The United States & Elections

I'd been waiting for this--reactions by election observers from Libya, Jordan, etc. of the American election system.  (Spoiler: they were shocked and dismayed at our systems!)

Download this episode (free!) of Slate's Political Gabfest podcast.  The whole podcast is interesting and focuses on this week's US presidential election, but advance to timecode 56:15 to hear one minute about election observers from other countries.

The Five Percent

This is a great video of Peter Coleman (Columbia University) explaining his theories on intractable conflict, also outlined in his new book "The Five Percent: Finding Solutions to Seemingly Impossible Conflict." He discusses what is different about the five percent of conflicts that become intractable using the framework of the current polarization in the United States, particularly salient today, less than 24 hours since the US Presidential election. His framing is proving invaluable for understanding my work on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and I'm generally a Peter Coleman fan, having taken one of his courses at Columbia. It's also cool that he brings in the math, my former love.

Something in the middle (reflections on previous post)

In thinking more on my last post "The goal: happy marriage or divorce?" I think there's a slight twist. There is something in between the blissfully happy marriage, in this case with all Israelis and Palestinians expressing mutual love for the other, and a bitter divorce or cold peace, with completely separate communities each living their own sovereignty, but with no relationship or connection to the other. In many ways, Cyprus represents the latter option. The Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities on the island are completely separate, effectively uni-communal after population transfers and physically separated by the UN-administered buffer zone. There is a small dedicated group of "bi-communal" folks who work on programs that bring together Turkish and Greek Cypriot youth to play basketball together, or a media center that holds join capacity building activities for NGOs on either side. However, the general consensus in Cyprus is that the peace process is completely stalled. And while violence between the groups has ceased, the levels of integration and trust between the two communities is low. According to a 2010 report, 2/3 of all Cypriots (same percentage for both Greek and Turkish communities) reported having no contact with people from the other community. Significant portions of both communities believe "the problem" will never be solved, an implicit expectation that the status quo is as good as it gets. This is no one's ideal, though clearly a significant improvement from outright violence. Cyprus employs the cold peace or bitter divorce tactic.

There is something in the middle of the two options. First, what is the main problem with the Cyprus solution? It is easy to argue that the situation in Cyprus is highly preferable to the current state of Israel/Palestine. The problem becomes clear when we take a longer glance. In a cold peace situation there are very few bi-communal bridges, little personal interaction between groups and group identities are defined separately and in opposition to each other. This leaves the region vulnerable to conflict triggers--outside events that serve to set off new cycles of violence. And without bridges and connections in place, there is little to stop these from escalating. In a situation like that of Israelis and Palestinians, it is not hard to imagine a cold peace scenario in which an extremist group decides to launch an attack on the other side, setting off a domino effect of violence in the whole area. Or geopolitics in the region taking over with Israelis and Palestinians taking sides and the cold peace evolved once again into outright destructive conflict. The pitfalls are innumerable.

It is important that peacebuilding actors and organizations take stock of the current situation and root their programs and methodology in reality, meeting people where they at. We must all realize that the happy marriage scenario is unattainable, at least in the foreseeable future, and also that people on the ground living the conflict are not seeking this goal anymore (and some never did). At the same time, we must also recognize that a bitter divorce is only a short term solution. This is where the dialogue programs, building bridges and trust between peoples, are essential to any forward movement. If we can work together towards this amicable divorce, towards at least a warmer peace, we can then move the situational dynamics slowly towards greater inter-connectivity, putting in place those capacities for peace that serve as plugs, that stem the outbursts arising from the inevitable triggers.

It's not about the political negotiators working towards divorce and the dialoguers and inter-personal peacebuilders working towards happy marriage. Instead we need to work together, from all angles, putting in place the systems and plans needed to arrange for a divorce where the parties can still speak constructively about the future of their children and sort out a time share for the vacation house.