DH 6 Values Shape The Ways We Are With Others

DYNAMICS FOR HOPE 6 DH 6: VALUES SHAPE THE WAYS WE ARE WITH OTHERS The things we do to care for one another in our family, among friends, with neighbours, with the wider community- locally, regionally and internationally-are at the heart of our life together. To have relationships with others and with groups gives us life, whether they are civic or faith groups, family groups, groups of friends, sports and cultural groups, campaigns for community improvements, workplaces, educational opportunities and many more. Through these relationships- in families, workspaces, and civic involvements- we are with others we may or may not know personally, and we make visible what we value in real lives. If we are to ensure the ‘public space’ is open and diverse, a space for dialogue where everyone has a place; it is important we create relational atmospheres characterised by open and trusting relationships.

Hope is visible: • When our communities and homes are places where belonging is core, and in which robust engagements can occur between all the members. • When hospitality is practiced. Hospitality is the art of ‘creating welcoming spaces in which people can experience change’ (see Henri Nouwen). • When our homes and communities are characterised by openness to newness and otherness, making space for others, and ensuring that those at the edge of the community can find a voice. • When workplaces and civic organisations free our talents and experiences for wider benefit. Healthy communities are marked by the possibility of deep listening and learning, underpinned by the visible truth that each different person is a gift, each person has unique being, and each person has a voice.

DYNAMICS FOR HOPE 6.1 DH 6.1: RESPECT Respect is experienced in a relationship. We ‘know’ in our very being whether others respect us and others know whether we respect them too. When another person respects us, mimetically it is easy to respond and vice versa. Respect accumulates, and the space for new responses between us grows. We move away from actions that would offend or hurt (actions born out of rivalry) into the gift of actions born out of freedom with one another! Respect is a core value in creating ‘Restorative School’xlii atmospheres. Maxwell and Buckley, founder practitioners of Restorative Practices in New Zealand, explore respect in a school setting: What are the actions that indicate respect and disrespect? Language that does not belittle or diminish is key but so are more subtle cues such as tone of voice, body language and facial expressions. Effective listening to one another and the exploring of different points of view is important, as is being fair to everyone, being honest, being trustworthy and making good on any harm that you have done whether you are a teacher or a studentxliii. However respect is for more than just schools, it is a fundamental value in all human relationships that free and transform us, that make us anew. In the subtle experiences together, even more than the words we use, people experience respect! So when respect is a core value; when it is one of the bedrock norms of a civic group or a public institution, it infuses all aspects of wider life and relationships. Respect is experienced first between people, then it may be reinforced by language.

DH 6.1: RESPECT

Summary

Respect is an experience in a human relationship, regardless of beliefs and positions. Respect implies an active seeking of an open relationship, devoid of trickery and manipulation. Respect is not a passive action. It implies an active willingness to continue to work at the relationship, regardless of whether divergent views are held.

DYNAMICS FOR HOPE 6.2 DH 6.2: INCLUSION: A PLACE FOR EVERYONE? It is important for our own health, growth and development that we have some relationships where we unconditionally belong. In relationships where we really belong we can make mistakes. We can even, often unwittingly, hurt others and yet still belong: we still have our place. For as long as we live, in culture every group needs a boundary and a shape to allow it to survive. ‘The limit’ or ‘boundary’ to inclusion allows us to establish standards between members about how we might live in the wider world. The value of inclusion gives us freedom. Inclusive relationships are spaces where people are not rivals. They are inclusive ‘places to practice’ supporting people live freely and with hope. Such inclusive experiences in one setting can be important in building strong inclusive civil society cultures more generally. Inclusion is a very challenging term because many of us live in groups where those we are at ease with are ‘like us’. Inclusion, at its best, is a challenge, inviting us to explore how socially and culturally inclusive we are. Social Inclusion practices are now more often about groups being developed that make new opportunities for those in greatest social need to be acknowledged. However a real challenge about social inclusion is whether, and how, all of us, from our different social backgrounds, can be open to meeting one another respectfully and inclusively? What is our response to this challenge? In light of the recent challenges in mainstream societies, finally having to face into the challenge of people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds demanding that institutional racism is acknowledged and addressed: • what does this mean for new discussions and responses around the role of public culture, health, legislation, education, employment, policing and justice? Inclusion is a major challenge for old, often diversity blind, established societies. However, if we can create freeing inclusive spaces in which to meet together and address the historical challenges associated with cultures of separation and denial, inclusive ways forward are also opportunities to nurture hope.

