WEBVTT - To End Conflict, We Must Transform It (Tim Phillips) 0:00:03.640 --> 0:00:07.840 Any notion of reaching across these divides is seen as compromise, 0:00:08.320 --> 0:00:11.320 is seen as selling out. And yet would experience in 0:00:11.320 --> 0:00:14.079 other countries have shown and not just the Mendelos and 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:16.560 many others, you know, we have to find a way 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:23.439 to bridge this. Welcome to How to Citizen with Baritune Day, 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:26.960 a podcast that reimagine citizen as a verb, not a 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:31.400 legal status. This season is all about how we practice democracy, 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:33.800 what can we get rid of, what can we invent, 0:00:34.040 --> 0:00:36.599 and how do we change the culture of democracy itself, 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:40.600 relieving the theoretical clouds and hitting the ground with inspiring 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:44.040 examples of people and institutions that are showing us new 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:53.600 ways to govern ourselves. Throughout season four, we've spent a 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:56.720 lot of time dreaming up and defining what a culture 0:00:56.800 --> 0:01:00.880 of democracy can look and feel like. And that collective 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:05.640 vision is beautiful and motivating. But to build the culture 0:01:05.720 --> 0:01:08.360 we want, we also need to face the one we've got, 0:01:08.640 --> 0:01:17.160 and right now, I think that culture is conflict. Our 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:22.039 democracy is based on this extreme version of in group outgroup. 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:26.760 We don't just disagree, we dehumanize And I'm not a 0:01:26.880 --> 0:01:30.080 both sides kind of person. I think the right has 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:33.800 done a lot more of this, but I've experienced it 0:01:33.880 --> 0:01:36.920 from the left too, and I know that nobody's got 0:01:36.920 --> 0:01:40.920 a monopoly on our garbage culture. We've all become more 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:44.160 deeply entrenched in our differences, and many of us don't 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:47.720 see or don't want to see a path toward being 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:51.440 in community with people on the other side. Throw in guns, 0:01:51.640 --> 0:01:56.160 sensational media, and a political system that rewards outlandishness, and 0:01:56.240 --> 0:01:59.560 the division we experience looks much more like a feature 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:06.080 than a bug Listen. Sometimes I wish everyone I disagreed 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:08.680 with would just read that article I sent them and 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:13.280 realize how wrong they are. Other Times I find myself 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:16.639 asking if we can just split the country in half, 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:20.800 call it a day. We tried, and we move on separately. 0:02:21.680 --> 0:02:26.920 But community cannot be defined by total alignment on everything. 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:31.079 That's not community. That's a cult. And we're trying to 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:35.120 live together better here. That's the mission, and that living 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:43.440 together requires living with an incredible amount of difference. We've 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:47.960 been talking a lot about bringing democracy home, but it's 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:51.040 hard to practice democracy at home when there are members 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:54.320 of our families we can't talk to because they've been 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:58.239 sucked into conspiracy, because they're part of a dehumanizing political 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:03.840 culture or their opinions and mere presence feel so opposed 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:08.200 to our own that it's hard to practice anything with them. 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:12.840 But if we stop trying and just accept that this 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:18.000 is the way things are, this division will only get worse. 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:24.480 I'm must confess that I have this fear. I fear 0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:30.120 and I feel the possibility of truly escalated armed conflict 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:34.080 along politically divided lines in this country, something we haven't 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:38.600 experienced on mass you know, since our Civil war, and 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:41.320 we're not currently in that state. We're not living through 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:45.760 that literally right now, but it's a nightmare many of 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:49.360 us carry, and it's an actual lived reality that other 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:55.520 people around the world have gone through quite recently. Tim 0:03:55.520 --> 0:04:00.680 Phillips and his organization Beyond Conflict have been facilitating conversations 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:04.080 between the victims and perpetrators of extreme violence and harm 0:04:04.160 --> 