Working for peace and justice will undoubtedly require you to look at conflict situations, such as those in Iraq, Israel/Palestine, and in your community.  Since many of these issues are controversial, they may elicit conflict within your Tikkun Campus group.  For both of these reasons it is important to have an understanding of conflict and how to handle it creatively, productively, and non-violently.

What is conflict?
If you ask five different students you’ll probably get five different answers.  But here’s a good working definition:  Conflict is the perception among two or more parties that each side’s goals are incompatible with the other side’s goals.  This happens on the interpersonal level all the way to the communal and global levels.

Is all conflict bad?
There is a tendency to view conflict as an automatic negative—a source of tension, wasteful competition, uncertainty and violence.  However, conflict in itself is not necessarily evil—it serves many beneficial functions.  We live in a world that is constantly changing—both physically and psychologically.  Such change requires a constant need to adapt.  By promoting growth and change, conflict plays a vital role in fostering “creative destruction.”  It alerts people to potential problems, it airs injustice, and it motivates a search for solutions.  Conflict can even strengthen relationships between people since relationships that have been tested by adversity are often stronger than those that have only seen good times.  

In sum, it is important to understand how conflict can be both creative and destructive.  It is part of your job as a group leader and an activist for peace and justice to understand and work toward transforming conflict into a process that is creative, productive, and non-violent rather than simply suppressing it or allowing it to become destructive, counter-productive, and violent.  

Expanding the pie
In attempting to transform and manage conflict, it is also good to remember that it is not always zero-sum, which means that any improvement in my outcome worsens your outcome by an equal amount.  Such an understanding of conflict derives from a view each is out for his/her own and that resources are fixed and scarce.  Conversely, we at Tikkun believe that the world is interconnected and that the well-being of one is dependent all the well-being of all.  This view leads us to understand that security is gained through cooperation and that there is enough for everyone and that the world does not operate solely on a zero-sum game.  This belief requires us not only to advocate for the redistribution of material resources but also to revalue resources such as love, kindness, generosity, community and joy as a way of redefining what it means to have a life of abundance.   (See Appendix for examples of group exercises).

A final note on conflict
We encourage you to allow a worldview based on interconnection and mutual-interdependence to inform how you understand and deal with conflicts within your Tikkun group as well as those you seek to transform in the larger world.  In practice this means being mindful of the humanity and well-being of those with whom you may disagree or conflict and how it relates to your own humanity and well-being.  This extends to other conflicts as well.  This does not mean that you have to agree with or accept the arguments and actions of those with whom you disagree, but to try and remember your connection to that person.  Admittedly, this can be very difficult, and we understand that having compassion for others also means having compassion for ourselves when we sometimes fail to embody our highest ideals.

Focusing on interests, not positions

Addressing conflict situations, be they within your Tikkun Campus group or in Israel/Palestine, it is important to focus on interests, not positions.  Positions are stances you have decided to take in a conflict.  Interests are your underlying needs, desires, concerns, and fears.  Unfortunately, without more open communication, the only thing you get to hear about the other side is their position.  And all they hear from you is your position.  (In fact, in the process of presenting and defending your position, it may have become so hardened that you lose sight yourself of your original underlying interests).  Only by attempting to understand the reasons behind each other’s positions can you help identify these underlying interests—interests that just might be compatible.  Therefore, for each position stated, the natural follow up question is “why?”

Example

Look at the 1977 Camp David peace talks between Israel and Egypt.  The big dispute was over the Sinai Peninsula—each country wanted it.  These were clearly incompatible goals.  However, looking behind the positions at the “Why?” question, it turned out that Egypt’s underlying “interest” was in regaining its legal and symbolic sovereignty over the Sinai (which it had lost in the 1967 War) while Israel’s underlying “interest” was in security—keeping the Sinai as a bugger against any surprise attack by Egyptian forces.  (Israel had no historic claim and wasn’t concerned with the symbolism of sovereignty).  Once negotiation was redirected towards these interests, a solution could be carved out in which Egypt regained sovereignty but in which large portions of the Sinai remained demilitarized, effectively giving Israel advance warning should Egypt be launching its tanks northwards.  In other words, the fixed pie concept of dividing the Sinai was transformed into an expandable pie with each side getting much of its underlying interests satisfied.

Mindfulness Alert

Be wary of thinking that each party will have easily complementary ideas on how to meet their interests.  People’s understanding of their interests is imbedded in their world view, which may be vastly different from your own and that of Tikkun’s.  Their worldview delegates their initial conception of how to meet those interests; and worldviews don’t shift as easily as positions. It is necessary to realize that even if everyone agrees that the parties share the underlying interest of “feeling secure,” for example, decisions on how act on these interests may be wildly divergent.

This is where educating people about the Tikkun world view comes in; it creates more of a shared base and starting point for beginning dialogue on how to meet interests in a given conflict situation.  In the meantime, acknowledge to yourself and to the other party that you share interests on a deep level, but that you recognize that you still need to work on how to create tactics to meet these interests in a creative way that increases peace, justice, and compassion.  

