The Anatomy of PEACE. RESOLVING THE HEART OF CONFLICT. The Arbinger Institute

min Arrig, whose views began to change my own. I met Professor Arrig—or Ben, as he soon asked me to call him — on the New Haven Green as we watched black protesters being restrained by shield-carrying police who were shooting tear gas toward the crowds. The three Christian churches on the Green made for an interesting backdrop to the tension and vio¬lence. I ignored the warnings of the mounted policemen who told us to leave. The commotion, though substantial, was noth¬ing compared to what I had grown accustomed to. I felt drawn to the spectacle.
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"Just then I noticed a black man who seemed similarly drawn. He was among the onlookers, most of whom were white. I watched him curiously. Despite the combustible dangers of the moment, he remained stoically still—neither joining in anger nor running in fear. His face was serious with concern.
"I sidled up to him to get the black perspective on the conflict—a perspective that, as an oppressed Palestinian Arab, I thought I would readily understand. Here fought the equivalent of my Fatah brothers. Had I recognized any faces in the crowd, I probably would have thrown myself in the way of the canisters of gas. As I approached the man, I was looking to commiserate.
"'So the oppressed are fighting back,' I commented almost nonchalantly. My tone must have seemed oddly detached un¬der the circumstances.
"'Yes,' the man responded, without moving his eyes from the scene, 'on both sides.'
"'Both sides?' I repeated in surprise.
"'Yes.'
"'How so?' I challenged. 'I only see tear gas on one side.'
"'If you look closely,' he answered, 'you will see the desire for tear gas on both sides.'
"I remember looking back at the boiling crowd and won¬dering what he meant, and how anyone could observe such de¬sire even if it was there.
"'Where are you from?' he asked me, without taking his eyes off the scene.
"'Jerusalem, Palestine,' I answered.
"He didn't say anything.
"I turned back to the melee myself. 'I know what they are feeling,' I said, nodding toward the rioters.
"'Then I pity you,' the man said.
"I was taken aback.
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"'Pity me? Why?'
"'Because you have become your own enemy,' he answered quietly but resolutely.
"'Because I want to fight back?' I objected. 'Because I want to right the wrongs that have been done to me and my people?'
"He didn't say anything.
"'What if circumstances are such that I'm justified in desir¬ing tear gas?' I retorted, returning to his earlier comment.
"'Exactly,' he said.
"'Exactly?' I repeated in confusion. 'What is that supposed to mean?'
"'You have become your own enemy.'
"So began my education at the feet of Ben Arrig," Yusuf continued.
"What happened?" Lou asked.
"Over a period of three years, Ben completely laid waste to the assumptions I had taken to be the truth—to the personal biases I had believed to be reality. First, he taught me about the box, and then he taught me how you can and can't get out of it. Because of my deeply held biases against Jews, he spent a lot of time with me on the topic of racism and showed that it too was a feature of the box—of mine as much as anyone else's. 'If you see people of a particular race or culture as objects,' he told me, 'your view of them is racist, whatever your color or lack of color or your power or lack of power.' He showed me that this is the same for all divisions, whether between rich and poor, old and young, educated and uneducated, religious and nonreligious, Catholic and Protestant, Shia and Sunni.
"'When you begin to see others as people,' Ben told me, 'is¬sues related to race, ethnicity, religion, and so on begin to look and feel different. You end up seeing people who have hopes, dreams, fears, and even justifications that resemble your own.'
186 • FROM WAR TO PEACE
"'But what if one group of people is oppressing another?' I once asked Ben.
"'Then the second group must be careful not to become op¬pressors themselves. A trap that is all too easy to fall into,' he added, 'when the justification of past abuse is readily at hand.'
"'How would they become oppressors themselves if they simply try to put an end to injustice?' I asked.
"'Because most who are trying to put an end to injustice only think of the injustices they believe they themselves have suffered. Which means that they are concerned not really with injustice but with themselves. They hide their focus on them¬selves behind the righteousness of their outward cause.'"
At this, Yusuf paused and looked around at the group. "Which brings me," he said, "back to Pettis's question of how we can ponder our situations anew."
"The people Ben and I witnessed that day on the New Haven Green appeared more concerned with their own bur¬dens than with others'. I can't tell for sure as I wasn't in their skin, but it didn't appear that they were considering the burdens of those they were railing against, for example, or those whose lives they were putting in danger. It would have been well for them and their cause if they had begun to think as carefully about others as they did about themselves. If they had been able to find their way to an out-of-the-box place, they could have pondered their situations anew by asking a series of questions."
Walking to the board and beginning to write, he said, "Like these:"
• What are this person's or people's challenges, trials, burdens, and pains?
• How am I, or some group of which I am a part, adding to these challenges, trials, burdens, and pains?
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• 187
• In what other ways have I or my group neglected or mistreated this person or group?
• In what ways are my better-than, I-deserve, worse-than, and must-be-seen-as boxes obscuring the truth about others and myself and interfering with potential solutions?
• What am I feeling I should do for this person or group? What could I do to help?
"With Ben's help," Yusuf said, as he turned back to the group, "I started to ask these questions—questions that helped me to ponder my situation anew. For most of my life I had been consumed with my own challenges, trials, burdens, and pains, and with those of my people. I had never thought to consider how the Israeli people might feel burdened as well, and how I might have added to the burdens they felt, and how I too had mistreated and neglected. As I began to ask these questions, the world began to change for me. I still saw my sufferings, but I was able to see the sufferings of others as well. And when seen in that light, my sufferings took on new meaning. They gave me a window into the pain that others might be feeling, some of it at my own hand. Since I no longer needed to feel justified, I no longer needed to sustain my own sufferings, and I could lay down my victimhood. I began to have feelings for and desires toward Israelis that I had before only faintly felt. I began to see possibilities—potential solutions to our problems that no one who is invested in the box can afford to see. I began to feel hope where before I felt only anger and despair.
