IDI 17th ANNUAL MEETING
Vienna, Austria – 1-3 November 2019
The Seventeenth Meeting of the International Dialogue Initiative (IDI) was held in Vienna, Austria from November 1 to November 3, 2019. The IDI was once again hosted by EUNEPA (Eurasian Nexus Partners GmbH), a strategic consulting group established in Vienna in 2010 by IDI member Bijan Khajehpour. This was the IDI’s third consecutive meeting in Vienna.
The Seventeenth Meeting of the IDI both followed and built upon a pattern of refinement in the group’s thought about large group dynamics and effective psycho-political engagement. It affirmed members’ bonds of friendship and scholarship and continued an expansion of IDI training and consulting activities. In addition to the general meeting and attendant Board meetings, events in Vienna included a two-day training session on Large Group Identity with participants from around the world, a mid-meeting pilgrimage to the site of a formerly-desecrated Jewish cemetery in the middle of Vienna on the annual occasion of a community clean-up effort, and informal meetings to discuss cooperation opportunities with representatives of local organizations and universities.
What follows is a summary of presentations, themes and observations.
SUMMARY
IDI Annual Meeting: Day One
Introductions
On Friday, November 1st, the IDI formally commenced its Seventeenth Meeting in its customary form, with a welcome introduction and opening remarks by IDI President Gerard Fromm. A total of fifteen members were present at the start of the three-day conference, with two IDI members joining the conference in progress. Three IDI members were unable to attend due to significant prior obligations.
Continuing an effort to expand, promote and refresh its thinking on large group dynamics, the IDI was joined at its Seventeenth Meeting by several invited guests. Among them were Avinash Ramprashad, a psychiatrist at the University of Maryland on a training rotation with Lord John Alderdice’s Centre for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict at Harris Manchester College, Oxford, and William Pierros, a professor of Political Science at Concordia University in Chicago and returning IDI workshop participant. Also joining were 2019 Volkan Scholars Ali-Akbar Mousavi, former Iranian Member of Parliament and current post-Doctoral fellow in Peace Tech at George Mason University, and Anna Zajenkowska, an adjunct professor and head of the Department of Social Psychology of the Maria Grzegorzewska Pedagogical University in Warsaw. Dr. Zajenkowska had previously joined the IDI’s 14th Annual Meeting in Berlin as an observer. Attendance was rounded out by the journalist, cultural anthropologist and 2017 Volkan Scholar Dr. Lydia Wilson.
Themes, Outlooks, Individual and Group Engagements
This first session commenced with IDI members reflecting upon their activities during the preceding year, projects on which they were working, their outlooks both for those projects and more generally for their communities, and themes resonating throughout their experiences. While past IDI meetings have commenced in the same fashion, the IDI devoted far more time, discussion and analysis to these reflective offerings at the 2019 meeting than it had at past meetings – in large part because, as one member noted, when the IDI was formed it focused on the dynamics of specific conflict regions but by 2019 those dynamics were far more widespread, resulting in a group-wide sense of dysfunction, but also of unity in dysfunction. “We are all in it together now,” was one observation.
Many members’ reflections were delivered poignantly; one spoke of a need to cultivate resilience and resist the urge to retreat into work and family in the face of an exhausting political paradigm; another spoke of the importance and risks of speaking out against institutional degradation, of the necessity of civil disobedience not to change law but to protect it; yet another lamented massive social anxiety and the failure to recognize unifying geopolitical missions, such as the battle against climate change. One Russian member spoke of three current deficits in his society: of empathy, of reflection and of solidarity. One British psychoanalyst spoke of a pervasive feeling of betrayal expressed by her patients; that untrustworthy forces had hijacked international discourse and there were no longer trustworthy authorities – “good parents” – to guide society through change. A visiting guest spoke of the challenges of leading a movement from outside the movement and of the trauma of exile.
