I have been thinking about Syria and how to
resolve the situation there in a way that does not repeat the mistakes of Iraq,
Afghanistan and Libya.
My own personal experience of dealing with
conflicts both in my professional work as a coach to leaders in businesses
across the world and as chairman of a charity is that the resolution of
situations like these takes a shift in perspective that is counter-intuitive. By this I mean that our key concern is
not about how to we resolve Syria but rather how we choose to respond without
falling into the traps that Syria represents. If we see it as a test of our ability to show a different
model for using power then we enable everyone to make a transition and we
become a role-model for a different approach. In this sense the question is not how to deal with Bashar
al-Assad or what he is doing but rather how do we want to exercise power? Since we cannot ultimately control how
he chooses to respond, or all the other various parties included, we can only
choose how we want to act. Why
this is counter-intuitive is that our natural inclination is to focus on how to
control the other parties involved and the danger with this is it sucks us into
putting control as our primary objective and attempting to control something
you cannot ultimately control leads you to force. This is the position that Bashar al-Assad is in and the
Rebels. Everyone is seeking to use
force to control each other and achieve their will.
So how do we respond differently and break
this cycle? There are two things I
think are important to bear in mind.
Firstly, it is possible to
break these cycles and there are examples around that provide confidence that
this is the case. South Africa is
one example – who would have thought that it could be resolved without
bloodshed and that the white minority government would hand over power as part
of a peaceful transition? Northern Ireland is another example; no-one would
have envisaged Martin McGuiness, Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley working together
to share power, nor would anyone during the cold war have believed that Russia
and the USA would talk or that the Berlin wall would come down. On a smaller scale, my own experience
also reflects this; I have watched individual leaders shift destructive
cultures and transform apparently insoluble conflicts.
What is behind the conflicts and what
resolves them? Behind each
of these conflicts is an identification with “us and them”. The parties involved forget their
common humanity and become lost in identifying with the veneers of culture,
nationality, religion. They start
to see the other people not as fellow human beings but as being odd, wrong,
bad, monsters etc. etc. Once the
other parties are “them”, we do not have to make the effort to understand them
and we can treat them in inhuman ways.
In South Africa, the white minority government genuinely thought that
blacks were different, that they were from another species that they could not
live alongside. In Northern
Ireland, the protestants thought the catholics were so different they could not
live with them and vice versa and the Eastern bloc and the West thought they
were different beings. In each
case, once they saw each other as fellow human beings the divisions and
conflicts were put in perspective – the perspective that we are all human
beings feeling the same emotions and suffering the same hurts,
misunderstandings etc. It is difficult
for anyone to conceive now that the South African government saw Nelson Mandela
as a dangerous terrorist who must be imprisoned. Similarly it is difficult for us to see the firebrand that
was Ian Paisley as the peacemaker.
The only way to resolve the issues effectively is to be on everyone’s
side. If we take sides we are lost
because any action we take will contribute to “us and them” divisions that will
increase conflict. Similarly, if
we act unilaterally it will create further division and tension.
The second thing that is critical is that
it takes time and a long-term perspective to shift these issues. If the culture is one of power used
violently then the temptation is to use power violently to attempt to resolve
it. Even if you are successful
then the culture of “might is right” is re-inforced. The situation has to be transformed and the first
transformation is not to respond in the same way. One obvious short-term solution is removing the individuals
who are causing the problem but this is rarely successful. This is because of a misconception that
it is these individuals who are causing the problem, when usually they are
symptomatic of the problem. In
fact these individuals are key and understanding and working with them usually
provides all the answers to shifting the underlying culture. In this sense these individuals are
like a masterclass in understanding the nature of the issues and how to resolve
them. Getting rid of them is the
equivalent of chopping a head of the mythical hydra, two more crop up in its
place. The more attempts to use
violence to solve the conflicts, the more new hurts and anger are bred. A long-term commitment to a positive
goal allows the flexibility not to get caught by short-term frustrations.
So what should the goal be? Personally my goal would be to help
Syria solve its own internal conflicts without the need for outside
intervention and critically to involve other nations like Russia so that they
start to feel a sense of ownership and responsibility for the problem rather
than feeling they are being railroaded.
To do this the first step would be to win the trust of Bashar al-Assad
and Vladimir Putin. Without trust
it is impossible to influence people except through coercive force and this
always has a cost, mostly in terms of others’ seeing that your modus operandi
is force and fear. Nelson Mandela
took a different approach and created the conditions in himself to overcome “us
and them”. He did not fall prey to
the desire for retribution or revenge despite twenty-seven years of
provocation. Instead he worked on
staying open to all sides. When he
was released he spoke of love and reconciliation not force. His power came from the fact that
everyone trusted and respected him not from fear or coercion. When in prison he refused to see the
guards as “them”; they had to be part of the solution no matter how badly they
were treating him and his comrades.
