Researching or How to Become Consciously Ignorant
We were driving through a swampy area in the Ogoni region of the Niger Delta. It was the original area of oil production in Nigeria, with the first flow in 1956, the same year as my birth. The result of oil is something often referred to as ‘the natural resource curse’, in which the huge wealth under the ground leads to conflict, to inequality, to corruption and to violence. In the case of Ogoni, to those demons can be added pollution of soil and waterways, destruction of fishing and crops, and deterioration of air quality from the almost uninhibited flaring of the gas that was produced with the oil.
The people who had scarcely – if at all – benefited from the oil that had been produced for fifty years were the local inhabitants. A region that should have looked like Abu Dhabi was still desperately poor, with high underemployment or unemployment, low incomes, short life expectancies and insecurity. Along with militia groups and banditry, life was (and is) insecure.
The outcome has been very understandable unrest. A charismatic leader called Ken Saro-Wiwa founded, with others, the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP). In 1995, during the tyrannical, military dictatorship of General Abacha, and with Ogoniland seething with discontent, Ken Saro-Wiwa and some of his colleagues were arrested and then executed by hanging. The company operating the production was Shell. They were accused by MOSOP of collaborating with the government, something they forcefully denied. Additionally, many among the Ogoni people saw the production as the theft of the natural resources and wealth that they should have owned. The unrest meant that oil production had to be shut down. In the early 2000s, Coventry Cathedral’s International Centre for Reconciliation was invited to help with a process of reconciliation.
By this time of the closure of the oilfields in the 1990s, Ogoni oil production was somewhat depleted. If oil was to be lifted, each well would produce for a while until the internal pressure dropped and oil stopped flowing. Then the well was closed until the pressure built up again. It was all a bit like the plumbing in old houses.
On that day in Ogoniland, as usual when someone else is driving (I should pay tribute here to my wonderful driver, who went into all kinds of bad places and kept me safe) I was dozing in the hot and humid air blowing through the open windows of the car. A colleague pointed out a steel object rising above the grass at the side of the road. We stopped to take a look at what was a well-head, the kit on the surface of the ground through which oil can be produced, often called a Christmas tree. The metal was in fairly good condition, and despite having been theoretically unused for over ten years, there were fresh, shiny scratches on the top where spanners and wrenches had been used to open it for production. Clearly, oil was being lifted by someone.
As we were looking, we heard voices. A group of about a dozen young men, with machetes but not guns, were standing around the car. They were talking in Ogoni, but when we got near, some began to speak English. They thought we were from Shell and were angry and threatening, speaking of taking us prisoner and asking what we were doing there. They had seen petrol tankers in the area in previous weeks, and assumed Shell were producing oil despite their promises not to. Ogoni could produce, at that time, about 30,000 barrels of high-value crude oil a day and with the price of oil around US$100 for each barrel that was worth doing.
After a while they began to calm down, and we spent quite a long time listening to their stories and their sense of despair at the endless conflict and hopelessness of their lives. Their great refrain was, ‘Where has the oil gone?’ They also wanted to know why they had not benefited. The conversation ended with a prayer together, and we moved on to the next village and next appointment to listen to others. I was very grateful for the unplanned stop. It offered the chance to hear some voices who were not pre-programmed to lobby us, but spoke from their hearts, albeit very embittered hearts.
The first R is Researching. It is a straightforward list of things to do. Desktop analysis is the beginning: read as much useful information as you can find, which was much less at the time of this story, with the web in its infancy. Look at Twitter feeds, Facebook pages, Instagram, TikTok and the rest. Then interview everyone you can get hold of who is willing to talk. Try and do so in a systematic way, taking notes, and without simply doing a check-list of questions, seeking rather to get things in a shape that enables comparison of stories and discernment of different perspectives. It is much better to do this in pairs. One point to note is that, if at all possible, in cultural areas where that is a sensitivity, women should interview women.
As you interview and listen, the third step is to begin to populate a map of the conflict. This is not a moment of judgement, but simply of analysis. Who are the key parties? Since when have they been involved? Who are and have been the leaders? What is the timeline? What are the key environmental, cultural and other contextual factors? Who are the shadow players with influence but less obvious presence? Who are the spoilers who have a vested interest in the conflict continuing or even getting worse?