0:04:07.680 for over thirty years. I reached out to hear how 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:11.320 they've helped people work through life altering conflict so we 0:04:11.400 --> 0:04:14.480 can gain some insights into how we avoid the path 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:18.760 that Rwanda, Northern Ireland and so many other countries have 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:23.800 already been down. After the break my first of two 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:27.400 conversations with Tim Phillips, which took place a few weeks 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:38.080 after the January sixth insurrection. Tim, thank you so much 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:41.200 for spending time with me and with us. And I'm 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:43.000 here with you in part because I had a great 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:47.520 experience with your organization through a gathering in downtown Los 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:50.400 Angeles a few years back. And the specifics are no 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:53.760 longer with me, but the emotion is my mind felt 0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:56.799 almost literally blown. I've done a lot of work around 0:04:56.920 --> 0:05:01.720 race and people feeling disconnected from each other and polarized, 0:05:02.240 --> 0:05:05.360 and there was something your facilitators did that helped us 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:08.480 all see the world a little differently. So I just 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:11.680 want to take this personal, selfish opportunity to thank you 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:14.680 for that experience, thank you for training people and not 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:17.640 just you, to do some of this work, and thanks 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:21.080 again for making time. I'd love to start him with 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:25.520 a more personal question. Can you tell me something about 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:29.520 yourself that surprises you? Yeah? Thank you. That's a really 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:35.000 good question, and surprises me is maybe this is getting 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:38.760 very personal, but I've been doing this work internationally for 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:42.880 over thirty years and I still struggle with feeling agency 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:47.760 in this work, and it surprises me. But it also 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:50.800 reflects on the challenge of the work. I think we 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:53.120 both are trying to do, which is, how do you 0:05:53.120 --> 0:05:55.360 give people agency in this world? How do you give 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:57.839 people a sense that they can really become agents of 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:01.560 their own personal lives, but of the people around them. 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:05.119 And you know, because we're coming up in thirty years 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:07.960 and most of our work was international in the last 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:10.359 five years, started working here in the United States, I 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:13.520 really started reflecting on the work of the internationally to 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:17.280 bring it home to this country. And I started really 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:20.080 thinking about what allowed me to go overseas in my 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:22.919 late twenties was I knew what exclusion felt like. I 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:26.839 knew what humiliation felt like, I knew what feeling less 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:29.320 than equal felt like, and not in a sense gave 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:33.239 me an emotional connection to the difficulty of this work. 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:35.600 And I think thinking about where we are as a 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:39.520 country and the challenges we face has also been reflection 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:43.480 on my own journey. Can I press you on the 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:46.680 humiliation that you were familiar with, which sounds like it's 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:49.719 helped you do this work? What was that for you? Well? 0:06:49.720 --> 0:06:52.720 I grew up the youngest of six children, grew up 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:55.160 in a housing project here in Boston, what was used 0:06:55.200 --> 0:06:58.480 to be called veterans housing. I didn't like the fact 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:00.560 that we lived there because I was being haunted. I 0:07:00.640 --> 0:07:04.480 was being judged. Often hearing parents will say to their 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:06.720 son I was in school with why are you hanging 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:09.760 out with that kid from the projects? And so that 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:12.880 really shaped a part of me to feel, you know, 0:07:12.920 --> 0:07:15.320 I know what this shit feels like. But also I 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:18.320 had a mother who said, no, you live in Buckingham Palace. 