Getting a Grip on Conflict and Creativity
admin October 15th, 2007
(Jess) In a remarkable October 11th article, the New York Times tells the story of Pascasie Mukamurigo, a Tutsi woman, a weaver, and a survivor of the Rwandan genocide. In the aftermath of the country’s devastating violence, Ms Mukamurigo – who lost her husband and a child in the attacks, and who was in hiding from Hutu militants for months – adopted 13 orphans. To help support them, she created a weaving group of surviving widows, all of whom had also adopted children orphaned by the genocide. And she invited Hutu women, members of the families who had committed the atrocities, to join the group as well. The baskets produced by the resultant, mixed-ethnicity group- beautiful, detailed, painstakingly created – were an “embodiment of reconciliation.” Today, the baskets are distributed by Macy’s, and the weavers have been lifted by their work out of poverty.
We do not want for villains. Nor for examples of greed, depravity, and hate-mongering. But [the New York Times article] reminded me that human beings can also be compassionate, inventive, and triumphantly sane…
In the arguments we have with Republicans, those we label “spineless Democrats,” or kossacks with whom we disagree, there is no comparison to be made with machete-wielding mobs seeking to murder our families. To imply otherwise would be pathologically insensitive. But Mrs. Mukamurigo’s compassionate, creative response to the violence visited upon her stopped me in my tracks. It seemed to have something to say as I’ve been mulling over what “healthy conflict” would look like on this site and in politics.
Here are the questions I’ve been asking myself as I see what I think is some pretty knuckleheaded conflict on the site:
How can we be more curious about people and views we normally disagree with?
What does a principled argument look like between parties who are arguing in good faith?
How do we fight against those who seem to operate in bad faith, with no principles or morality?
How do keep from too-quickly assuming that anyone who disagrees with us is operating in bad faith and amoral?
I’m not interested in a cloying “niceness” or blindly hoping that humanity’s better instincts will prevail. But I would like to see fewer ad-hominems and more of an ability to think together with people who we might dismiss too quickly.”
Getting a Grip asks precisely the questions Angelino is asking, and advocates precisely the sort of open, ongoing, respectful engagement that Angelino intuits is possible. In her chapter ‘The Art of Power,’ Frances details the possibility of using conflict creatively; through listing examples of those who do so, she makes it clear that the emergence of people and organizations willing to engage in healthy, open, creative conflict has long since begun. Ms Mukamurigo’s response to the tragedies of her life is extraordinary, but perhaps her kind of deeply generous, revitalizing response may be becoming daily ever more ordinary. It gives me hope to believe it so.