Forgiveness is very hard but without it the cycle of conflict continues
and if the aim is to prevent further violence then someone has to stop and let
go of past hurts. Nelson Mandela’s
approach of truth and reconciliation was key because it allowed room for people
to express their pain and be heard without further retribution which would
create new hurts and pain.
It takes true courage not to resort to fear
and coercion because everyone around is inciting us to react and punish the
perpetrators. We fear that it will
be interpreted by others as weakness but the paradox is that it takes strength
to forgive and it is weakness to use force. In psychological terms it is a classic Karpman Drama
Triangle of Victim, Saviour and Persecutor. If we come in as saviour to help the victims, we easily
become the person who ends up persecuting the persectutor and they become the
new victim. To play any of the
roles means to get caught in all three and then there is an endless cycle. By being on everyone’s side and
refusing to be drawn into one-sided action we can resolve it. But, it takes real strength of
character to achieve it; we have to resist the temptation to respond to
provocation.
The key to the situation, in my opinion, is
Bashar al-Assad. He is in a
dangerous and difficult position and is no doubt very frightened and paranoid. When I worked as Chairman of a Charity that
ran a Rudolf Steiner school, the relationship between the staff and Directors
was entrenched in a damaging “us and them” culture with both sides mistrustful
of each other. The incumbent
Principal of the Charity had been elected by the staff against the wishes of
the board and set about firing staff and fighting the directors. Most of the directors felt that we, as
the directors, needed to assert our power and sack him and install a new
Principal. The argument of many of
my fellow directors was that it would be irresponsible not to sack him, since
he was committing such atrocities.
Yet, I could see that this reactive approach, whilst it might afford
some short term satisfaction for the directors, would achieve nothing and
result in a situation where the staff trusted us even less because they could
see we would use our power to enforce our will over theirs.
To address this, and in opposition to the
wishes of a number of my fellow directors, I chose instead to work with the
incumbent principal. He made it
very clear that I was the last person he was interested in listening to and
that he was going to fight me for power every step of the way. I realised that the only way forward
was to give him the power and to build a relationship with him where he trusted
that I had his best interests at heart.
This was far from easy work.
The last thing I wanted to do was support him or spend more time with
him. Yet I considered that I was
doing work to help transform these emotions and to do so I would have to
transform them in myself. I also
tried to view it as work on myself – learning how to use power wisely and to
transform the sense of “us and them” in me. After two years there was a seminal moment when my fellow
directors turned to me at a key meeting with staff and remarked that they would
not choose anyone else to be Principal and I realised that neither would
I. Indeed he became the key to
changing and overcoming the whole “us and them” culture within the
charity. In addition to this, as
our relationship grew (and that of my fellow directors with him too) the level
of challenge he would accept from us grew too, to the point where I was able to
challenge him to an extent that I have rarely challenged anyone and he listened
and responded beautifully honestly.
By the end he had become a very genuine friend and someone I had deep
respect for. Part of the key to
shifting the relationship with him was to recognise that his very strong desire
for power came from a feeling of deep vulnerability and powerlessness and that
this was the thing to focus on.
I was thinking about this during a recent
visit to Northern Ireland and was keen to ask the people I met about what had
been the key to the peace process.
The unanimous verdict from Catholics and Protestants alike was that it
was Ian Paisley. Initially people
had seen him as the main obstacle to peace. Who at that stage could have imagined him working hand in
hand with Martin McGuiness and Gerry Adams and charming Bertie Ahern? Situations like South-Africa and
Northern Ireland look insoluble.
The temptation is to use power to remove the ringleaders of this but, as
I mentioned earlier, my experience throughout organizations is that leaders are
often representations of something endemic in the culture. Remove them and replace them with new
leaders and nothing changes because the underlying culture which spawned them
has not changed. What is required
to change cultures is a shift in consciousness. This requires an individual who can embody this change
through their personal transformation.
Powerful individuals have the capacity for deep transformation. It is easy but specious to make the
leader the scapegoat and simply remove them hoping that the whole culture will
change. Even the revolution which promises to bring relief often achieves
little because it is usually based on the very power and violence that it is
supposed to replace. So it needs a
fresh approach, one based on the positive use of power to transform rather than
force. This achieves real change.
In the context of Syria it requires a
long-term perspective and to build a relationship with Bashar Al-Assad and to
win his trust. As a powerful man
he is cornered and deeply vulnerable and his natural response is to defend
himself wildly and forcefully like a cornered rat. He knows that if he loses power and control he will be
annihilated, similarly, so do the Sunni business leaders who support him. He can see no options – no foreign
power appears willing to help him.
To change this requires the building of a relationship of trust. Putting further pressure on him without
any sense of relationship simply increases his fear and willingness to go to
any length to protect himself. At the charity, I took the responsibility and
apologised – I explained that it was our fault as directors for not
understanding the Principal and staff.