An Iranian member noted with dismay that the moderate forces within Iran, which had championed diplomacy and the nuclear deal with the United States, had lost ground to the more extremist power paradigm forces within Iran when the United States cancelled that nuclear deal. Underlining the critical role of respect in international relations, the hard-line group essentially said: “You see! Only missiles work to be taken seriously.” Another member asked whether the Enlightenment philosophies of citizenry still “worked” in the sense that the development of disruptive technologies (from printing press to social media) once again presented existential questions about society’s ability to self-govern. Are “free and fair” elections still possible in an easily manipulated social media environment, or in an environment in which a population declines to engage deeply with critical issues? A Palestinian member spoke of Palestinians “ignoring everything around them,” feeling detached, waiting out Trump and Netanyahu, feeling a false sense of empowerment due to rejection of the U.S. peace efforts but failing to reflect on the relationship of Hamas to the Palestinian leadership. She noted as well that the Palestinian Authority’s financial conditions were dire and unsustainable and that “if anything were to happen” it would be a revolt against Palestinian leadership.
During a mid-day break between IDI sessions, several members of the group took a cab across Vienna to search for an old Jewish cemetery which had featured in a story told by one member. This old, no longer used, cemetery had fallen into disarray and been the object of vandalism. The barbed wire and glass on its exterior walls were meant to deter further desecration but in effect created what looked like a concentration camp for dead Jews in a lovely Viennese neighbourhood. Within the walls, broken headstones lay across overgrown footpaths and burial plots were submerged beneath fallen tree limbs, leaves and refuse. An academic colleague of this IDI member discovered that her great great grandfather was buried in this cemetery. She worked with local Viennese people who also had relatives in the cemetery and with the Viennese government to launch a restoration project. In a very moving development, they invited interested citizens to a special day of working on the cemetery together. To their great surprise, hundreds of Viennese turned out to be part of the clean-up. The success of this effort led first to an annual designated day on which the cemetery is open to citizens wishing to take part in what is both a restoration and, in a sense, a reparation. Now it is almost a monthly event, and the IDI’s 17th Meeting happened to coincide with it. During their break, the IDI members located the cemetery, met the clean-up coordinators and visited the grave of their colleague’s great great grandfather.
The IDI’s afternoon session began with an Israeli member speaking of Palestinian mothers in his large group whose ambitions for their children revolved not around achievement but around survival. “I only hope my son will live,” they say to him. Is it a colonial notion to encourage greater ambitions? What would have to happen within Israeli society to create an environment in which such ambitions were possible? What would have to happen within Palestinian society? Interestingly, this member later discussed his extreme discomfort during a visit to Berlin shortly after an act of antisemitic violence by a German right-wing nationalist. Walking around Berlin in that climate had caused this member such anxiety that he purchased a knife to defend himself in the event of similar violence, an act he recognized as both impractical and psychologically necessary to allow him to function.
Commenting on this reflection, one member noted that while it is certainly true that groups suffer and get angry when faced with poor financial and living conditions, improvements in those financial and living conditions do not automatically mean that groups become less angry. To the contrary, when conditions improve, anger among marginalized groups can increase as divisions become more pronounced and less “justifiable” as reflective of economics. Hopelessness tends to breed apathy, but hopes brought to life can be disappointed, even betrayed, and lead to intense anger.
While many members expressed concern and anxiety about the large-group future, other, more positive, themes emerged in the discussions: themes of engagement, of unity in dysfunction, of hope. Many members reported positive engagements within their smaller groups: therapy sessions, interventions, projects that connected them and their societies. A theme of “states within states” arose: geographically, as in Israel, where one member noted that Tel Aviv and Jerusalem feel like different states within a state, with different cultures for different groups. But no buses on the Sabbath feels like an imposition of one culture on the other, and dialogue with fundamentalists doesn’t seem to work. Similarly, protests within Lebanon come up against a Shiite state within the state. One member noted a generational difference in Britain, where polling showed that Brexit voting primarily broke down along age lines. The age division can be seen elsewhere, including the fact that the climate change movement is being led in part by the younger generation. Another member cautioned against reading too much into generational divisions as, in his experience, such divisions tended to vanish when large-group dynamics were activated.
This discussion grew into an examination of adolescent identity-formation transposed onto group dynamics. One member reflected on the developmentally-appropriate need to separate from a parental figure or group – evoking the “untrustworthy parent” from earlier in the discussion – “the desire for non-same-ness”, autonomy and renewal competing with psychological pressures to identify with a group. Another member described the dynamic as “people fighting at the boundary of where the group border ends and they begin.”
