make everyone in the world their brother. Consequently, having no brothers need not worry him.65 Viewing zhong as reciprocal and contagious, Confucians believe that it is all the more important for people in a powerful position such as rulers to practice it, as their radiating effect on others is likely to be wider and stronger. Xun Zi believes that “since [the true king’s] benevolence is the loftiest in the world, there is no one in the world who does not draw close to him”.66 When the king is committed to zhong, known in this context as Wang dao (the kingly way), he is able to rule by moral example rather than by coercion and punishment. As Confucius explains, “Guide them with edicts, keep in line with punishment, and people may stay out of trouble but will have no sense of shame. But if you guide them by your own virtue, and keep them in line with acts of decency, they will develop a sense of shame and control themselves”.67 Thus, when a follower, seeking advice about good governance, asked what would happen if he killed those who had abandoned the way to attract those who followed it, Confucius replied that if one ruled with virtue, people would respond in kind—was there a need for killing?68 The absence of coercion or violence, by definition, means the existence of peace and harmony. This link between the kingly way of zhong 234 mediating across difference

(Wang dao) and the emergence of a harmonious and tranquil kingdom is noted in the Great Learning:

What is meant by “The making the whole kingdom peaceful and happy depends on the government of his State,” is this:—When the sovereign behaves to his aged, as the aged should be behaved to, the people become filial; when the sovereign behaves to his elders, as the elders should be behaved to, the people learn brotherly submission; when the sovereign treats compassionately the young and helpless, the people do the same.69

The way of zhong may be all well and good in a domestic realm, but can it be applied to foreign relations? Before we look to answer this question directly, it is worth noting that in Confucianism, there is no such dichotomy between ‘domestic’ and ‘foreign’. Insofar as the whole Chinese world order takes on a familial quality, China would see itself as an elder brother or even a parent vis-à- vis smaller states on its periphery. Such a familial or patriarchal imagination of the world, its patronising Sinocentric connotation notwithstanding, does seem to be free from both the Westphalian dichotomy of ‘inside’ versus ‘outside’ and a dualistic demarcation between Chinese and non-Chinese in racial terms.70 Without these dualisms, the practice of shu is able to transcend cultural difference and be applied far and wide. As Confucius maintains, “Let his words be sincere and truthful, and his actions honorable and careful;—such conduct may be practised among the rude tribes of the South or the North”.71 Elsewhere, Confucius is more specific about how to treat people living outside the Chinese cultural domain: “If remoter people are not submissive, all the influences of civil culture and virtue are to be cultivated to attract them to be so”.72 It is on this basis that a set of less realist-oriented policies towards the ‘barbarians’, such as huairou (to cherish and to soften), jimi (loose rein), and heqin (a practice of marrying imperial daughters to the chieftains of tribes to maintain peace), were developed in traditional China. In varying degrees, those policies bore the hallmark of Confucian ethics, especially the principle of zhong. For example, the Han dynasty’s jimi policy towards the northern nomads Xiongnu was characterised by an emphasis on sincerity and good faith. After a heqin agreement, the Han emperor Wendi was said to have even promised the Xiongnu in 162 BC that the Han dynasty would not be the party to first commit a fault.73 Together with the caution against the use of force afforded by the negative form of shu, this positive logic of mediating across cultural difference perhaps explains why the Chinese, for all their apparent ability to do what they had the power to do, remained largely a ‘stay-at-home people’. As John K. Fair- bank notes, Shu and the Chinese Quest for Harmony 235

No Chinese Alexander ever set out from the Middle Kingdom to conquer the farther reaches of the world. Chinggis (Genghis) Khan was a Mongol, and it was the Mongols, not the Chinese, who tried to conquer Japan in 1274 and 1281 and who first invaded Southeast Asia in force. After the Ming dynasty in the early 1400s had sent seven big fleets into Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean, even across to Africa, the Chinese gave up exploration. They had the capability to discover Europe a century before the first Portuguese explorers discovered the route to China, but they were not interested in overseas expansion.74

This, of course, is not to romanticise China’s foreign relations, much less to assert the essential peacefulness of China or Chinese culture per se.75 Clearly, traditional China’s foreign relations were not simply a happy scenario of Pax Sinica but represented a mixed picture of lofty indifference, peaceful accommodation, cultural domination, and punitive expedition. Both Confucian thought and the more realist-oriented Legalist school (fajia) played a role in the way China dealt with its neighbours. Even when Confucian principles maintained a

Fang Yibo’s Confucian Outreach Program in Nigeria As a philosophy to be lived, Confucianism not only has profoundly influenced community mediation in China but also seems to have resonance overseas. An intriguing recent news report is a case in point. In the report, Fang Yibo, a project manager with a Chinese power company, was formally crowned chieftain in late 2007 by a tribal king in Nigeria. Back in 2003, when Fang’s company was about to start a joint venture project there, it faced strong local revolts from villagers who feared that it could adversely affect their livelihood. Believing that relying on police protection is unsustainable in the long run, Fang, a native of Shandong Province, the birthplace of both Confucius and Mencius, decided to reach out to local people. He was convinced that ‘when you’re nice to them, they’ll be nice to you’, a line of thinking with a clear Confucian overtone. Fol- lowing the traditional Chinese way of greeting—with gifts of candies for kids and red envelopes of money for the elderly and the newborn—an ever-smiling Fang overcame the language barrier through body language and gradually won the trust of the local tribal people. His outreach program attained a new height when he decided to build a ten-classroom school for local children, after seeing them studying in mud huts with no door or windows. That this idea sprang from Fang’s love of his daughter is again a testament to the Confucian influence of shu. As he said, “When I look at the kids here, they remind me of my daughter. Why can’t they go to school like her?” The Confucian method of placing oneself in others’ place not only helped Fang resolve conflict but also made him a local hero. Note: See Raymond Zhou, “Shandong Project Manager Crowned Nige- rian Chieftain,” China Daily, January 21, 2008, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/ china/2008-01/21/content_6407552.htm. 236 mediating across difference dominant influence, they did not necessarily translate into peace and harmony. Furthermore, in the case of peace and stability in the Chinese world order, a sense of Sinocentrism was rarely far below the surface.76 And yet, acknowledging China’s mixed record in foreign relations should not nullify the relevance of shu to conflict resolution. Despite the ambivalent or even complicit role of Confucian ideas in China’s oppression both within and without, the moral constraint of shu on traditional Chinese foreign policy is nevertheless discernible. To illustrate, it is useful to note David Kang’s comparison between the Western international system of formal equality with informal hierarchy and the Sinocentric system of formal hierarchy with informal equality. While the former involved “almost constant interstate conflict”, the latter had by and large maintained relative peace and stability.77 Although Kang did not elaborate on what might have contributed to informal equality within formal hierarchy, the reciprocal influence of zhong could well have played a part.

Self-Cultivation: The Introspective Aspect of Shu In both the positive and negative forms of shu, self-subjectivity (ji suo yu and ji suo bu yu) is used as the starting point for understanding and dealing with others. But an uncritical or unconditional reliance on the self as the measure of all things always carries a hidden danger of egocentrism and ethnocentrism, something along the line of ‘what is good for us is also good for others’. When carried out in practice, this ethnocentric belief under the guise of universalism has more often than not underpinned the ‘civilising’ mission of many colonial adventures and the accompanying clash between colonisers and colonised. While ethnocentrism was closely linked to colonialism and imperialism in modern European history, it seems less evident in the Confucian principle of shu. This is not to deny that China can be guilty of ethnocentrism too: witness the self-assumed status of the ‘Middle Kingdom’ (Zhongguo). But China’s alleged Middle Kingdom mentality, as John Fitzgerald points out, has been over- stated. He argues that “the term Zhongguo was certainly in use in China before the modern period but it designated neither the country nor the state itself”.78 The relative lack of ethnocentrism in Chinese culture and practice, I argue, can be explained again through shu. According to David Hall and Roger Ames, shu is “bi-directional” in nature, which means that shu not only involves the extrapolation of self-understanding to others but also requires one to “first move from other to self in order to clarify self”. Only by following this other-self trajectory can one then “move in the opposite direction and extend oneself to the other”.79 This other-self exercise is commonly known in Confucianism as self-examination (xingshen) and self- cultivation (xiushen) and is what I call the introspective form of shu. Shu and the Chinese Quest for Harmony 237

This introspective form of shu is not merely an afterthought to its first two aspects but occupies a central place in the Confucian ethical praxis. For Confu- cianism, precisely because the starting point of shu is self-subjectivity, the cultivation of self becomes all the more necessary. The Book of Rites, a classic Confu- cian text, maintains that the exemplary person takes beginning seriously, for an initial error the breadth of a single hair can lead one a thousand li astray (junzi shen shi, cha zhi hao li, miu yi qian li; li is the equivalent of half a kilometre). In the Confucian cosmic order, the self (shen) is precisely such a beginning for the family, the state, and the world. As a consequence, “if one is able to act in accordance with shu, it is essential that the standard from which one begins—that is, one’s self—be one expressive of appropriate moral character”.80 To cultivate the self is to turn self-subjectivity on its head: no longer is the self an unquestionable Archimedean point or a universal yardstick from which conduct towards others can unproblematically proceed. Rather, the self needs to be under scrutiny in terms of whether it has adequately responded to others in the way of zhong and shu. For example, Zeng Zi committed himself to daily self-examination on three questions: “In my undertakings on behalf of other people, have I failed to do my utmost [zhong]? In my interactions with colleagues and friends, have I failed to make good on my word? In what has been passed on to me, have I failed to carry it into practice?”81 In this self-examination process, the subjectivity of others, instead of being merely a mirror image of self- subjectivity, becomes a mirror against which the self can be critically examined and judged. If acting in accordance with the positive and negative aspects of shu is the external dimension of shu, self-examination and self-cultivation constitute its internal and self-reflective mechanism. Only when shu includes this introspective mechanism, as well as the negative and positive dimensions, can it be seen as genuine and complete, worthy of the name of ‘the unifying thread’ in Confucianism. In this way, shu is consistent with the nontranscendent understanding of human responsibility in Confucian cosmology, where the prime responsibility and burden are placed on the self, not on others. For instance, if one’s ability is not recognised by others, Confucius tells us that this is not something to worry about; instead, one should be concerned whether one’s ability is sufficient for others to recognise it in the first place.82 This, according to Confucius, is what it takes to make people exemplary persons (junzi), who “make demands on themselves”, whereas “petty persons make demands on others”.83 Confucius elucidates this point with an archery analogy: “When the archer misses the centre of the target, he turns round and seeks for the cause of his failure in himself”.84 Following this Confucian idea, Mencius goes a step further: “If others do not respond to your love with love, look into your own benevolence; if others 238 mediating across difference fail to respond to your attempts to govern them with order, look into your own wisdom; if others do not return your courtesy, look into your own respect. In other words, look into yourself whenever you fail to achieve your purpose”.85 In a ‘foreign relations’ context, Confucius adds, “If distant people are not obedient to China, Chinese rulers should win them over by cultivating their own refinement and virtue”.86 Thus, by its insistence on taking a long, hard look at oneself in the event of a conflict with others, self-cultivation is from the beginning a particular way of mediating across difference. Through its acknowledgment of self-responsibility for discord, the introspective form of shu has important bearing on conflict resolution. First, self-cultivation insists that the critical condition for harmony lies in the moral agency of the self through learning and constant reflection, not in others or certain external structure or transcendent forces. Meanwhile, given the belief in each person’s subjective capacity for self-cultivation and improvement, there is little need for self-righteous missionary conversion of others, nor is it desirable. To impose upon others a foreign value system—a common source of conflict—runs counter to the Confucian notion that the basis of self-improvement lies ultimately in the self.87 The Book of Rites states that it is in accordance with propriety that scholars come to learn, but it is unheard of for a teacher to go to teach (li wen lai xue, bu wen wang jiao). Similarly, Mencius warns that a common pitfall of people is that they are too keen to lecture others.88 Second, self-cultivation, by taking self-responsibility, lays the foundation for forgiveness, which in turn is a key to mediation and reconciliation. Confucian- ism argues that, with self-examination, an exemplary person is able not to take offence at others’ failure to recognise his or her ability, nor “to revenge [others’] unreasonable conduct”.89 Conversely, in the absence of self-examination, one can expect the spiral model of a blame game or tit-for-tat retaliation. The North Korea nuclear arms issue is a case in point. Without acknowledging the mutual responsiveness between the United States and North Korea that has contributed to the nuclear stalemate, US policy makers and commentators conveniently see this confrontation through a dichotomous framework of self and Other, and good versus evil. Against this background, self-examination, often labelled unpatriotic or even anti-American, is no longer permissible. Indeed, as Roland Bleiker has observed, rarely has the United States considered the valid- ity of North Korea’s threat perceptions or examined how its own foreign policy might have played an integral part in the production of those North Korean perceptions.90 With neither side willing to perform self-examination or perceive itself as part of the problem, it is not surprising that the North Korea nuclear crisis appears so intractable. Finally, through self-examination and self-cultivation, one’s moral charac- Shu and the Chinese Quest for Harmony 239 ter can be elevated to such a point that it warrants deference from others, thus fulfilling one’s humaneness. In this way, self-cultivation brings about calmness, and a calm person without paranoia, xenophobia, or hatred is more likely to bring himself or herself into harmony with the environment. If each person or each country is devoted to cultivating self-virtue and examining self-conduct, a harmonious social or international order would be in sight. As a passage in the Great Learning has it, “Their persons being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their families being regulated, their States were rightly governed. Their States being rightly governed, the whole kingdom was made tranquil and happy”.91

Conclusion Focusing on the Confucian concept of shu, I have illustrated how this particular Chinese approach has important implications for achieving harmony and resolving conflict. While its expression is not particularly unique to China, shu is both enabled by a distinctive Confucian cosmology of mutual responsiveness between differences and predicated on an intersubjective, as opposed to objectivist, understanding of human nature. This understanding of human nature perceives human needs primarily in terms of the intersubjective need for deference from others. In doing so, it paints a nondualistic picture of human relations, where the act of shu becomes both possible and necessary. As the unifying theme in Confucianism, shu is treated in this chapter as a holistic approach to harmony. In each of its three dimensions (negative, positive, and introspective), shu entails an ongoing reflective effort of the self to both constructively frame and critically question one’s conduct towards others. A central characteristic of this Confucian concept is that it does not see human conflict and harmony as contingent on some external, transcendent forces, nor does it place much faith in mere technological solutions outside human ethics. Rather, the concept points to an immanent, intersubjective, and hence practical solution to the ongoing challenge of conflict. Here, harmony can be achieved through acting in line with the spirit of shu. Of course, this does not mean that an easy solution to conflict is at hand. Confucius admits that he has not been able to act fully in accordance with shu himself, nor has he seen a person “who could perceive his faults, and inwardly accuse himself”.92 Indeed, Confucius was viewed as someone who “keeps trying although he knows that it is in vain”.93 However, the problem does not lie in the principle of shu per se, but in our practical commitment to living up to it. So long as it is human practice or immanent human agency that holds the key to the success of shu, there is hope. That the deeds and ideas of Confucius have profoundly shaped China (and, to a lesser extent, other Asian societies) for more 240 mediating across difference than two millennia testifies to the possibility of translating normative concepts into concrete sociopolitical practices. This is why the concept of shu and the quest for harmony—idealistic and utopian as they may sound—offer a valuable alternative to prevailing Western approaches to conflict resolution.

