Bonus feature: Inside the Process

I'd like to actually start by congratulating you,

on the work we've just seen on the DVD,

of your intervention in Kenya.

And I'd like to start by just asking you,

you look, on the DVD, comfortable, relaxed.

Are you inwardly relaxed?

Are you inside, relaxed?

When we see you, Ashafa, doing that,

what are we not seeing?

I think what you are not seeing is

the fear of some people who are working

out of the mediation process.

Because, at that time, when we are talking about

the hard-core issues,

you need to feel the pulse of those things,

of those concerns, those challenges they have.

And you need to wait,

to see how they are going to process those pains,

to come back to a safe landing.

So, the fear is... please, I hope

they won't, somebody won't get angry,

to walk out of the hall.

Well, good, why don't we just back up slightly

and tell us what you discussed between the two of you,

how were you going to set up this workshop?

For us, usually we compare notes in the evening,

to work out what best strategy to adopt.

Sometimes it comes by impulse,

sometimes it comes through inspiration.

We are not dogmatic about what process to

apply in each situation, but the context

determines what process.

When we went in,

we feel the pulse, the temperature

of animosity and hate.

If you look for the themes,

when we go in, we went to the

refugee camps.

And that is one of the first stages of

the feeling the pulse, the temperature,

assessing the level of the damage and

the intervention.

We met with most of the leadership

in the camps.

Then we went to other parts of the community.

These are people who have killed themselves and

they are meeting for the first time.

Some even know that these guys are those who

destroyed my farms, are those who steal my cows.

They know that.

Who looted my shops.

They know that.

They can feel that.

So with that tense, we go for what we call

searching for the common ground.

For me, it was fascinating to see

you allowing people to... sort of,

in front of others, expressing the

dislikes.

And I was sort of thinking, that could

get out of control, and people could

become heated.

So that's one question -

did you have a, you know, an exit strategy

in a way?

What was your thinking?

When somebody vents out some pains,

we identify with the pains,

but it's like using what we call the

aikido.

The Japanese style of moving force away

and putting the force gently aside.

And when they are explosive, we say

Ok, can we reflect on this later.

Also use spirituality to douse down those pains.

It happened to others before,

it can happen to you,

you should not allow it to happen again.

So, with these, when people come with those pains,

you are able to process the pains by

accepting it, becoming that person that takes the pains,

and processing the pains,

and placing the pains on the ground.

Not avoiding it completely,

but you get back to it and you must

be sincere to go back to it.

And explaining it in a way that you

will have doused the pains and all.

We rehumanise this work.

We wanted to ask you

about this peace committee that you set up.

Did you lay out for this peace committee

what this task would be?

Or was it up to them to figure out

what their task would be?

We let them figure out what their task should be.

What do you want to do?

Now the destiny of your community

is in your hand.

What do you want to do before we come back?

How do you want us to

come back to support you?

Look at the issues,

work together as a team,

and be able to visit various IDPs,

and help the integration process,

reconciling, bringing back IDPs.

And when we do that...

How confident were you about them delivering that?

Our confidence lies in...

these are the people choosing,

not we imposing them,

not the government imposing them.

So, we lies on the trust the people

have in them to say, without prescribing for them

that you must do this or that,

we only give them the guiding principles.

So, what did they do while you were away?

Well, what they did, of course,

is that they started thinking of

how to begin to visit one another

at the leadership group.

And that was a way of telling the

other followers that we are beginning to

reconcile.

We were so amazed that they were

able to do that, and organise something

to show the whole community that we are united.

To do that was the biggest thing.

We see you are having a whole day meeting

with the peace committee, and

then we see Pastor James texting

messages back home, expressing a

sense of apprehension and anxiety.

If it was a continuation with the same people,

what was worrying you?

I mean, Pastor James, what was on your

mind at that point?

Thank you.

You know, sometimes we have what

we described as conflict entrepreneurs,

and they are shadows.

Usually, they come to derail a process

that has been ongoing.

Now, the gap... while we were not there,

what was happening was quiet

apprehensive.

Are we going to have these people continue,

or they will say we are backing out?

I'm fascinated and amazed by

seeing, I mean knowing you, but also

seeing two Nigerian peacemakers going to

Kenya, another African country, and I was just

imagining if you came to Palestine and

wanted to mediate with Hamas and [SOMETHING]

who had a similar post-election conflict...

why would people listen to you?

How... I mean, in a one-day workshop you

seem to have achieved a lot.

How did you establish that?

How was the relationship with the people?

Was there any question on who you are or

why should people open up to you?

How did you deal with that?

Empathy is very cardinal to having people

receive you.

So, to us that issue of empathy

removed the doubts, and of course

you also say to them in the opening,

this is who you are, and this is what you

are here to do.

And in that, they are very clear on your

objective.

You are not a stooge of any

institution, you are not representing

any government, you are a normal person

like they are, and this is why you are here,

to see how you can work with them

towards solving their problems by themselves.

Not prescribing but

eliciting.

And, to us, we feel that people develop confidence

in you when they know you are not

coming to impose a moral or a system on them.

And what about your own story?

How do you use or share that?

Yes, at times, we use them as very important tools

to say, it is the same issues.

That's why, when we move from who is involved

to what is involved,

that has helped a lot.

You have people in the film who are

writing down, on pieces of paper, their own

hates or wrongs, and then we see them

burning those in a fire.

