There are many disputes, conflicts and problems confronted by individuals, groups and nations. These disputes or conflicts may be local, national, regional or global. Some of these disputes are new, some are old, and the fact is that these disputes are alive and still waiting for their solution. For example, the Arab-Israel conflict, regional wars in Africa and terrorism in Afghanistan. One may ask why these disputes arise, and why some of these have not been solved even after lapse of decades. One wonders, what the key to their solution is.
A dispute or conflict is a disagreement or a quarrel, or a struggle or a fight or a clash between two incompatible desires or needs. We are often confronted with disputes and disagreements and at times such dealings prove to be too difficult to deal with. Their intrinsic nature is riddled with incomprehensible moot points. Such events are, no doubt, difficult and disruptive for individuals, countries and nations. Confronted with such struggles our friends, relatives or community members complain that these disputes are beyond their control. They feel frustrated. Obviously so, these problems after all bring with them stress and strain and make one's life uneasy.
Confronted with such issues, people seek advice from professionals! A common or visible factor among these solution seekers is absence of clarity and failure to comprehend the conflict. These people also do fail to consider an out of box solution and ignore the existing possibilities of settlement. Look, for example, towards the Arab-Israeli conflict and the failure of the Arabs to seize an opportunity offered by Golda Meir, in her tenure as Israeli Prime Minister, to withdraw from the occupied Arab territories in exchange for recognition of Israel. The Arabs rejected the offer. And today the Arabs themselves are offering the same solution to the Israelis. It is obvious that some of the stake holders in the conflict lacked clarity in the past. They never knew how to practice the art of possible and failed to seize the moment.
The dictionary meanings of the word 'possible' are achievable, able to be done, capable of happening, conceivable or within the limits of possibility. The art of possible is thus the knowledge of knowing our limits. This art tells you to be pragmatic, and to avoid idealism as we have to come with the terms of matter-of-fact so as to be realistic. The art of possible teaches to be realist and practical-oriented in order to have the clarity of mind to seize the opportunity.
Clarity, I may add, is the quality of being easy to see, hear or understand. In fact clarity is a thought process in which one experiences accuracy of ideas and reasoning. This process makes the conflict-ridden issues more clear or easy to understand while increasing one's ability to make decision.
When one is decisive, he puts an end to his doubts and mental blocks. Take the case of Germans, when given an opportunity to unite; they were not hesitant to seize the moment. It was clarity and confidence which enabled them to unify.
Being Aryans and Germans, there was no conflict or doubt in their minds not to accept the given opportunity to end the existing divide. The harmony of thoughts and power of culture provided strength to the Germans to seize the moment of their unity.
Why we are confronted with doubts? The element of mistrust brings doubts and blocks our mental abilities to recognise the existing possibilities, making one unsure. These mental blocks emerge during adverse days and create incapacity to keep us away from the solutions.
This incapacity to take a decision is caused by disbelief and mistrust and we remain hanging around our doubts and fail to seize the moment. These limitations make the conflict resolution more difficult. Take the case of an ongoing conflict between authoritarian regimes and the struggling people, the divide between the parties suggests that suspicion and mistrust is restricting them to be decisive and to sort out their problems. They do not want to believe each other. Whereas when parties to the conflict start believing each other, the process of conflict resolution becomes easy and smooth.
Belief in fact is the foundation of trust and confidence-building process. It brings with it an understanding to accept things, events, places etc per se. This acceptance of reality gives us the ability and capability to harmonise with nature and to build confidence to be decisive to find possible solutions to the confronting puzzles. Harmony of thoughts supported by mutual trust creates an environment of attraction. This force of attraction is an important element of human behaviour for extending love to end our conflicts.
The element of trust leads to belief, confidence, reliance on others and the acceptance of the existence of goodness around us. It tells us to trust others and to extend our love, and to understand that in ordinary circumstances people behave in a responsible manner as they do not want to be adversaries: Rather they would like to be friends.
Among the factors which an individual overlooks (at times he may not be conscious) for the strengthening his belief system is the capacity to trust others. And that is an important factor for to be decisive.
Our decision-making process stands blurred and distorted when we are indecisive and do not trust others. This state of mind exists due to lack of awareness, and not being mindful of elements which create mental blocks or failures to understand the events leading to the problem.
As a lawyer, it has often been noticed by me, that lack of awareness is a major element which causes delays in conflict resolution. One obviously has to be knowledgeable, informed and aware in order to understand the causes and reasons why the problem is hanging around. Awareness brings with it knowledge and information about a particular subject acquired through learning and experience. In this regard important is the knowledge-base which equips one with the ideas and confidence needed for problem solving.
Knowing or having knowledge about things has always been recognised as an important factor. Greeks used the oracle of Delphi to know solutions to their problems. The slogan of Delphi was: 'Thy know yourself', and this slogan gives another dimension to our subject that is, knowing oneself which in other words tells us to assimilate one's weakness and strengths. Because, knowing our weakness makes one to act to correct the - existing faults. And for that one may seek advice from others for conflict resolution.
Relying on occultism for decision-making is very common in the Indian culture. Why people approach astrologers and occultists? They want to know hidden things, to use more advanced information to combat bad events or to welcome good news. One may think it is all absurd, but the fact remains that it is a pursuit to gain information for making correct decisions.
What is information? It is knowledge gained or given. Information provides us with a lot of data and its processing results in knowledge, which gives more awareness, more understanding and increases our ability and skills to face the reality. Confronting the reality leads to an understanding of the real nature of the problem faced. The problem faced is a reality and is not an imaginary thing. This awareness leads to acceptance of things as they really are by making us more or less a realist. This gained realism through information leads us to accept or deal with conflicts, and prepares us to accept the possible solutions.
Our discussion now brings us to the point to review the character of conflict resolution practices of institutions. Institutions are usually created with specific jurisdiction over a set of issues and are expected to acquire expertise and competence in order to exercise the jurisdiction endowed to them. But they do possess traditions and norms - long-standing expectations of the way something ought to be done. These limitations place constraints to their ability to adapt to the rapidly changing world. And when a new challenge arises, their immediate response is to try to handle it within the limits of existing structures; but I may add here that what is needed is the recognition of the fact that an entirely different set of arrangements also exists to tackle the problem.
In our debate we have outlined the factors including elements necessary for the solution to the problem. One may act upon them. And in our endeavour to solve problems, we should not surrender, and keep on trying to press one's point of view again and again in order to follow a path towards a possible solution.
(The writer is an advocate and is currently working as an associate with Azim-ud-Din Law Associates)