Human beings have developed many sophisticated forms of communication because communication is essential to survival, to make known individual desires, to trade and to enable society to develop through exchange of information. However, not all forms of communication are conducive to peace. 

We engage in conversation with others all the time but are sometimes more concerned to put our points across than to listen to the others. We make demands but find it hard to be truthful about our emotions and needs. Or, we clamp up and communicate displeasure or anger with no explanation.

Dialogue, focused on exchanging stories, experience and feelings and aimed at engendering trust, has become an important means of building peace.

The workshop week was an occasion for the Fellows to learn about dialogue, through reflecting on their own style of communication and experiencing difficult conversations.

Everything we do in life is to meet our most basic human needs, and these needs include physiological ones like eating, sleeping, keeping warm; and higher human needs like freedom, sense of belonging, purpose of life, justice, respect, etc., the Fellows heard from Dr Joseph Cho, a longstanding practitioner of nonviolent communication (recognised by UNESCO as a best practice of non-violent conflict resolution in education). Communication that is out of sync with needs can lead to conflict.

The Fellows were guided by Dr Cho to practise expression of needs and empathetic listening – two key components of dialogue.

The Fellows fine-tuned their understanding of dialogue by means of a play script. ‘Audience’, a short play by Vaclav Havel, a former President of the Czech Republic and a playwright, was chosen. Facilitators from Mobile Co-learning helped the Fellows to prepare for the ‘read-through’ when they immersed themselves in a dramatic character trapped in a difficult conversation. The Fellows found the experience very powerful as it required them to empathise with the characters and lend their voice to the characters. Their discussions of that experience added another layer of understanding: that dialogue can be carried out in a creative setting.

Genuine dialogue is not a serendipitous surprise, but something that requires self-searching, care for others, creativity and practice.