Talking Across Boundaries

SOCIETY: TALKING ACROSS THE BOUNDARIES

It is time for all of us to come together and think about the future we want to create. If we do nothing, our children could be living on $2 a day.

-Salim Al-Aydh

In an increasingly interdependent world, it is ironic that many of our societies are becoming more fragmented and polarized. In one sense, this is understandable. When one is facing complex issues that engender considerable fear, there is security in being able to pull back into a particular ideology, a one true answer. But one group’s ideology is rarely shared by others, and consequently walls develop between groups. After a while, ideology becomes identity, and polarization becomes self-reinforcing.

Our interconnected world confronts all societies with a mandate to revive the capacity to talk together and live together. Nowhere are the stakes higher than in the Middle East. Building on its know-how with dialogue in general and the world café process in particular, in the fall of 2004 Saudi Aramco convened a dialogue meeting in Hawar, the first in an unusual series of gatherings. In many ways, it was the next logical step in the process that began when Aramco expanded to include key business partners in its strategic dialogues on the core problems confronting Saudi society. But this went farther in terms of the range of participants. It was convened by Gulf SoL, a SoL network that included over twenty companies from throughout the Gulf region (Kuwait, Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, in addition to Saudi Arabia). The group was, on average, more senior than participants in the earlier meetings, with many heads and founders of companies, along with founders of influential NGOs and schools, and leading thinkers and academics. And it included both men and women—for many, it was the first time in their lives that they had attended such a meeting with both sexes.

As with the earlier sessions Aramco convened, this dialogue started with a presentation that surveyed the current economic condition of the Gulf region countries. Nearly all of these countries have the same core problems seen in Saudi Arabia: large and rapidly expanding numbers of unemployed young people, stagnant or falling GDP per capita, and economies overly dependent on oil. This presentation catalyzed two days of passionate conversation about the area’s traditional culture, its schools, its oil-dependent economy, and its possibilities for change.

In my experience, when people are able to engage authentically in discussions on subjects that matter deeply to them, there is almost no limit to their energy, courage, and willingness to step into foreign territory. During breaks in this gathering, traditionally dressed Arab gentlemen repeatedly came up to me in states that ranged from bewilderment to anxiety and said things like, “In all my life, I have never talked about subjects like this with a lady.” My sense was that, in some ways, the women were more ready for serious dialogue. Excluded by law from professional activities in many of the Gulf countries, they form networks to mentor and support one another. Like other excluded groups finally invited to the table, they had been waiting for this day, and they were not shy. They spoke with fire and conviction, articulate about the pressing issues facing their societies, and relentlessly positive about possibilities for change.

As I listened, I also saw the universality of the issues with which participants wrestled. Their core questions were similar to those of people everywhere: How do we preserve what we care deeply about in our traditions while allowing those traditions to evolve in harmony with today’s world? How can we be responsible to our children, to create conditions in which they can have an authentic Arab identity and yet be able to thrive in a globalizing society? What would healthy twenty-first-century Islamic Gulf societies look like?

A second gathering similar to the Hawar dialogue was held six months later, and as I write this, a third is being planned. Several initiatives have started to form—including a job training center for young Saudis to assist in the school-to-work transition, a national mentoring network connecting successful business leaders with young people, and a variety of education initiatives involving promising innovations in the traditional school system, widely recognized as an area of pivotal change. Many young leaders are joining the conversations. One participant, for example, has started a women’s college in Jeddah, which, unlike the traditional universities, works closely with Saudi businesses to ensure an education that addresses real needs for social change and innovation.

As I sat in the closing circle at the Hawar dialogue, an older mentor to many of the Saudi women, listening to one person after another share what the conversation had meant to him or her, leaned over to me and whispered, “This is historic.” I just nodded—knowing the truth of her words and knowing also that I had only the dimmest comprehension of what this really meant for her, for the other women in the circle, and for everyone else.

When she said this, two thoughts came to mind. The word “politics” comes from the Greek polis, or city. Public discussion was part of its civic life. What I saw in Hawar, and what I see happening in projects like the Sustainable Food Lab, is a rebirth of the polis, people coming together, reaching toward one another across their differences rather than being driven apart by those differences. It is hard for me to imagine effectively confronting the host of imbalances in our present way of living together on the planet without recovering this capacity for dialogue.

Second, I had a powerful sense of having been there before. I suddenly recalled being in South Africa, fifteen years earlier. My good friend and colleague, Adam Kahane, who has led successful civic dialogue work in South Africa, Guatemala, and elsewhere,23 once commented that he did not see the possibility for this happening in Israel and Palestine, because, in his view, “both sides still think they can stick to the way they have been doing things. They have not yet seen that they have no future without changing their own thinking and strategies.” By contrast, in the mid-1980s, cultural polarization started to shift in South Africa. People started to see into the future; they started to recognize the simple fact that their current path was leading in a direction that no one wanted. When this happens in a society, those who have been polarized, the excluded and the included, start to talk with one another—as citizens with a common destiny. They see their interdependency in creating a different future, and new forces for change are set free.

Business finds itself in an awkward position of being, in a sense, the most global institution in the world today. Large multinational corporations, like BP, Unilever, and Saudi Aramco, arguably have a more comprehensive view of global economic, cultural, and environmental trends than do most national governments. Because of this, they can play a pivotal role in convening people to see larger systems that transcend national boundaries, and to confront deep issues that political partisanship may obscure. Corporations will be most effective in doing so to the degree that they advocate for the health of the whole, and use methods for collective inquiry, systems thinking, and the building of shared visions that they have tested and refined on their own problems—indeed businesses’ practical experience with such methods may be one of their greatest contributions. In political climates dominated by fragmentation, polarization, and distrust, the best leaders will be those with practical experience in the power of reflective conversation and an understanding of how transformative relationships can solve complex problems. For these reasons, in the coming years, I expect “business as usual” to change quite a bit.