I am not going to be prescriptive about tools. This is a book at a general level and specialist publications will be more helpful. An online search will show many different tools for mapping. Like all tools they are only as good as the data that goes into them, so the key to a good map is having covered the ground, metaphorically but preferably sometimes physically. In other words, the map quality depends on the building of a good rapport with those involved directly and listening well. We will look at this more closely in Part III.
Which tool to use will depend on the complexity of the conflict. A tool that could adequately map the Second World War is likely to be a little over the top in a community or family confrontation. At this point I always struggle to hold two things at the same time. The first is to keep the tools used as simple and accessible as possible. There is a well-known but likely apocryphal story from the terrible, long drawn-out struggle in Iraq after the 2003 invasion. The new American general was in place and had asked for a proper conflict map. After some days, there was a presentation with all the possible links and networks. The result covered an entire wall in lines and arrows. The general is said to have remarked that if anyone could understand the map then they would have no trouble with the war.
The best tools will help shape the questions you seek imaginatively but not constrain a flexible response to emerging shapes and patterns that may take the facilitators in new and unexpected directions. In other words, in Lederach’s beautiful phrase, they will liberate ‘the moral imagination’.1 Nothing is more important. The experience of researching is often deeply depressing. The move to conscious ignorance is one of recognizing one’s position as an outsider, without the same emotional sensitivity as those most closely involved to culture, fear and history. The complexity grows and grows until one’s head begins to spin. At first in such situations, I tend to see numerous occasions when it was ‘obvious’ that the conflict could have been avoided, solved or at least mitigated. As I learn more, I usually feel that there is no solution at all, and that my first reaction left out the emotions of those involved, treating them only as purely rational beings able to separate themselves entirely from emotions. The third step is a more balanced view, aware of ignorance, but also aware of the signs of hope and sensitive to any movement. Humility is an essential.
The moral imagination has to contain room for identification with people who are different, feeling what they feel, even where one disagrees. It cannot be purely distanced and objective. The former is a statement that we are all human beings, the latter is paternalistic. The heart of conflict, whether in a marriage or a war, is an intensification of isolation: those involved think that nobody else can understand and, worse, that nobody else cares. The outsider knows that the first of those two is true but the second can be overcome. There are certain journalists who seem to be able to report well, but always with passion. They do more than tell a story; they conscript the emotions of the hearer. The moral imagination starts with that deep passion for peace, for the well-being of those whose lives are in pain.
The leap of moral imagination is costly and hard, and needs wings on the feet. For example, in the last twenty years the work of interfaith dialogue has been transformed by the use of scriptural reasoning. This involves a group of people learning to study each other’s scriptures together. Pursued over time it is not aimed at a syncretistic soup of ‘we all really agree’ but, through engagement with sacred texts of others, being given the impetus to develop deeper understanding and profound friendships. The sacred writings give wings to the moral imagination.
In any conflict or confrontation, whether it is within a church or school or community, between faiths, or armed struggle at different levels, the facilitator is hearing people’s dreams and fears and memories. The loss of a relative in an extrajudicial killing, or the fear that comes from being threatened if one looks too closely at the wrong data or asks the wrong questions or goes to the wrong place, or the despair from seeing one’s homeland torn apart, are all areas of emotional horror. One must weep with those who weep.
Even in utterly non-violent situations, dreams and hopes, security and expectations will be in the course of destruction and that leaves people very vulnerable. The worst form of premature judgement is that which says implicitly, ‘because this does not much matter to me, I will not allow myself to feel the pain that you are suffering’.
I described a visit to Ogoniland at the beginning of the chapter. That trip was the first step in researching. Much research in a conflict is undramatic. On that occasion we had more drama than usual. We were flown across part of the Niger Delta by Shell, in a helicopter, as they explained to us their view of the situation. We spoke to senior managers and those in the middle ranks, a few from Holland, the UK or USA but the vast majority from Nigeria. The conversations were very revealing. Many of the Nigerian staff had family links in Ogoni and felt deeply torn. Some of the expatriates were terrified by their experience of seeking to deal with the problems. We listened to village leaders, women, youths, NGOs, to the very intelligent and passionate Ken Saro-Wiwa Junior and to Ledum Mitee, the man who had succeeded to the leadership of MOSOP after Ken Senior’s death. We spoke to people with links to militias, and to crime and corruption. We spoke to Government at numerous levels. The list was very, very long indeed.
