Читать книгу The Neutrality Trap - Bernard S. Mayer - Страница 14

Social movements inevitably face difficult strategic decisions about how to interface with the people they are hoping to influence and the systems that they want to change. Activists must choose whether to focus on disrupting systems, engaging with those whose beliefs and behaviors they oppose, or looking for potential areas of agreements that may be steps, even small ones, on the road to change. Whatever the immediate focus, over time all three approaches—disruption, engagement, and resolution—are necessary elements to the change process. An element of each is almost always present no matter what fundamental strategy a movement or group has adopted.

As conflict interveners, we often think about resolution as the be‐all and end‐all goal and consider constructive engagement as a positive step along the road to resolution. We tend to view disruption as a problem to overcome through engagement and resolution. However, in the search for social change we may have it backward. Resolution efforts are often most important as steps along a path that leads to system disruption. The civil rights movement, for example, was built on incremental changes, such as the integration of lunch counters and bus systems, but each of these contributed to the development of a network of diverse relationships that facilitated the expansion of the effort to change more fundamental elements in the system such as the distribution of political power. Resolution of deeply rooted conflicts will not occur without disruption.

Genuine engagement most often builds on a foundation of disruption and at the same time requires an openness to identifying areas of agreement. On the other hand, for disruption to be effective it must also open the door to engagement and resolution. Even if the goal of disruption is to dismantle a system, such as colonialism, engagement is essential. Effective movements respect the interdependence as well as the tension between these three strategic goals.