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<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face="Arial Narrow" size=2><SPAN
class=290312916-30042002>Hello Gilbert and thank you for your post regarding OST
and violent conflict. </SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face="Arial Narrow" size=2><SPAN
class=290312916-30042002></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face="Arial Narrow" size=2><SPAN
class=290312916-30042002>I have one observation from my experience that I add
for consideration of those following this thread. I also have a
recommendation.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face="Arial Narrow" size=2><SPAN
class=290312916-30042002></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face="Arial Narrow" size=2><SPAN
class=290312916-30042002>In my experience of facilitating OST meetings for
street youth in North America, we had a wonderful opportunity of observing the
results of frequent OST meetings for a group of youth, who had in common the
desire for participation in our community center. The youth were representative
of over 50 language groups, with youth who had spent much of their childhoods in
countries at war and living in refugee camps. They were taught to hate. They
were taught to fight for their very survival. Most carry weapons. We attempted
to work with these youth on the streets, with no success to deter the fighting.
We sought a common desire and discovered that they wanted to participate in some
way as a feeling of belonging in our center. When we "ran" the programs, it
didn't work. When we used OST meetings for them to run their own programs in
accordance with their desires, we had huge successes WHILE THEY WERE IN THE
CENTER. The weapons had to be "checked at the door" for entry to the meetings.
The meetings and programs were well attended. The programs flourished and the
behavior of the youth when IN our center was great. However, weapons were
returned to them upon their departure. Back on the streets, the gangs resumed,
and violence occured. I could say the OST meetings were successful regarding
violent conflict if I measured this by what took place IN THE CENTER. Or do I
measure success by what took place following the meeting. The OST meeting was a
pause from the usual patterns. The only shift in ongoing behavior was that
injured youth sought our staff out for help which was a big step in reaching
back to us. The violence did not end. In one instance that I am aware of, the
OST meeting was indeed a catalyst for further violence. In this situation, a
young Muslim woman was beaten by her husband for participating in a discussion
with males in her discussion group, males that he had not given her permission
to speak with. I believe there were more such experiences but this was the only
one I heard about. I agree with your caution regarding the situations of violent
conflict and the use of OST--not during the meeting, but following the
meeting.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face="Arial Narrow" size=2><SPAN
class=290312916-30042002></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face="Arial Narrow" size=2><SPAN
class=290312916-30042002>And yet, the paradox for me is what I will now say in
my recommendation. I cannot think of any other means that has the
potential to bring about peace, even in situations of violent conflict, than
what a well done OST meeting offers. I have previously written what I encourage
as a well done OST meeting where the facilitator attends to the pre-work, the
"givens", and the metaphysical aspects of opening and holding the space with
love, a higher energy frequency. An aspect of the art of working with Open Space
Technology is to choose the theme to be of an issue of concern that all will
feel passionate about. I recommend against a theme that challenges a group to
look at resolving their conflict. What is an issue of concern of a very
practical nature??? And if done well, conflict resolution has a chance to be a
by-product, just as community development can be a by-product of a well done OST
meeting.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV class=Section1>
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<P class=MsoAutoSig><SPAN
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<BLOCKQUOTE style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV align=left class=OutlookMessageHeader dir=ltr><FONT face=Tahoma
size=2>-----Original Message-----<BR><B>From:</B> OSLIST
[mailto:OSLIST@LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU]<B>On Behalf Of </B>Gilbert
Brenson-Lazan<BR><B>Sent:</B> Saturday, April 27, 2002 12:01 PM<BR><B>To:</B>
OSLIST@LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU<BR><B>Subject:</B> OST and violent conflict
(long)<BR><BR></DIV></FONT>Good Morning all:<BR><BR>Until now I have remained
silent regarding the use of OST in the case of civil conflict and violence,
specifically in the case of treaty negociations en Colombia where there are a
multiplicity of factors and actors, both armed and unarmed. At this
time, however, I feel both the need to share our learnings and the authority