What all those meetings did was to reveal complexity. Learned articles by experts in the area spoke of the destruction of the environment and the resulting socio-political impacts. The history of relations with neighbouring ethnic groups and the impact of the Nigerian Civil War (1967–70), where different groups were on different sides, added to the recent historical uncertainty. Then there was that natural resource curse.
Most of the trouble came back to oil and gas. Some of it was linked to the perceived actions of Shell, or their perceived lack of actions. Lawsuits had been started by MOSOP and other groups.2 There was also significant division among groups in Ogoni and others across the whole oil-producing region, which had resulted in fighting in three states at least. Politics in the region had used oil money gained illegally to fund militias and they had in their turn become drawn into large-scale criminal activity involving kidnapping, drugs and the stealing of vast quantities of oil. Corruption was and remains endemic. Amid it all, those who suffered and suffer the most are the poorest and most vulnerable.
As discussed, earlier researching could be easily termed enquiry. It enables the move from unconscious to conscious ignorance. There are further steps, whether to partial understanding, good understanding or an intuitive grasp of the situation. The reality is that the last of these takes generations. I was listening to a friend who has spent more than forty years in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He commented that he is beginning to grasp how little he grasps.
Unconscious ignorance is to repeat what ‘everyone knows to be true’, but almost never is. It is also to take one conflict and project its solution on to another. Unconscious ignorance is the staple fuel for manipulative leadership and for rackets and power games. It is also the staple deception amid well-meaning but damaging intervention, as has been seen in many wars such as Iraq.
Researching muddies the water, or perhaps, to be more exact, it enables one to see that the waters are very muddy indeed. Working through ‘what everyone knows’ produces simple answers to complicated questions, answers that in reality do not tackle the question at all.
Ogoni is a very good case study. Unconscious ignorance looks at the characteristics of extractive industry conflicts and says, ‘It’s all the fault of [in this case] Shell.’ Or, from another point of view, ‘It’s all the fault of corrupt government’ or militias.
Alternatively, mediators and facilitators of peacebuilding may come in and try to apply the lessons they have learned elsewhere. That sounds sensible but is usually a problem. They may have worked on, or learned from, community/company disputes in Australia, or Papua New Guinea or Latin America. There will of course be lessons but all who work in this area are in danger from time to time of making the problem fit their toolkit rather than getting the tools for the job.
Researching is an interrogative process, not an accusatory one. I make a practice of taking detailed notes of every meeting, so long as those I am meeting give permission. They should be allowed to see what has been written. Taking notes gives a clear sense of being present, and of learning rather than somehow being above those caught up in the situation. Good facilitators are never parachuted in as those who solve, but arrive humbly to serve and assist.
The process of researching is to some extent value neutral. That means that judgement is suspended, at least outwardly, until further stages have been reached. One of the major difficulties is that one deals with bad people. Conflict (even in what is seen as a just cause) brings out the worst in people. It does not matter whether it is in a household or family, or somewhere like Ogoni. All involved are running on their nerves. As was discussed in Chapter 2, the impact of confrontation, especially involving violence and threat of injury or death, is something that builds up responses in the human body. The longer the conflict continues, the stronger those responses become and the weaker the collective impact of moral decision making.
Moral neutrality poses its own dangers. Some of the wickedest people can be the most capable of appearing attractive and helpful, not always deliberately. In many professions, supervision is obligatory. The facilitator or mediator needs accountability to others disconnected from the conflict, in order to see where they are being affected by their contacts. The practitioner shares their experiences and views with someone else, or better still a group. Are they getting too close to a client? Are they being manipulated? Are they allowing proper emotions of humanity and sympathy to colour their approach to others involved? Wise peacebuilders will always have supervision and accountability.
