WILLIAM URY is one of the world’s most trusted negotiators and mediators. He has spent his life building bridges in conflict situations and teaching other people how to do the same. His book, Getting to Yes, is a worldwide bestseller and is translated into thirty-five languages. Here he is interviewed by GUILA CLARA KESSOUS about his approach to peace-making. We thank our partner, the Spirit of Humanity Forum, for facilitating this interview.
Q: William Ury has dedicated his life to peace-making and better diplomatic relationships. William, welcome and thank you so much for giving us your time.
Today, we live in a world where relationships have become harder and harder, especially in terms of trust. What is your definition of peace-making today?
WU: First of all, thank you Guila. In today’s world, conflict is a growth industry. Everywhere we look – domestically and internationally – for every issue, from war to climate, to hunger, we are faced with conflicts that are seemingly impossible to resolve. To me, peace-making is the continuous transformation of those conflicts.
When I began working in this field forty-five years ago, with my colleague Roger Fisher, we were working on the Cold War, and it seemed impossible that there’d ever be an end to it. People thought the Berlin Wall was going to be there forever, but as we know, the Berlin Wall fell, and the relationship between the United States and the then Soviet Union transformed.
The same was true in South Africa when we were working on the problem of apartheid. For as long as anybody could envision, people said there would be a race war in South Africa, and I watched Nelson Mandela and countless other individuals working for peace to transform that situation. The same thing happened in Northern Ireland. The Catholics and the Protestants have been fighting each other for centuries, and they are going to be fighting each other for centuries. In each of those cases, there’s no end to the conflict.
Sometimes, we have this illusion that peace-making means an end to conflict – you wrap it up like a present. No. The form changes. It changes from a destructive form, from the destruction of values, the destruction of lives, to a more constructive, creative form.
To me, that is the definition of peace-making. Peace-making never ends. It’s not like you get to a final yes. I think of peace-making as being the impossible yes. It may seem impossible, but it is actually a whole series of yeses over time, because the game of conflict is not a final game. It’s not a win-lose final game. It’s an infinite game. It goes on. Relationships go on. The United States and Russia still have problems, there are still problems in Northern Ireland, and there are still problems in South Africa, but the conflicts were transformed.
If you look around the world today, there are still so many injustices. I would argue that, paradoxically, the world needs more conflict, not less, because conflict is the way we deal with injustice. At the same time, we need constructive, creative conflict, and to me that’s what peace-making is. Peace-making is the continuous transformation of those conflicts through methods like negotiation.
Q: You speak about a new way of seeing negotiations, of possibilism, and I like this notion. In fact, when I hear you talking about the idea of unwrapping conflict – trying to have a change of energy, of value – it’s a way to change perspective and realize that in conflict there is an interdependency that we cannot put away. Could you give us a little more information about this notion of possibilism?
WU: Sure. People
ask me, “At the end of forty-five years working in this field, dealing with
impossible situations, are you still an optimist?”
I generally say, “You
know, constitutionally I am an optimist, but I’d like to say now that I am a
possibilist.”
A possibilist is someone who believes in human potential.
Of course, there is the possibility that we will kill each other, but there is
also the possibility that we can create or find ways to deal with even the
most intractable, impossible situations. The reason I say that is because I
have seen it happen with my own eyes, and I’ve had the privilege of
participating in one such situation in the last decade.
A possibilist is someone who believes in human
potential.
Of course,
there is the possibility that
we will kill each other, but there is
also
the possibility that we can create or find ways
to deal with
even the most intractable,
impossible situations.
About ten years ago, I got a call from the President of Colombia, who wanted to find a way to end or transform the civil war in Colombia, which had been going on for fifty years, since the 1960s. It was fifty years of civil war, over 250,000 dead, and eight million victims of conflict, mostly women and children, the innocents. He was willing to put his political reputation on the line, because peace is the hardest work that people do. People think wars are hard, but peace is even harder, because it takes more of us as human beings. So, my colleagues and I worked with President Santos for over eight years. We made twenty-five trips to Colombia even before the negotiation process began, secretly, trying to see whether it could be transformed. And it did get transformed. Is the conflict over in Colombia? No, but it’s transformed. The armed conflict came to an end, and that’s what is possible in every conflict facing the world today. That’s why I am a possibilist.
Q: So, what is a good way to transform conflict, to change people’s minds? What is the paradigm shift that can happen?
WU: Well, let me begin by telling you one of my favorite stories on negotiations, which I think crystallizes and answers your question, Guila. It is an ancient story from the Middle East about three sons who receive from their father an inheritance of seventeen camels. The first son, being the eldest, receives half the camels, the second son receives a third of the camels, and the youngest son receives a ninth of the camels. The three sons get into a negotiation about dividing up their inheritance, because seventeen doesn’t divide by two, it doesn’t divide by three, and it doesn’t divide by nine. Each one wants more. They argue, and there is the risk of it becoming violent.
Finally, in desperation, they consult a wise old woman, and she thinks about the problem for a long time. Finally, she comes back and says, “Well, I don’t know if I have an answer to your problem, but I have a camel. Would you like my camel?” The three sons say, “Okay,” so they have eighteen camels. Now, eighteen divides by two, so the first son takes nine camels. Eighteen divides by three, so the second son takes six camels. Eighteen divides by nine, so the youngest son takes two camels. When you add nine plus six plus two, you get seventeen. They have one camel left over, so they give it back to the wise woman.
If you think about that problem for a moment, you’ll find it resembles a lot of the negotiations we engage in. At first sight it seems impossible. The secret to the paradigm shift you asked about, Guila, is the wise old woman. What does she do? She steps back from the situation for a moment. She goes to what I call a balcony, which is the place where you overlook the stage in a theatre. It’s a place of perspective. It’s a place where you can rise above the fray, above the conflict, where you can see the picture more clearly, where you can keep your eye on the prize.
Then what does she do? She comes up with the eighteenth camel, what I call “building the parties a golden bridge” so they can advance across the big chasm of disagreement. How do we build them a bridge over that chasm? How do we make it as easy as possible to say yes? That’s the eighteenth camel. Where does that eighteenth camel come from? It often comes not from the parties themselves but from the surrounding community, which is what I call the third side of any conflict.
We use the third side to act on those new
possibilities.
That’s the
paradigm shift – balcony, bridge, and third side.
I call it BB3, the key to finding impossible yeses.
We often see conflicts as two-sided – Arabs versus Israelis, Catholics versus Protestants – but there is always a third side, the surrounding community, the circle surrounding the conflict. In this case, it is the wise old woman. That is the paradigm shift.
If I had to look back over forty-five years and ask, “How do I sum all of this up?”, it is the ability to get to that impossible yes. We need to step back and go to the balcony to see new possibilities. Then we build a golden bridge to bring about those new possibilities creatively. Finally, we use the third side to act on those new possibilities. That’s the paradigm shift – balcony, bridge, and third side. I call it BB3, the key to finding impossible yeses.
To be continued.
William Ury