"One quick story, if I might," he continued. "I went home to visit my mother a few years after my learning with Ben, and I made a point to visit someone else as well. I wonder whatever happened to Mordechai Lavon? I had thought. Might he still be on the streets? Still begging? Still being ignored?
188 • FROM WAR TO PEACE
"I walked up and down Bethlehem's Manger Street asking the merchants if they knew of an old blind man who begged nearby. He probably would have been seventy by then, I fig¬ured. No one seemed to know him or have any memory of him.
"Until finally I happened upon an old woman, herself a beg¬gar. The few yellow teeth that remained jutted angularly from her mouth. Her dark leathery skin and deep wrinkles spoke of a lifetime on the street and under the sun.
"'Mordechai Lavon? Yes I knew him,' she cackled.
"'Do you know where I might find him?' I asked.
"'You won't,' she said, laughing oddly.
"'Why not?'
"'Died years ago. Right over there, 'round that corner.' She pointed a stubby finger across the street at an alleyway. 'Body lay there for three days, the police said. No one knew it until he started to smell. My, the smell! Whew!' she said, recoiling at the memory of it. 'He couldn't do much, old Mordechai, but he sure could stink!' And she cackled oddly again.
"I was surprised by how badly the news hurt me. What a lonely life he led, I lamented. So many burdens, so many pains. And yet surrounded by others so focused only on their own pains that they never noticed his. I turned to leave.
"'Hey Mister,' the woman called after me. "How 'bout some money?'
"I found myself stiffening my neck so as not to acknowledge her—not to feel her humanity. It was almost a reflex in me.
"My, the box has staying power, I thought, almost audibly. I stopped and took out my wallet. 'What's your name?' I asked.
"'Nahla,' she answered, 'Nahla Mahmuud.'
"I reached in and took out all the bills I was carrying.
"'For Mordechai,' I said, extending the bills to her.
"'Sure, Sir,' her face lit up. 'For Mordechai.'
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• 189
Yusuf looked around at the group. By now each person was deep in thought and reflection.
Lou's mind was on three people in particular—Carol, Cory, and Kate. He felt a new desire awakening within him, a desire that built upon the thoughts he had had about Cory earlier that morning. He was feeling a desire to get to know his son. He felt an urge to begin writing a letter to him, to apologize, to share, and just to talk. He would have done so in that moment if he hadn't still been in the class. He resolved to write it that evening and to leave it here at Camp Moriah for the next mail run to the trail.
And Kate, he thought. I'm so sorry for what I have done—for not listening, for stepping in and controlling how you ran your team, for my stupidity. What can I do to get you back? Yes, that is what I must do, he resolved within, I have to win you back.
This thought led him to Carol—the woman whose heart he had "won" and then forgotten so many years before. He reached over and touched her hand. I will not be forgetting again. But then he realized how naive this was. Of course he would. The box has staying power, just like Yusuf said. Lou knew he had much more to say to Carol than what he had managed to say that morning. A few good intentions would not overcome decades of bigheadedness. Whatever she needs, I'll give her, he told himself.
But you won't, came another voice from within. You're going to go home and betroth yourself to your work again, and she'll again take up her role as convenient housemate and caretaker.
No, I can't let that happen! Lou fairly shouted to himself. "What can I do to change things with my Mordechais before it's too late?" he asked urgently. "And how can I sustain that change?"
Yusuf smiled. "The ideas Ben Arrig taught me, in particular his liberating questions, will change everything if you can only
190 • FROM WAR TO PEACE
find your way to an out-of-the-box place and ask them sincerely. Each time you find you're getting stuck, whether at work or in your family, you'll again have to find an out-of-the-box place just as we have found one together here, and then you'll have to get responsively curious once more. Your questions about others will break you free from your justifications and blame. For a while you will be able to see and feel clearly and to find a way forward that you hadn't before seen. That is what has happened to you here, is it not?"
Lou slowly nodded.
"Whether you stay free, however," Yusuf continued, "and to what extent you do, will depend on what happens next."
"Which is what?" Lou asked.
"The culminating step in the getting-out-of-the-box process."
21 • Action
Lou waited. "Okay, what is it?" he asked. "What is this final step you're talking about?"
"Gwyn," Yusuf said, "do you remember your dad's favorite word?"
"Too well, I'm afraid," she smirked.
"What does her father have to do with it?" Lou asked, impa¬tiently.
"Actually, Lou, he has everything to do with it."
"How so?"
"Gwyn is Ben Arrig's daughter."
Lou wouldn't have been more surprised had the Easter Bunny come through the door. Jaw muscles went slack around the room.
"Don't be too impressed," Gwyn said in the silence of the gawking gazes, "Sometimes our parents are the last people we can hear, you know?" she said, mostly to herself.
Heads nodded everywhere.
"My ears have been closed to my dad's ideas for years. 'Don't try to feed your philosophy to me,' I used to tell him when he tried to suggest that I think of things a different way. He thought I should give up the hate I have for my former hus¬band, forgive a sister who has wronged me, and rethink my opinions on race. But he was my dad. Wha