A few years ago I was with a group of very experienced and wise English clergy in Northern Ireland. On one day we met the eloquent and articulate spokespeople for one side. All the clergy came away committed to justice for the oppressed, those that they had heard that day. The next set of meetings was with the other side. All the clergy became confused. As we drove off in the evening, someone called out to me: ‘Archbishop, I know what you are doing. You’re messing with our heads.’ It was a wise comment, recognizing that contact with people in conflict always affects our perceptions. It is to identify and reflect on the impact of perceptual change that makes supervision necessary.
Many people will be very familiar with some conflict in which they have found themselves caught. Perhaps they know a couple whose marriage is facing a bitter collapse. They meet friends of the wife and are told that the husband has been totally unreasonable for so many reasons. They meet friends of the husband who talks of the way the wife controlled him and spent money so fast. In each conversation what they want to say is, ‘but it’s more complicated than that!’ The friends have simplified things to the point where one side is to blame. The truth is deep and historic, sending out roots in all sorts of directions that are to do with everything from the model the couple inherited from their own upbringings to the way in which they communicated. There will be times when there is some simplicity; for example, violence or emotional abuse where safety demands separation. The aim of reconciliation in such cases may very likely not be restoration of co-habitation but rather the capacity to move on towards personal healing and hope, or in the case of an abuser, to repentance and change.
That being said, and with all due precautions, there are some questions where the answers are very often decisive to the future hopes of any kind of reconciliation. They are very often not questions put directly, because that always invites the answer that the interviewee thinks is wanted. Many interviewees will be glad to talk and want the facilitator to see it their way.
The key ones are about dreams and objectives. Is it possible to sense a war weariness? What would a good outcome look like in their own minds? How deep is the bitterness? Can the other side have any merits? Something that is extremely rare but is also a sign of immense hope is when one hears the view – or the echo of the view – of the other put across, not as something to be agreed with, but with even the smallest level of mutual understanding or empathy.
The great strength of the facilitator is that they need not pretend to knowledge that they do not have. Asking foolish questions is not foolish when you are an outsider. Asking apparently foolish questions is often a way of giving agency and respect to those involved.
In John’s Gospel, chapter 5, John tells of Jesus going to the Temple in Jerusalem for a big festival. He visits a pool at Beth-zatha, which was believed to have healing properties when the waters stirred. Many sick people were there, and Jesus approaches one who had lain there all his life: ‘When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?”‘ (verse 6, NRSV). The reader’s first reaction is often, ‘What a daft question!’ He had been there for thirty-eight years. Yet it was the opposite of daft. It gave the man choice, provoked self-reflection, and meant that the sign Jesus performed to heal him was done with him, not to him. There is always a question in the back of one’s mind: ‘What do the participants in this struggle want? Do they want peace?’ It is rare that the question is put so bluntly, but as we will see further down the line, there are many ways of getting to the answer and there will have to be a point where the challenge of desire is faced.
Dangers
As discussed earlier, throughout the process there are dangers, in particular those deriving from overspeed and overreach. Researching will prepare facilitators to anticipate those dangers, to avoid them or to have plans ready to face them.
Overspeed. In all conflicts that have reached a level of maturity and where there is genuinely a sense that it is necessary to try something new if the struggle is ever to end, there is a desire for speed. Peacemaking tends to have two speeds: stationary and rush. Both are dangerous. The latter is often encouraged by those around, by circumstances and in public situations by the media.
The mystery of peace is not only that for those in conflict it is hard to imagine but also that its coming seems to take either for ever, or far less time than one might fear. In one case, patience is lost and with it progress. In the other, opportunities are often not taken because peace has slipped in by surprise. The Middle East has a long history of overlooked opportunities. By contrast, in one African country a handshake at church between two leaders who could have torn the country apart led a few weeks later to them spending a day together alone, and to the establishment of peace. They had the wisdom to grip the unexpected opportunity, and broke conventional approaches to do it.
In a conversation while I was writing this chapter in the summer of 2021, I was invited to get involved in a relatively large-scale peacebuilding process. I was very doubtful, but the doubts diminished enormously when the person with whom I was talking said, ‘Of course, the first stage of design, mapping, planning and research, is going to take a long time.’ The sense of that comment showed a great deal of realism.
