In 2019, I did a TEDx talk for the JIBC entitled “Mediating While the World Burns.” Since then, I’ve noticed myself coming back to the message of that talk time and again, almost like that was my future self, talking to me today.
Now, more than ever, we need to step up and be Third Siders. Third Siders take care of each other. Bill Ury, in his book The Third Side, tells us that conflict is all our responsibility, not just between those who it is happening between. This requires us to see conflict as all our responsibility.
Ury suggests 3 kinds of peacemaking or Third Sider roles:
We can play a prevention role in conflict, by providing resources to people, by giving people skills to handle conflict and to be bridge builders by forging relationships across lines of conflict.
We can play more of a resolution role, as a mediator, arbiter, an equalizer of power or healer.
We can play a containing role as witness, referee setting limits to the conflict or as a peacekeeper providing protection from others who would harm them.
As our societal systems, structures and ecosystems collapse, we will all need to learn to play these roles in different ways. So, I was heartened by this article about training for bureaucrats to become mediators.
Yes!
“The peace we can aspire to then is not a harmonious peace of the grave, nor a submissive peace of the slave, but a hardworking peace of the brave.” … Bill Ury