Notes For their constructive comments on earlier versions of this chapter, I would like to thank Roland Bleiker, Morgan Brigg, Stephen Chan, Xuemei Bai, and participants in the “Mediating across Difference: Asian and Oceanic Approaches to Security and Conflict” workshop at the University of Queensland in March 2007. 1. James A. Wall Jr. and Michael Blum, “Community Mediation in the People’s Republic of China,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 35, no. 1 (1991): 3–20 at 4. 2. See Alberto Serna, “China Embraces Confucius Again,” MercatorNet, Novem- ber 12, 2007, http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/china_embraces_confucius_ again/; and William A. Callahan, “Remembering the Future—Utopia, Empire, and Harmony in 21st-Century International Theory,” European Journal of International Rela- tions 10, no. 4 (2004): 569–601 at 572. 3. Notable exceptions include Roland Bleiker, “East-West Stories of War and Peace: Neorealist Claims in the Light of Ancient Chinese Philosophy,” in Stephen Chan, Peter Mandaville, and Roland Bleiker (eds.), The Zen of International Relations: IR Theory from East to West (Houndmills, UK: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 177–201; Bruce E. Barnes, Culture, Conflict, and Mediation in the Asia Pacific (Lanham, MD: University of America Press, 2006); Qing Cao, “Selling Culture: Ancient Chinese Conceptions of ‘the Oth- er’ in Legends,” in Chan, Mandaville, and Bleiker, Zen of International Relations, pp. 202–221; Key Sun, “How to Overcome without Fighting: An Introduction to the Taoist Approach to Conflict Resolution,” Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology 15, no. 2 (1995): 161–171; Cho-yun Hsu, “Applying Confucian Ethics to International Relations,” Ethics and International Affairs 5, no. 1 (1991): 15–31; Wall and Blum, “Com- munity Mediation”; Alan Hunter (ed.), Peace Studies in the Chinese Century: Interna- tional Perspectives (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2006); and Ni Lexiong, “The Implications of Ancient Chinese Military Culture for World Peace,” and Daniel A. Bell, “Just War and Confucianism: Implications for the Contemporary World,” both in Daniel A. Bell (ed.), Confucian Political Ethics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), pp. 201–225 and 226–256, respectively. 4. Ole Wæver, “The Sociology of a Not So International Discipline: American and European Developments in International Relations,” International Organization 52, no. 4 (1998): 687–727 at 696. 5. For a good survey of this quest by Chinese intellectuals see Ren Xiao, “Toward a Chinese School of International Relations,” in Wang Gungwu and Zheng Yongnian (eds.), China and the New International Order (London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 293–309. Shu and the Chinese Quest for Harmony 241

6. Analects 3:7, 8:4, 15:21, 16:7, in Roger T. Ames and Henry Rosemont Jr. (trans.), The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation (New York: Ballantine Books, 1998), pp. 83, 121, 189, 198. 7. Matthew 7:12, as quoted in Robert McNamara and James G. Blight, Wilson’s Ghost: Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing, and Catastrophe in the 21st Century (New York: Public Affairs, 2001), p. 37. 8. Jane Geaney, “Chinese Cosmology and Recent Studies in Confucian Ethics: A Review Essay,” Journal of Religious Ethics 28, no. 3 (2000): 451–470 at 456. For an extensive discussion on the mutual immanence or nontranscendent nature of Confu- cian cosmology, see David L. Hall and Roger T. Ames, Thinking through Confucius (New York: State University of New York Press, 1987). 9. Chung-ying Cheng, “Toward Constructing a Dialectics of Harmonization: Harmony and Conflict in Chinese Philosophy,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 33, no. 1 (2006): 25–59 at 30. 10. Fung Yu-lan, A Short History of Chinese Philosophy (New York: Free Press, 1948), p. 202; Wing-tsit Chan (trans. and ed.), A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 497. 11. Tingyang Zhao, “Rethinking Empire from a Chinese Concept ‘All-under-Heav- en’ (Tian-xia, 天下),” Social Identities 12, no. 1 (2006): 29–41 at 33. 12. Robert Cummings Neville, “Metaphysics in Contemporary Chinese Philoso- phy,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 30, nos. 3–4 (2003), pp. 313–326 at 318. 13. See Wang Yangming, “Inquiry of the Great Learning,” in Wing-tsit Chan (trans. and ed.), A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univer- sity Press, 1963), pp. 659–660. In comparison, a Polish villager living near German concentration camps during World War II, in an answer to the question of whether he and his fellow villagers were afraid for the Jews, replied that if he cut his finger, it hurt him, not the other person. This lack of intersubjective connection with the Jews, Croatian writer Slavenka Drakulić believes, might help explain why the Poles so close to the concentration camps remained indifferent to the massacres inside those camps. See David Campbell, National Deconstruction: Violence, Identity, and Justice in Bosnia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998), p. 10. 14. Neville, “Metaphysics in Contemporary Chinese Philosophy,” p. 320. 15. Marla Del Collins, “Transcending Dualistic Thinking in Conflict Resolution,” Negotiation Journal 21, no. 2 (2005): 263–280 at 276. See also Henry L. Mamman, “Remodeling International Relations: New Tools from New Science?” in Vendulka Kubálková, Nicholas Onuf, and Paul Kowert (eds.), International Relations in a Construct- ed World (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1998), pp. 173–192 at 182–183. Karl Popper notes this mutual responsiveness phenomenon also in biology, where “expectations often play a role in bringing about what has been expected.” He calls it the Oedipus effect. Karl Popper, Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography (London: Fontana, 1976), p. 121. 242 mediating across difference

16. See James Legge (trans.), The Sacred Books of China: The Texts of Confucian- ism, Part IV; The Li Ki, I–X (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1964), p. 65; Tu Wei-ming, Confucian Thought: Selfhood as Creative Transformation (New York: State University of New York Press, 1985), p. 139; Tu Wei-ming, Centrality and Commonality: An Essay on Confucian Religiousness (New York: State University of New York Press, 1989), pp. 103–104; and Karyn Lai, Learning from Chinese Philosophies: Ethics of Interdependent and Contextualised Self (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2006), p. 31. 17. James Legge (trans.), Confucian Analects, The Great Learning and The Doctrine of the Mean (New York: Dover Publications, 1971), p. 256 (hereafter cited as Legge, Confucius). 18. See David L. Hall and Roger T. Ames, Thinking from the Han: Self, Truth, and Transcendence in Chinese and Western Culture (New York: State University of New York Press, 1998), p. 180. For the definition in an online version of Shuowen jiezi zhu, see http://www.gg-art.com/imgbook/index.php?bookid=53&columns=&stroke=8. 19. Chung-ying Cheng, “On Harmony as Transformation: Paradigms from the I Ching,” in Shu-hsien Liu and Robert E. Allinson (eds.), Harmony and Strife: Contem- porary Perspectives, East and West (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1988), pp. 225–247 at 235. My emphasis. 20. Doctrine of the Mean, chap. 13, quoted in Hall and Ames, Thinking through Confucius, p. 286. 21. Geaney, “Chinese Cosmology,” p. 467. See also Cheng, “Toward Constructing a Dialectics of Harmonization,” pp. 28–29. 22. Kelly James Clark, “Three Kinds of Confucian Scholarship,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 33, no. s1 (December 2006): 109–134 at 130. Emphasis in original. 23. Analects 4:15, in Ames and Rosemont, Analects of Confucius, p. 92. 24. My translation. See also Legge, Confucius, p. 301. 25. Indeed, because of this close link, shu has been frequently treated as synonymous with mutual responsiveness, or “mutuality.” See Lai, Learning from Chinese Phi- losophies, p. 31. Shu is also translated variably into “altruism,” “reciprocity,” “consideration,” and “deference to others.” See Hall and Ames, Thinking through Confucius, p. 285. 26. Hall and Ames, Thinking through Confucius, p. 288. 27. Wang Xiaoxia, “Rujia wenhua zhong de renji guanxi lilun” [The Human Rela- tions Theory in the Confucianists], Daode yu wenming [Morals and Civilization], no. 5 (2000): 45–58 at 45–46. 28. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, edited and with an introduction by C. B. Macpher- son (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1968), p. 82. 29. Kevin Avruch, “Introduction: Culture and Conflict Resolution,” in Kevin Avruch, Peter W. Black, and Joseph A. Scimecca (eds.), Conflict Resolution: Cross-Cul- tural Perspectives (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991), pp. 1–17 at 15; Peter W. Black, Shu and the Chinese Quest for Harmony 243

“Surprised by Common Sense: Local Understandings and the Management of Conflict on Tobi, Republic of Belau,” in Avruch, Black, and Scimecca, Conflict Resolution, pp. 145–164 at 158–159. 30. See, for example, Leslie Stevenson (ed.), The Study of Human Nature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981). 31. Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, 5th ed., revised (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), p. 266. A more elaborate discussion on this understanding of human nature can be found in Kenneth N. Waltz, Man, the State and War: A Theoretical Analysis (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959), chap. 2. See also Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 130–133. 32. C. Fred Alford, The Self in Social Theory: A Psychoanalytic Account of Its Con- struction in Plato, Hobbes, Locke, Rawls, and Rousseau (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991), p. 17. 33. David Campbell and Michael Dillon, “The End of Philosophy and the End of International Relations,” in David Campbell and Michael Dillon (eds.), The Political Subject of Violence (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1993), pp. 1–47 at 1. 34. Hobbes, Leviathan, pp. 184–185. See also Campbell and Dillon, “End of Phi- losophy,” p. 1. 35. Hobbes, Leviathan, pp. 184–185. See also Campbell and Dillon, “End of Phi- losophy,” p. 1; James Der Derian, “The Value of Security: Hobbes, Marx, Nietzsche, and Baudrillard,” in Campbell and Dillon, Political Subject of Violence, pp. 94–113 at 98–100; and Alford, Self in Social Theory, chap. 5. Hegel does put forward a subjectiv- ist definition of human nature, as he believes that human nature involves the desire for recognition by other humans. However, this demand for recognition is inherently egocentric, nonreciprocal, and nonintersubjective. Thus comes the notion “struggle for recognition,” which, according to Fukuyama, is “every bit as violent as Hobbes’s state of nature or Locke’s state of war.” Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (London: Penguin Books, 1992), pp. 146–147. 36. Stanley Hoffmann, Duties beyond Borders: On the Limits and Possibilities of Ethi- cal International Politics (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1981), p. 14; Michael Joseph Smith, “Liberalism and International Reform,” in Terry Nardin and David R. Mapel (eds.), Traditions of International Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 201–224 at 203. 37. Clifford Geertz, Local Knowledge (London: Fontana Press, 1983), p. 59. 38. James Legge (trans.), The Works of Mencius (New York: Dover Publications, 1970), book 6, part A:17, pp. 419–420. 39. Analects 5:26, 2:7, in Legge, Confucius, pp. 182–183, 148. See also Herbert Fin- garette, Confucius: The Secular as Sacred (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1972), p. 76. 244 mediating across difference

40. Hall and Ames, Thinking from the Han, p. 84. 41. Henry Rosemont Jr., “Rights-Bearing Individuals and Role-Bearing Persons,” in Mary I. Bockover (ed.), Rules, Rituals, and Responsibility: Essays Dedicated to Herbert Fingarette (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1991), pp. 71–101 at 81; Hall and Ames, Thinking from the Han, p. 42. 42. Hall and Ames, Thinking from the Han, p. 26. 43. Analects 7:22, in Ames and Rosemont, Analects of Confucius, pp. 115–116. 44. Tu, Confucian Thought, p. 114. Remarkably, this Confucian configuration of human nature and human subjectivity finds its postmodern echoes in such continental philosophers as Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Levinas, Bernard Lonergan, and Paul Ricoeur. Levinas, for example, asserts that the “heteronomy of our response to the human other . . . precedes the autonomy of our subjective freedom” (quoted in Camp- bell, National Deconstruction, p. 174). See also Emmanuel Levinas, “Ethics as First Phi- losophy,” in Seán Hand (ed.), The Levinas Reader (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989), pp. 75–87; Michele Saracino, “Subject for the Other: Lonergan and Levinas on Being Human in Postmodernity,” in Jim Kanaris and Mark J. Doorley (eds.), In Deference to the Other: Lonergan and Contemporary Continental Thought (New York: State University of New York Press, 2004), pp. 65–89; Stephen Chan, “A Problem for IR: How Shall We Nar- rate the Saga of the Bestial Man?” Global Society 17, no. 4 (2003): 385–413; and Henry Rosemont Jr., “Classical Confucian and Contemporary Feminist Perspectives on the Self: Some Parallels and Their Implications,” in Douglas Allen (ed.), Culture and Self: Philosophical and Religious Perspectives, East and West (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997), pp. 63–82. 45. Great Learning 10:2, quoted in Fung, Short History of Chinese Philosophy, p. 43. See also Doctrine of the Mean, chap. 14, in Legge, Confucius, pp. 395–396. 46. Analects 12:2, in Ames and Rosemont, Analects of Confucius, p. 153. 47. Cao, “Selling Culture,” p. 215. 48. See Analects 5:27, 15:1, in Legge, Confucius, pp. 183, 294. 49. Analects 12:7, in Ames and Rosemont, Analects of Confucius, pp. 154–155. 50. Xun Zi (Hsün Tzu), “The Regulations of a King,” in Burton Watson (trans.), Basic Writings of Hsün Tzu (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967), p. 39. 51. Joseph Needham, “China and the West,” in Robert Jungk et al. (eds.), China and the West: Mankind Evolving (London: Garnstone Press, 1970), p. 22. 52. Quoted in Yang Gongsu, Wanqing waijiao shi [The Diplomatic History of the Late Qing Dynasty] (Beijing: Peking University Press, 1991), p. 124. 53. Matteo Ricci, China in the Sixteenth Century: The Journals of Matthew Ricci, 1583–1610, translated by Louis J. Gallagher, SJ (New York: Random House, 1953), p. 55. 54. Michael H. Hunt, “Chinese Foreign Relations in Historical Perspective,” in Harry Harding (ed.), China’s Foreign Relations in the 1980s (New Haven, CT: Yale Uni- versity Press, 1984), pp. 1–42 at 7. Shu and the Chinese Quest for Harmony 245