In Ogoni the research became a very important part of the process and to my surprise did lead to a slight change in the mood – although I am not in any way claiming that I made much difference. The start made at the time I was involved was followed up by more skilled, more local people who achieved much more significant progress. The most effective facilitator was Bishop Matthew Kukah (now Roman Catholic Bishop of Sokoto). Having already played a key role in numerous Nigerian disputes, up to and including national level, he renewed the momentum of the reconciliation work in Ogoni. His book, Witness to Reconciliation, to be published in 2022, is a magisterial account of both the stories and the approaches. Fifteen years later the list of those who have been involved is long, but the credit for the small change made goes to the people of Ogoni.
Overreach and underreach are two sides of the same coin. An overreach of imagination leads to the illusion that great difficulties can be overcome in the twinkling of an eye and bitterness will evaporate with a touch of sense. Underreach is the problem of looking at the gaps and not the potential bridges. The first is a sign that the lessons of the research are not sinking in with the facilitator and the second that the pain has become overwhelming.
Both happen easily. In the difficult discussions within the Church of England over the question of ordaining women as bishops, the biggest step was to imagine that a way forward could be found. In some of the conversations, several groups were involved. In one of them the facilitator was obviously pushing a solution. It led to all sides digging their heels in. The facilitator was not arrogant or bad at their job, but they were desperate for progress and sought to take things faster than was the mood of the participants.
By contrast, earlier in the process, after a major setback, all and sundry spoke of needing five years at least to chart a way forward that ended taking less than two, owing to the desire by all concerned to find such a way. The setback opened the way to progress.
The third crucial error is leaving out those participants who matter, and its twin, giving any group too much profile and thus a disempowering veto at the wrong moment. Most conflicts have someone or some group that, like Voldemort in Harry Potter, cannot be named. It may be a powerful militia or an important and shadowy government figure. In Ogoni there were constant rumours about who was lifting the oil. There was also clear evidence of criminal gangs who were very willing to threaten violence.
The identification of those who matter is one of great political sensitivity. If a person or group is left out, they will very often seek to become disruptive. On the other hand, including a genuinely marginal figure gives them influence and importance and further complicates the process. Embracing complexity is one thing, adding to it without genuine need is quite another. The arithmetic of the relationships is worth recalling. Two groups and a facilitator mean that the process has three relationships, the parties to each other and each to the facilitator. Go up to three groups and a facilitator and the number of relationships becomes six. Go up to ten and it becomes forty-five.
At this point scale poses its own questions. In a civil conflict everyone seeks to show that they are the most valid representatives of the people. The very act of accepting the claim and giving them a seat at the table means that they acquire far more legitimacy. They also set up their post-conflict trajectory to power. In other words, the stakes are very high indeed. Excluding those with a claim that has validity may drive them to attention-seeking violence.
There are many opt-outs from these types of decisions and many ways round it. The opt-outs are too easily cop-outs.
The researching should give benchmarks for testing the validity of claims to participation. History will show the extent to which they have taken significant risks, mobilized large numbers of people, or in places where elections have some substance, where they have been successful. Research and attentive listening also reveal those who have been marginalized and need to be heard. What is not said, or what is dismissed, is as important as what is said.
Three groups are very often forgotten. First are women. The harsh reality is that whether it is at community level or in war, the significance of women is usually forgotten until too late. They matter for many reasons. They are at least half the population and, as human beings, of equal dignity before God to men, whatever the culture says. They are remarkably vulnerable in armed conflict, especially to sexual abuse. They are the ones who find themselves driven from the homes where they farm, without support, and living in IDP or refugee camps. They bury the dead, whether spouses, children, siblings, friends or parents. It is almost unknown for an effective peace to be made and for a process of peacebuilding to become embedded unless women’s groups are centrally involved, and their voice is heard.
Women will perform very central roles in peacebuilding if given the opportunity. In more patriarchal societies, the need to understand what they can do without undue risk is a major task of researching. The spouses of leaders are often given significantly large roles without the training or education required. They will frequently be highly educated but much neglected. Researching should reveal both the most gifted and the requirements in every group for training in building peace.
