Marshall Rosenberg: My trainings are based on an assumption that when we are clear and connected to ourselves, there’s nothing that we like better than to contribute to one another’s well-being. But there are a number of things that can happen that disconnect us from that. So for me, reconciliation is connecting people again so they enjoy contributing to each other’s well-being rather than contributing to each other’s suffering. By “connecting” I mean clearly seeing what’s alive in one another, with no enemy images. Inquiring Mind: What do you mean by “enemy images”? MR: If my child is not picking up the room and I say, “You are lazy,” lazy is an enemy image. If my life partner is not meeting my needs for intimacy and I say, “You are insensitive to my needs,” insensitive to my needs is an enemy image. When we say that some people are “terrorists,” that’s an enemy image. Enemy images turn people into things. When we see the other person as a monster, all we want to do is to punish them. This type of language disconnects us from what’s alive in one another, disconnects us from life. IM: Is the challenge of reconciliation a language problem? MR: No. The language is part of a broader scheme of things. For about 8,000 years, we have been living under domination cultures in which a few people claim to be superior. Partner this with the belief that people are basically selfish and evil, then the people who claim to be beyond that feel as though they have to control the others. We’re educated to believe in authorities and their right to inflict punishment and suffering on us if we don’t do what they think is right. So this whole scheme requires a language. IM: Does the enemy image have more to do with those who perceive it or those it is projected onto? MR: An enemy image always has to do with the person who perceives it. It’s our thinking, not other people’s behavior, that makes us angry. Angry, judgmental and punitive thoughts are always an expression of our unmet needs. When people are out of touch with themselves they become good slaves to authority: loving women have “no needs” so they sacrifice themselves for their families; brave men have “no needs” so they’re willing to sacrifice their lives for the king or the president. If you want people to be docile and subservient, disconnect them from their needs. This shapes their brains to wonder how others are judging them instead of focusing on how to meet their unmet needs. IM: Could you give us a concrete example from the international work that you’ve done in conflict resolution? MR: About eight years ago, I was mediating between a Muslim tribe and a Christian tribe in northern Nigeria. In their conflict, a quarter of the population had been killed. At that time, they were fighting about how many places in the marketplace each side would have to display their products. I started the reconciliation process with them by saying that I was confident that if we could hear each other’s needs, we could find a way to get everybody’s needs met. Inviting whoever wanted to start, I asked: “What needs of yours are not getting met?” The chief from the Christian tribe screamed, “You people are murderers!” Notice that when I asked him what needs weren’t getting met, his response was to tell me what was wrong with the other side. This provoked a counter judgment. Somebody on the Muslim side screamed back, “You’ve been trying to dominate us! We’re not going to tolerate it any more!” Because our training is based on the assumption that all violent language is a tragic expression of unmet needs, when the chiefs finished screaming, my job was to translate the enemy image of “murderer” into language describing the needs of the person who screamed. I said, “Chief, are you saying that your need for safety is not being met and you want some agreement that no matter what the conflict, that it be resolved some way other than violence?” He looked shocked for a moment because this is different from how people are trained to think. Then he said, “That’s exactly right!” But getting the chief to acknowledge his need wasn’t enough. I had to get the Muslim side to see through their enemy image. I said, “Would somebody on the other side please tell me what you heard the chief say his needs were?” A gentleman from the Muslim tribe screamed back, “Then why did you kill my son?” In fact, there were several others in the Muslim tribe who knew that someone present had killed one of their children. So there were a lot of feelings. The Muslim tribe had to put down their rage long enough to hear the needs of the Christian tribe. And that wasn’t easy. I had to give them some empathy before they could do that. But finally I got them to hear just one simple thing, that the Christian tribe had said they had a need for safety. It took me about an hour and a half to get both sides to release the enemy image long enough to hear a need of the other side. At that point, one of the chiefs came up and said to me, “If we know how to communicate this way, we don’t have to kill each other!” In another example, a group of Israelis and Palestinians on the West Bank were hoping to be able to work toward peace in that area. I asked, “What is it that you want from each other that would make it easier for you to work together?” The Palestinian mayor of the village responded by telling the Israelis, “You people are a bunch of Nazis.” Predictably, one of the Israelis fired back, “That was totally insensitive for you to say.” So instead of peace and harmony, they were creating violence and hostility. I helped them translate their judgments into what it was that they were wanting from one another. When you get people to talk about what they want from each other, instead of what’s wrong with the other, there’s a possibility for reconciliation to begin. IM: What is the most inspiring story you know of people who have reconciled? MR: I have been with a rapist and the person who’s been raped. The survivor was in so much pain that she hadn’t been able to sleep for three years. All she wanted was to have the rapist punished. Within two or three hours of helping each of them identify their unmet needs, they became concerned about each other and wanted to contribute to each other’s well-being. | About this interview ... Ronna Kabatznick and Margaret Cullen interviewed Marshall Rosenberg by phone on May 10, 2004. Ronna Kabatznick is a psychologist and is currently on retreat in Thailand. Margaret Cullen is a marriage and family therapist, mindfulness-based stress reduction teacher, and longtime vipassana practitioner. She lives in Berkeley with her husband and ten-year-old daughter. © 2004 Inquiring Mind |
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