0:07:19.040 --> 0:07:21.440 And years later I saw the real Buckingham Palace and 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:23.400 I said to my mother. I took out a trip 0:07:23.440 --> 0:07:25.920 to London with my sisters. I said, let me just 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:28.200 show you. This ain't Buckingham Palace where we grew up. 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:30.840 But the point is is that, you know, I had 0:07:30.920 --> 0:07:35.040 both nupbringing that knew what exclusion and humiliation and fear 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:38.280 felt like. But I also had, like many people, parents 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:41.760 who said, this isn't what defines you as a human being, 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:44.560 in your family, in your community. But to your point 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:47.800 about humiliation, I remember when I started going overseas in 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:50.320 the late eighties early nineties, particularly at the end of 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:53.040 the Cold War, when I would meet these dissidents who 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:56.840 are now serving in government or leaders of journalism or 0:07:57.160 --> 0:08:00.400 civil society organizations. They knew what it felt like through 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:02.720 a different lens, which is to be a victim, to 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:05.760 keep your head down, to feel like you're always on 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:08.680 guard and you don't really belong. And it was just 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:11.200 really an eye opener for me about how this manifests 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:14.400 itself on a human experience and not just defined by 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:16.920 the country we grew up in. For someone who's never 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:20.440 heard of beyond conflict, what is it? So it's an 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:24.120 organization that started in nineteen ninety one when I had 0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:26.240 a chance to go to Central East in Europe at 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:28.400 the end of the Cold War and had a chance 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:30.040 to meet, as I mentioned earlier, as some of these 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:33.240 dissidents who are now running these post communist countries, and 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:35.680 I remember asking them, how do you deal with your past? 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:38.280 How are you dealing with the legacy of repression or 0:08:38.280 --> 0:08:42.880 a dictatorship, what it did to individuals and communities. And 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:46.719 the response was, well, that's what we talk about amongst ourselves. 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:49.840 But that's not the help we're getting right now, because 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:51.400 at the end of the Cold War we were getting 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:57.199 help to write constitutions, build new democratic institutions, design market economies. 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:00.760 Nobody can understand what we've gone through. We're being asked 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:05.160 to manage these new governments and transitions, and we don't 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:07.240 know where to get this help. And so that led 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:10.360 me to this simple, what I thought, one off conference notion, 0:09:10.559 --> 0:09:14.080 or bring together these new leaders of these postcommunist countries, 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:17.280 but with people who themselves had been through a transition 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:20.920 from dictatorship to democracy. And in nineteen ninety one the 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:24.680 examples were Argentina, Chile, there was a process in a 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:28.680 couple of African countries, Spain after Franco denocification in Germany, 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:31.960 and so I had said to some folks, you guys 0:09:31.960 --> 0:09:34.480 should do a special session bringing these new leaders of 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:38.280 these postcommunist countries. But do it not with self described experts, 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:42.440 but people from these other countries that struggled with these transitions, 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:44.480 who never imagined that they could have come out the 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:47.720 other side, almost like a big support group. And so 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:50.559 what started as a one off conference became a second 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:54.000 and third. But there was a real growing interest and 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:56.200 how do we learn from the experience of others, how 0:09:56.200 --> 0:09:58.760 do we deal with our past? And of course at 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:01.080 the end of the Cold War you normally had what 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:03.800 happened in Eastern Europe, but at the beginning of the 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:08.040 peace process in Northern Ireland, or the Central American Peace Accords, 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:11.840 or the beginning of a negotiated transition in South Africa. 