55. See Andrew J. Nathan and Robert S. Ross, The Great Wall and the Empty For- tress (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997), p. 22. 56. Ssu-yu Teng and John K. Fairbank et al., China’s Response to the West: A Docu- mentary Survey, 1839–1923 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1954), p. 26. 57. Quoted in Qingxin Wang, “Cultural Norms and the Conduct of Chinese For- eign Policy,” in Weixing Hu, Gerald Chan, and Daojiong Zha (eds.), China’s Interna- tional Relations in the 21st Century (Lanham, MD: University of America Press, 2000), pp. 143–169 at 153. Emphasis in original. 58. Quoted in Hall and Ames, Thinking through Confucius, p. 285. 59. Analects 6:28, quoted in Fung, Short History of Chinese Philosophy, p. 43. 60. Doctrine of the Mean 13:4, quoted in Tu, Centrality and Commonality, pp. 28– 29. See also Legge, Confucius, p. 394. 61. D. C. Lau (trans.), Mencius (book 7, part A:15; book 4, part B:3) (Harmond- sworth: Penguin Books, 1970), pp. 184, 128. A similar view on zhong as the obligation of the ruler can be found in Xun Zi, “Regulations of a King,” p. 37. 62. David L. Hall and Roger T. Ames, Anticipating China: Thinking through the Narratives of Chinese and Western Culture (New York: State University of New York Press, 1995), p. 276; Legge, Works of Mencius, p. 295. 63. Lai, Learning from Chinese Philosophies, p. 28. 64. My translation. See also Legge, Works of Mencius, p. 476. 65. Analects 12:5, in Ames and Rosemont, Analects of Confucius, p. 154. 66. Watson, Basic Writings of Hsün Tzu, p. 41. 67. Analects 2:3, quoted in T. R. Reid, Confucius Lives Next Door: What Living in the East Tells Us about Living in the West (New York: Vintage Books, 1999), p. 172. 68. Karyn Lai, “Confucian Moral Cultivation: Some Parallels with Musical Train- ing,” in Kim-chong Chong, Sor-hoon Tan, and C. L. Ten (eds.), The Moral Circle and the Self: Chinese and Western Approaches (Chicago: Open Court, 2003), p. 131. 69. Legge, Confucius, p. 373. Mencius argues, “Treat the aged of your own family in a manner befitting their venerable age and extend this treatment to the aged of other families; treat your own young in a manner befitting their tender age and extend this to the young of other families, and you can roll the Empire on your palm.” See Lau, Mencius, book 1, part A:7, p. 56. Similarly, the Book of Rites says, “When the Great Way was in practice, then the world was held in common. They chose people of talent and ability whose words were sincere, and they cultivated harmony. Thus people did not only love their own parents, not only nurture their own children. . . . In this way selfish schemes did not arise. Robbers, thieves, rebels, and traitors had no place, and thus outer doors were not closed. This is called the Great Harmony [Datong].” Quoted in Callahan, “Remembering the Future,” p. 573. 70. Cao, “Selling Culture,” pp. 208–209; C. P. FitzGerald, The Chinese View of Their Place in the World (London: Oxford University Press, 1969), pp. 3–4. 246 mediating across difference

71. Analects 15:5, in Legge, Confucius, p. 295. 72. Analects 16:1, quoted in Lien-Sheng Yang, “Historical Notes on the Chinese World Order,” in John K. Fairbank (ed.), The Chinese World Order: Traditional China’s Foreign Relations (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968), pp. 20–33 at 26. See also Bell, “Just War and Confucianism,” p. 232. 73. Yang, “Historical Notes,” p. 33. 74. John K. Fairbank, China: The People’s Middle Kingdom and the U.S.A. (Cam- bridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1967), pp. 106–107. 75. See Shaohua Hu, “Revisiting Chinese Pacifism,” Asian Affairs: An American Review 32, no. 4 (2006): 256–278. 76. For studies of the influence of realism in both traditional and contemporary China, see Alastair Iain Johnston, Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strat- egy in Chinese History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995); and Thomas J. Christensen, “Chinese Realpolitik,” Foreign Affairs 75, no. 5 (1996): 37–52. A sense of Sinocentric superiority can be detected in Mencius, who said (perhaps in good faith), “I have heard of men using the doctrines of our great land to change barbarians, but I have never yet heard of any being changed by barbarians” (in Legge, Works of Mencius, pp. 253–254). 77. David Kang, “Hierarchy and Stability in Asian International Relations,” in G. John Ikenberry and Michael Mastanduno (eds.), International Relations Theory and the Asia-Pacific (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), pp. 163–189. 78. John Fitzgerald, “The Nationless State: The Search for a Nation in Modern Chinese Nationalism,” in Jonathan Unger (ed.), Chinese Nationalism (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1996), pp. 56–85 at 67n23. 79. Hall and Ames, Thinking through Confucius, pp. 288–289. 80. David L. Hall, “Confucius,” in Robert L. Arrington (ed.), A Companion to the Philosophers (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), pp. 52–57 at 54–55. 81. Analects 1:4, in Ames and Rosemont, Analects of Confucius, p. 72. 82. Analects 14:30, in ibid., p. 179. 83. Analects 15:21, in ibid., p. 189. 84. Doctrine of the Mean, chap. 14:5, in Legge, Confucius, p. 396. 85. Lau, Mencius, book 4, part A:4, p. 119. See also book 4, part B:28, pp. 133–134. 86. Analects 16:1, quoted in John K. Fairbank, China Perceived: Images and Policies in Chinese-American Interactions (London: Andre Deutsch, 1974), p. 51. 87. Tu, Centrality and Commonality, p. 35. 88. Legge, Sacred Books of China, p. 63; Lau, Mencius, book 4, part A:4, p. 126. 89. Zhongyong 10:1–4, in Legge, Confucius, pp. 389–390. Confucius and Zeng Zi praised the ability of Bo Yi, Shu Qi, and Yuan Hui to forget old grudges and not repay offence with offence; see Analects 5:22, 8:5, in Legge, Confucius, pp. 181, 210. Confucius advocates repaying ill will with justice (and criticism), not tit-for-tat revenge. See Ana- Shu and the Chinese Quest for Harmony 247 lects 14:36, in Legge, Confucius, p. 288. See also Eric C. Mullis, “Ritualized Exchange: A Consideration of Confucian Reciprocity,” Asian Philosophy 18, no. 1 (2008): 35–50 at 45–47. 90. Roland Bleiker, “A Rogue Is a Rogue Is a Rogue: US Foreign Policy and the Ko- rean Nuclear Crisis,” International Affairs 79, no. 4 (2003): 719–737 at 721. To prevent conflict, David Hamburg calls for paying attention to what our critics are saying. David Hamburg, “Preventing War through Nation-Building: A Self-Interested Approach to Peace,” Negotiation Journal 18, no. 4 (2002): 385–389. Similarly, Jae-jung Suh argues that to resolve the long-running North Korea nuclear crisis, the United States must be prepared to “recognize the other side’s core concerns and address them on the basis of the principle of reciprocity” and “must come to terms with the imperative that its nonproliferation efforts must be coupled with restraints on itself.” Jae-jung Suh, “The Two-Wars Doctrine and the Regional Arms Race: Contradictions in U.S. Post–Cold War Security Policy in Northeast Asia,” Critical Asian Studies 35, no. 1 (March 2003): 3–32 at 19–20. 91. Cited in Kung-chuan Hsiao, A History of Chinese Political Thought, vol. 1, From the Beginnings to the Sixth Century A.D., translated by F. W. Mote (Princeton, NJ: Princ- eton University Press, 1979), p. 103. Neo-Confucianism is even more sanguine about this linkage: “By cultivating oneself toward moral perfection one will achieve a cosmological harmonization of all things.” See Cheng, “Toward Constructing a Dialectics of Harmonization,” pp. 30–31. 92. Doctrine of the Mean 13:4 and Analects 5:26, in Legge, Confucius, pp. 394, 183 respectively. 93. Ames and Rosemont, Analects of Confucius, p. 181. Chapter 12 Korean Sources of Conflict Resolution An Inquiry into the Concept of Han

Roland Bleiker and Hoang Young-ju

Korea has a long history of linking conflict resolution with particular moral and societal values. In this chapter we explore the potentials and limits of this tradition by focusing on the concept of Han, which many Korean scholars claim as unique to their culture. Although there is no direct translation for ‘Han’, it can perhaps best be captured by terms such as ‘sorrow’, ‘regret’, and ‘sadness’. Han emerges as a result of particular grievances: injustices done to a person or a collective. Han, in this sense, can afflict persons as much as groups or even a society at large. Feelings such as sorrow or grief are, of course, not unique to Korea. They are a normal part of human life and can be a product of conflict in any political or cultural setting. Unique to Korea, though, is the manner in which these feelings are understood and related to managing or solving conflict. Or, as one commentator puts it, unique is the “discourse of uniqueness” that surrounds the concept of Han.1 In an attempt to learn from this particular cultural approach, we explore in detail two important aspects of Han. First, the concept of Han explicitly acknowledges the emotional dimensions of conflict and its resolution. This focus on emotions contrasts sharply with Western approaches to mediation, which are part of a broader cultural tradition dominated by instrumental understandings of reason. In the West, emotions are still largely seen as private and irrational—as phenomena that either play no role in political life or, at best, ought to be contained and minimised so as to arrive at rational and reasonable ways of solving conflict. If emotions are taken into account in the context of mediation, then they are usually taken only as something to overcome or as elements of a negotiation strategy. The Korean

248 Korean Sources of Conflict Resolution 249 tradition, by contrast, places emotions at the centre of conflict. It establishes a rich and highly useful vocabulary with which the crucial link between emotions and conflict resolution can be understood and explored. Second, the concept of Han, as understood and practiced in Korea, shifts the focus of conflict resolution from the individual to the collective. The main task is not to address and solve individual grievances or a clash between particular individuals, as is the case in dominant Western approaches to mediation. The purpose, rather, is to find ways of harmonising the relationship between individuals and the society at large. The importance of societal harmony is, of course, a much discussed feature of Confucian societies. And so are the negative consequences of situations where individuals are expected to acquiesce and submit to conditions of injustice in the interest of retaining a harmonious social order. The patriarchal nature of Confucian society is a case in point here. Al- though we discuss the long history of marginalising and suppressing women— the concept of Han is, indeed, particularly central to understanding women’s grievances—we focus our inquiry on how this cultural approach, problematic as it may be in some ways, nevertheless offers a range of unique insights into the process of transforming conflict. While our inquiry highlights a particular aspect of the Korean approach to conflict resolution, we do not claim that this corresponds to an essential cultural trait. Cultures are inevitably highly complex and diverse, involving a range of clashes between different values, perceptions, and interests. Han is only one aspect of Korea’s culture, and it too is open to various competing interpretations. One could just as well draw attention to other aspects of Korea’s tradition. Or one could contextualise the claim of Han’s uniqueness with the fact that Korea’s culture did not evolve in isolation but was strongly shaped by neighbouring civilisations, most notably China and Japan. In the context of more recent processes of globalisation, Korea has also come in increasing contact with Western values. The current division of the peninsula into a communist North and a capitalist South is, indeed, to a large extent an imposition of Western ideas and geopolitical interests. The intense antagonistic and ideological rivalry between North and South does, in many ways, contradict the emphasis that the traditional concept of Han places on overcoming revenge and on validating forgiveness and compassion. We do briefly address this contradiction, but our main objective is not to understand the origins and complexities of contemporary conflict in Korea. We are, rather, interested in exploring how a long and unique cultural tradition might offer new and viable alternatives for conceptualising conflict and its resolution. We begin the chapter by providing a concise definition of ‘Han’, focusing in particular on how the concept relates to questions of conflict and mediation. 250 mediating across difference

The two main sections that follow identify and discuss in detail the two manners in which Han differs substantially from Western approaches to conflict resolution: the explicit engagement with the emotional nature of conflict; and the conceptualisation of mediation as a process of engaging broad societal issues, rather than merely a clash between individuals or entities modelled thereon. We illustrate the issues at stake by examining the role of Han in a popular Korean folktale: the story of Chunhyang. We conclude by exploring how our inquiry into Korean cultural traditions can help us review and potentially improve Western approaches to mediation and conflict resolution.

The Concept of Han: Definition and Origin Although numerous scholars stress that finding an exact translation of ‘Han’ into English is impossible, most define it as a kind of sorrow, a response to conditions of injustice and suffering. They speak of a “deep sense of suffering accompanied with anger”.2 But how exactly is Han generated, and what does it entail? Discussions about the nature of Han can be placed into two categories: those focusing on Han at the individual level, and those linked to the collective. First, we consider Han at the individual level. Here we pay particular attention to women and issues of gender discrimination. In a traditional Confucian order, Korean women are supposed to play a virtuous role that is clearly defined according to a patriarchal system of role distributions. Such an order sees a woman not as an independent person but, rather, as an individual whose function is attached to another person, usually a man: she is a daughter, a wife, or a mother. In traditional Korean society there is little room for women outside such strict role assignments. Even if the resulting Confucian order is harmonious, it is based on a series of explicit forms of gender discrimination. ‘Han’ here refers to the feelings that accumulate in a woman as a direct result of the grievances she experiences in the context of a patriarchal system of oppression. Han is also seen to exist at the national level. It emanates from the painful historical experiences Koreans have had to suffer through, and from the particular attitude with which they faced these experiences. Importance here is given to the dependent nature of Korea: the frequent lack of security and power that Koreans experienced throughout their history. The long-standing influence of China is a case in point, as is the more recent colonial occupation by Japan and the externally imposed division of the peninsula. Significant as well are internal struggles, such as systems of domination related to gender and class.3 Some scholars, such as Park Jae Soon, stress that the origin of Han lies at the very beginning of Korean civilisation.4 Others disagree. Ko Mi-sook, for instance, analysed Korean traditional novels and fairy tales, concluding that Han cannot be viewed as a part of traditional Korean identity.5 Han, she says, Korean Sources of Conflict Resolution 251 emerged only later, in specific response to processes of modernisation in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It became particularly acute in the context of Japan’s ruthless colonial occupation of Korea, which lasted from the 1890s until the end of World War II. The types of grievances and feelings of sadness that emerged in reaction to modernisation and colonisation are rather different, Ko believes, from traditional Korean traits, which primarily revolved around humour and optimism.6 The exact origins of Han may be disputed, but not the central status it has achieved in recent discussions about the Korean cultural imaginary. Examining a broad range of Korean films, Baek Moon-im stresses that since the 1960s Han has occupied a place “at the core of cultural discourse”.7 In the context of a re- emerging sense of nationalism in South Korea, Han has been increasingly presented as an essential aspect of traditional Korean culture. Focusing on melo dramatic tendencies in films, Baek interprets Han as a strategy to find comfort in the face of rapid modernisation. In this sense, she says, Han can be seen as a way of forming national identity in response to modernisation, colonisation, and the devastating Korean War. The latter conflict, which lasted from 1950 to 1953, killed more than a million people. It left the peninsula deeply divided, forcing Koreans to articulate a sense of national identity in the face of a political and ideological archrival across the dividing line.8 The so-constituted notion of Han was expressed metaphorically in numerous popular films and tales. It involved, for instance, stories about female ghosts whose vengeance against their oppressors is a way of releasing the accumulated feelings of grudge and sorrow.9 In addition to these modern forms of popular culture there are numerous, much older narrative stories that express individual and national identity based on the concept of Han. When Kim Youngmin investigates traditional Korean women’s songs, for example, he observes that the main recurring theme is a candid expression of sorrow. But he also notes that these emotional expressions did not merely take the shape of lamenting the singer’s misfortune and consol- ing others in a similar situation. They also captured a remarkable rebellious spirit, thus revealing that Han can be a form of resistance and transformation as well.10 The original negative emotions of sorrow and grief are only one aspect of Han. Kim Jin stresses that Han involves a complex mixture of both negative and positive emotions, including the traditional sentiments of optimism and humour. Han, then, emphasises the contradictions of and interactions between these various psychological dynamics. Sorrow and introspection eventually transform themselves into acceptance, empathy, and friendship. Kim stresses that the structure of Han is, at first, based on resignation, but it can later also contain hope and desire.11 252 mediating across difference

Conceptualising the Links between Emotions and Conflict: Han as an Alternative to Instrumental Reason Having outlined, in broad strokes, the origin and nature of Han, we now analyse how this cultural concept offers a way of understanding and dealing with conflict that is different from prevailing Western approaches to mediation. Two aspects of Han stand out. The first key feature is the manner in which Han captures the highly complex linkages between emotions and conflict. Han is generally defined as a ‘collective emotion’, as feelings linked to the inevitable pains of life. The emotions associated with Han are seen as being particularly intense, so intense that they cannot be communicated adequately through external expressions, such as bursts of anger. They are, in that sense, unresolved emotions resulting from unjustified suffering.12 The complex engagement with emotions that is symbolised in the concept of Han contrasts with Western approaches, which place emphasis on developing rational ways of understanding and dealing with conflict. This difference is, at least in part, semantically conditioned. The Korean language has a far more extensive and complex vocabulary to express emotional states and relations.13 The nature and implications of these linguistic features are, of course, impossible to express in English. But the following extract, taken from a scholarly analysis of Han, may provide at least a sense of the differences between the two cultural approaches. Although written in English, the text is so strongly shaped by the cultural origins of its Korean author that it manages to convey just how central emotions are in Korean cultural contexts.