This was not what they were expecting so it surprised them. We then worked on giving them
responsibility for the challenges of the situation and making it clear we did
not want to take over the power or responsibility. Bashar al-Assad needs a motivation to change his
approach. My instinct would be to
provide him with one that positions him as the potential transformer of the
situation – an opportunity to leave a positive legacy. In this I would offer him my full
support (and mean it). I would
appeal to his desire for power but in such a way that he uses it positively. I would explain that he might never be
understood but he would have the satisfaction of knowing his real contribution
and I would explain that if he could do it, we would know and understand the
nature of his contribution. I
would also tell him (and mean it) that we would look after him and protect him
but that this would rely on him working to help transform the situation and
bring about a peaceful transition in Syria (this might be that he lives under
house arrest but in comfortable circumstances for the rest of his life or lives
in exile). Unpalatable as this
solution is, it is better than further violence and conflict. I would challenge him to take
responsibility for how to solve Syria and involve the rebels or bring together
the rival factions. I would also
make it clear that we would be prepared to involve peace keeping forces to
support this but only on the grounds that the focus is achieving peace and
reconciliation. This would be a
long-term project – he would be deeply mistrustful and suspicious at first - and
it might take many years but this gradual change is far more stable than short-term
revolution or violent intervention.
It would take creativity and wisdom to do it successfully but the
results would be worth it in terms of our evolution and learning about dealing
with international conflict and for the Syrian people it would create the
opportunity to break the cycle of power and violence. It sounds simplistic to give Bashar al-Assad
responsibility for finding a way to involve the rebels who clearly hate him and
want to destroy him, yet, as I mentioned earlier who would have believed that
the white apartheid government would ever sit down with and trust Nelson
Mandela or that Ian Paisley would work in partnership with Martin McGuiness and
Gerry Adams? Bashar al-Assad would
need our help to appoint and involve people from across the spectrum in
Syria. Once the majority supports
the process of transition and feels it has a stake and involvement then those
who still insist on violence become a minority that all sides want to contain,
rather than the default leaders for an unrepresented faction. I mentioned at the beginning that the
key misconception is that we are not fellow human beings. In all my work, I have noticed that
people use culture, race, nationality as an excuse to perpetuate mistrust and
an “us and them” approach. Work to
understand and empathise with them as fellow human beings and these divisions
fade away. At the charity I
mentioned, staff said that we, as directors, could not possibly understand them
because we were not spiritual enough and did not follow Rudolf Steiner. Once they began to trust us all these
supposedly irreconcilable differences disappeared. Who now says that difference between Catholics and
Protestants in Northern Ireland are irreconcilable or that blacks and whites in
South-Africa cannot live together peacefully? Yet, we somehow still get caught thinking this way over
Islam, Israel, China. I work
regularly with leaders in business who are based in Asia who describe their Asian
colleagues as if they are from a different species; that their culture is so
different we in the west cannot understand it. It is a wonderful excuse to justify their frustrations but
once they see their Asian colleagues as fellow human beings and work on
understanding them they realise it is an illusion; that culture, race,
religions are veneers; get caught in these veneers and you miss the deeper
level at which we are all the same.
I can hear the objections, indeed, in my
experience of the Charity there were fervent objectors among the
directors. One was obsessed with
the fact that we were letting the Principal get away with his behaviour and the
hurt and pain he had caused staff.
He was determined that he should be bought to account for his actions
and that we were setting a precedent for further transgressions among staff; that
we must be tough and show that such behaviour would not be tolerated. This comes to the nub of the difficulty
in Syria. Can we forgive? In dealing with the situation I faced
at the charity and coaching leaders in business this is the most difficult
issue. Yet, when examined honestly
it is key. The real objective of
our actions has to be to prevent further transgressions; to contain dangerous
or harmful elements and to transform them to prevent them spreading. I have rarely seen violence or force
achieve this. The real emotion behind
“justice” is often revenge and retribution. Labeling people as tyrants or monsters might allow us to
feel justified in treating them as if they were not fellow human beings but it
does not break the cycle. The
cycle can only be broken by creating a new approach that transcends the current
mode of operating. This is what
Ghandi, Mandela, Gorbachev all achieved.
On a smaller scale I have seen many others do the same throughout
organizations with similarly impressive results. Interestingly, the one director most fervent in his
objections at the charity wrote to me many years later to thank me and express
his gratitude that the charity had been able to make such a remarkable
transformation.
It may be we are not ready to change our
approach in Syria yet. If so, I
strongly suspect we will get further opportunities to practice! There is a collective hesitation and
unwillingness to step in where angels fear to tread following the experience in
Afghanistan and Iraq. Everyone is
hesitant but no-one can see an alternative. I am suggesting that there is one and it is a positive thing
that intervention is being blocked as it is forcing us to think more deeply. I could be wrong.
However we act in the situation will send a
message about how to use power. If
we use force then the message picked up will be that power is about force. Our choice concerns how we want to use power and we have
responsibility for the consequences of that. Paraphrasing Ghandi; we must be the change we want to see in
the world.
