Scholarly Contributions | Spirituality and Global Politics

CONFLICT RESOLUTION AND SPIRITUALITY

Professor Said was a trailblazer calling for the study of religion and spirituality within the field of conflict resolution. He was deeply critical of mainstream approaches that ignore the historical context and relational components of conflict, and that reduce conflict resolution to management and settlement. Observing a world of both increasing sectarianism and cultural pluralism, he ultimately called for a holistic spiritual perspective that sees our interconnectedness and speaks “to the universal human need for transcendence, unity, and justice.”¹ Drawing on his understanding of spirituality as unity, he outlines a spiritual framework of conflict resolution that recognizes the central role of the facilitator’s own spiritual or personal transformation, as well as the inherently dialogical nature of social healing and the inherent spirituality of peace education.

In a lecture exploring “other ways of knowing” in peace and conflict resolution, Said clarifies that analytical and logical thinking is useful, but is an outward way of knowing. On the other hand, “inner knowledge is a peace-making and healing process” while the deepest form of knowledge – transformation – is the “knowledge of the unity of existence”² (see also Personal Transformation and International Politics). According to Said, “attempts to divorce the spiritual from conflict resolution practices deny an essential component of healing and social restoration that permits conflicts to be experienced as resolved.”³ While he wrote extensively on the role of religion in conflict resolution (see also Islam and Peacemaking), he also asserted that “spiritual values for the present and future cannot be partisan.”⁴ He instead recognized that “peace in the world is attainable only from a state of inner peace.”⁵ Indeed, his students and colleagues would frequently hear him say that “peace begins with me.”⁶ Said explains, “peace is never made; it is always in the making. It is both inner experience and external task … Peace is a transformational process, at all levels of our being.”⁷

Partly because of his own spiritual orientation, Professor Said at times defined peace as “a spiritual attitude of receptivity and continual inward cleansing.”⁸ Unlike mainstream approaches that see conflict resolution through a power politics or security lens, in the Sufi tradition “peace is not a mere absence of war or tension, nor a condition derived from the defeat of an enemy or the maintenance of a particular social institution.”⁹ Sufism emphasizes jihad al-akbar, the greater jihad, which is “the inner struggle to attain human dignity through a cleansing of the self and the establishment of harmony with God, humanity, and nature”¹⁰ (see Islam and Peacemaking). While acknowledging “the difficulty of this holy struggle,” Said explains, Sufism (and other esoteric traditions) also affirms the possibility for any individual to access and uphold their human potential for inner and thus outer peace.

In a paper titled “Peace, the Inside Story,” Said outlines a spiritual framework for conflict resolution, highlighting the critical role of the facilitator in creating an opportunity for “peace as first inner transformation and only then external manifestation (you are peace and from you flows peace).”¹¹ In a storytelling style familiar to those who knew him, Said describes the first stage of this framework as creating a safe space for the conflicting sides. To do this, the facilitator must first empty their own desires and attachments to outcome: “in other words, I have to get myself out of the way.” Only then can the facilitator come “from a place of light-heartedness and humility” and manifest externally “a calming, non-judgmental energy” in order to grapple with the group’s emotions rather than be weighed down by their own.¹² The second stage is for the facilitator to help shift how the different sides of the conflict see each other – “making the unseen seen.” This includes how they are each traumatized and “equally powerful or equally powerless because they are partners in conflict.” Said explains, “I must first collapse the distance within myself, the feeling of separation from wholeness, so that I can connect with the energy of the others.”¹³ (See also Personal Transformation.)

In the third stage of Said’s spiritual framework of conflict resolution, the facilitator supports the parties as they share their own feelings, creating empathy and building trust. “On the surface is only blame, and they cannot get past this blame until they see each other as fellow sufferers on a journey of pain, rather than as the ‘other.’”¹⁴ To illustrate, Said shares a story from his work in Cyprus with the organization Seeds of Peace, in which he helped to bring Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot youth together for shared meals and discussions. Through these shared activities, “they found commonality, confronted their differences, and could no longer deny the common humanity of their former enemies.”¹⁵ In the fourth stage, the facilitator supports the group in creating “a coordinated pace for peace.” When one side feels they are being pushed during negotiations, explains Said, there is a power imbalance. “Conflict resolution is a dance and the steps need to be in sync to work. One side must step back so that the other can step forward, in turns. This is where patience comes in.”¹⁶ Finally, the last stage is an ongoing one as “the recipients of healing, once the process has been set in motion, become conduits of healing themselves … to face the trauma and help other fractured souls wrestle with their emotions.” The facilitator plays an important role by modeling this stage, which is “only possible when your conscious and your unconscious are in alignment, and this is a state of humility.”¹⁷ Modeling is not always easy or successful, Said clarifies, yet he compares it to the experience of heaven or “where love is flowing”: “it may not be possible to experience Heaven for more than a few fleeting moments in a lifetime, but those seconds are what sustain you and keep you going.”¹⁸

Said identifies dialogue as an essential component of conflict resolution theory and practice, and toward a “global redefinition of self and community” through the surfacing of “hidden treasures” and new solutions among different cultures and traditions.¹⁹ From a spiritual perspective, Said affirms that dialogue is also essential to social healing, which he defines as “the process of making your companion and the relationship that binds you together whole.²⁰ He asserts that sustained dialogue is important for keeping the focus on relationships rather than on specific problems between groups. Yet “social healing requires a dialogue not just of our exterior reality and will to being therein, but of the interior life of each individual. This is the dialogue of the soul and its spirituality.”²¹ He explains that a spiritual framework helps us understand “that we come from a place of abundance, not scarcity.”²² From the perspective of the human spirit, “your win is not my loss, your greatness is cause for my celebration and marvel.”²³ Ultimately, “social healing is a dialogue of community, the unfolding of individual will into a social fabric, a tapestry where each soul is another thread.”²⁴

Finally, Said was also concerned about the role of education in preparing for a global citizenship (see Peace Education), of which he saw spirituality as an inherent component. As he writes, “the spiritual dimension of teaching conflict resolution … emerges from a pedagogy which internalizes the values and processes which it seeks to impart – a pedagogy of peace and conflict resolution which is itself peace and conflict resolution.”²⁵ An education that leads to the creation of new solutions to the world’s increasingly complex problems requires a dialogical and open-ended process; it “begins with dialogue of the mind.”²⁶ In an interfaith prayer given at the National Cathedral in 2001, Said stated: “through education we discover the sacred … When we discover the sacred we are doing God’s work within the heart and mind. God works through us to bring all things together. We become bridge builders. We bring down the dividing walls.”²⁷

Notes