Second are youths. The definition of youth varies from the western culture, where it will typically mean teenage and early twenties, and in some other places anyone less than forty. Youths are often forgotten, although in most wars they are the main combatants and thus have the most interest in ending or occasionally in continuing the struggle. They may be drawn into fighting as children, with resulting intense trauma. They will have the ability to end the war if they can be brought into a position where they are willing and trained and equipped not to participate.
In community disputes they remain very important as, like women, they will often be done to rather than doing. In families that are in difficulty they will often be the ones longing for settlement and stability, with an equal interest in and love for the disputing parties and no desire to be manipulated into taking sides.
Third are traditional mediators. There is a remarkable arrogance in some outside facilitators that consists in assuming that because there is conflict in a society, it contains nobody with reconciliation skills. Most societies have developed ways of facing conflicting ambitions for power, issues around land ownership and boundaries, conflicts between herders and farmers, neighbour disputes, community breakdown, and marriage and family divisions. They will also very likely have customary law that supports answers. In Rwanda, after the genocide of 1993, local village courts were essential to holding accountable those who had committed crimes and enabling those who had suffered to hear their story. In Burundi there existed a tradition of wise mediators. This group was suppressed in the colonial period lest they become community leaders against the colonial government. Researching must show whether such traditions work or not, so as to go with the grain and not against it.
In many, even most, communities there are equivalents. There may be a church or other religious group that operates as a mediator. There are often individuals who are known as peacemakers.
At the heart of researching is understanding what the weave of the conflict is and of the group and groups in which it is set. Above all, research seeks to enable facilitators to develop confidence in knowing their own ignorance and in being able to know those involved and be known.
Mapping should reveal those who do not seek to participate but prefer to work in the shadows, not in some conspiracy theory imagination but in hidden reality, undermining progress. This has been discussed earlier, and shadow figures and spoilers are among the easiest to miss. Their significance is that their power is real but not evident. Many of those who claim participation in a process will have power that is evident but not real. In armed conflict it is essential to know where the arms and logistics come from, who pays, and how and from where they get the money. In a community it matters if groups are part of an outside network with a wider agenda. In a church where there is a deep divide it is always possible that broader groups are seeking to expand their influence within a denomination.
The danger in looking for shadows and spoilers is that people can become caught up in conspiracy theories. However, even hearing false ideas is useful in the process of research as an indicator of mood. The volume and attraction of conspiracy theory in a group or society is very frequently an early warning of more violent conflict.
Knowing that the Research is Bearing Fruit
The move from the first to the second R, Relating, should be seamless. Researching goes on throughout the entire journey as all involved need to be able to expect that they will gain a better understanding. So how does the facilitator know that it is time to start spinning the second plate?
The most important sign is that they can tell the story of the conflict from the different perspectives of those involved in the process, in a way that each of them can recognize. Thus, in Ogoni a good sign would have been for Shell to hear the local community tell the story from Shell’s point of view in a way recognizable to Shell. More importantly still, given the power of Shell, MOSOP leaders, women, youths and civil society observers who had been helping the Ogoni people should recognize their own view of the conflict when Shell told the story from the local as if from the community’s point of view.
Research does not bring solutions; it brings out the next plate, with its deepening relationships.
Summary
• Researching is a long process that continues right through the journey of peacemaking.
• Researching takes the peacebuilder from unconscious to conscious ignorance.
• It should enable mapping of the conflict and recognition of complexity.
• It goes from desktop analysis to interviews and meetings in the field.
• It must include women, youths and traditional peacebuilders, whether in a family or a war.
• It should enable discernment about the roles and categories of different people.
• Supervision matters to avoid being traumatized or misled.
• It will reveal the problems and may reveal ways forward.
Points to Ponder
• If you know of a conflict, how much do you really know? Have you decided that you know everything before you really do? Does that happen if you are caught up in a dispute?
• Look at some quarrel, dispute or conflict you know about. Whose voices are not heard? Who is forgotten?
• Try getting together with someone and exchanging the story of a dispute familiar to you, four times. Twice tell the story from one side, and then twice from the other? Can you do it? (It is not unusual to answer no.) What are the biggest challenges?
• Read John 5. If reading the Bible is not part of your normal life don’t try to understand everything but ask some questions. Who are the key people involved? How would you describe the quarrel? How does Jesus treat the man who is healed? Before and after? How does he treat Jesus?