Talking to "the others"

Over the weekend the Globe and Mail began a series of articles based on interviews with over 40 "Taliban" fighters in Afghanistan. They have a multimedia web site with additional features and the complete interviews (with translation.) It is worth a look. The reporter points to several key patterns in the responses. There are written and video essays on a variety of topics as well.

Recently I read Barbara Coloroso's book on Genocide, in which she proposes that genocide contains essential elements of bullying including isolation and contempt for the victims. Dehumanization. She clearly states that genocide is not conflict. That conflict can be fixed by negotiation.

As I listened to the responses of the Taliban fighters I thought about the first video essay on the website about negotiations and the possibility of peace through talking. I also thought about the variety of viewer responses on the websites, some who applauded the reporting and others who couldn't understand why we would even talk with these people.

Clearly I fall on the side of talking and understanding. Unless we are willing to simply kill everyone who opposes our view or we percieve as less than human (genocide) we eventually have to negotiate (conflict). Knowing who we are talking to, what their motivations are, and what they want, is critical to success in this.



One of the claims of Christianity is that Jesus came for all people. Jesus himself showed us how to cross ethnic, cultural, and gender boundaries. In the story of Jesus talking to a Samaritan Woman at a well we can see all three things at work in one. When he talks to her, Jesus is talking to someone who is not from his ethnic group (Jesus is Jewish - she is Samaritan), a person who has violated cultural taboos (she is divorced probably - certainly married many times and living with a new person), and a woman (men usually didn't talk to women). There are many such instances reported in the New Testament. But more than any particular story the very presence of Jesus is a manifestation of God's will to talk to us, to help us understand God, to reach across boundaries.

So the challenge then is to reach beyond borders, beyond tradition, beyond fear and reach out for the human heart that beats in all of us. One such incident has been captured in song.



So where now? How do we move forward towards understanding and peace? In Afghanistan, I confess I don't know. The soldiers on the ground have been trying to figure it out for years. But we here in Canada and other places still are confused. I suggest that an important first step has been taken. Let those with ears to hear, listen.

Shalom
K