how can we stand by and not try to help, no matter how imperfect our efforts may be?

28 June 2007
Commiting Personally, Acting Globally

By Kenneth Cloke

Mediation is an imperfect process, that employs an imperfect third person, to help imperfect people, come to an imperfect agreement in an imperfect world. Leonard Marlow

Why did you originally decide to become a lawyer, mediator, or arbitrator? Perhaps you will answer, “in order to help people,” or “to make a difference,” or “as an expression of my values” or “to demonstrate my commitment to peacemaking.”

Each of us is searching -- not just for ways to eke out a living, but for work that has meaning and integrity, that allows us to serve others, and that brings us a sense of fulfillment far greater than we could get by simply processing the same sorts of disputes over and over again for years.

At the same time, the problems we face and are increasingly required to solve demand the collective attention of everyone. The emergent crises of global warming, exhaustion of the oceans, air and water pollution, species extinction, drug resistant diseases, global pandemics, overuse of fertilizers, deforestation, loss of arable land, AIDS, decreasing bio-diversity, resort to warfare, nuclear proliferation, narcotics smuggling, organized crime, terrorism, torture, ethnic cleansing, and religious intolerance – none of these can be solved except collaboratively across political, religious, and cultural borders.

In the face of such difficulties, it is easy to think: we are so few, so imperfect, and so poorly prepared, while the problems we face are so vast, multifaceted, and ingrained -- how could we possibly make a difference?

The real question, however, is: how can we stand by and not try to help, no matter how imperfect our efforts may be?

In fact, we know – not just intellectually, but in our hearts, as professionals and experienced conflict resolvers – that there are tangible things we can do, as imperfect as they are. We know a number of techniques for communicating across cultural divides and resolving disputes without warfare.

We have developed skills in communication, facilitation, problem solving, public dialogue, collaborative negotiation, prejudice reduction, mediation, and conflict resolution system design. And it is precisely these skills that the world now needs to solve its problems.

More subtly, all conflicts transpire between people, that is, at the boundaries or borders that separate individuals, cultures, organizations, and nations. Conflict is therefore simply the sound made by the cracks in a system, a boundary condition that can best be resolved by communicating across the many internal and external borders we have erected to keep ourselves safe, or exclude others.


In short, it no longer matters whose end of the boat is sinking. We realize that we are all in this together and need to learn how to communicate with each other and address problems that can no longer be solved individually, even by powerful nation states.



More importantly, aren’t these the very reasons conflict resolution initially inspired us and drew us in? Wouldn’t we all love to see the “promise of mediation” fulfilled, and people living together without endless wars and needless cruelty?



Finding practical, meaningful ways to overcome these difficulties and fulfill the deeper call of our spirits and our profession will not be quick or easy. Yet we become powerful in the face of our fears and are able to recognize the deeper meaning of our lives when we commit to making a difference in the world.



To make a real difference, we need to build local capacity to prevent, resolve and recover from conflicts. We need to recruit volunteers from the dispute resolution community to train mediators in other countries in a wide range of skills: to resolve community, environmental, and public policy disputes; to initiate restorative justice and victim-offender programs; to facilitate public dialogue and problem solving; to expand skills in group facilitation, informal problem solving, team building, and consensus decision making; to design multi-door courthouses; to promote prejudice reduction, bias awareness and community building; to encourage forgiveness and reconciliation; and to apply conflict resolution systems design principles to a broad range of social, economic, political, and environmental disputes.



As imperfect as we are, there are many opportunities for dispute resolution practitioners to experience a deep sense of personal fulfillment and make a genuine contribution to a more peaceful planet by assisting people and societies around the world that have been wounded by violence.


Doing so will not only allow us to reconnect with our original intentions, it will make tangible the wisdom of our profession and contribute measurably to world improvement.



To learn more about Mediators without Borders, contact mediatorswithoutborders@gmail.com, visit the website at http://www.mediatorswithoutborders.org/, or post your questions and concerns here.