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The Pitfalls of Dialogue

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This article, written by a Palestinian attorney with many years of dialogue experience, describes some common problems with intergroup dialogue and suggests some basic solutions. Author Jonathan Kuttab says at the end of the article (Conflict Resolution Center International Newsletter, January 1998, pp 25-26, 1998), “I have written some harsh words about dialogue and its pitfalls; yet I am still a firm believer in it. Peace, justice and reconciliation can be advanced tremendously by an open dialogue between members of the oppressed group and those who are willing among the oppressor society.”

We could not find this article online anywhere, so we are including text from copy we saved on an NCDD computer several years ago below:

The Pitfalls of Dialogue

By Jonathan Kuttab

My experience in dialoguing has been in the context of the Palestinian-Israeli or Palestinian-Jewish exchange. I am presumptuous enough to consider that my comments are of more general application. It is a rarely understood phenomenon that members of oppressed groups are generally ready and eager for dialogue, but it is only when members of the oppressor or dominant group find it in their interest to engage in dialogue that it moves very rapidly and fruitfully. However, it was only after engaging in years of attempts at dialogue with Israelis and Jews that I began to understand why so many Palestinians are reluctant to engage in dialogue. Hopefully by being aware of these pitfalls, one can move boldly ahead in pursuit of peace and reconciliation through genuine dialogue.

1. Assumption of symmetry: There is an assumption of symmetry between oppressor and oppressed; occupier and occupied; powerful and weak. The meetings are seen as one being more or less an open and free meeting between individuals. Yet the realty of the situation stimulates major differences. Even simple matters as traveling to a place of dialogue and finding a proper date and setting for dialogue will reveal this asymmetry. In our context, a Palestinian can be prevented from coming to the place of dialogue by a roadblock or curfew or other travel restriction. An Israeli may be prevented because he is called to military service. Even the same activity, joining a demonstration, may be an expression of the privileged right to dissent or a dangerous, terroristic criminal activity.

2. Ignore basic conflict issues: Individuals engaged in dialogue are prone to be very reasonable, sensitive, wonderful people, and they feel a desperate urgency to have everybody agree with every-one else. Therefore, they exert tremendous effort to reach agreement on as many issues as possible. They have a natural tendency to avoid situations that are tough and rough in which there are genuine deep conflict differences. Instead they emphasize issues such as image, perception and outlook. What is the image of Palestinians in an Israeli society? Visa versa? They talk about sharing folk songs, home visits, dances and smiles and avoid the true issues of the conflict of land, water resources, national rights, boundaries, flags,

3. Accept the status quo: There is a tendency to accept the status quo and take for granted the presumptions prevailing generally. Dialoguers are not revolutionary individuals. They are not out to turn the world upside down. Therefore it is only natural that they tend to accept, at least to begin with, what is rather than what ought to be. They tend to begin by accepting many assumptions of the oppressor, concerning for example, who is an extremist? What is possible to do or achieve in a certain situation? What is reasonable?

In many dialogues with Israelis, certain very basic issues never come up because they are not allowed to come up. One begins by accepting the legitimacy of the Jewish state because it is there. In fact that is usually one of the stated or unstated conditions before dialogue can begin. More important than these political positions is the acceptance of unspoken assumptions about what is possible; what is right.

4. Pressure to compromise genuine principles: Dialoguers are often pressured to compromise genuine principles, to accept much moral evil, and be willing to abandon positions generally popularly held within their own community. Of course, it is important not to be dogmatic or seek to be “ideologically pure.” It is important to be open-minded and willing to change their position.

Yet within dialogical meetings tremendous pressure is exerted, in the name of realism, pragmatism, and moderation, to accept things that perhaps from the moral point of view should not be accepted. This may result in the dialoguers losing moral power and credibility within their own community.

5. Dialogue as substitute for action: There is a tendency to make dialogue a substitute for action aimed at empowering the weak and oppressed and at the elimination of injustice. Many dialoguers see dialogue as an end in itself. When dialogue becomes a substitute for action it assuages the conscience of members of the oppressor group. It becomes a safety valve for venting the oppressed group’s frustrations. In both cases it becomes a measure of the re-enforcement of the existing oppression and therefore serves the continuation of oppression.

6. Pressure on oppressed group to ease the task: There develops pressure on members of the oppressed group to act or say those things that ease the tasks of the members of the oppressor group in their own community. Now how does this pressure manifest itself? It can be done very aggressively as members of the oppressor group challenge their partners of the oppressed group to take a certain position. “Why don’t you denounce a particular activity?” Or it can be pleading: “If only you could make such a statement publicly, wouldn’t that be wonderful, wouldn’t that make it much easier for us in our own community?”

7. Co-option: Authorities watching dialogue taking place can often successfully co-opt and misuse it to serve their own purposes. How? By delegitimizing the accepted, established leader-ship of the oppressed group or by setting up those individuals involved in the dialogue as an alternative leadership to divide the oppressed community.

Those involved in dialogue risk lending themselves to be used by the authorities to subdivide the oppressed community. Yet, on the other hand it is constantly denied that they are at all representative of the oppressed group or that the authorities of the oppressed group owe them anything. There is no obligation to them. They are, on the one hand, placed as alternative leaders, but on the other hand, no concessions are made towards them because they are not viewed as being representative.

What then is a proper model for dialogue?

1. Seek truth: Seek truth rigorously without pretense, falsity or attempts at accommodation. Those who are so desperately seeking peace and justice but are willing to ignore the truth and hide it will end up accomplishing none of the three virtues; any more than those seeking peace without justice. A corollary to that may be the need to seek real enemies to dialogue with, not moderates or people who are like-minded.

2. Avoid panaceas: Do not try to find the magic formula for solving the whole problem. Often the model is for the moderates from both sides to sit together and work out a whole grand solution to which they agree, then go and try to sell it to their respective communities. Individual moderates from both sides generally represent minority views within their own communities.

It would be a different matter if they were leaders charged with the task of negotiating a settlement. However for individual dialoguers a little humility is in order. Emphasis must be given to limited, specific issues and matters that they can affect and influence, whether individually or jointly with others.

3. Never attempt to manipulate the other partner: Resist the temptation to force the other partner to make statements or alter its position simply to please you or even to further the process of dialogue.

4. Keep your whole society in mind while you dialogue with members of another society: This means that individuals have to be willing to move out of their own narrow, limited perspective however enlightened. For Palestinian dialoguers this means they should be conscious that there are other Palestinians living in other geographic areas with different outlooks and interests. For Israelis, while they may consider themselves to be holding very liberal views, they must never forget they are part of an entire Israeli society that is oppressive to the Palestinians and they cannot escape bearing some measure of responsibility for that.

5. First step: Individuals who engage in dialogue must do so with full acknowledgement that dialogue must only be a first step towards action, joint or separate action aimed at empowerment of the oppressed and opposed to injustice.

I have written some harsh words about dialogue and its pitfalls; yet I am still a firm believer in it. Peace, justice and reconciliation can be advanced tremendously by an open dialogue between members of the oppressed group and those who are willing among the oppressor society. In the process both sides benefit, and both sides advance. Groundwork can be laid for true co-existence, as the two sides move from the dialogue of empty words into dialogue of the hands and feet working together for justice and peace. This is the proper path. Let us walk in it.

Jonathan Kuttab is a Palestinian attorney living in Jerusalem.


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