Related Articles
Seeds of Peace is a long-running nonprofit that brings together youth from conflict zones to engage in dialogue and learn leadership skills. Eva Armour is its Chief Impact Officer, and Vishnu Swaminathan is its Chief Operating Officer.
In this timeofintense polarization, so manyofus are seeking but struggling to find healthy and effective ways to engage colleagues, classmates, or even family on deeply divisive issues — from Israel, Gaza, and campus protests, to abortion and immigration.
Weoften focus on the arguments without thinking about the part that matters just as much (if not more): how we engage with each other. How we engage conveys our values, sets culture, and can even determine how successful we are at making progress on the issues we care about.
This is particularly true, and also most challenging, when the stakes are high — and when lives are on the line, and we are confronted with horrifying images, it is seemingly impossible. In moments like these, anyone who disagrees with us is not only wrong but fundamentally intolerable. Yet this is when we need to stay most connected to each other’s humanity.
Otherwise, the only path is deeper disconnection, dehumanizationofthe other, and violence. We can’t build institutions or societies grounded in care and community by shaming or screaming at each other. We can’t expect others to see our full humanity when we deny them theirs.
That is whySeedsofPeacehas, for over 30 years, been bringing young people together across linesofdifference from the United States and more than 25 other countries. Over 8,000ofthese young leaders have now spent partofa summer at theSeedsofPeaceCamp, engaging face-to-face in the hard workofdialogue.
Dialogue is a way to better understand ourselves, each other, and the world. It is not debate, negotiation, or group therapy (though it can be therapeutic). Perhaps most importantly, it is also not an end goal in itself but rather a first step and then a continual process towards taking informed action.
For thoseofus who are searching for ways to engage others in our lives productively on difficult topics, here are three tested strategies to help build bridges and make interactions more constructive and less destructive.
Find ways to create a connection.
Connection is an antidote to division and violence. Insteadofavoiding or attacking those you disagree with, seek out opportunities to go deeper. Do your own work first. Enter conversations with genuine curiosity and practice ways to regulate your body and emotions in order to stay open to listening, even when met with opinions with which you fiercely disagree. Be mindfulofdefenses and deflections; look for ways to align, even when disagreeing. And do allofthis without fear: either you will validate your perspective or hear something new that moves you towards deeper understanding.
The hard workofstaying in dialogue with those with whom we share little in common and sitting with our deep discomfort builds empathy and connection that prevents demonization.
Move beyond sides.
Polarization typically results in pressure to take sides: to be ‘pro’ one group necessitates being ‘anti’ the other. The goalofdialogue isn’t to validate all sides but to increase our capacity to hold multiple truths and redefine the ‘sides’ altogether. It strengthens how we act without diminishing the gravity or urgencyofthe moment. How might we align and organize per shared values, drawing on the powerofour different identities? How might that bring us closer to creating more safe and just communities?
Use your imagination.
Any path forward will require us to first imagine beyond our current realities.SeedsofPeace creates spaces like our camp that allow us to imagine and practice a versionofthe future that has yet to be born into existence. Doing so is messy andoften challenging, but it also expands our ideas for what’s possible and inspires people to work towards realizing it in their communities. As our alumni declared upon returning home after experiencing living together,“We refuse to accept what is when we know what can be.”
We are in a character and values-defining moment. The way we engage with each other now will predict the course for what comes next, and solutions stand the greatest chance for success when they are grounded in dialogue and mutual respect.
“The wish to not have to deal with the other is an illusion,” wroteoneofour alumni in the Middle East recently.“And I hope this realization becomes a sourceofstrength rather than weakness. That inevitably, we have to find a way to make this work for allofus. Otherwise, it will work for noneofus.”