A discussion of “basic trust v. blind trust” ensued, with basic trust established through expectations for security and well-being being rewarded over time, whereas blind trust manifests when basic trust is lost and the existential needs for security and well-being demand devotion to a parental figure whether or not that figure is trustworthy. In situations where existential concerns arise, blind trust in a narcissistic leader allows an individual to set aside the security anxiety that could otherwise cripple them in an untrustworthy context. In this fashion, the narcissistic leader evolves as a response to the trauma of betrayal.
Some members discussed the role of monuments in creating and signifying large group identity. Efforts by liberal activists in the southern United States to remove monuments to Confederate War heroes, or to demand such removal, for example, suggested the immodesty and self-defeating tendencies of Enlightenment thinking about what is “right” and “good.” One member pointed out that in the United States much of the battle over the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms had less to do with guns than it had to do with “not being told what to do.” Other members noted the symbolic significance of monuments to Lenin in Moscow and the Serb Prince Lazar in Kosovo. Describing the psychic significance of these monuments, one member noted that “if Individual A has a ‘glory’ and Individual B calls it a ‘trauma,’ the schism is impossible to bear.” Does healing this schism require one party to accept guilt for the trauma of the other party? Should the monument question be addressed not by a tearing down but, as it was with Stormont in Northern Ireland, with recognition and creative integration of what it means to both groups.
As Day One of the IDI’s 17th Meeting wound down, one member urged political progressives to “confront their role in creating an exclusion,” noting that even progressive Israelis demand a secure state over an inclusive one. Indeed, the challenge in so many places today is the pressure on societies to become more pluralistic, while at the same time respecting that people want their identities recognized. One member applied this idea to the reunification of post-Cold War Germany – an event nearing its 30-year anniversary – in which the West assumed that the East would want to join it, failing to realize that such an invitation carried with it an assumption on both sides that the East was defeated, an assumption embedded in an East German’s resentment that “Nobody asked us.”
Day One of the IDI’s 17th Meeting concluded with a group dinner at the Persian restaurant Apadana in Vienna’s Nashtmarkt neighbourhood, at which an acoustic trio played traditional Persian folksongs for the entertainment of diners. As the IDI meal concluded, members of the trio recognized an IDI member from his time as a student leader in Tehran and embraced him warmly, providing an object lesson for one member’s earlier observation about the ability to “lead from without” and a fitting end to a day of resilience and collegiality.
IDI Annual Meeting: Day Two
Day Two of the 17th Meeting began with members reflecting on the conversations from Day One, the thoughts and emotions brought up by the IDI’s annual reunion, and dreams from the night before. One member – the member who had been recognized and greeted at dinner the previous night – recounted a dream of himself as a hiker, an activity he enjoyed, but which in the dream he was unable to do because his legs had stopped working.
Another member noted that the previous day’s meeting, coupled with the process of travel to Vienna, had prompted her to reflect on the similarity of duty-free areas in airports all over the world. Others observed that this was because the duty-free areas of major airports were often managed by the same company, which stocked many of the same products without regard to locality. This is one of the advantages of Iran, this member noted, sealed off from much of international commerce. Globalization is unstoppable, this member noted, but as it spreads more and more people become aware of what they are losing.
The conversation then broadened to include a discussion of democratic norms in crisis and the rise of China as a counter to the Enlightenment narrative of the West. One member noted that China had suffered a century of humiliations which inform its psychological makeup as it grows into an economic super-power. “Why shouldn’t we have what you have?” the Chinese ask in this narrative. “And why shouldn’t we pursue what you have in our own way with our own culture and values?” For representatives of the Western model, this begs the question of how to engage with profound cultural differences. As one member noted, every single intelligence organization continues to work with Western-centric values almost out of a sense of nostalgia. Do you need democracy, this member asked, for development? He pointed out that China stands in rebuke to the notion that democracy is necessary for economic success and that, more and more, the United States stands in rebuke to the notion that democracy produces a more “moral” society. The more insecure the world becomes, the easier it is to argue against democracy. Another member pointed out that Western-style democracy is a “toxic brand” across the Middle East, with much talk that it isn’t compatible with the culture(s) of the region. When broken down, however, elements of Western-style democracy, like free speech, are highly supported.