Han is a knot of life alive embedded down at the bottom of unconsciousness. It is a feeling of the long accumulated pains, outrages, frustrations, losses, sorrows and regrets felt during the course of our unfulfilled life in this world, or a sentiment of missing and yearning. It is, for the Korean people, the source of the wounds and scars of their life and soul, of their sights and lamentations, of their resignations and frustrations, their curses and hates, and their sadism and masochism. It would sometimes become the malaise of defeatism resulting from rotting resignation or despair which must be got rid of and overcome for a healthy and vibrant life.14

Such a text would not be acceptable in a Western academic context. It would be seen as too emotional and too subjective, lacking the type of detached and rational analysis needed to make a significant scholarly contribution. Even Western academic publications in disciplines that deal with emotions, such as Korean Sources of Conflict Resolution 253 psychology, sociology, or philosophy, would require that an analysis of emotions be expressed in much more neutral and academic language. The very nature of the English language expresses—and camouflages at the same time—that there is a long Western tradition that separates emotion and rationality.15 Or, rather, reason has come to be reduced to a relatively narrow, instrumental or technological version.16 As a result, emotions are presented as mere feelings, as bodily sensations that overwhelm individuals, distort their thinking, and prevent them from making reasonable judgments. Expressed in other words, emotions have come to be seen as purely irrational and private phenomena, worthy of little or no role in political and public deliberation. However, this stereotypical view has come under increasing challenge.17 Many scholars now point out that emotions are absolutely central to understanding the causes and nature of conflict.18 But such engagements with emotions, convincing as they are, have not yet uprooted the deeply entrenched Western assumptions about the primacy of reason in public life. As a result of this long tradition of separating reason and emotion, Western approaches to security and conflict resolution have not been able to develop sophisticated analyses of the crucial roles that emotions play in conflict. By and large, emotions are seen as either a hindrance to rational decision making or, at best, a form of negotiation strategy that supplements reasoned arguing. Con- sider a media release by the Australian Law Reform Commission, which aims at generating public debate on the effectiveness and need for sedition laws in the fight against global terrorism. Its main objective is to come up with useful—that is, rational—policy advice by taking “some of the emotion out of the debate”.19 Or look at how emotions have come to be seen in prevailing approaches to mediation. One of the most prominent textbooks on negotiations, coauthored by Roger Fisher and William Ury, urges people to recognise and deal with emotions. But the authors see emotions mostly as an obstacle or undesirable complication. “Emotions typically become entangled with the objective merits of the problem”, Fisher and Ury stress.20 The authors thus believe that people can successfully engage the real problems only once they have removed the “burden of unexpressed emotions”.21 In a more recent coauthored book, Fisher and Daniel Shapiro provide a much more detailed and nuanced understanding of emotions. But the basic assumption remains that emotions are a hindrance to rational negotiation and decision making. “Rather than getting caught up in every emotion you and others are feeling”, Fisher and Shapiro advise, “turn your attention to what generates these emotions”.22 This approach bears striking similarities to a well-established pattern of Western theorising on the role of psychology in foreign policy. Scholars who are part of this tradition have sought to understand the complex relation- 254 mediating across difference ship between emotion and reason in the process of decision making. But here, too, emotions have not been appreciated fully, because they are mostly seen as “deviations from rationality”, as factors that could explain misperceptions and errors in judgment.23 The Korean cultural tradition offers a viable alternative to this stark separation of reason and emotion. The most basic but also one of the most crucial points is that the Korean language has an unusually rich vocabulary and a sophisticated intellectual tradition of conceptualising the nature of emotions and the manner in which they function in conflict scenarios. Cheon I-tu presents Han as containing broadly two sides: a dark side that involves ‘outward offensiveness’ and ‘inward retrogression’, and a bright side that generates compassion as well as desire.24 Choi Sang-jin further refines this conceptualisation. The first aspect of Han, he stresses, is the original and direct emotional reaction to the cause of grievance: anger, hostility, and feelings for revenge. These are the emotions termed ‘outward offensiveness’. The second step involves a stage of interpretation and translation of these initial aspects of Han. As one tries to understand and internalise the situation associated with the grievance, anger eventually turns into a more sorrowful feeling. Revenge is said to evolve into a tendency of self-hatred. Here scholars speak of ‘inward retrogression’. The third step is the stage of self-reconsideration. This stage involves intense emotional fluctuations. On the one hand, there is still a range of negative feelings towards the sources of grievance and its perpetuator(s). On the other hand, there are also stabilising forces, emotions that are generated by various ways of externalising Han. This process can take several forms, such as private or public methods of artistic self-expression. The last step is said to be the process of objectifying Han itself. The individual reaches a separation between herself or himself and Han: the reality of Han is now outside of one’s mind. The emotional feeling of this state is calmness and remoteness.25

Immanent and Transcendent Approaches to Conflict Resolution The Korean tradition offers more than a complex and highly useful vocabulary and conceptual framework to understand the linkages between emotions and conflict. Just as important is its ability to generate a fundamentally different approach to mediation. Western approaches to conflict resolution are embedded in dualistic forms of thinking. The general tendency is to rely on thought patterns that juxtapose antagonistic, bipolar opposites, such as reason/emotion, good/evil, or order/chaos. One side of the pairing is considered to be analytically and conceptually separate from the other one. The relationship between these opposites generally expresses the superiority, dominance, or normative desirability of one entity, such as reason or order, over the other, such as emotion or chaos. Korean Sources of Conflict Resolution 255

David Hall and Roger Ames argue that such dualist conceptualising leads to ‘transcendent philosophies’.26 According to these doctrines, unconditioned elements determine the fundamental meaning and order of the world. In the context of mediation, such dualistic and transcendent approaches seek to establish a set of rational and universally applicable procedures that can then be used to solve conflict in any cultural context. The most prominent example of such an approach is the so-called ‘principled’ or ‘interest-based’ negotiation approach, pioneered more than two decades ago by Roger Fisher and William Ury at the Harvard Negotiation Project. This approach has had a tremendous influence on negotiation and mediation practices worldwide. “Every negotiation is different”, Fisher and Ury admit, but they immediately add that “the basic elements do not change”.27 They stress that their approach can be used by anyone in any possible circumstance, ranging from US diplomats dealing with foreign policy crisis to Wall Street lawyers facing antitrust cases and couples figuring out the details of a divorce settlement.28 Fisher and Ury’s approach consists of four clearly defined negotiation principles: separating people from the problems they face; focusing on interests rather than positions; generating various options that could be of mutual gain; and insisting that the result of negotiations is based on an objective standard.29 The Korean tradition of conflict resolution differs from the Western search for rational and universally applicable mediation principles. The former is embedded in larger East Asian civilisation patterns that reach as far back as ancient Chinese philosophy. The prevailing cultural trait here offers a clear alternative to rationalistic and dualistic conceptualising, and one that is well attuned to the challenge of separating reason from emotion. It has been common in the West to argue, as Max Weber did, that the power of Logos, of defining, and of reasoning was unknown to Chinese philosophers, that they were preoccupied with narratives while being ignorant of the ‘empirical-etiological’ and ‘rational-formalist’ approaches that were essential to Hellenic, Occidental, Middle Eastern, and Indian philosophies.30 More recently researchers have claimed, however, that rational discourses were much more prevalent in ancient China than previously assumed, but that the most influential schools of rational discourse knowingly opposed, or at least rejected, an unlimited faith in it.31 The assumption here is that making decisions between goals or options often requires a spontaneous and intuitional process, rather than a purely rational one. Before making an apparently conscious decision, subconscious and instinctive factors have already shaped and delineated the parameters of the decision-making process, no matter how rational the latter may be. From such a vantage point it makes little sense to separate reason and emotion in a severe manner. Since reason, or any other concept for that manner, can 256 mediating across difference prevail only by virtue of its opposite—in this case, emotion—the two form an inseparable and interdependent unit in which one element is necessary for the articulation and existence of the other. Hall and Ames claim that operating along these forms of conceptual polarity leads to ‘immanent philosophies’.32 This is to say that events and actors are always interdependent, that there is no transcendent source that determines actions. The Korean cultural tradition is strongly shaped by the civilisational values of immanent philosophies. One of the main maxims of Korean Buddhism, for instance, revolves around a refusal to resort to principles or theories. Such an approach, the argument goes, “is not the result of awakening but of mere intellectual speculation” and “is just a disease of the mind”.33 Traditional Korean approaches to conflict resolution thus diverge substantially from Western ones in two regards. First, from a Korean perspective there is little or no value in establishing the type of rational and universal procedures that characterise Western theories of mediation. Solving conflict is not about finding, refining, and then universalising the right kind of conflict resolution mechanism but about dealing with the unique issues that characterise a conflict—issues that inevitably entail material as well as emotional dimensions. The key, then, is to recognise that emotions are not just a strategic tool in negotiating tactics, as presented in Western approaches, but part of the actual substance of conflict and mediation. This is why the concept of Han is important: it redirects attention away from procedures to the emotional dimensions of conflict, to the feelings of anger, sorrow, and suffering, to the forms of wounding that cause pain. Second, Korean conflict resolution practices recognise the need to engage emotions themselves, rather than merely the issues that cause emotional grievances. The need to engage only the issues is one of the major assumptions of Western approaches to conflict resolution, as already illustrated through Fisher’s prominent interest-based understanding of mediation. The Korean tradition rests on a fundamentally different assumption. It does not necessarily deny that there is a causal—or at least a correlational—link between grievances and emotions. Most commentators do, indeed, understand Han as a type of emotional suffering that is triggered by conditions of injustice, such as gendered forms of oppression and exploitation. Park, for example, stresses that “Han rises because of injustices caused by evil forces or by yearnings resulting from frustrated or failed life”.34 But contrary to Western approaches, the Korean tradition does not believe that conflict resolution is possible merely by removing the cause of the grievances. Emotional wounds live on long after they arise: they take on a life of their own—a life that needs to be analysed carefully if we are to reach a complete understanding of conflict and the possibilities to resolve them. Emotions associated with Han, such as outrage, sorrow, or regret, operate at the deep, subcon- Korean Sources of Conflict Resolution 257 scious level and have accumulated over long periods of time. Korean scholars certainly recognise that the causes of suffering need to be addressed, that “the knots of Han should also be untied in the outside world”. But at the same time, they stress that doing so cannot by itself achieve ‘Han-letting’, that is, a process that restores a state of reconciliation and harmony. Emotions need to be addressed as manifestations and sources of conflict themselves. They also need to be validated as important aspects of conflict resolution processes, rather than mere hindrances to rational mediation and decision making. “Han should be let to solve by itself within”, says Park.35 We now seek to gain a better understanding of this process, focusing on what we see as the second key feature of Korean approaches to conflict resolution: their emphasis on promoting societal interests over solving clashes between individuals.

Between Individual Rights and Collective Interests: Searching for Critical Insights without Orientalist Prejudices Numerous scholars stress that Han is a collective emotion unique to Korea, a type of “ethnic emotion”.36 But, of course, all societies experience grievances as a result of injustices. This is a normal aspect of conflict. What renders Han different from other forms of grievances is the particular manner in which emotions are conceptualised and addressed in the context of conflict resolution. This distinguishing feature of Korean approaches to grievances is located in the relationship between individuals and the society at large. According to Oh Young-hee, the traditionally validated solution to Han is not to confront the system of exclusion and domination directly but to transform it in indirect ways.37 Choi Sang-jin puts it even more directly. Because the cause of Han often cannot be removed, the conflict should be resolved indirectly by removing it from one’s mind or psychological attitude.38 Park Jae Soon, likewise, emphasises that the Korean approach is based on “the premise of integrating and harmonizing the subject and object”, which involves processes of assimilation and, to some extent, submission.39 He believes that “the Korean people maintain their will of life for peace and reconciliation while willingly carrying and nursing angers within them instead of exploding or avenging in violence”.40 Expressed in a simple—and somewhat Western—manner: conflict is solved not by removing its sources but by reintegrating grieving individuals into the overall social order. It is obvious that such an approach opens itself up to immediate critique. One could point out that corresponding practices of conflict resolution do not actually solve conflict but only sustain and perhaps even further entrench existing systems of domination. Can an individual who suffers, such as a woman who is oppressed by a gender-specific system of exclusion, 258 mediating across difference overcome Han by removing her feelings of sorrow and then submitting herself to the very unjust patriarchal order that caused Han in the first place? The existence of a hierarchical and patriarchal order is, of course, a much discussed feature not only of the Korean cultural tradition but of East Asian traditions in general. The philosophy that provides the rationale for such orders is Confucianism, a doctrine that assumes the existence of a preordained natural order. Central to Confucianism are the five cardinal relationships that characterise all human interactions in a very ordered and hierarchical way: sovereign- subject, father-son, old-young, husband-wife, and friend-friend.41 Western commentators have long stressed how this traditional view of society and morality plays a central political role. Noteworthy here are Montesquieu’s comments in

Cross-Cultural Negotiations between Coauthors This chapter is the result of a cross-cultural negotiation between two authors with very different cultural backgrounds. It is an ongoing conversation, involving inevitable tensions and compromises, between a Korean scholar and a Western one. Young-ju grew up and was educated in Pusan, South Korea. But he lived for several years in the United Kingdom, where he obtained his PhD from the University of Hull. Roland, by contrast, grew up in Switzerland but lived in Korea on several occasions, first during the 1980s as a Swiss diplomat stationed in the Korean Demilitarized Zone and then, in the late 1990s, as a visiting professor at Pusan National University. Each of us thus has a long history of engaging the culture and language of the other. But each is also rooted in his own cultural and intellectual traditions, being shaped by them in a manner that makes it impossible to completely step outside the values of his respective culture. We have clashed over the interpretation of numerous aspects of the nature and function of Han, most notably how they relate to recognising and transforming systems of domination. Roland, for instance, fears that some of the Confucian principles associated with Han risk entrenching systems of domination, in particular those related to gender and age. He is suspicious of attempts to neutralise conflict that place the responsibility on individuals to overcome their grief and reintegrate into the existing order for the sake of societal harmony. Young-ju, in contrast, believes that Roland’s fears are an expression of an inherently Western understanding of the relationship between individuals and collectives. But by listening to and engaging each other in a manner that is as respectful and empathetic as possible, we have tried to find a way of presenting a text that allows us to defend a common position yet still has enough room for diverging interpretations. This very process of negotiating between authors demonstrates how mediating across difference is not straightforward: it requires opening oneself up to other ways of seeing the world, and it entails making compromises along the way. In doing so, we hope to have produced a text that illuminates the key aspects of Korean approaches to conflict resolution without losing the critical distance necessary to evaluate them properly. Korean Sources of Conflict Resolution 259