to do so, as I have lived and worked in Colombia for over thirty years, the
last ten years of which I have taught OST to hundreds of grad students and
have opened spaces in over one hundred social systems in Latin America, most
of which involved serious conflict. We are also currently training and
mentoring several teams of facilitators in community development and refugee
management in the Colombian war zones.<BR><BR>First and foremost, I can only
agree in part with Harrison´s statement that OS is pretty much the same in
conflict-violence situations as it is in "normal" situations. We have
very successfully used OST in many conflict situations in companies, NGOs,
communities and governmental agencias. Our learning, however, is that
there is a point in the process of escalation of a conflict (Glasl, Gnass and
Brenson, 1998) in which OST ceases to be a viable option, simply because there
is no shared need to be agreed upon or met, only the "need" to destroy one
another. This has also been borne out by the excellent work of ICA-Canada in
the development of strategies of facilitating conciliation. <BR><BR>In
our experience in violent conflict situations, when there does not exist an
awareness or recognition of a common need shared by a critical mass of
participants, the space rapidly degenerates into a launching pad for
mutual attacks, retaliations and even greater polarization, because, from the
beginning, that was the hidden agenda of so many of the participants. Even in
the Incan Empire, where open space techniques were successfully used by the
Mitimaes "facilitators" over 1500 years ago, the "Minga" and the "Tequio" were
never used when the conflicts reached a certain "temperature" (translation of
the Quechua word used).<BR><BR>It might be thought that this would not be a
problem if the sponsors arrived at an agreement beforehand and that has, in
fact, been the case in some situations. However, in others,
the "agreement" is "De dientes pa´fuera" (From the teeth out) and it
behooves us to remember that "agreement" has different meanings in different
cultures. Just last weekend, two dear friends and clients of ours, the
Governor of the Antioquia Province and his Advisor on Peace (a former a
Colombian Defense Minister) were on a peaceful citizens march for
non-violence. As they approched the last town on their schedule, a
messenger from one of the guerrilla groups approached the almost 1000 marchers
and informed them that the FARC Guerrilla Movement would not allow the
march to continue unless the Governor agreed to sit down and negociate with
the local Guerrilla leader in a nearby village. The Governor, his
Advisor and a half dozen clergy and leaders of the social pastorate willingly
went with the messenger with the best intentions to negociate. Once they
arrived, they were immediately informed that by order of the National
Guerrilla Headquarters they were to be held prisoners of the FARC. All
but one of the priests were released and the last one, the Provincial
Chaplain, was released the following day to tell the tale and to carry demands
for capitulation to the Colombian President. No word has been received in the
last week on the condition of the Governor or his Advisor, who now are a part
of the list of thousands of kidnapped citizens in Colombia.<BR><BR>Regarding
the specific case of the Colombian situation, there is no black and white and
not even a couple of shades of gray. There are dozens and dozens of
conflicting social, political, commercial, international and criminal
interests simultaneously at work, some intent on physically annihilating some
of the others for a variety of reasons: power, revenge, money, drug trading,
arms dealing, etc. The rest of Colombia is in the middle of this
multiple crossfire. <BR><BR>I can certainly see an effective use of OST with
the GOs, International and National NGOs and Civil Society to bring them
together to generate effective estrategies. I can certainly see an
effective use of OST to bring concerned citizens together. I
cannot see OST as a useful intervention in the communities in the war zone,
since any gathering of even a small group of citizens can and does easily
provoke a guerrilla, paramilitary or military attack. Nor can I see its
usefulness in conversations in another country between leaders of the
different armed camps whose only declared intent and reason for existence is
to kill one another. That has been going on for years now, with some of
the best negotiators from around the world, but with no results.
<BR><BR>I hope I am wrong.<BR><BR>Warm regards,<BR><BR>Gil<BR><BR><X-SIGSEP>
<P></X-SIGSEP><B>
**************************************<BR> <U>AMAUTA
INTERNATIONAL, LLC<BR></U></B> Bogotá, Colombia - St.
Paul, MN<BR> Gilbert Brenson-Lazan - Socio-Gerente<BR> Tel: (+57-1)
345-2724 - Fax: 345-2072<BR>U.S. Voice Mail and Fax: (206)
888-4386<BR> e-mail:
<gbl@amauta.org><BR> website:
<<A href="http://amauta.org/" eudora="autourl"><FONT
color=#0000ff><U>http://amauta.org</A></U></FONT>><BR><B>
*********************************</B>
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