One member noted that Western democracies suffer from their colonizing past. They fear an “inversion” in which the formerly colonized, who were “never meant for eye-level,” overtake and victimize the West. In this process, “underground racism” comes to the fore. In Russia, however, as one member observed, the State tries to establish itself as “the ultimate cultural value.” Not the people, and never mind the fact that the State does not work. The State says what is right, and what is right may change as the State changes. This was seen as an effort to “catch up” to the West following the “catastrophe” of the 20th century, but without going through the processes that would actually lead to recovery.
The morning session concluded with a discussion comparing individual development in adolescence with the development of large-group identity and what those two developmental processes might say about the challenges of conflict dialogue. One member noted that the first step in conflict dialogue was often to acknowledge and apologize for the past. Another member encouraged the West to acknowledge the limits of an Enlightenment theory of culture, prizing logic and reason over faith and tradition. An Iranian member, reflecting on this remark and perhaps unconsciously mirroring the earlier observation of the State as the ultimate cultural value, noted that it was difficult to get drivers in Tehran to wear seatbelts because “if God wants me to live I will live.”
Case Study: Poland
After the reflections from Day One, Day Two continued with a fascinating presentation entitled “Poland on the Couch,” by 2019 Volkan Scholar Dr. Anna Zajenkowska. Dr. Zajenkowska studies the Polish social unconscious, an unconscious in which the Poles believe both that they are a superior culture – historically embedded in Catholicism and proud of the moral leadership of Pope John Paul – -and also that they are looked upon as inferior to other cultures. (IDI members heard a similar description of a large-group social unconscious at their 2018 Annual Meeting from Adnan Tabatabai, the Director of CARPO, during his presentation of Saudi-Iranian dialogue groups.)
Dr. Zajenkowska observed that Poles had difficulty acknowledging Poland’s role as both victim but sometimes as perpetrator of atrocities in World War II. She noted that Nazi terror was such that if a Pole was caught harbouring a Jew the entire Polish family would be killed. She also noted the sheer number of World War II concentration camps dotting Poland, built on Polish land – and therefore mis-identified as Polish – but operated by the Nazis. The dichotomy between victim and perpetrator left Poles in a sort of extended depressive position, one from which, Dr. Zajenkowska found, it was impossible to draw productive energy.
Dr. Zajenkowska’s presentation described a series of workshops she organized focusing on civic reflection and the question of “what does it mean to be a Polish citizen?” She noted that the participants who attended the workshop’s dialogue sessions – between 30 and 70 attendees – seemed to come expecting to be in the opposition, to be in the minority, only to discover that they were instead surrounded by similar perspectives on Polish citizenry. But they also included people with different political ideas, and the work was to learn to communicate. While Polish society is now deeply split, it is also capable of great civic engagement, such that a one-day festival contributes enormously to the health care system.
Dr. Zajenkowska’s presentation invited discussion about Polish national trauma as embodied in the current leader of the nationalist Law & Justice Party, former Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who wields outsized influence within Poland and in the EU. Kaczynski’s twin brother Lech was Poland’s President in April 2010 when a Russian-made plane he was traveling in, along with dozens of other Polish political and military figures, crashed in Russia en route to a memorial service for Polish officers executed by the Russians during World War II in the Katyn Forest. It was hypothesized, in the discussion, that with the crash, Lech Kaczynski the individual had become psychologically merged with a Polish chosen trauma – the Katyn Forest massacre – and had thereby become a symbol. As his twin brother, Jaroslaw Kaczynski seems now to be the living embodiment of that symbol, impossible to challenge without challenging the large group’s chosen trauma.
Dr. Zajenkowska pushed back somewhat on the idea of Katyn Forest being Poland’s chosen trauma, noting that everybody has different traumas with which to reckon. She made a profound presentation on the idea of the “force-feeding” of the Holocaust to Poles of her generation, reflecting on a book from her childhood on her mother’s shelf about soap made from human fat, a memory which echoed one of the dreams, mentioned during Dr. Zajenkowska’s “Poland on the Couch” workshops, of soup made from human bones. Could this soup be nourishing? she asked. Could the soap be cleansing? Her grandmother, a WWII survivor, did not discuss the war with her own daughter, repressing the memory of it until transferring that memory to Dr. Zajenkowska. The educational system also transferred the horror of the Holocaust to children through documentary films and books.