The Spirit of Laws, which presents the prototype of the notion of ‘oriental despotism’. Extending this line of inquiry, Karl Wittfogel later used the concept of ‘hydraulic societies’ to explain centralisation in China, and Gregory Henderson did the same for Korea through his concept of the ‘vortex’.42 There are many contemporary extensions of this approach. Lucian Pye’s analysis is among the most prominent. He stresses that a range of different cultural traditions in Asia place great emphasis on maintaining order and hierarchy.43 Such approaches are distinct from contemporary Western values, among which individual rights and autonomy are paramount. The prevailing cultural belief in Asia, Pye believes, is that “acceptance of authority is not inherently bad but rather is an acceptable key to finding personal security”.44 Such a fundamental orientation towards the collective societal group, rather than towards the rights of the individual, shapes all political interactions. It elevates matters of loyalty and commitment to a primary place in the moral order and often leads, as Pye stresses, to what Western observers would see as paternalistic and authoritarian forms of government.45 While critiques of ‘oriental despotism’ may sometimes be appropriate, they may also be influenced by what Edward Said termed ‘Orientalism’:46 a style of thought in the West—and a corresponding mode of governance—that is based, through geographical, political, and cultural understandings, on a series of stereotypical assumptions about the values and behaviours of people who inhabit far-off and ‘exotic’ places. The challenge of working cross-culturally is not easy: to appreciate a cultural tradition on its own terms while still retaining enough distance to critically evaluate the issues at stake is difficult. But once we suspend Western assumptions for a moment and explore the Korean tradition on its own terms, it becomes clear that the latter revolves around a fundamentally different understanding of conflict and its resolution. The fundamental challenge is not to address individual grievances or to mediate a clash between individuals, as in Western approaches to mediation. The central task is to re-establish and retain social order and harmony—that is, to promote the good of all. In contrast, the Western approach assumes that the collective good is best promoted not by assimilating and integrating individuals but by safeguarding their rights and autonomy. Even today some Korean scholars still believe strongly that such Western practices of promoting individual desires and rights not only clash with other, more collective rights but also fail to provide the necessary preconditions to solve conflicts and establish communal harmony. Park Jae Soon, for instance, recognises that the oppressed have a right to break out of their situation and seek self-fulfilment, but he also stresses that this move alone “would never enable them to open the way for mutual and common living beyond conflict and confrontation”.47 260 mediating across difference

Disrupting Cycles of Violence: Han, Sakim, and the Path from Revenge to Compassion One of the most interesting—and potentially very valuable—aspects of the Korean approach to conflict resolution is its unique search for ways out of cycles of violence. Numerous Korean scholars stress that the essence of this approach, and a central aspect of Han, is the refusal to translate feelings of sorrow and anger into practices of revenge. Cheon I-tu stresses that Han, although entailing deeply rooted anger, does not entail resentment towards those who caused harm and grief.48 Some speak explicitly of an ‘absence of vindictiveness’.49 The concept and practice of Han can thus be seen as a cultural attempt to establish a genuine sense of common humanity, including empathy and compassion for those who have caused Han. Korean scholars point out that in Western and Japanese cultures revenge is often seen as an inevitable process of resolving one’s sorrow or hurt. The result is a cycle of violence that renders a conflict, and the negative emotions it generates, more and more volatile.50 The task of breaking out of cycles of violence and conflict is, of course, also a central issue in Western approaches to reconciliation. Andrew Schaap, for instance, comments that the ensuing processes require transforming “a relation of enmity into one of friendship”. To do this successfully, he believes, the parties involved must leave their grudges behind and develop a basic level of respect for each other. Reconciliation thus becomes a process that moves away from revenge and from “settling accounts” towards an attempt to break free from cycles of violence.51 Han captures a culturally specific way of disrupting such cycles of violence. Although Han inevitably entails anger, it is very different from holding a grudge. The former feeling is self-critical, whereas the latter focuses on blaming others. “Grudge is felt mainly against others or something outside oneself, while Han is a sensation toward oneself, accumulated within”, emphasises Moon Soon-tae.52 The Korean concept of Sakim is of central importance to understanding this difference between outward-oriented anger, which generates antagonism and conflict, and inward-oriented self-reflection, which opens up possibilities for personal and sociopolitical transformation. Sakim refers to a process of di- gestion or fermentation, a process that works only slowly but nevertheless leads to transformation. Scholars believe that the concept of Sakim makes the collective emotion of Han unique to the Korean cultural tradition. They recognise a lot of similarities between East Asian civilisations and that Han plays a comparable role in China, Japan, and Korea. But the Korean practice is fundamentally different, Cheon I-tu believes, because of the central role of its particular feature of Sakim.53 Processes of fermentation captured by the term ‘Sakim’ operate on at least Korean Sources of Conflict Resolution 261 three interrelated cultural levels. First is a long culinary tradition, which is a significant element of cultural self-awareness. The most basic—and highly symbolic—Korean dish, served at every meal, is kimchi, a type of fermented cabbage. The taste of kimchi depends entirely on the process of Sakim. The second use of ‘Sakim’ is in reference to Korea’s aesthetic traditions, including practices of singing and reciting poetry. Here ‘Sakim’ applies to the long and ongoing process required to achieve an aesthetic performance or product that is of high quality. The third aspect of ‘Sakim’ is related to the emotions involved in recognising and transforming feelings of Han.54 In this case Sakim consists of fermenting anger and hatred in a way that turns those negative emotions into positive ones. Sakim thus becomes a type of mediation process. Through psychological fermentation Han turns into Won (desires and wishes), which then actively assist in overcoming Han. Han and Won are no longer separate but become part of an immanent and nondualistic way of viewing conflict and its resolution. Based on this perception, the earlier-mentioned dark and gloomy feelings associated with ‘outward offensiveness’ and ‘inward retrogression’ gradually transform into compassion and empathy.55 Han, in this sense, is the “paradoxical oneness of brightness and darkness”.56 This nondualistic understanding of emotions and conflict explicitly opens up psychological and political spaces to promote forgiveness and reconciliation as processes to break cycles of violence.57

Undoing Han: The Role of Forgiveness and Reconciliation We have argued so far that Korea’s approach to conflict and mediation is strongly shaped by a preoccupation with emotions and an emphasis placed on societal harmony. Given this dual focus, the Korean tradition pays much attention to promoting forgiveness and developing compassion for the life and suffering of others.58 Strategies for dissolving Han are symbolised in an ancient ritual surrounding the use of ‘Gut’—a traditional Korean process of exorcism and necromantic practice, a form of spiritual communication with the dead. This process can be accompanied by a variety of artistic performances, such as reciting the texts of traditional Korean poets, including Sancho, Pansori, and Minyo. The result, Oh Young-hee believes, is a liberation process that ‘solves’ Han through a spiritual revelation.59 To be more precise, the process of Oku Gut involves four distinct stages of solving Han, the first of which is dominated by anger. The ghost, who is tormented by feelings of Han, meets the living and demonstrates its anger, wrath, and rage. The second step involves the living actively seeking to understand what type of Han the ghost suffers from. In turn, the living apologise for the aspects of Han they caused, expressing sincere remorse. In front of the 262 mediating across difference ghost, they beg for forgiveness. In the third step the ghost comes to understand the origins of his or her Han and extends forgiveness. The forgiveness stage is not a monological process but includes the possibility of recognising that the ghost itself commits mistakes and needs forgiveness. In other words, the ghost puts itself into the place of the living to reach a full circle of forgiveness. The process culminates in a final reconciliation between the ghost and the living. In the end everyone dances together to celebrate the process of Hanpuri, the solving of Han.60 Of course, in political reality conflicts are rarely solved as smoothly as in the Oku Gut ritual just described. But the practice of Oku Gut nevertheless contains insight that is of direct political relevance. It highlights that the process of Hanpuri—of letting go of anger and feelings for revenge—contains two main components: forgiveness and reconciliation. An important part here is that the action of forgiveness is extended to the oppressor in the interest of transforming conflict scenarios and reaching a situation in which all parties can be better off than before. To get to this stage, feelings of grudge and revenge must be fundamentally altered. Han must be transformed from negative to positive emotions, from passive to active engagements, and from destructive to recon- structive political projects. Numerous Korean scholars have sought to conceptualise how this process can disrupt cycles of violence and lead to a spiritual and social revolution—a type of process that involves forgiveness and reconciliation but still manages to transform, rather than merely accept, existing systems of domination.61 Essential here is that assimilation is not just a process of giving up individual autonomy and submitting to the existing order, the one that caused Han in the first place. Rather, the application of Sakim and the promotion of forgiveness and reconciliation end up in an ongoing process aimed at improving the situation for all parties concerned. This process may not be as spectacular as Western revolutionary movements, which place emphasis on heroic acts of defiance and on overcoming institutional forms of domination. But often domination is deep-seated, involving moral and societal values that cannot easily be overthrown. The more subtle kind of transformation, carved out by the Korean approach to conflict resolution, offers a viable way of engaging these forms of domination.

The Story of Chunhyang: An Illustration of Han and Sakim in the Korean Popular Imaginary A brief chapter does not allow us the space to elaborate in detail on the nature of Han and the manner in which Sakim transforms conflicts. But we would like to offer a succinct illustration of these traditional elements through a promi- Korean Sources of Conflict Resolution 263 nent Korean folktale: the story of Chunhyang. The story began as a Pansori, a narrative epic performed as a type of folk opera. The story is told in a narrative form by a solo singer who is accompanied by a round drum known as the Puk. But the story of Chunhyang has been retold countless times in other forms as well, including dramas, operas, and cartoons. It is featured in several secondary school textbooks, and there are at least a dozen film versions.62 The tale of Chunhyang is said to capture Korea’s national identity and imaginary. When the Korean culture is introduced abroad, this story is often presented as a typical representation of Korea’s traditions. The tale is set in eighteenth-century Korea, during the Choson dynasty. Chunhyang is the daughter of a retired entertainer, a so-called kisaeng. One day she meets Mongryong, the son of a yangban, an aristocratic magistrate in the city of Namwon. They immediately fall in love and against all social conventions decide to get married. They have to do so secretly, for it is inconceivable for the daughter of a low-class kisaeng to marry the son of a noble yangban. The happiness of the young couple is soon shattered when Mongryong’s father is summoned to Seoul. Mongryong has no choice but to follow his family, leaving Chunhyang behind in Namwon. The newly appointed magistrate in Namwon, Byeon Hakdo, soon becomes attracted to Chunhyang. He asks her to be his concubine, refusing to recognise the legality of her marriage. But Chunhyang resists and, as a result, is tortured and imprisoned. On the day of his birthday celebration, the magistrate orders that Chun- hyang be executed unless she yields to his demand. In the meantime, Mong ryong has passed the highest civil examination in Seoul and is appointed an am- haengeosa, a royal inspector. In this function he returns to Namwon. Disguised as a beggar and wearing tattered clothes, he is supposed to secretly assess the quality of the local administration. From farmers to yangban, the population expressed widespread discontent, including anger about the treatment of the well- respected Chunhyang. In response, Mongryong releases Byeon Hakdo from his position as a magistrate of Namwon. He rescues Chunhyang from prison and takes her back to Seoul, where the king is so impressed with her loyal behaviour that he elevates her to the status of a yangban. Thus Mongryong and Chunhyang can now legally marry. The concept of Han features prominently in this folktale. Chunhyang can be said to possess Han in three ways. First, she suffered as a woman in the Choson period, when Confucianism was the dominant ideology and patriarchal gender relations were very prevalent. Second, she was disadvantaged as the daughter of a retired kisaeng, a woman entertainer. She thus belonged to a lower class, which made it impossible for her to legally marry Mongryong, who belonged to the upper, yangban class. Third, Chunhyang also suffered Han in 264 mediating across difference a more specific and direct way—by being pressured to become a magistrate’s concubine and by being punished for refusing to take on this role. To understand the significance of the story of Chunhyang, it is necessary to highlight its origin as a Pansori, a folk genre performed by and for ordinary people. This is why the themes and presentations of Pansori reflect the concerns of ordinary Koreans. This particular story expresses the Han that accumulated as a result of long-standing injustices linked to gender and class discriminations of the Confucian Choson dynasty.63 But opposition to the existing class system is not the only part of the story of Chunhyang. There is also a transformative element in it, reflecting the multiple elements of Han as outlined above. Conflict is solved not through revolution but by reintegrating and harmonising the role of the individuals within the existing system. Chunhyang overcomes the grief associated with her gender and class status not by revolting against the system that upholds injustice but by being patient and forgiving: in the end she is upgraded from a lower-class daughter of a kisaeng to a yangban. She neither turned towards ‘outward offensiveness’ nor towards ‘inward retrogression’; instead, she transformed herself and her environment. Critics would undoubtedly point out that such a story only helps justify the oppressive patriarchal and class-based societal order. Chunhyang had no agency. She did not achieve liberation out of her own will; she had to be rescued by a man and on the terms of the system of domination. At the same time it is noteworthy to observe that Chunhyang transformed her originally negative feelings associated with Han—most notably anger and resentment—into a positive energy that permitted her to prevail in the end. There is clear agency in this process as well—and it played a role in resolving the conflict. Three points stand out. First, there is Chunhyang’s active decision to marry Mongryong, which was in clear defiance of legal rules and societal norms. Second is Chunhyang’s emotional reaction to being tortured and cast into prison by the magistrate Byeon Hakdo. She not only refused to submit to his wishes but also stayed loyal to her sacred husband. She kept loving him even after he left for Seoul and even after he reappeared dressed as a beggar, which suggested that he had apparently failed in his career. Chunhyang’s emotional resilience under the duress of imprisonment is said to be closely related to the Sakim of Han. Forgiving her husband for seemingly abandoning her was an essential element in Chunhyang’s ability to stay positive; it was a fermentation process that transformed the hardship of deprivation and imprisonment so that dreams for a better future became possible again. The third element of Han is linked to what happened after Chunhyang’s rescue from prison and her rehabilitation as a yangban in Seoul. Rather than seeking maximum punishment for the magistrate who had punished her and wanted her executed, Chunhyang Korean Sources of Conflict Resolution 265 opted against revenge and for forgiveness and reconciliation. It must be said, though, that the various versions of the story of Chunhyang differ on the level of forgiveness Chunhyang is ready to extend.64 The underlying theme of the story, reinforced by its aesthetic performance as Pansori, is that conflict can be resolved not by violent uprisings or by freeing individuals from societal constraints but through patience, compassion, and desire, which eventually reintegrate grieving individuals into a harmonious social order.

