Advances with wolves, continued

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Nevertheless, if the universities are the incubators where old disciplines such as psychology, sociology, and history are being honed into new tools for managing human conflicts, the hard graft is still being done in "the field."

This is our genteel name for grimy streets, smelly refugee camps, chilly community center halls, and remote dangerous townships where the dedicated toilers in "the field" are found. 

That is the work of Community Dialogue in Northern Ireland a cross- community organization formed in Belfast to support the historic Belfast Agreement in 1999.

Project director Dr. David Holloway says the job is difficult to understand, until you realize it is dealing with people who could never conceive of even being in the same room as the "Others."

Community Dialogue is "When you speak, say nothing. When you talk, give no information. Everything identifies you." This has for long been the bleak motto for survival in Northern Ireland where, until recently, coexistence would not be a word found in any dictionary of local usage. 

Holloway identifies himself not as an observer of the conflict but as an integral part of it. Considering the side he comes from (Protestant Unionist) he gave a credibly honest potted history of Ireland at the Haifa Conference, correctly putting history's blame where it seems to belong.

He referred to the Scottish and English settlers who stole the lands of the native Northern Irish in the English government's "great plantations" drive 300 years ago as "my ancestors who occupied their lands."

Illegal settlement and oppression may not come back to haunt a nation for hundreds of years, but return it will, as it did to South Africa, and as it did to Northern Ireland, and is already at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Community Dialogue started by putting out a simple and attractive series of leaflets to start dialogue at the most basic level. Each leaflet on a specific controversial issue - release of prisoners or decommissioning of IRA arms - started with a bare-bones factual summary of the policy under the peace process.

It then listed Points Made by Those For, Points Made by Those Against, Points for Discussion, and How Does This Affect Your Life. A leaflet then listed the probable consequences for the Belfast Agreement and the whole peace process of not following the agreed policy.

When enemy groups were persuaded to meet for discussions, they already had absorbed the facts and questions of the leaflets and have a starting point for a dialogue rather than a hurling of accusations  and insults. 

"The whole problem with our peace dialogue is that it excluded the people," said Holloway. The political parties showed a desire for an agreement, the British and Irish governments certainly reached a consensus on it, the multiparty talks address all the causes of the conflict. But it doesn't belong to the community - that's where our work is, to empower the community.

The talks at the top must be mirrored in every detail at the bottom, the bridges between the politicians must be built between the people."The weapon of coexistence programs is informed dialogue.

Two former gunmen from opposite sides of the civil war will be more interested in their shared experiences than in their divided opinions. So a coexistence dialogue will get them talking about what know best - guns, life on the run, in the shadows - and lead on to the whys, the wherefores, and the what's it all for.

The message of coexistence is: When you speak, say something. When you talk, swap information. Everything identifies you as a human being.

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Thomas O'Dwyer, the writer and founding editor of this magazine is a senior journalist, columnist and commentator on international affairs. He has worked with major media organizations in Cyprus, Lebanon, Egypt the Gulf states and Israel. 

KEYWORDS: holloway, northern ireland, belfast agreement, community dialog