0:10:11.920 --> 0:10:14.359 And then on the flip side you had the disintegration 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:17.760 of Yugoslavia and so forth. And so this whole period 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:21.400 became ripe for work not only about how do you 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:24.320 build democracy, but how do you deal with these countries 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:27.160 that are coming out of brutal past. And so for 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:30.680 these thirty years we have worked in probably seventy five 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:33.839 countries with this notion of she had experience, meaning bringing 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:37.440 in people to model as former enemies what change could 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:40.960 look like. Do you remember the moment you became interested 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:45.200 in conflict resolution? Well, I think actually in late eighties, 0:10:45.520 --> 0:10:48.600 nineteen eighty seven, I was watching the Super Bowl at 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:51.280 the home of a woman who's sort of well known, 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:53.679 Doris Kurrn's Goodwin and her husband Richard Goodwin at the 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:56.559 time KG. Yeah, And I knew her had a husband 0:10:56.600 --> 0:11:00.280 through some work in a political campaign. And there was 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:04.640 Bob Dole, Senate majority leader, and he had flown to 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:09.920 Managua Reagan was president to criticize in ridicule the Sundinista government, 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:11.920 and then got back on his plane and flew home 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:14.880 and I remember seeing this in between the Super Bowl 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:19.360 sort of innings, and I remember thinking, what just happened here? 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:22.560 Why did he not go and actually see the leaders? 0:11:22.600 --> 0:11:24.760 Who was he playing to what's actually going on in 0:11:24.800 --> 0:11:28.480 the region. And Dick Goodwin had been the author of 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:31.920 the Alliance for Progress as a speech for JFK, and 0:11:32.000 --> 0:11:34.040 so he had a deep tie to the region. And 0:11:34.080 --> 0:11:36.120 I remember just speaking to the two of them and saying, 0:11:36.640 --> 0:11:39.400 this is pretty incredible that you have one of the 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:42.520 biggest issues on the foreign policy agenda of the United 0:11:42.559 --> 0:11:46.120 States and people are just sort of playing politics for 0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:48.679 domestic purposes here in the United States. Can we understand 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:51.400 this better? And so I ended up organizing a trip 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:54.800 to Central America with Doris Goodwin and others to see 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:57.000 firsthand what was going on. And then I ended up 0:11:57.040 --> 0:12:01.199 meeting the Sundinista leadership at the time of Nicaragua and 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:04.720 at the Contras in Costa Rica, the f Mellen Gorillas 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:07.600 of El solvad Or meeting in Nicaragua because it was safe, 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:09.720 and then people from the other side and other settings, 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:11.200 and it was just mind blowing and it was a 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:15.120 huge eye opener to not only the region but the 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:17.520 nature of conflict and the fact that people can learn 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:20.280 from each other as sort of kumbayas that sounds, but 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:23.319 that was early at the core you set up this 0:12:23.400 --> 0:12:26.559 mentor program, this support route of people who've been through 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:29.320 something like this before, for those who were new to 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:33.760 the process. Democracy sponsors, if you will. Where did that 0:12:33.840 --> 0:12:36.880 support group idea come from? Where people seated in a 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:40.760 circle holding candles? No, but you know, I think that's 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:43.800 the nature. You're a very creative individual human being, right, 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:49.040 Creativity just sort of emerges, right, and in this context, 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:52.680 it just struck me that sitting in these rooms, whether 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:55.800 it be a workshop, a conference, or sitting around a 0:12:55.840 --> 0:12:59.560 dinner table with people who are struggling with even the 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:03.559 nose sitting across the table from their enemy and having 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:07.560 from South Africa. Sarah Romoposa who's now president, or Rolf 0:13:07.640 --> 0:13:10.640 Mayer who was the chief negotiator for the Clerk come 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:14.840 into a group of