Now, one question that we were curious

about was, when you gave those pieces of paper

out to everyone and asked them to write

things down, did they know they were going to

have to put them in the fire afterwards?

No, no, not at all.

What did you tell them then?

It was partly our strategy to help them

[INAUDIBLE].

What we said was, please, can you

put every pain on this paper.

Just write this pain on this paper.

We are going to do something with

this paper.

And that something was not told them,

what was going to be done with the paper.

Weren't you concerned that some may

stop short of actually in a way confessing

because someone might have killed

or hated or done damage to the other

and, not knowing where this paper was going to end up...

the writing...

We had the confidence for this people

before that time.

At that point they are already trusting us.

As mediators.

You distributed these pieces of paper and

they wrote on them, and then what

did you say to them?

Good.

We said that we are going together now

to pass on these pains to somebody that can

handle these pains.

We don't have cure for them,

but we believe God will do it.

Now being a Christian in the team,

of course working together with my Muslim colleague,

we felt that it was important to go towards

the same value for them, which is spirituality.

You could see that I'm one-handed,

it was the Imam who was tearing off these sheets,

and distributing to them,

and we were co-facilitating at that time,

the synergy was very strong.

And then we now said,

can we now go out.

And I remember vividly, Imam telling them

that what will show the symbol of relationship.

Then they decided that they will hold hands.

As you can see from the film,

the women came out first, holding.

And you see the emotions,

I like the power in women's ability to forgive quickly,

they held hands,

and the men, you know,

the men will struggle always before they hold hands,

but they did.

When they stay in the circle,

we see each person of them,

and we want two leaders, the most

senior leaders in the group, into the

middle of the circle.

And then we say, everybody...

everyone, each one by one,

come and drop your paper in the circle.

After they dropped their paper,

we said now, the elders...

we'd given them matches...

we are going to do a ritual process of

atoning our sin, and the sin of all

the people of Burnt Forest.

They were really like emotionally putting

their minds to the fire, to the ash,

and saying this fire is burning...

this is how your pains are going.

They identified, they were attracted to that fire

that was burning, every attention was there,

you could read on their faces that they were really connected

to that ritual.

And then they started singing in their native languages,

of course as people who just took roles

we didn't know what they were saying in their language,

but we knew it was a good song,

a song of peace.

So they were going back into the hall

to continue with the process.

That was like sealing the process.

And the divine intimidation strategy that

we took was brought to be.

Did anyone voice any concerns?

Did you have to deal with any challenges?

No, not at all.

You see, when you start a process,

the progression will determine what you do,

or what you don't do.

There was no discerning voice,

and no action to show from what we read,

from their body language,

that anybody felt bad about it.

They were all in it.

They were really deep in it.

Would you say it's an African thing, the ritual?

Or do you see it applying or working in other contexts?

It's international.

They context is to look at the people's values,

and see what is acceptable to them

and use it.

There also seems to me two other

sort of ritual moments attached to this.

One is, there's a peace office, that gets

inaugurated.

Tell us what the peace office is.

The peace office is a process of

having an anchor place for where they

can be meeting.

We agreed that the best solution

is of course to have an office,

so when you have a problem started up by

one of the ethnic groups,

if it's a Kalenjin starting the problem,

the Kalenjin should not take the law into their hands.

They should report to the committee

or otherwise vice versa,

if it's a Kikuyu that is

starting the problem, the Kikuyu

should not take laws into their hands,

they should report to the committee.

Now that is where the aspect of the

political will of the government came,

because to let the government know that they are

responsible, was to invite the local council chairman,

who came to declare that office open,

to say, I know this is happening,

and I declare it open, and I say this place

should be a place for peace.

And then he did cut the tape.

They declared the office open

and the idea of the sorry book came into play.

How easy was it for people to say I'm sorry?

To come to that point of either apologising

or forgiving?

I think they didn't quite verbalise it

in this case.

They wrote it.

But you could see from their body language

that they meant it.

You look at their faces,

you see people like really going with

all their heart.

You know, you can feel it.

What would you say has informed

or influenced your methodology?

Is it purely African, is it... what is it?

I think it's universal,

it's much more our spirituality.

The connecting point within us and the Divine.

And the concept of spirituality is a

universal concept.

Of man, His creation; of man and his

fellow human being.

That is the motivating factor

and the sustaining factor for

our process.

How was it for you to be in Kenya,

delivering... trying to bring peace with

your Muslim colleague?

And as a pair together, how was the relationship?

Was it different from home?

Give us an insight into what was happening

between the two of you, which people

wouldn't have known.

For me to... for him to speak about

the issue of violence as a Muslim to Christians,

went further to prick on the Christian's conscience,

on the fact that they need to emulate

Jesus Christ as the Prince of Peace in their lives,

which they have not.

So, it's like saying to them, you

shouldn't have done this, and

coming from a non-Christian was

quite powerful.

Reminding Christians of their responsibility

to coexist in peace.

I was going to ask you, whether you have

advice for the kind of young people who I am

training, how to be good facilitators.

And one of the things that we try

to do with our students

is to put them in pairs, so you do not

facilitate on your own.

And there are many benefits

to that, but most of them don't have

fifteen years of history the way the

two of you do.

I think for beginners, is to make sure you

write your steps on the ground,

and when you have challenge, call for a break.

Always concur with your friend,

and be willing also to submit

to good reasoning.