Conclusion The main task of this chapter has been to consider traditional Korean understandings of conflict and mediation. To do so we have focused on the concept of Han: an expression of sorrow and anger resulting from accumulated grievances due to injustices. By examining how the Korean tradition deals with the ensuing issues, we have noted two prominent features—both diverging substantially from how Western approaches tend to conceptualise conflict and its resolution. First, we noted that the Korean tradition possesses an unusually rich vocabulary and conceptual framework for understanding how emotions are linked to conflict. This stands in sharp contrast to Western approaches, which revolve around rational processes. Rather than establishing and refining a set of universally applicable procedures, as Western approaches to mediation tend to do, the Korean tradition focuses on the unique emotional grievances that make up each particular conflict scenario. Emotions themselves are seen as important aspects of conflict, rather than as a mere manifestation of deeper problems. As a result, removing the causes of injustice is not enough to solve conflict because the emotional grievances are often so entrenched that they take on a life—and logic—of their own. Second, dealing with these emotional residues of conflict, the Korean tradition places emphasis not on solving individual grievances or clashes between individuals, as Western mediation practices do, but on restoring and maintaining social order. Such a cultural tradition inevitably runs the risk of solving conflict simply by forcing individuals to accept their grievances in the interest of overall societal harmony, no matter how oppressive and unjust this ‘harmonious’ order may be. While we recognise the problems entailed in such processes of assimilation, we also sought to evaluate the Korean tradition on its own terms—thus avoiding premature Western judgments and allowing us to locate unique potentials of conflict transformation. The Korean tradition does, indeed, offer a particular way of breaking cycles of violence. It conceptualises a process of turning the originally negative emotions of Han—sorrow and anger—into forces of healing, such as empathy and 266 mediating across difference compassion. Key here is that anger is not directed outwards, which would generate grudges and practices of revenge and yet more antagonism and conflict. Han, by contrast, is an inward-oriented emotion that is then transformed into the spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation. In an ideal scenario, such a process does not end up in a situation where the grieving individual simply accepts her or his fate and submits to the overall societal order. Much more preferably, the idea is that both victim and perpetuator of Han can break out of cycles of conflict and domination, thus improving the situation for all parties concerned. Such a path towards social justice and harmony is undoubtedly littered with obstacles, some of them being virtually impossible to overcome. The Korean tradition does not pretend there are easy solutions, but it does offer a sophisticated way of dealing with the related challenges. This is why the concept of Han can add to our understanding of conflicts and our efforts to manage them.

Notes Thanks to Emma Hutchison for her critical comments, particularly on the emotional dimensions of conflict. 1. Heather A. Willoughby, “Retake: A Decade of Learning from the Movie Sop’yonje,” in Music and Culture 8 (2003): 120. 2. Park Jae Soon, “Han and Shinmyong: The Suffering Soul and Liberating Life of the Oppressed People,” Korean Journal of Systematic Theology 3 (1999): 195. 3. Ibid., p. 206. 4. Ibid., p. 198. 5. Ko Mi-sook, HanKuk ui Keuntaesung, G-Kiwonul chajaso-Monjok, Sexual- ity, Byungrihak [The Origin of Korean’s Modernity: Nation, Sexuality, and Pathology] (Seoul: Chaesesang, 2001), pp. 61–62. 6. Ibid., p. 61. 7. Baek Moon-im, “Melodrama wa Hanui Mihak” [Melodrama and the Aesthetics of Han], Minjokmunhaksa Yeonku 299 (2005): 243. 8. Ibid., p. 268. For a concise overview of recent Korean history, see Bruce Cum- ings, Korea’s Place in the Sun: A Modern History (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997). 9. Baek, “Melodrama wa Hanui Mihak,” pp. 255–266. 10. Kim Youngmin, “Hankuk Buyoe natanan Yoseongtul ui Cheonghan” [Wom- en’s Sorrow in Korean Songs], Hankuk Yonyeo Munhak 55 (2005): 205–222. 11. Kim Jin, “Han ui Heemangcholhakcheok Haeseok” [The Philosophic Inter- pretation of Han], Cholhak (Philosophy) 78 (2004): 319. See also Park, “Han and Shin- myong,” p. 217. 12. Park, “Han and Shinmyong,” pp. 197, 200–202. 13. Lim Ji-Ryong, “Aspects of the Metaphorical Conceptualisation of Basic Emo- tions in Korean,” Studies in Modern Grammar 32 (2003): 141–167. Korean Sources of Conflict Resolution 267

14. Park, “Han and Shinmyong,” p. 211. 15. See Jon Elster, Alchemies of the Mind: Rationality and the Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). 16. See, for instance, Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, Dialektik der Aufl kärung (1944; reprint, Frankfurt: Fisher Taschenbuch, 1991); and Martin Heidegger, “Die Frage nach der Technik,” in Vorträge und Aufsätze (Pfullingen: Günter Neske, 1954). 17. Three prominent examples are Sara Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2003); Martha C. Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); and Robert C. Solomon, Not Passion’s Slave: Emotions and Choice (Oxford: Oxford Uni- versity, 2003). 18. Neta C. Crawford, “The Passion of World Politics: Propositions on Emotions and Emotional Relationships,” International Security 24, no. 4 (Spring 2000): 116–156 at 116–136; Jonathan Mercer, “Rationality and Psychology in International Politics,” International Organization 59 (Winter 2005): 77–106; Andrew A. G. Ross, “Coming in from the Cold: Constructivism and Emotions,” European Journal of International Rela- tions 12, no. 2 (2006): 197–222; Richard Ned Lebow, “Reason, Emotion and Coopera- tion,” International Politics 42 (2005): 283–313 at 283. 19. Australian Government, Law Reform Commission, “Media Release: Are Sedi- tion Laws Necessary and Effective?” March 20, 2006, http://www.alrc.gov.au. 20. Roger Fisher and William Ury, Getting to Yes: Negotiating an Agreement without Giving In (London: Random House, 1999), p. 11. 21. Ibid., p. 31. 22. Roger Fisher and Daniel Shapiro, Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Nego- tiate (New York: Penguin, 2005), p. 15. 23. Mercer, “Rationality and Psychology,” p. 97. For examples of this tradition of scholarship, see Robert Jervis, Richard Ned Lebow, and Janice Gross Stein, Psychology and Deterrence (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985); Robert Jervis, Per- ception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976); Richard Ned Lebow and Janice Gross Stein, “Rational Deterrence The- ory: I Think, Therefore I Deter,” World Politics 41 (January 1989): 208–224; Richard Cottam, Foreign Policy Motivation (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1977); and Robert Deborah Larson, The Origins of Containment: A Psychological Explanation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985). 24. Cheon I-tu, “Hanui kujoe taehayeo [The Structure of Han],” Hyuntaemunhaki- ron Yonku (Modern Korean Literature Theory) 3 (1993): 2–4. 25. Choi Sang-jin, “Hankukinui Simcheong Simrihak: Cheongkwa Hane taehan Hyunsanghakcheok Yihae [Koreans’ Emotional Psychology]” (paper presented at the annual conference of the Korean Psychology Association, 1993), pp. 17–18. 268 mediating across difference

26. D. L. Hall and R. T. Ames, Thinking through Confucius (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987), pp. 18–19. 27. Fisher and Ury, Getting to Yes, p. xv. 28. Ibid. 29. Ibid., p. 11. 30. M. Weber, Die Wirtschaftsethik der Weltreligionen: Konfuzianismus und Taois- mus; Schriften 1915–1920, vol. 19 of Gesammelte Schriften, edited by H. Schmidt-Glintzer (Tübingen, Germany: J. C. B. Mohr, 1989), pp. 309–313. 31. A. C. Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics and Science (Hong Kong: Chinese Univer- sity Press, 1978); A. C. Graham, Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1989), pp. 7–8, 75–94, 137–212; J. Needham, Science and Civilization in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954). 32. Hall and Ames, Thinking through Confucius, pp. 17–25. See also Lisa Raphals, Knowing Words: Wisdom and Cunning in the Classical Traditions of China and Greece (Itha- ca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992). 33. Kusan Sunim, The Way of Korean Zen, translated by Martine Fages (New York: Weatherhill, 1985), p. 70. 34. Park, “Han and Shinmyong,” p. 216. 35. Ibid. 36. Ibid., pp. 201, 197. 37. Oh Young-hee, “Yongseryul tonghan Hanui Chiyu: Simlihakcheok Chepkun” [The Use of Forgiveness in the Treatment of Han: A Psychological Approach], Hankuk Simli Hakhoechi [Korean Journal of Psychology] 7, no. 1 (1995): pp. 73–74. 38. Choi, “Hankukinui Simcheong Simrihak,” p. 19. 39. Park, “Han and Shinmyong,” pp. 207–208. 40. Ibid., p. 214. 41. B. I. Schwartz, The World of Thought in Ancient China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), pp. 63, 413; R. Moritz, Die Philosophie im alten China (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1990), p. 49. 42. Karl A. Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1957); Gregory Henderson, Korea: The Politics of the Vortex (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968). 43. Lucian W. Pye, Asian Power and Politics: The Cultural Dimension of Authority (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985). 44. Ibid., pp. viii, x. 45. Ibid., p. 27. 46. Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1970), pp. 2–3. 47. Park, “Han and Shinmyong,” pp. 204, 22o. 48. Cheon I-tu, “Hanui kujoe taehayeo,” p. 4. 49. Park, “Han and Shinmyong,” p. 204. Korean Sources of Conflict Resolution 269

50. Cheon I-tu, “Hanui kujoe taehayeo,” p. 5. 51. Andrew Schaap, “Agonism in Divided Societies,” Philosophy and Social Criti- cism 32, no.2 (2006): 255–277. See also his Political Reconciliation (London: Routledge, 2005). 52. Moon Soon-tae, “What Is Han?” in Suh Kwang-Sun (ed.), Stories of Han (Chungnoru and Bro, Tan’gi 4321) as cited in Park, “Han and Shinmyong,” p. 201. 53. Cheon I-tu, “Hanui kujoe taehayeo,” p. 5. 54. Ibid., p. 6. 55. Ibid., p. 8. 56. Park, “Han and Shinmyong,” p. 214. 57. Cheon I-tu, “Hanui kujoe taehayeo,” p. 10. 58. See Oh Young-hee, cited in Kim Yol-kyu, Han Kukin Mamumui Kunwonul cha- chaseo [The Pursuit of the Korean Mind] (Seoul: Mukhaksasangsa, 1987), p. 76. 59. Ibid. 60. Oh Young-hee, “Yongseryul tonghan Hanui Chiyu,” pp. 76–77. 61. See, for instance, Kim Jin, “Han ui Heemangcholhakcheok haeseok,” pp. 328–335. 62. Jeon Pyong-kuk, “Hankuk Younghwaui Chentong kwa Kuntaeseungui Ha wingtane taehan Tamsa: Younghwa (Chunghayng) eul Chungshimeuro” [A Study on the Intersection of Korean Film’s Tradition and Modernity Centering on a Film (Chunghayng)], Younghwayounku [Movie Studies] 22 (2003): 241. 63. See Willoughby, “Retake,” pp. 119–140. 64. Some versions of Chunhyang feature this plot, but others do not. See Kim Kwangwon, “Chunhaynjeonui Kaltoung Kuchowa Hanui Sownghwa” [The Conflict Structure of Chunhaynjeon and the Transcendence of Han], Hanku Eunyomunhak [Ko- rean Language and Literature] 35 (1995): p. 237. Conclusion Mediating the Mediation with Difference

Stephen Chan

There is a phenomenon that appears almost everywhere there is conflict. It began with sporadic and uncoordinated interventions by well-meaning people who found they could help influence, shape, and even suspend conflict, particularly in regions remote from the interests of the great powers. This movement of international mediators proved to be a curious hybrid of academic idealism and prescriptive procedures. The mediator was most often male and Western, and he took centre stage, controlling communication among conflicting parties to nudge them into compromises, settlements, and even resolution of their disputes—using techniques extrapolated from, among other sources, marriage guidance manuals. With the seeming success, initiated by academics, of the Mozambican peace process carried forward by the Sant’Egidio Catholic community in 1992 and the Oslo peace process between the Palestine Libera- tion Organisation and Israel in 1993, a veritable cottage industry of mediators burgeoned to its present status as a high-earning, high-profile, jet-setting, and seemingly indispensable part of a curious globalisation of idealistic and yet pro- fessionalised concern for relieving the misery of others. Take a recent example: the tumultuous aftermath of the rigged Kenyan elections at the end of 2007. Tourists fled Nairobi, but all the hotels were full, as the world’s mediators, official and unofficial, invited and ‘chancing it’, swarmed into town. As with competing NGOs in the development industry, Kenyans have learnt to play one mediator against the other, so the circus of mediators was welcomed and advertised by both conflicting sides as evidence that they were seriously seeking to end violence, for, after all, were they not talking daily to one or another or two or three of the array of mediators? It took

270 Conclusion 271 the arrival of former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan to impose order on the melee. Very few of the mediators before Annan knew much about Kenya. They knew a lot about conflict mediation techniques. And they weren’t staying long. This version of mediation is a world of off-the-peg solutions, utilising standard procedures. It is an approach that pops up whenever and wherever there is conflict: not just in Kenya but also in Kosovo, in Sri Lanka, in East Timor, in the Solomon Islands, and in every political context this book has explored. It is a world of professional mediators that is curiously uninterested in the particulars—cultural, political, and historical—of conflicts. It is also curiously uninterested in issues such as justice. The aim is to fly in, settle conflict, and fly out. The absence of conflict is the value. Thicker normative values are desirable but incidental. These informal mediations were originally assumed to come into play in situations where official diplomacy is unable to disentangle the parties in conflict. But the informal mediators have meanwhile become as profes- sionalised as official diplomatic channels. Indeed, mediators are now even used by diplomats to ‘soften up’ the ‘clients’ before the officials get stuck in. The original glamour and bravado of it all—the hands-on mediators go in where the big players fear to tread—has been replaced by the more alluring glamour of flying around and mingling with the top echelon, bankrolling it all by recourse to foundations, corporations, and agencies. This is to paint a stylised, perhaps caricaturised picture. It is also, however, to make a real point about the type of ‘thicker normative values’ that must accompany any truly successful conflict resolution. This book is precisely about thicker normative values, both as end products and as elements of the process of engagement with conflict and its redirection or transformation into something else. This ‘something else’ is not simply an absence of conflict; it is a platform on which much else must be built, and it cannot be improvised into place—the platform must fit into the environment in which it sits. Having noted that this book is about the necessity of engaging normative values in conflict resolution, it is important to highlight what this book is not. It is not the singular corrective to existing practice. It is a guide to certain practices and to statements of normative aspiration. These are practices and systems of thought and behaviour—and expectation—drawn from the Pacific and East Asia. The book indicates that thick normative values are best appreciated and utilised through deep engagement in the communities, cultures, and conditions from which conflict has sprung. It is not a fly-by-night engagement. It is, in fact, a caveat against fly-in, fly-out conflict resolution practice. 272 mediating across difference

Among the most interesting depictions in this book are the case examples to do with nonverbal communication and, in some instances, silence. Even with linguistic communication, words may be translated correctly but patterns of speech and inflections not. Western privileging of verbal communication between conflicting individuals may ignore communal commitments and mis- understand gesture. Silence is embedded in and imbued with cultural value. When viewed from the outside, it may easily be mistaken as hesitation, laziness, or stubbornness. Western mediation, often with a condensed timeline, tends towards verbal directness when sensitivity demands slower, organic patterns of discussion: a step-by-step exchange of offer and concession, symbol and exchange, daring and deference. The insistence on linear verbal communication can even distort the organic settlement of grief that communities have suffered in violence. To restate the violence is to reinstate the moment of violence before it has been transformed into an acceptable, and bearable, communal as well as individual narrative. Some of these points are borne out in the Indigenous examples in this book. In these, the emphases on communality, the nonverbal force of Austral- ian Aboriginal Dreaming, and the balance that must be regained or retained between conflicting parties, not to mention the balance between the individuals involved and the larger societal balance, all stand out. These need not be left in an amorphous realm, although care must be taken to establish codes of behaviour within such relativities. Even so, the incorporation of Māori conflict resolution processes within the formal Waitangi Tribunal mechanisms is an example of what can be at least attempted with sensitivity. The book goes a long way not to relegate cultural practice to a ghetto of protracted and romanticised sensitivity. The Māori example is an indication of what may be achieved, as are the accounts of land rights hearings in Australia and efforts to combine Indig- enous as well as Western conflict resolution practices in Bougainville and the Solomon Islands. The case examples of Indonesian communities, with their emphases on the value of rites and rituals evolved among people in local contexts—not only as conflict solvers but also as healing instruments—are echoed in discussions of Confucian and Chinese values to do with harmony, balance, and almost ritu- alistic intersubjectivity. In these practices, respect for every subject’s place accords value to all disputants—not in an immutable hierarchy but as part of a natural order of desire and aspiration, which, in the first place, needs to be recognised and respected in all human beings as the very foundation of intersubjectivity. The Korean recognition of grief and sorrow—allowing acknowledgment of intersubjective emotion—takes conflict resolution beyond rationalistic and ‘logical’ Western anticipations and practices. The key here is the term ‘in- Conclusion 273 tersubjective’. It begins with the recognition and sharing of emotion. It leads to all subjects being re-established within a balance or harmony.