Protestant former paramilitary leaders in Belfast 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:19.680 and say, you know, we're here now as friends. We 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:23.079 just negotiated about a year ago the end of APARTEID 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:26.320 in South Africa, and we want to ask you what 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:29.440 is making it so difficult for you to imagine change here, 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:32.920 and you would hear these people across the divide in 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:36.240 Northern Ireland saying, if they could do it in South Africa, 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:38.920 why can't we do it here? You know, if they 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:41.080 could make peace with their enemy, then why is it 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:43.880 we're struggling to even imagine sitting in the same room 0:13:43.920 --> 0:13:46.839 with these people. I've read too many newspapers over time, 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:48.520 so I kind of know a lot of these names 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:51.000 you've dropped, But could you explain for someone who may 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:52.960 not have heard of it what was going on in 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:59.000 Northern Ireland. So the Northern Ireland conflict lasted about thirty years, 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:02.200 starting in the late six literally thirty years until nineteen 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:06.280 ninety eight, and over thirty five hundred people were killed, 0:14:06.360 --> 0:14:08.960 many of the meicent civilians, and the equivalent in this 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:11.640 country would be a million civilians being killed in the 0:14:11.679 --> 0:14:15.600 United States. And if you were a Catholic, you viewed 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:19.640 the conflict as a legacy of centuries of repression by 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:22.720 the British government in one form or another. If you 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:26.160 were Protestant, many of them thought of this conflict as 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:29.040 a thirty year aggravated crime wife. And so you had 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:31.640 really diametrically opposed views of what the nature of the 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:37.080 conflict was middle class, affluent Catholics tended to join if 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:39.880 they joined a political party, the Social Democratic Labor Party 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:44.960 led by John Hume. They wanted eventual unification with Ireland, 0:14:45.560 --> 0:14:48.040 but we're willing to do it politically and not through 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:53.400 armed conflict or resistance. But often more working class Catholics 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:56.760 who lived in many of the poorer communities were known 0:14:56.800 --> 0:15:00.440 as Irish Republicans and they tended to support in Fain, 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:03.320 and many of them joined and supported the Irish Republican 0:15:03.480 --> 0:15:08.479 Army and felt it was a legitimate resistance to colonial repression. 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:12.840 And their view was we couldn't wait for unification. It 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:15.400 has to happen now and if we have to use 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:18.160 armed resistance to get it, we will. And then on 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:22.160 the other side, you know, you had two mainstream Unionists 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:25.680 or Protestant political parties, the Democratic Ulster Unionist Party and 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:29.880 the UUP Ulster Unionist Party. One was sort of more 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:33.720 middle class, which is the UUP DUP was led by 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:37.440 Ian Paisley, and they wanted to preserve their British identity. 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:42.480 Protestants were British and they were going to defend it. 0:15:42.560 --> 0:15:45.240 And the working class equivalent of shin Fin and the 0:15:45.240 --> 0:15:49.600 IRA where the Loyalless paramilitary parties and their two armed wings, 0:15:50.040 --> 0:15:53.040 and they ended up killing more people than the IRA did. 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:57.800 And I mentioned a friend of mine, David Irvine, who 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:01.320 was a Loyalless paramilitary leader, and I remember taking them 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:03.920 to know only the Balkans, but to Columbia to meet 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:05.760 with the el n in the Farc and others over 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:08.840 the years. And he really connected with him because even 0:16:08.840 --> 0:16:13.280 though he was white Protestant from Northern Ireland, he was 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:17.000 a working class socialist as you would say. But somebody 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:19.320 who said that we took up arms to defend a 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:22.280 community that we thought was under threat. But he said, 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:25.880 we went from defending our community in other words, feeling 0:16:25.920 --> 0:16:28.320 that we had to kill to live, than to living 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:31.720 to kill. And he said something about a conflict like 0:16:31.800 --> 0:16:34.560 that takes over our psyche and our community and the 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:37.560 narratives that you wake up a decade later and saying 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:40.920 you know, we're living to kill. This is what we know. 