Deciding to work together to reach these goals stems from a worldview based on interconnection and cooperation.  But remember, even in working together you may eventually require some compromise on one level from each party.  

During the process of conflict transformation, don’t underestimate the power of relationship building even in regard to those with whom disagree.  People can sense when they’re being respected and given compassion and will be more inclined to return it.  Remember, as Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “you cannot morally persuade someone who can sense your underlying contempt.”

Facilitator as Mediator
As a facilitator you may find yourself in the role of a mediator as well.  Many of the issues that your group will be discussing, educating others about, and planning actions around are controversial.  So, some of the people you will work with and encounter will have such different and emotionally laden perspectives that, at least initially, they won’t be able to communicate effectively with each other.  As a facilitator/mediator for the group you can increase the constructiveness of dialogue by acting both as a translator of information so that the other side “gets it” and as a filter to screen out inflammatory remarks.
Mediation in Practice
Creating an environment conducive to relationship building, constructive dialogue, education, and action planning requires more than simply setting an agenda and signing people in.  Here are some suggestions to help create such an environment:

1.     Give each person space in which to be heard.  Allow feelings to be vented.  Sometimes, this very venting can clear the air and allow problem-solving to begin.  (Beware, however, of the damage of extremely negative venting can cause.  This might be better done in separate sessions, allowing the mediator to filter out anything unnecessarily inflammatory).
2.     Engage in active listening:
•    Encouraging and validating—show interest in a neutral way and keep the participants talking.  Show that you appreciate their position.  (“I see…,” nodding your head).
•    Restating—confirm the facts by saying them in a slightly different way, while subtly filtering out the negatives and focusing on the positive.  (“In other words…”)
•    Reflecting—let people know you understand their position.  (“You feel that…”).
•    Summarizing—pull the story or issues together and promote further discussion.  (“These seem to be the main points covered…”).
•    Clarifying—ask appropriate questions so everyone can have the same understanding of what issues need to be addressed or resolved. (“Could I ask a few questions to clarify?”).

3.    After the parties have thoroughly expressed themselves about the past, push the discussion in search of solutions that will make the future better.
4.    Emphasize areas of agreement.
5.    Be frank about their walk-away alternatives.  Don’t let the parties live in a fantasy land regarding their prospects in the event of a failure to reach agreement.
6.    Respond gently to unhelpful statements at first; respond strongly if your first effort fails.


Interventions
Interventions are techniques to use when you are confronted with disruption or problems during the meetings.

•    Use the agenda and ground rules
...If someone keeps going off the agenda, has side conversations through the whole meeting, verbally attacks others, etc.  Remind that person that they helped create the agenda and ground rules and agreed to follow them.

•    Have the group decide
..If someone refuses to stick to the agenda, keeps bringing up the same point again and again, challenges how you are handling the meeting, etc.  Also, if multiple people engage in this behavior ask the group if they are still committed to the agenda and rules.  If so you have reaffirmed group support and legitimacy to enforce the agenda and rules; if not then it’s a good time for the group to collectively decide on a new agenda or rules that they would be willing to follow.
•    Be honest: Say what's going on
...If someone is trying to intimidate you, you feel upset and undermined, you need to enlist the help of the group, etc.
•    Use humor
...If there is a lot of tension in the room, people are resistant to being at the meeting, scared/shy about participating, you are seen as an outsider, etc.
•    Accept, deal, or defer
..If someone keeps expressing doubts about accomplishing anything, is bitter and puts down every suggestion, keeps bringing up the same point over and over, has power issues, etc.
1.    ACCEPT: validate the person’s understandable feelings, but also try reframing it while filtering out the more negative aspects of their statements.  
2.    DEAL with it right there: ask them to replace a rejected option with one of their own, find out and verbalize their interests rather than their positions (“What I understand you to be communicating is…” or “What is it that’s really upsetting you?”), be an agent of reality that reminds them of what may (or may not) happen if the group doesn’t get through the agenda or find a solution to a given problem.  
3.    DEFER it to the group for a decision about what to do.
•    Use body language (if possible)
... To quiet side conversations, help quiet people participate, re-focus attention, etc. You can speak volumes by making eye contact, by smiling (or not smiling), or by a change in your seating position.

•    Take a break: Confront disrupters outside the meeting room
...When less confrontational tactics haven't worked, someone keeps verbally attacking other participants, shuffling papers, having side conversations or cutting people off. You can deal with this issue outside the room, at a naturally-occurring break in the action.  If the person is not talking or communicating the problem to you, try asking them open questions—these are broad and allow for a narrative answer.  They are used to gain lots of information, to begin two-way communication, and to ask sensitive questions.  (“What is frustrating you?”  “It seems that you’re unsatisfied with the meeting, why?”).  If the person is verbally dominating the conversation ask them closed (“yes” or “no”) questions to find out what the problem is.  You can also try asking them what they hope to gain from the meeting and how they think that can happen.  But, if necessary, be firm and blunt about how their negative energy or behavior is impacting the group and how it may be affecting the group’s ability to be productive and build a trusting and respectful community.
•    Confront in the room
...If it's appropriate and will not create backlash, if the group will support you, if you've tried less confrontational tactics already, etc.