Some remarks about shared grief—or ‘lived sorrow’—provide a way to reflect upon both this book and my years of involvement with international conflict. To do so is also to acknowledge that the actual term ‘resolution’ is largely illusory. This is not to negate that short-term gains have been made and are possible, but to acknowledge that successful conflict ‘abatement’ might be the only honest term to use. Rather than begin with the assumptions that ‘peace’ is an ultimate value, that verbal communication is the key methodology, and that individual negotiators necessarily represent a community rather than a vested interest, my understanding has boiled down to recognising a pattern of conflict that is visible in a great many political and cultural settings: here was a conflict; the conflict was so serious that no abatement, settlement, or resolution was possible without external involvement; one of the major obstacles was the grief that conflict had caused on all sides; the grief involved loss of life, dignities, and communal, cultural, and political esteem; so long as this grief was unassuaged, conflicts continued amidst a ‘lived sorrow’ that was chronic and expressed both symboli- cally and emotionally. Such deep-seated conflicts are not amenable to short-term and schematic ‘solutions’. The array of external mediators seeking to impose rationality on such conflicts is often as much a pestilence as a benefit—hence my unkind caricature at the beginning of this conclusion. The caricature nevertheless contains some truth because the artifice of ‘satisficing’—achieving some form of settlement through a rational and political apportioning of some things among the many the parties seek—was often only a short-term fix providing a springboard for the next round of disputes and conflict. Finally, the desperate hope that ‘satisficing’ would prompt the germination of a political culture that edges measurably and smoothly towards ‘mature’ embedded institutional processes—processes that are rational and predictable—stood as a chimera in the face of underdevelopment and the structural inability of any institutions—let alone political ones—to mature easily. The key lesson, then, is that conflict resolution—or whatever term is used—should not be regarded with a starry-eyed view. It is as likely to fail as it is to ‘succeed’. But this is not to give up hope. Rather, it is to approach conflict with the type of sensitivity, humility, and rich detail that this book succeeds in expressing. Such insight can be gained only from respecting cultural difference, from carefully mediating across those differences, from seeking to understand the lived sorrow of those who survived conflict, from validating silence, and 274 mediating across difference from long-term involvements in the development and growth of individual communities. This book, then, is a badly needed antidote to the phenomenon of those who jet about, thinking in the heavens that peace is a cargo cult brought by the mediators from a Western paradise. And it is a testimony by many who have never given up the quest for balance and community integrity as wellsprings of peace. It is a book that made me feel humble. Contributors

Roland Bleiker is a professor of international relations at the University of Queensland. From 1986 to 1988 he worked as a Swiss diplomat in the Korean Demilitarized Zone. He is the author of Popular Dissent, Human Agency and Global Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2000), Divided Korea: Toward a Cul- ture of Reconciliation (University of Minnesota Press, 2005), and Aesthetics and World Politics (Palgrave, 2009).

Volker Boege is a research fellow at the Australian Centre for Peace and Con- flict Studies (ACPACS), University of Queensland. Prior to joining ACPACS in 2005, Volker worked with Bonn International Center for Conversion as a senior researcher, with the Institute for Development and Peace at the University of Duisburg (Germany), and with the Unit for the Study of Wars, Armaments and Development at the University of Hamburg (Germany).

Morgan Brigg is a lecturer in the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland. Morgan’s research deals with questions of culture, governance, and selfhood in conflict resolution and development practice. He is the author of The New Politics of Conflict Resolution: Responding to Difference (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).

Stephen Chan, OBE, is a professor of international relations at the University of London. He has for three decades been both a champion of Africa and of the view that the Western world must take seriously the intellectual and scholarly traditions, methodologies of thought, and political expressions of the world now emerging to resist and challenge the West. He has recently published The End of Certainty (Zed Books 2009), a magical realist provocation on world politics.

Frans de Jalong is a research coordinator with the Center for Security and Peace Studies (CSPS) at Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta (Indonesia). Here Frans has led the translation and publication of several research monographs in the CSPS publication series, including Nonviolent Resistance: People’s Stories from Indonesian Conflicts, edited by Helen Jenks Clarke and Arifah Rahmawati (2006).

275 276 Contributors

Sr. Lorraine Garasu is a member of the Congregation of the Sisters of Naza- reth, the director of the Nazareth Centre for Rehabilitation in Chabai, Bougain- ville, and a former president of the Bougainville Inter-Church Women’s Forum. Sister Lorraine is a community development worker and a skilled facilitator and trainer in conflict management and women’s issues. She is also a long-standing and active contributor to the Bougainville peace process.

Mary Graham, a Kombu-merri person from southeast Queensland, is affiliat- ed with the Waka Waka Aboriginal people of Central Queensland group through her mother. Mary is a researcher with Kummara, an Aboriginal community development organisation. Formerly, she was a lecturer in Aboriginal history, politics, and comparative philosophy at the University of Queensland. She has also worked in Native Title negotiation with the Foundation for Aboriginal and Islander Research Action.

Carwyn Jones is a respected Māori scholar and lawyer from Aotearoa/New Zealand. He is of Ngāti Kahungunu and Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki descent and has worked in a number of different roles at the Waitangi Tribunal and the Māori Land Court. Carwyn currently teaches at the Victoria University of Wellington, where he specialises in the Treaty of Waitangi and Māori customary law.

Joy Kere is the permanent secretary of the Ministry of National Unity, Recon- ciliation, and Peace, Solomon Islands. Joy has extensive government and grassroots experience with conflict resolution and peacebuilding. Prior to her current role, she was a member of the International Peace Monitoring Team involved in implementing the Townsville Peace Agreement in postconflict Solomon Islands and then a council member of the Solomon Islands National Peace Council.

Debra McDougall is an Australian postdoctoral fellow at the University of Western Australia. Her current research examines the political role of churches in Solomon Islands. She received her PhD in anthropology from the University of Chicago in 2004 and is working on a book based on fieldwork in Ranongga that investigates the nature of intercultural engagement in Solomon Islands.

Norifumi Namatame is an associate professor at the Tohoku Fukushi Univer- sity, Sendai, Japan. He received a PhD in international politics (international security) from the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Den- ver (USA). He has published on Japan’s missile defence programs and on realist and pacifist approaches to Japan’s postwar security policy and national identity. Contributors 277

Norifumi’s research interests include links among Japanese cultural identity and foreign policy. He is currently working on human security approaches.

Chengxin Pan is a lecturer in international relations at the School of Interna- tional and Political Studies, Deakin University (Australia) and holds a PhD in political science and international relations from the Australian National Uni- versity. He was a visiting scholar at the University of Melbourne and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He has published in Alternatives, Journal of Contemporary China, Pacific Review, Political Science, and The China Review as well as in several edited books.

Oliver P. Richmond is a professor and the director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of St Andrews (Scotland). Oliver is interested in how conflict resolution and peacebuilding practices differ from one cultural context to another, and he has extensive field research experiences around the world. His most recent book is Liberal Peace Transitions (with Jason Franks, Ed- inburgh University Press, 2009).

Deborah Bird Rose is a professor of social inclusion at the Centre for Re- search on Social Inclusion, Macquarie University, Sydney, and is the author of several prize-winning books. Her research engages dialogically with Indigenous Australian and Western philosophy and is focused on entwined social and ecological justice. Her new book—Wild Dog Dreaming: Love and Extinction (forth- coming from the University of Virginia Press)—is on extinctions and the moral imagination.

Muhadi Sugiono is a lecturer at the Department of International Relations and the director of the Center for Security and Peace Studies at Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta (Indonesia). The author of Gramsci and the Critique of Development (1999), he is currently working in global governance and peacebuilding areas.

Tarja Väyrynen is an academy research fellow at the Institute for Social Re- search, University of Tampere, Finland. She is the author of Culture and Interna- tional Conflict Resolution (Manchester University Press, 2001). Tarja’s research deals with mediation, ethnopolitical conflicts, gender, and war. She has published in international journals, including Journal of Peace Research, Cooperation and Conflict, and Millennium. She is currently working on narrativity and silence in postconflict societies. 278 Contributors

Polly O. Walker is the director of Partners in Peacebuilding and a lecturer at the University of Queensland and James Cook University. She is of Anglo and Cherokee descent and is an enrolled member of the Cherokee SouthWest Town- ship. Her research focuses on transforming conflict between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. Formerly she was a lecturer in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander studies, University of Queensland.

Jacqueline Wasilewski, a retired professor of intercultural communication at the International Christian University in Tokyo, worked with and continues to work with Indigenous organisations in the United States and abroad on issues of multilingual education and effective political participation. This has led to her interest in the dialogic processes underpinning consensus-based decision making and to her 2004–2007 North East Asian Dialogue Project, which brought together Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, and Russians, including Indigenous members of those polities, to discuss regional relationships.

Hoang Young-ju is an assistant professor at Pusan University of Foreign Stud- ies, South Korea. He holds a PhD from the University of Hull (UK) and has published numerous essays in Korean and English on questions of culture, identity, and conflict. He has also translated a range of key texts from English into Ko- rean, including J. Ann Tickner’s Gender in International Relations. Index

Aboriginal Australians, 5, 10–11, 75, 76, 272; Bosnia. See Balkans and Anglo-Australian law, 102–103, 110, Bougainvillean approaches, 12, 272; ceremo- 113; authority of Elders, 86, 103; autonomy, nies in, 169, 173; church in, 170; commu- 11, 84–85, 87; conflict management, 11, nity participation in, 167, 169, 173, 176; and 75–76, 77–78, 87, 90–92; consensus, 83; compensation, 172; and consensus, 167; custodial ethic, 89–90; Dreaming, 79–80, customary institutions in, 163–165, 175; 81; humanness, 87–89; knowledge, 77, 89, emotion in, 170–171; gift exchange and, 102–103; Law, 80, 81–82, 85, 89; as media- 166, 172–173; limitations of, 177–179; peace- tors, 11, 110; multiplicity of perspectives, building processes, 163; role of community 82–83; and ontological security, 81, 82; leaders, 167, 169, 173–174; storytelling, 167; philosophy of, 76, 80, 87, 95; Place, 79, 81, time in, 168, 171–172, 175–176; women in, 104–105; social balance, 77–78, 82–83, 88, 170, 174–175, 176–177; youth in, 178. See also 90; violence in conflict management, 84, relationships, restoration of 87, 88, 108–111 Bougainvillean society: Christianity in, 166, agency, 48, 58, 238, 264; through ritual, 51; 171; civil conflict, 163, 164, 175; history of, through silence, 50; through speech, 39, 52 164; importance of land, 164; reciprocity in, Ames, Roger, 236, 255, 256 165; violence in, 165–166, 178; women in, ancestors. See beings, other-than-human 164, 177–178; youth in, 180–181 Annan, Kofi, 271 Bougainville Inter Church Women’s Forum anthropology, legal, 20–21 (BICWF), 168, 170 Arendt, Hannah, 100 Broome, Benjamin, 43 autonomy, individual, 11, 33, 40, 84–85, 259, Buddhism, 46, 256 262 Burton, John, 4, 58, 62 Avruch, Kevin, 22, 42, 43, 225 Butalia, Urvashi, 49 Azar, Edward, 58 Caligula (Roman emperor), 230 Baek Moon-im, 251 Cambodia, 57, 67–68 balance, social: in Aboriginal Australian soci- Cheon I-tu, 254, 260 ety, 77–78, 82–83, 88, 90; in Māori society, China: foreign relations, 230–231, 235; Sino- 118, 121. See also harmony, social centrism, 234, 236 Balkans, 24–25, 57 Chinese approaches, 13, 212, 221, 272; com- Ballara, Angela, 117, 118 munity mediation, 235. See also Confucian- Barlow, Cleve, 120 ism; shu beings, other-than-human, 81, 95, 105–106; Chinese philosophy, 223–224 in Bougainvillean approaches, 12, 167, 168, Choi Sang-jin, 254, 257 169, 173; Dreaming ancestors, 79–80, 105; Chopra, Jarat, 66 in Indonesian approaches, 188, 190–191; in Christie, Michael, 83 Māori approaches, 127; in Solomon Islands Chuang Tzu, 45 approaches, 150 civil peace, 65 Bell, Dianne, 85 civil service, international, 57, 58, 60 Black, Peter, 22, 42, 43 civil society, 58, 68 Bleiker, Roland, 238 clash of civilisations thesis, 24 Bohannan, Paul, 21 Clausewitz, Karl von, 32

