...Here comes this tall Canadian with a rap about conflict and culture. Ok, I’ve seen plenty of both. I’ve seen the tools of conflict resolution used to blunt the anger of the oppressed, and the dreamy eyed middle class white kids hungry for meaning fawning all over anybody’s tradition but their own, trying to act Black or Brown or Yaqui or Eastern or African or whatever. Mostly it’s just embarrassing. 

But I’ve known heroes and heroines who’ve had their culture stolen, for whom the sweat lodge or the Dreaming or the Hungarian word for that cookie or the Irish word for that hat or the smells of Italy or the right dance music is revolution, at least a part of it. And I’ve seen those who speak up for themselves out of their pain torn apart by the hatred it created, unable to accept the victory when it comes, unable to match policy triumphs with personal peace. 

So I read it. Wow. There were a lot of things I liked. First, Jessie Sutherland speaks from real experience. She works alongside people who’ve been harmed and are acting together to get redress, and to change policy, and are seeking peace and wholeness – so this is no idle speculation. She tells stories from the Australian, Canadian and US context and from European and African situations as well. Tough to pigeonhole. 

Second, she takes on the negatives right away – how false reconciliation has “distort(ed) and falsif(ied) its true meanings…” I like that. Next, she doesn’t tell me I have to become someone else to do the work. 

The line that stood me right up when I read it is this: “…worldview flexibility is … the capacity to be loyal to one’s worldview and engage across worldview difference.” 

So the fake self-deprecation and insistent ‘see the other side’ rhetoric is dropped early in this book, and that’s part of its genius. Ms. Sutherland explains things simply, and in a variety of ways. There are concepts, illustrations, stories and lists of techniques, so even hide-bound non-feeling older intellectual white guys like me have something to grab onto here. There are practical steps, and a conceptual framework they fit into – the Four Touchstones for Reconciliation is a favorite: drawing on the fundamental worldviews of the parties themselves; transcending the victim-offender cycle; large scale social change; and timing and tactics. She expands on each, and has practical ideas for bringing these touchstones into our work. 

There’s a catch, of course. Although the ‘loyal to my own worldview’ idea drew me in, there’s plenty of challenge here, to truly understand my own worldview, to build my world-viewing skills, to bring my life into line with my worldview, and to reach across, listening, into another’s. 

I have to say she really got me when she quoted Robert Service, the grizzled poet of the Gold Rush. “It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out, But it’s the grain of sand in your shoe.” The challenge to ‘do our own personal work’ will be a stumbler for many who, like me, have years of practice in critiquing others… 

She’s persuasive, as she’s entertaining, intellectually engaging and moving. I’d read the book, if I was you. When we transform our pain into purpose, turn enemies into friends, develop an intimacy with nature, and share our gifts with the world, then we will know we are the spark for a new era rising out of the ashes.