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:43.840 And so where it ended up is the Good Friday 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:47.160 Agreement brought them together, but it didn't get to that 0:16:47.280 --> 0:16:51.640 point of resolving these underlying differences. Wow, thank you for that, Tim. 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:54.400 Most of us. We really didn't know the details of 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:57.720 that conflict, and I think, as Wikipedia to Tim, you 0:16:57.760 --> 0:17:00.480 did a good job of breaking that down. I want 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:04.119 to know when you bring these leaders together, where their 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:08.040 trust falls to him. What's the vibe of those gatherings. 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:12.080 If it's the first gathering, it's often very tense. I'll 0:17:12.080 --> 0:17:13.960 give an example. After the signing of the day In 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:17.199 Peace Accords, I was asked by Richard Holbrook if I 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:19.800 could bring together in London the leaders of the three 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:23.919 communities in Bosnia, Serb, Proat and Muslim. I mean, the 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:27.879 Dayton Peace Accords forced a sort of peace agreement, but 0:17:27.960 --> 0:17:31.320 in many ways those communities were not done fighting each other, 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:34.080 and there was such profound anger, and so we ended 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:37.720 up having this gathering in London, and in the beginning 0:17:38.600 --> 0:17:41.760 we had the three communities come in and the last 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:45.440 ones to take the seat with the leaders of Bosnia. 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:48.720 They called themselves Republic of Serupska. They were kind of 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:53.159 a proto fascist state, frankly, and the Bosnian Muslim leaders 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:55.880 saw them and walked out and said, we can't sit 0:17:55.880 --> 0:17:57.800 in the same room with these war criminals. And the 0:17:57.880 --> 0:18:01.120 people who got up and went to the Bosnia Muslims 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:03.840 and said please come back in where the Palestinian and 0:18:03.920 --> 0:18:06.439 Israeli leaders who were in the room, who were women, 0:18:06.840 --> 0:18:12.080 a South African leader and somebody from Belfast, because they 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:16.320 immediately understood how difficult this was, and they went on 0:18:16.359 --> 0:18:18.760 their own out into the lobby and spoke with them 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:23.160 for about forty five minutes and essentially, you know, we're allies. 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:24.920 They said, please come in and sit in this room. 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:29.160 We know how difficult this is. And in moments like that, 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:32.399 you know, it's really difficult to imagine sitting in the 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:36.600 same room with people who were involved at the cleansing 0:18:37.080 --> 0:18:39.919 or involved in killing and then in that sort of 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:43.760 support group approach. When they're sitting there, at first they're like, 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:46.359 how do these people from Northern Ireland are Bosnia or 0:18:46.359 --> 0:18:49.480 El Salvad or connect with my experience? And then when 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:53.040 you hear there are stories and what they went through, 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:55.640 then the differences start to fade away and people start 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:59.159 to listen. And there was one moment when a man 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:01.919 named David irv who unfortunately has passed away, who was 0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:05.119 a Protestant paramilitary leader who spent a decade in prison 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:08.919 for terrorism, was sitting there with these Kosovo leaders at 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:12.520 a different conference, and they were shouting and yelling and saying, 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:15.399 how do we learn from you? What do you have 0:19:15.520 --> 0:19:20.200 to share to our experience? And one person yelled out, 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:25.520 we had artillery reigning on Sarajevo or reigning on Mostar. 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:29.560 You didn't have any of that. And David looked over 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:32.440 at a former IRA commander and was the first time 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:35.200 the two of them had met, and they said, if 0:19:35.240 --> 0:19:37.960 we had access to artillery, trust us, we would have 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:40.639 used them on each other. We used everything we could 0:19:41.359 --> 0:19:44.359 to destroy the other side. And you could see that 0:19:44.560 --> 0:19:46.879 the boson coos of our leaders stop and begin to listen. 