What are We Planting?
The conversation did not end for me when I published Part I. In many ways, it had just begun.
I have continued to think about Kofi Annan’s words and, perhaps even more, about why they have stayed with me for so many years. I wrote about a speech delivered nearly twenty years ago, yet for me this was never simply an exercise in looking backward.
It was personal.
I have spent much of my life thinking about dialogue and about what happens when people who come from different histories, faiths, nations and experiences actually sit with one another and listen. That is why Kofi Annan’s words continue to resonate with me, and it has led me to another question: Does peace begin before there is evera resolution?
I believe it does.
What I Have Learned From Creating the Room
I have had the privilege of facilitating peace conferences and participating in conversations with people whose histories, religions, cultures and experiences can be profoundly different from my own. My wife and I participated in the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) immersion programs in The Hague and Geneva, and through Destination Peace International my work has also taken me to Enugu, Nigeria, where I have had the opportunity to engage with religious leaders, traditional leaders, educators, young people and members of the community.
These experiences have reinforced something I have come to believe very deeply. Peace is not created by asking people to surrender their identities. Peace becomes possible when we create enough trust for people to bring those identities into the same room without fearing one another.
Tolerance alone is not enough. Tolerance can mean, I will endure your presence. Peace asks something far more difficult: Can I recognize your dignity? Can I hear your story? Can we disagree without making one another disposable?
This is not something I learned from a textbook. I have watched what words can do, and I have watched what happens when people are given permission to listen to one another rather than being told why they should hate one another.
I have also learned that facilitating peace does not mean entering a room believing that I have all the answers. Quite the opposite, it requires humility, knowing when to speak and when to listen, and recognizing that the traditional leader, the religious leader, the student, the parent and the person whose voice is rarely invited into such gatherings may each carry a piece of the answer.
I understand that people can have strong opinions. I, without a doubt, have strong opinions too, and I have had intense conversations over the years that could have gone in a very different direction. Disagreement does not have to become hatred and hatred does not have to become violence. We can disagree passionately and still recognize the humanity of the person sitting across from us.
As long as I have breath, I have to keep trying to make a difference.
What Are We Planting?
There is another lesson I have learned through this work, and it is one that has become increasingly important to me.
Words plant seeds.
If you plant seeds of hatred, they will eventually branch out into violence. If we continually teach people whom to fear, whom to blame and whom to despise, we should not be surprised when those seeds eventually take root and grow.
When violence finally occurs, we often ask how it happened. Perhaps we also need to ask what was planted before the violence began. Who planted it? Who watered it? Who continued feeding it when there were opportunities to do something different?
This is why I believe those of us who are given the opportunity to sit or stand in front of a microphone have a particular responsibility. A microphone is an opportunity. It can be used to remind people of everything that divides them, to reopen wounds, assign blame and perpetuate a cycle of hatred. It can also be used to ask a different question: How do we resolve this?
How do we find a peaceful solution? How do we acknowledge the hurt and anger that brought us to this moment without handing that same hurt and anger to the next generation?
I am not suggesting that we avoid difficult truths. Peace is not pretending that injustice, suffering, fear or legitimate grievances do not exist. We have to speak about them. There is a difference between speaking about a wound because we want to heal it and continually opening that wound so that it never has the opportunity to heal.
When I stand before a microphone, I want to remember that distinction. I want my words to offer a possibility for resolution rather than another reason for resentment. I want to ask what might bring people closer to understanding one another rather than what will receive the loudest response in the room.
The person at the microphone is always planting something.
What do we want to grow?
The Responsibility of the United Nations
I believe this responsibility becomes even greater inside an institution whose very purpose includes the pursuit of peace.
Over the years, I have met many individuals who would consider it an extraordinary privilege to apprentice at the United Nations. They are young people and emerging leaders who want to learn, to serve, to understand diplomacy and, most importantly, to foster peace. I think about them when I hear people who have been entrusted with a microphone at the United Nations use that opportunity to habitually foment hatred rather than search for solutions.
My feeling is quite simple: If your purpose at the United Nations is to plant seeds of hatred, perhaps you should find another job.
There are enough people in this world who would cherish the opportunity to sit in that chair, stand before that microphone or learn within those halls, people who would understand that such a privilege also carries a responsibility.
This does not mean avoiding disagreement, nor does it mean remaining silent about injustice. It does not mean that diplomacy should always be polite or comfortable. Sometimes peace requires saying things that are very difficult to hear. There is a profound difference between confronting a difficult issue in search of resolution and using a platform to perpetuate hatred.
I have met people who want the opportunity to learn how to build bridges. Why shouldn’t we make more room for them? Why shouldn’t the next generation of diplomats be taught that the microphone before them is not merely an instrument for repeating grievances, but an opportunity to offer a path forward?
Why I Return to Kofi Annan
Perhaps this is one reason Kofi Annan continues to speak to me across the years. He understood institutions and he understood diplomacy, yet beneath both was something more fundamental: the dignity of the human being.
Long before there is a treaty, there must be an encounter. Long before there is an agreement, there must be enough trust to remain at the table. Long before we can speak seriously about peace between peoples, we must be willing to see the person sitting across from us.
That is what I have tried to do through Destination Peace, not to arrive carrying peace as though it were something I could give another person, but to help create the space in which people might discover what becomes possible together.
This brings me back to Kofi Annan and to the institution he served. The United Nations he represented was certainly imperfect, and he knew that. At its best, however, the institution represented an extraordinary proposition: that people and nations with profound disagreements could still come together, speak, listen and search for peaceful solutions.
That possibility is worth protecting.
Those privileged enough to speak beneath the emblem of the United Nations should ask themselves a very basic question before approaching the microphone:
Am I planting another seed of hatred, or am I planting a possibility for peace?
