Advances with wolves

"When you speak, say nothing. When you talk, give no information. Everything identifies you." This has been the bleak motto for survival in Northern Ireland.

"The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid." Popularly misquoted as the "lion and the lamb" theory of coexistence, the idea seems best imagined as a cocktail party in a typical country where the Lionist culture dominates and the liberal Lions are exasperated that the minority sheep are wary of coexistence.

Prides of Lions and a handful of Sheep stand around on hind legs in lounge suits at the Eagle Embassy residence. The Sheep, who speak fluent Lion and are familiar with Lionist culture and holidays, nod politely but unconvincingly as the liberal Lions enthuse about peace, progress, coexistence, and multiculturalism.

No Lion here speaks Sheep. No young Lion ever dated a Sheep, visited a kaa-baa, or has ever heard of Eid el-Ram. One of the sheep looks around (sheepishly) for someone he can have a real conversation with. He's out of luck. The few sheep on the embassy A-list are all busy being preached at by Lions.

The question behind the coexistence movement is simple. Who is the Other? The old answer, throughout history, has been that the Other is the Not Me, and for that, he must die. Coexistence is about getting people to take part in an intimate encounter with their ethnic enemies.

The aim is considerably less than hoping everyone will dance off into a field of daises, hand in hand, singing Amazing Grace. The aim is to stop you killing the Others because you hate them. The aim is to stop you being killed because the Others hate you.

A global coexistence movement is now growing at an astonishing pace.

In November 1999, a significant two-day international conference was held in Haifa University. Participants from USA, Britain, Northern Ireland, the Irish Republic, Turkey, Spain, Croatia, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority, gave papers on global education for interethnic coexistence.

(This conference is singled out not least because the idea of Coexist Magazine was born there. Delegates expressed regret that so much excellent information would never be transmitted to a wider audience and workers in the field.)

Coexistence has become an academic discipline created by a social and international need - much like environment studies before it. The discipline already has its own bible, The Handbook of Interethnic Coexistence, a weighty first tome of serious academic studies edited by Eugene Weiner and published by the Abraham Fund.

In the fragmented world left over from the Cold war, coexistence is a study that illustrates where universities operate best in contributing to fundamental change. That is right on the edge of what academia-speak calls a "paradigm shift" - a social tectonic plate moving from outworn concepts to new ideas.

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