Dr. Zajenkowska recalled visiting the concentration camps in Poland when she was 12 or 13 years old and feeling traumatized. She noted that since the birth of her own children she had a hard time watching or reading Polish media involving the Holocaust. In Polish film, the Holocaust – and Poland’s involvement in it – was either represented in horrific realism or was romanticized into fairy tale heroism. She expressed difficulty in bearing these unbearable films, and a wish to “not go through it alone” but to have someone with whom to hold hands. IDI members asked Dr. Zajenkowska to step into the role of the realistic filmmakers; having been “force-fed” the trauma, how would she change the experience for others? What would she do to enable the metabolizing of the trauma? What “holding environment”, missing in her own life, might she create for others?
Dr. Zajenkowska’s presentation opened up a fascinating discussion about the challenges of repression versus metabolization. One member noted that the idea of the concentration camps – in Poland but run by the Nazis – represented a processing choice: if one qualifies the camps as “German” or “Nazi” then one had to reckon with what that choice meant for the individual doing the processing: was it a symbol of repression? Was it a process of metabolizing the trauma within a context? Another member noted that the physical structures of the Warsaw Old Town had been rebuilt after the war such that the Old Town was now picturesque and a center for tourism. Had this reconstruction, however, neglected the psychological impact on the Polish psyche? Was it a façade or an actual recovery? Was there, conversely, value in the repression in that it allowed some measure of progress?
Dr. Zajenkowska’s presentation ended with one IDI member cautioning against the tendency to scapegoat Germany when discussing sin and perpetration. This member pointed out that an essential part of dialogue is accepting the possibility of perpetration, of taking ownership not just of feeling trauma but of the possibility of inflicting trauma. What is the function of German guilt for others? Does it permit others to avoid a level of guilt felt to be traumatic? Does it thereby reinforce denial and postpone grief? This member relayed the story of a Polish spy who assisted British citizens during World War II but who was denied a British passport after the war ended and died penniless and largely forgotten at the hands of a violent lover. What does the narrative of exclusive German guilt and Allied heroism perpetuate in Europe (and beyond) and how does such a narrative stymie efforts to reconcile modern-day divisions?
This session ended with one IDI member observing that Dr. Zajenkowska, through her presentation, had made the link between the experiences she was carrying as an individual and the traumatic experiences of her large group. She thereby was illustrating a process for sharing and thereby metabolizing specific large-group transgenerational trauma: a shared contextualization between people with different perspectives and coping mechanisms.
Case Study: Peace Tech
In the next session, 2019 Volkan Scholar Ali Mousavi presented on his work with new technologies designed to foster dialogue between and among societies separated by conflict. Dr. Mousavi’s presentation led to a fascinating discussion of leadership-in-exile and of the intersection of technology, culture and dialogue.
For more details on Dr. Mousavi’s presentation, interested readers are invited to contact the IDI via email at info@internationaldialogueinitiative.com.
The IDI concluded its Day Two discussion by extending the insights fostered during the case studies to other group topics, including the internal politics of Iran, Saudi Arabia, China and the United States. The group then received an update on the informal dialogues between Saudi and Iranian civic leaders. It went on to explore the dynamics of the polarization process. One member noted that “trauma overwhelmingly occupies the mind.” He felt that to free one’s mind one had to free oneself from the reactions the other side provokes, thus avoiding the polarization process that keeps the hostile status quo in place. Another member observed that the first key to understanding the development of large groups is to understand precisely what they are and refer to them in that language. For example, this member noted, the Houthi in Yemen are an independent group and not Iranian stooges. Referring to a large group as other than it sees itself can torpedo dialogue. In a similar manner, one key to understanding a large group is to resist drawing a distinction between rational and irrational actions and instead ask how a group’s behaviour is rational.
