On June 30, 2019, IDI President Gerard Fromm moderated a panel at the Annual Meeting of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations in New York City. The theme of the overall conference was “Perspectives on Polarities: Thinking Below the Surface.” The panel’s theme was “Intractable International Conflict,” which was taken up by four very engaging and experienced guests. Rabbi Hanan Schlesinger is the Co-Founder and Director of International Relations of Roots, a grass-roots Israeli-Palestinian peacebuilding program. His colleague, Shadi Abu Awwad, is the Co-Founder and Director of the Roots’ Youth Program. Nyoun Suzy Sebit is the Founder and Executive Director of the National Alliance for Women Lawyers in the South Sudan and a Cora Weiss Peacebuilding Fellow at the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders. Hugh O’Doherty is Adjunct Faculty at the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government and Co-Founder of the Leadership and Peacemaking Global Network.
This extraordinary group of people used personal stories to illuminate a number of critical issues: the power of large group identity and its complex interaction with gender identity; the role of historical trauma in shaping how large group identity is experienced and lived out; the process of polarization, how dynamics within one’s own group exacerbate between-group conflict, and how peacemakers must navigate accusations of being a traitor; the need for an enemy to secure one’s own large group identity; and the role of leaders in creating a framework for dialogue or in furthering the divide that leads to conflict. The panelists spoke spontaneously, substantively, and with the range of deep feeling coming directly from their personal experiences. They spoke of suddenly encountering the Other in a way that profoundly changed one’s life for the better and of being encountered as the Other in ways that seemed designed to humiliate and push one into violence or victimization. The discussion ended on the question of what needs to be given up, renounced or mourned in order to move just a bit outside the trap of large group identity. What losses must be accepted so that a person can take one step away from reactive hatreds and secret shame?
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