279 280 Index

Cobb, Sarah, 41 dialogue, 210–211, 272; in community build- Cohen, Raymond, 43–45 ing, 42 colonialism, 107; and epistemological vio- dialogue, cross-cultural. See exchange, lence, 21; Indigenous-Settler relations, 11, cross-cultural 76–77, 107–108; Japanese, 205, 206, 209, Doyle, Michael, 61, 62 214–215; legacies of, 4, 5, 21–22, 41, 76; Durie, Eddie, 119, 120 perceptions of Indigenous peoples, 5, 20; standard of civilisation, 5; and structural East Timor. See Timor Leste violence, 4 Edkins, Jenny, 50 colonial pacification, 145, 159, 166 emotion, 11, 265; separation of reason from, communication, non-verbal, 43–44, 52, 272; 29–30, 253, 255–256 ritual and, 51. See also silence emotion in conflict resolution, 69, 88–89, communication, verbal. See speech 108, 170–171, 253, 272–273. See also Han complexity and emergence, 94 enlarged thinking, 11, 100–101, 113 conflict: and cultural difference, 1–2, 23–25, ethnoconflict theory, 42 143; and cultural homogeneity, 24, 25; and exchange, cross-cultural, 6–8, 9, 28, 41, 101, desire, 46; intractable, 24, 26 187; challenges of, 5–6, 259; language in, conflict resolution, 273; definition of, 3, 58, 42. See also negotiation, intercultural 59; depoliticised approach to, 3–4; as governance, 4, 61; informal versus formal, 4; facilitation. See mediation moral authority of, 3, 22 Fairbank, John K., 234 conflict resolution movement, 2. See also Fanon, Frantz, 63 mediation industry Feldman, Allen, 51 Confucianism, 13, 47, 258, 272; cosmology, Fisher, Roger, 29, 30, 253, 255, 256 45, 223–224, 233; family and, 232–233; five Fitzgerald, John, 236 cardinal relationships, 224, 258; harmony, formative moment, 48, 49, 50. See also post- 221, 223–225, 229, 233, 249; human nature conflict narration in, 222, 223, 227; international order and, Foucault, Michel, 32 221–222, 231; intersubjectivity, 223, 224, Fukuyama, Francis, 68 227, 232; mutual responsiveness, 224; relationality, 227–228; self-examination Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 41–42 and self-cultivation, 236–239; shu (see shu); Galtung, Johan, 4, 21, 58 understandings of self in, 228, 237; the use Geaney, Jane, 223 of force and, 229–231 gender relations, 48–49, 111, 153, 164, 250; Confucius, 47, 221, 224, 225, 227–235, knowledge and, 103, 112; patriarchy, 208, 237–239 249, 258 Connolly, William, 25, 26 globalisation, 9–10, 27, 249, 270; conflict in consensus, 3, 23, 39, 188 the context of, 2, 28, 94 Cook, Captain James, 107 Gluckman, Max, 21 Cooley, Frank L., 191 governance, 4, 62, 67–68 cosmology, 47–48; Asian, 45; Confucian, 45, governance, self-, 85 223–224, 233 Graham, Mary, 84, 105 cosmopolitanism, 61, 94 Gray, Justice Peter, 104 cultural difference, 1, 27; and conflict, 1–2, Griffiths, Allan, 105–106 23–25, 143; fear of, 23; in political community, 23, 25; as problem, 23–26; as resource, Hall, David, 236, 255, 256 25 Hall, Edward T., 43 culture in conflict resolution, 21, 27–28, 41, Hampden-Turner, Charles, 124 59, 136 Han, 13–14, 248, 251, 256–257, 263–266; at collective level, 250–251, 257; and conflict Daiya, Kavita, 48 transformation, 260, 262; definition of, Darby, Philip, 9 250, 265; dissolving, 261–262; at individual Declich, Francesca, 49 level, 250; stages of, 254. See also Korean development, 62–63 approaches Index 281 harmony, social, 47; in Confucianism, 221, Jabri, Vivienne, 61 223–225, 229, 233, 249; in Japanese ap- Japan, imperial history of, 205, 206, 209, proaches, 207–208, 210–211, 214; restora- 214–215, 250, 251 tion of, 88, 171. See also balance, social Japanese approaches, 13; consensus, 206–210; Harrison, Simon, 25 dialogue, 210–211; fairness, 211–212; indi- Hau‘ofa, Epeli, 147 vidual versus collective, 212; multiplicity, hegemonic narratives, 41, 52 212–214, 217; social harmony, 207–208, Henderson, Gregory, 259 210–211, 214; soto, 206, 207, 215; takakuteki, hermeneutics, 41 205–206, 212; tanin, 209–210; uchi, 205, He Xiu (Ho Hsiu), 223 206, 210, 218 Hobbes, Thomas, 225, 226 Japanese society, 207, 208; and aesthetics, Howie, Ross, 105 211; and global social relations, 215, 218; Howley, Pat, 166, 170–171, 172, 173 and homogeneity, 207, 210; religion in, 213; humanism: and conflict resolution practices, 4 societal boundaries, 209 humanness, 87–89, 227–228, 239 Jones, Tricia, 30 Huntington, Samuel, 24 Hwei-Jen Yang, 47 Kalla, Jusuf, 198 Kang, David, 236 ideal speech situation, 39, 52 Kant, Immanuel, 227 identity, 26 Kaplan, Robert, 24 imagination, 50, 69 Keke, Harold, 144, 146 immanent approaches, 256, 261. See also Kenneth, Roselyne, 174 transcendent approaches Kenya, 270–271 Indigenous Australians. See Aboriginal Kim Jin, 251 Australians Kim Youngmin, 251 Indigenous peoples, 5; conflict management, knowledge, oral, 5, 130, 167; translating into 20; and legal anthropology (see anthropol- written knowledge, 6 ogy, legal) Ko Mi-sook, 250, 251 individualism, methodological, 40; and col- Korean approaches, 13, 249, 256, 272; break- lectivist cultures, 41 ing cycles of violence, 260, 262, 265–266; individuals: as discrete entities, 32–33, 40; and the collective, 13–14; and emotions, as interdependent entities, 40, 81, 82; as 249; and maintaining social order, 257, 259, rational actors, 40; in Western approaches, 265; Sakim, 260–261, 262. See also Han 39, 125, 259. See also self, conceptions of Korean society: hierarchical order, 258–259; Indonesia, 186; communal conflict in, 190, national identity, 250, 251, 263; Pansori, 194–195, 200–202; and cross-cultural inter- 261, 263, 264; story of Chunhyang, action, 187; and cultural diversity, 186, 196, 263–265; vocabulary of emotions, 252, 254. 199–200; nation-state-building, 199–202; See also Confucianism Poso, 189, 196, 197; in post-colonial period, 199; religious pluralism in, 186; societal Langton, Marcia, 9 structure of, 192; Soeharto era, 199–201; language: constraints of, 46, 49; and intercul- transmigration, 200 tural communication, 42–43; and shared Indonesian approaches, 12, 187, 272; ances- meanings, 43; as social instrument, 43; tors in, 190–191; conflict prevention, 189– transparency of, 40 190, 194–195; and diversity, 187, 188; forms Lau, D. C., 232 of pela, 192–194; fraternalism, 193; gandong, Lederach, John Paul, 4, 58 194; gift exchange in, 189; Motambu Tana, Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 33 189, 191, 196–199; peace norms, 189–190; liberalism, 57, 63; conflict resolution and, 4; Pela Gandong, 187, 191–196; religion in, critique of, 61–62; freedom, 61; individual- 188–189; rituals, 190, 197–198; sense of ism, 32. See also peacebuilding, liberal shared space, 187–188; Temu Akbar, 198; liberal peace, 62 and youth, 202 lived sorrow, 273 instrumental rationality, 39–40, 52, 226 local approaches, 185; emphasis on relation- interdependent relationships. See relationality ships, 95, 106, 119, 164; knowledge of, 282 Index

159; neglect of, 9, 10, 20–22, 60, 69, 92; negotiation styles: high- and low-context, pluralism in, 143, 158; romanticisation of, 43–45; silence in, 43–44 64, 69; and Western approaches, 2, 10, 21, neoliberalism, 57, 58, 59, 61, 64 115, 130, 181, 265 Neville, Robert, 224 local capacity, 60, 145, 199 non-verbal communication. See communica- local engagement, 57–59, 61, 66–67, 92 tion, non-verbal local knowledge, 10 nonviolence, 32 non-Western approaches. See local approaches Māori approaches, 11, 124, 272; collective North Korea, 238 responsibility, 125; environment, 127–129; hybridisation, 129, 133–135; relationships, Oh Young-hee, 257, 261 125, 128, 136; role of ancestors, 127; time, Orientalism, 63, 65, 67, 259 126–127; Waitangi Tribunal process (see Waitangi Tribunal) Paris, Roland, 58 Māori society, 116, 117–124; kaitiakitanga, Park Jae Soon, 250, 256, 257, 259 122, 123; leadership, 118, 120–121; mana, participation, local. See local engagement 120–122; social structure, 117–118; tapu, 122, Patton, Bruce, 29 123; tikanga, 118–119; utu, 121; whanaun- peacebuilding: definition of, 58; local capacity gatanga, 119–120 and, 60, 63, 66–67; local practice and, 57, Maruyama, Masao, 207, 208 64; resistance to, 61, 63, 65; top-down, 10, Mastenbroek, Willem, 29 57, 64 Mearsheimer, John, 25 peacebuilding, liberal, 58, 59, 63, 69; ex- mediation: in China, 221; language in, 44; amples of, 66–68 psychology in, 41; support of hegemonic Pickens, Stuart, 211 narratives, 41 pluralism, 80; in conflict resolution, 134, 143 mediation, humanistic, 4, 44 Polanyi, Karl, 63–64 mediation industry, 14, 270–271, 273, 274 positivism, 40, 42, 61 mediator, neutral, 41 postcolonialism, 22 Melanesian societies, 141–142, 147. See also postcolonial states, 63, 146–147 Bougainvillean society; Solomon Islands postconflict narration, 50, 272; gender in, Mencius, 227, 232, 233, 235, 237, 238 48–49 Metge, Joan, 120, 121 poverty, 63, 65, 69 methodological individualism. See individual- power relations, 22, 107; postcolonial, 41, 107 ism, methodological practitioners, conflict resolution, 6, 21, 26 modernisation, 63, 200–201 Pye, Lucian, 259 Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Sécondat de, 258 realist approaches: in international relations, Moon Soon-tae, 260 3, 13, 24, 230 Morgenthau, Hans, 226 reason, 29, 226, 248, 255–256; based in con- Motsemme, Nthabiseng, 50, 51 nection, 111; prioritisation of, 29 Mo Zi (Mo Tzu), 232 reciprocity, 121–122, 151, 165, 223 Muecke, Steven, 111 reconciliation, 158, 166–167, 168, 171, 260; multiculturalism, 22–23, 25 spiritual dimensions of, 177, 191 multiplicity, 82–84, 212–214, 217 Regan, Anthony, 175 Myers, Fred R., 84, 86, 87, 88 Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon myth and magic, 33 Islands (RAMSI), 142, 154, 155 relatedness, 108, 111; definition of, 86; and Nakane, Chie, 206, 207, 217 diversity, 185; networks of, 11, 81, 82, 91 Nancy, Jean-Luc, 25 relational empathy, 43 Nandy, Ashis, 9 relationality, 33, 90, 128, 227–228 nation-building. See peacebuilding; relationships, restoration of, 88, 108, 151, state-building 164–165, 166, 169, 188 negotiation, 40, 255 restorative justice, 143, 154, 165, 172, 189 negotiation, intercultural, 41–45 retributive justice, 155 Index 283

Ricci, Matteo, 231 state-building, 58, 67, 145, 165, 180; in Indone- Rifkin, Janet, 41 sia, 199–202 rights, political, 61, 62, 65 state of nature, Hobbesian, 93, 225 Ringmar, Erik, 48 stories, 10, 11, 38, 106–107, 167 ritual, 10, 33, 51, 113, 173; in conflict resolution, Swain, Tony, 80 52, 112, 190–191, 261–262; gift exchange in, 151, 165; symbolism in, 51 Tambiah, Stanley, 146, 147 Roberts, Simon, 21 Tanis, James, 169 Rose, Deborah Bird, 83, 84, 86 Taoism, 45–46; the tao, 224–225 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 227 Thucydides, 230 Ryan, Erin, 30 time: in conflict resolution processes, 12, 31, 126–127, 171, 214; cultural characteristics of, Said, Edward, 63, 259 31, 171; donor timeframes, 168 Scarry, Elaine, 50 Timor Leste, 57, 65, 66–67, 69 Schaap, Andrew, 260 Tingyang Zhao, 223 Schirch, Lisa, 51 Tominaga, Thomas, 45 scholars, conflict resolution, 5–6, 38, 57, 58 transcendent approaches, 255. See also imma- self, conceptions of, 13, 228, 237 nent approaches self-reflection, 166, 237–238 trauma, 49–50 shu, 13, 222–223, 225, 228, 239; and ethno- Treaty of Waitangi, 115. See also Waitangi centrism, 236; introspective form of, 222, Tribunal 236–239; negative form of, 222, 229–231; Trompenaars, Fons, 124 positive form of, 222, 232–236; and vio- Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, 51 lence, 229, 233 Tsurumi, Kazuko, 212, 217, 218 silence, 10, 30, 272; agency and, 48, 52; as Tu Wei-ming, 228 communication, 38; in community building, 38, 48, 50–51; ethical action and, 47; Umbreit, Mark, 44 in intercultural negotiation, 43–45; as United Nations (UN), 58, 66–67 passivity, 44, 45; in peacebuilding, 48–52; United States, 21, 25, 212, 216, 238 as submission, 48–49; in Taoism, 45–46; universalism: depoliticising effects of, 3, 108; trauma and, 49; truth and, 46, 50 and Western approaches, 31, 62, 64, 179, social contract, 62, 65, 69, 70 255, 270 Solomon Islands, 141; civil conflict in, 142– Ury, William, 29, 253, 255 143, 145–146, 155; and colonialism, 145, 148 Solomon Islands approaches, 12, 143–144, violence: in conflict resolution, 84, 87, 272; the church in, 10, 149–151; and com- 108–111; necessary, 108–109, 111; orderly, pensation, 152, 153–154, 156; custom in, 166; physical, 32 151, 156–157; exchange system and, 151–153; illness and conflict, 149–150; legal system Wæver, Ole, 221 and, 144, 153–155; pragmatism and plural- Waitangi Tribunal, 11, 115, 125–126, 129–132; ism, 143, 158; reciprocity, 150, 151; reconcili- post-settlement governance entities, ation, 144, 152, 157, 158; role of chiefs in, 132–135; role of mediators in, 131–132 150–151; self-reliance, 144 Wang Yangming, 224 Solomon Islands society: Christianity in, 148, Watson, Lilla, 77 155–156; cross-cultural interaction and, 143, weak states discourse, 21–22 147–148; interdependent relationships in, Weber, Max, 255 12; reciprocal rights in, 12; youth in, 152 Wen-Tzu, 45 Somalia, 49, 65 Western approaches, 1–2, 9, 11, 29; domi- Sorenson, E. Richard, 30 nance of, 28; dualistic thought in, 23–24, speech, 30; privileging of, 10, 30, 38, 39, 49 254–255; emotion in, 69, 248, 253; and (see also silence); and reason, 39 ethnocentrism, 1–2, 57; individual in, 39, spirits. See beings, other-than-human 125, 259; limitations of, 1; neglect of silence, Sri Lanka, 146–147 41, 49, 272; philosophical foundations of, Stanner, W. E. H., 77, 78, 80 23, 39–41 284 Index

Western theories of international relations, Xun Zi (Hsün Tzu), 230, 233 222; human nature in, 222, 226–227. See also realist approaches Zeng Zi (Tseng Tzu), 225, 237 White, Leo, 180 Zhang Zai (Chang Tsai), 223 Williams, Joe, 120 Zhou Enlai, 231 Wittfogel, Karl, 259

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