DH 6.2: INCLUSION: A PLACE FOR EVERYONE? INCLUSION:

Summary

To be unconditionally included is, for most of us, an important experience. Such experiences are foundation blocks; they build personal resilience and confidence. Such relationships can positively shape our behaviour, influence our choices and sustain our hopefulness for years into the future. However, if we are in a group where belonging restricts our development, or limits our capabilities or choices to be more open, we need to examine such a group critically.

DYNAMICS FOR HOPE 6.3 DH 6.3: NO-VIOLENCE Violence destroys people, and long after the actual acts of violence legacies of deep trauma continue across the generationsxlv. ” Northern Ireland is interesting because it suggests that it is not merely a question of things - objects, which can be measured and doled out - or of quantities, but a question of relationships. The quality of relationships between competing and often violent claims to power is ultimately decisive in a conflict. In a context where violence begets violence rather than victory, the unavoidable political challenge is finding a way to make a future with one another rather than against each other. The ending of conflict is not a theory, it is an experience of newness whose key indicators are all about doing things in previously unthinkable ways and learning to be comfortable with it: but it is always learning to do what we do not know quite how to do. The emergence of a new (no- violence) culture depends on having different conversations, involving old partners and new partners in unexpected juxtaposition and in a willingness to think creatively as each institution or relationship has to make room for new realities.” Morrowxlvi’ We are mimetic with the ‘violence’ and ‘no-violence’ characteristics of our relationships. We are violent either because: it is how we have learned to react to tension; we repeat ways we have learned over time (temporal mimesis); or because, in the present moment, we are easily drawn in to the violence of the other (spatial mimesis). Likewise, we are not violent either because we have models whose no-violence has become part of us through: mimesis with a parent, a role model, a cultural tradition, a faith model; or because we respond to the no-violence of somebody else in the room or nearby. Such models of no-violence ‘free us’ or ‘save us’ from being mimetic with any violent behaviours in the room or around us. The more we experience being in the vicinity of people who do not wish to be violent and the closer we are to experiencing it, the more no-violence becomes our reality. However, without these strong models, we, like others, are easily drawn into mimesis with violence and join in the escalation. We might also recognise the face of the scapegoated victim. Girard directs us to a further possibility: ‘no-violence’ is mimetic behavior in which we have the possibility to recognise the face or experience of the victim and gain a new freedom.

Until now, the unanimous violence of cultures against scapegoats gave us cultural peace. In unveiling the scapegoat mechanism for what it is, an arbitrary action against an innocent person or group, we have to now recognise that ‘our peace’ is built on these scapegoating actions. In recognising this dynamic we acknowledge our participation, historically or actually now, in a history of scapegoating. So many nationalist cultures everywhere have, for many years, hidden the violence associated with their foundation. Currently, the challenge to look at the impact of slavery on the wealth of different families has opened up the previously often not unacknowledged history of the slave trade. The claims of many victims and survivors of historical abuse forces religious and political cultures to address secrets covering up such violent or degrading acts in their history too. When the scapegoat mechanism is unveiled, both the possibility of unanimity and silence, or the cultural belief that we are innocent, have disappeared. As human beings then we only have two options, to deny what we have learned and, once again be more violent- or turn from being violent, recognising the other as a human being like ourselves and change. This means working to change the situation between us, non violently, through acknowledgement, restitution and, possibly, even forgiveness.

DH 6.3: NO-VIOLENCE

Summary

Kay Pranis (1987) argued that all human beings have dignity and value, that relationships are more important than power and that ‘the personal is political’.xlix The ‘personal being political’ means that the actions of each person have an impact, for good or ill, on the quality of life in society!