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:49.600 And then somebody said, but aren't you were a terrorist? 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:54.000 And David said, you know, terrorists have to come from somewhere, 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:59.240 and injustice is a powerful place to come from. And 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:01.840 what would happen it is you could see people start 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:05.240 to pull back and listen and realize they're not here 0:20:05.240 --> 0:20:09.840 giving a history example. They're speaking and profoundly human terms 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:13.160 in ways that resonate with their own experience and challenge. 0:20:14.800 --> 0:20:18.760 Just gave me chills with that one you've mentioned, and 0:20:18.920 --> 0:20:22.480 been a part of a lot of different gatherings of 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:25.480 people who've been on opposite sides of issues. El Salvador, 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:31.000 Northern Ireland, South Africa, the Bosnia of region. What outcome 0:20:31.080 --> 0:20:34.639 has surprised you the most in all of this experience? 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:38.679 Is there one that stands out? One of my great 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:41.600 honors of life is having met Nelson Mandelar in nineteen 0:20:41.680 --> 0:20:44.800 ninety two, and he actually served on our advisory board 0:20:45.359 --> 0:20:47.560 and I had a chance to meet him in New 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:50.399 York and I went up to him in our brief 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:54.200 sort of encounter, and I asked him, as you negotiate 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:56.879 the future of your country, are you thinking about how 0:20:56.880 --> 0:20:59.080 are you going to deal with your past? And he 0:20:59.119 --> 0:21:02.600 looked at me in these said, that's exactly an issue 0:21:02.640 --> 0:21:04.520 that I've been thinking about. We've been thinking about, and 0:21:04.560 --> 0:21:07.040 he called over his aid, a woman named Barbara Masskella 0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:09.399 at the time, and I had, you know, I had 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:11.879 this sort of I guess presumption of writing a memo 0:21:12.920 --> 0:21:15.720 and I gave it to his assistant and it laid 0:21:15.720 --> 0:21:19.640 out the question of as South Africa's negotiating this big transition, 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:23.280 what are the models to look at? And so of 0:21:23.320 --> 0:21:26.359 course it was Argentina, Chile. What happened in Europe at 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:28.840 the end of World War Two. But what struck me 0:21:29.480 --> 0:21:31.560 was Mandela came back to me at the end of 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:33.600 that reception and there are all these great and the 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:36.800 good and here was this young guy who got invited 0:21:36.840 --> 0:21:38.720 through a friend and he come up to me. He said, 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:41.280 I'm going to follow up with you on this because 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:44.200 this is really important. And he did. And over the years, 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:48.320 I was able to bring people from Northern Ireland, the Balkans, 0:21:48.480 --> 0:21:51.120 the Middle East, to South Africa when he was president 0:21:51.240 --> 0:21:54.040 and after, and he would sit there and he would 0:21:54.080 --> 0:21:57.439 say to them things like be tough on structures, be 0:21:57.600 --> 0:22:01.120 tough on institutions, but don't be huff on each other. 0:22:02.720 --> 0:22:06.160 And had a power coming from Mandela. And we tend 0:22:06.200 --> 0:22:09.679 to forget or think because Mandela became such this iconic 0:22:09.720 --> 0:22:13.439 figure that what he did is used his political and 0:22:13.520 --> 0:22:17.640 moral authority to essent create a pathway for the other 0:22:17.640 --> 0:22:20.960 side to cross and said, okay, it is up to 0:22:21.040 --> 0:22:24.639 you to cross this bridge. And I've seen less famous 0:22:24.680 --> 0:22:28.040 individuals do it in other countries. John Hume in Northern 0:22:28.040 --> 0:22:31.320 Ireland did the same thing with the IRA, meeting with 0:22:31.440 --> 0:22:35.280 them secretly in the eighties and when his own party 0:22:35.280 --> 0:22:37.800 members found out, they wanted to expel him, and he 0:22:37.840 --> 0:22:41.960 had the same view. When you describe this scene or 0:22:42.119 --> 0:22:46.920 describe his intervention and counsel to others in conflict, how 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:49.840 do you feel in that moment when you witness that. 0:22:50.480 --> 0:22:55.359 What's going through you emotionally? What's going through at the time, 0:22:55.880 --> 0:23:00.240 me as an American who wasn't from those countries? Is 0:23:00.960 --> 0:23:05.520 it landing? Is it making the impact? Because you know, 0:23:05.680 --> 0:23:09.720 it's difficult for people to change, particularly when the change 0:23:09.720 --> 0:23:12.119 you're going through as an individual, maybe as a leader, 0:23:12.520 --> 0:23:16.080 isn't reflected in the community you're from. They're not meeting 0:23:16.080 --> 0:23:19.480 the enemy face to face, and they're in that community 0:23:19.720 --> 0:23:24.960 that reinforces legitimate grievance and anger and strategy. But there's 0:23:25.000 --> 0:23:28.440