IS DIALOGUE POSSIBLE?

Andrew Russell, Programme Manager, UNDP-ACT

Here in Cyprus we talk a lot about dialogue, but it is not always clear that we are all talking about the same thing. Most often, when I listen to Cypriots talking about dialogue, the concept is applied to the longstanding process of interaction between the political leadership of the two communities. But perhaps in this context at least, the word dialogue is not the most appropriate. The physicist David Bohm noted the difference between discussion and dialogue:

“Discussion is almost like a ping-pong game, where people are batting the ideas back and forth and the object of the game is to win or to get points for yourself. Possibly you will take up somebody else’s ideas to back up your own—you may agree with some and disagree with others—but the basic point is to win the game... That’s very frequently the case in discussion. In a dialogue, however, nobody is trying to win. Everybody wins if anybody wins. There is a different sort of spirit to it.”

Given the enormous amount of attention that is devoted to the “dialogue” between the leadership of the two communities, it seems to me that we forget that the word dialogue does not always have to refer to a formal process but rather it is something that we can practise ourselves, every day.

The word of course derives from the Greek word dialogos, which means through (dia) the word (logos). So, broadly speaking, it can describe any communication that uses words to convey meaning. Dedicated practitioners of “conveying meaning through words” have, over the centuries, built upon this initial understanding, to emphasise the transformative potential of dialogue. The former diplomat Harold Saunders, who founded the International Institute for Sustained Dialogue, describes this kind of change process as follows:

“Dialogue is a process of genuine interaction through which human beings listen to each other deeply enough to be changed by what they learn. Each makes a serious effort to take others’ concerns into her or his own picture, even when disagreement persists. No participant gives up her or his identity, but each recognises enough of the other’s valid human claims that he or she will act differently toward the other.”

In other words, we can all apply this kind of open communication—one based on mutual respect, listening, learning, and problem solving—to our everyday activities. We don’t need to wait for a formal invitation. This is this kind of process that our programme, Action for Cooperation and Trust (ACT), seeks to support in all of our activities. Effective dialogue and negotiation processes between political leaders are also important of course, but they cannot create genuine peace between peoples, which requires a qualitative change in the relationships between ordinary citizens.

How can ACT help to create these changed relationships? One way of thinking about the programmes we support is that they provide Cypriots with a safe space for dialogue. The dialogue facilitator and writer Juanita Brown likes to draw upon the image of the traditional Latin American courtyard:

“. . . the open central courtyard in an old-fashioned Latin American home. . . . You could enter the central courtyard by going around and through any of the multiple arched entryways that surrounded this open, flower-filled space in the middle of the house. For me, Dialogue is like entering this central courtyard in the spacious home of our common human experience. . . Conversational modalities from many cultures and historical periods have both contributed to and drawn from the generative space that we call Dialogue.”

As many of you reading this e-newsletter already know, the personal benefits from engaging in dialogue with others from diverse backgrounds, ethnicities, religions, communities, etc, can be exhilarating, when it works. One participant in a Guatemalan citizens peace-building initiative described the experience as “collective dreaming”:

“The power of collective dreaming is intoxicating. The fact that you can sit and begin to converge on a series of issues in which you are not just making it up but you are actually rooting it in reality . . . where people are actually making a contribution to the detail, to fleshing out the structure that has been agreed upon. That sensation is very powerful.”

Of course, it is not sufficient for dialogue to provide us just with dreams and ideas. Words must be accompanied by action. The best dialogue leads to new relationships and agreements and, ideally, to strengthened and renewed commitments to working together towards the achievement of common goals.

The initiatives that ACT supports are designed by Cypriots, implemented by Cypriots and serve Cypriot needs. As these initiatives move forward in the months ahead, it is my hope that we at UNDP can help to create the safe spaces necessary to allow our Cypriot partners to engage in effective dialogue and, ultimately, the creation of genuine peace amongst peoples.

For further reading:
There is a large and growing literature on the subject of dialogue. An annotated bibliography of publications relevant to dialogue is available under “Democratic Dialogue Documents” in the Learning Library section of the website: http://www.democraticdialoguenetwork.org.