These observations led to a closing discussion of leaderless, values-driven movements like the U.S. “alt-right” and incel movements, ISIS recruiting, and Sunni-centric terrorism. IDI members considered the developmental psychology of adolescence and early adulthood and the sorting of positive and negative identities and posited that the development of toxic identities – such as ISIS jihadi or violent incel – occur as an embrace of a negative identity and the rejection of limited and demeaned identities on offer in their often adopted societies. This process fuses the humiliation of the parent, the rage of the young adult, cynicism about Western “values,” if they are seen as a cover for commercialism, and rage at societal injustice. Of interest and somewhat in contrast, the recent mass protests against inadequate, corrupt and sectarian governments reflect a more positive, if still very angry, collective embrace of the identity of citizen, to whom leadership must be held accountable.
After a rewarding day of discussion, IDI members met for dinner in Old Town Vienna at the Augustinerkeller Bitzinger, a traditional Austrian brewhouse located in the ground floor of the Albertina Museum. The brewhouse’s roving accordionist serenaded members with traditional music from Israel, Germany, Russia, Great Britain and the United States, among several other locales.
IDI Annual Meeting: Day Three
General Discussion
On Sunday the IDI gathered for a half-day session at which the work of the first two days and plans for the future were reviewed.
This session began with goodbyes for certain members whose travel plans necessitated early departures. One such member, a Palestinian attorney, expressed the desire that IDI dialogue techniques be extended to a wider Israeli-Palestinian context. “Some of us,” she remarked, “have learned how to speak with one another.” The trust, confidence, and mutual respect developed during the IDI process were lacking within the conflict’s wider context. Nor was the United States still seen as a viable broker. As a result, the conflict seems headed for an outcome that is neither desired nor feasible for either side.
Another IDI member noted that recent changes in the region, including the United States’ policy exit, increasing Arab unity and changes to Israel’s internal politics, could present an opportunity for engagement.
After these departures, remaining IDI members broke into smaller groups to discuss the task of the IDI going forward. Groups were tasked with identifying their three top priorities for the IDI by 2022. One Board member noted that financing continued to be available, although it was harder to obtain unrestricted financing not related to specific engagements.
When the groups reconvened, members shared their priorities, which included generating a clear statement of IDI methodology both as a way of refining IDI thinking and as a first step towards future engagements and interventions. One IDI member indicated that he was composing such a statement and would circulate it in the near future. Other members spoke of more frequent meetings and an expanded multi-tiered membership, with the Annual Meeting and core IDI group acting as a sort of “mothership” for members to utilize. Another IDI member spoke of the three areas that he valued most in IDI work – the exchange of abstract psychological ideas, the application of those ideas to discussion of local-level conflict situations, and the specific projects and interventions that arose out of such application, either by IDI members themselves or by individuals and institutions in conversation with the IDI.
Additional priorities mentioned in the large group included the creation of a podcast to share IDI learning, the creation of online IDI workshop curricula to be used for remote workshop learning by interested parties and preparation for a larger 2022 IDI symposium.
Post-Conference Workshop Training
On Monday, November 4 and Tuesday, November 5, IDI members Gerard Fromm, Vamik Volkan, Ford Rowan and Regine Scholz led a two-day intensive training workshop entitled “Large-Group Identity and Societal Conflict: Bringing a Psychological Understanding to Conflict Resolution.” Seventeen members from around the world participated in the Workshop, which included didactic presentation, analysis of members’ cases, an IDI case presentation, and an opportunity for members to reflect on their own large group identities. Member case presentations included one member’s work establishing dialogue groups to reflect on headscarf legislation in Europe and the Middle East, another member’s work in Rwanda with survivors of genocide and a third member’s efforts to apply dialogue principles within the pre-selected format of a political negotiation between Serbs and Kosovar leadership, encouraged by the United States.
This was the third formal training session offered by the IDI as it refines and expands its workshop offerings. This training session was the largest yet and included repeat attendees, educational leaders, representatives from government, and experienced psychoanalysts, social workers, students and conflict interventionists.
Further information on the IDI’s training activities, including future workshops, can be found at: www.internationaldialogueinitiative.com/training.
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NEXT IDI MEETING AND TRAINING WORKSHOPS:
The 18th Meeting of the IDI will take place in 2020 at a location to be decided after Board consultation.
The IDI intends to broaden its training opportunities and offer semi-annual training workshops going forward. The next training workshop will be announced on the IDI website shortly.
The IDI welcomes inquiries from potential workshop participants, host organizations and others interested in IDI training sessions or other collaborations.