Read the full transcript of Educator and Conflict Early Warning specialist Zab Vilayil’s talk titled “The Powerful First Step of Conflict Resolution” at TEDxRRU 2024 conference.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
The Journey of Conflict
ZAB VILAYIL: I have a certain relationship with conflict, and it is a relationship of commitment. The balcony, a place I learned about conflict. New Year’s Eve, Panama. I’m holding my wife’s hand as we’re walking through the lively streets.
We’re looking forward to the evening’s fireworks display. As we’re walking, I find this elevated spot where the view of the fireworks would be clear. We join in the countdown as we look forward to the show. And then it begins.
Just as the first fireworks explode, my heart is racing. Not the excitement kind, but a panic, and I break into a sweat. I act calm in my armor as a newly married man. I feel shaky in that armor.
Confronting Fear
I’m in a familiar place. I’ve been here before during fireworks. The feeling is not new and still unsettling. I could run and hide, or I could just bury this as my norm with fireworks.
This time is different. I’m not rushing, and I have the safety to explore this space with my wife’s support. I reflect, “Why does something as amazing as fireworks make me act like this?” There was a conflict in me, and I’d ignored it.
The Balcony Perspective
Over the next few hours, I go to a place of pausing and looking at my experience as a detached observer. Working as a conflict negotiator with this pause is what I’ve taught to others, and now I too felt I needed to step up, overlooking my own experience of the fireworks as one would from a balcony, looking down, trying to notice what it provoked.
What is it? What’s the gift here?
The balcony, a common metaphor, is a place I pause, observe in a detached way, and get curious. The balcony is my sacred space. These fireworks were really about something else. I was a young boy of seven in the small Persian Gulf country of Kuwait, when the sounds of gunfire and explosions rattled my childhood.
They made me want to run and hide. These fireworks echoed an inner conflict. The balcony gave me perspective. Yeah, in conflicts, some of us run and hide, and others of us are impulsive.
We believe our impulsive anger will force our way. Impulsive reactions may have a place in dangerous situations but often happen when we’re just in a rush. Not taking the time to go to the balcony often leads to hurt, escalation, and even violence. I’ve noticed not taking the time to step up to the balcony also leads us into a cycle of us versus them.
The Challenge of Perspective
We get it, they don’t, and can also convince us that we’re the victims. Even in the face of an upsetting email, the “Save Draft” or “Schedule Send” buttons serve as a digital balcony, a valuable pause to consider other possibilities. Okay, going to the balcony is not easy. It takes grit.
And I’m sometimes doubtful. We have to wake up in the morning and say, “Today I’m choosing the balcony.” It’s like a cold plunge. It’s going to take courage and commitment.
Learning Through Experience
Stepping up to the balcony helps us pause and be curious. With practice, it helps us be more flexible and also grow a spine on what is truly important. When I first immigrated to Canada, I worked at an after-school care. I enjoyed playing with the kids.
Around Christmas, the staff decided to host a party with classic items like chicken nuggets, mashed potatoes, and your token carrots. I had the important job of mashing potatoes. I walked into the kitchen and got to work. Mashing away, my co-worker Sarah walked in.
“Zab, what are you doing?” My hands fully immersed in my potato mashing mission. “My grandmother showed me this way,” I was doing a good job. “You can’t use your hands to mash potatoes.”
Confused, I took my hands out of the bowl. Sarah proceeded to give me a fork and I completed the task with the new tool, seething with embarrassment. I could stay angry at Sarah. I could point out a mistake she makes or even make one up.
I decided to go to the balcony. To pause and be curious, what did this spark in me and what’s the gift here? The balcony helped me understand nuances in culture. It takes commitment, it takes vulnerability, and it takes bravery.
Leadership in Conflict
As leaders, there are times when we are dealing with deep-seated conflicts. Some with families and others with teams. As a leader, there are times when it’s up to me to either calm things down and bring the group towards common ground. How I do this can vary, but what’s foundational is always taking a step back and gaining perspective at the balcony.
During my time in East Africa with the United Nations, our team’s goal was to bring two pastoralist tribes that had been fighting each other for generations to a place where conversation could flourish. Over the course of three days, our teams led discussions, digging into the details, made sure everyone had a chance to share. We honed in on what was truly important.
Transformation Through Understanding
Stepping up to the balcony and considering the other, the groups began the conversation. The turning point then happened when the two tribes slaughtered a cow and cooked a meal together. A powerful moment in possibility. Guiding them through these steps as someone removed from the situation really got the conversation going.
Conflicts do not need to be resolved. They can be transformed into new ways of being. Standing here as someone who has been through violent conflict as a child and as one who has worked in conflict zones, it pains me to the core that we are still here. We are still here.
I have a fire in my bones. As a child I ran away from conflict and as an adult I rushed towards it and now I sit with it. Isn’t it true how our conversations, our actions, are often under the guise of patriotism and safety? We have been in this cycle for so long.
We continue to be enamored by war hero stories. It’s time we take charge of our own with wisdom to make a choice. Yes, our relationship with conflict can be complex and stepping up to the balcony is a small step that leans into wisdom. Our world needs us, you and I, to step up to the balcony every day in our homes, our communities and our way of being.
Conclusion
Make no mistake, stepping up to the balcony is not for the faint or the weak. It is an ever-present muscle that needs to be exercised to strength and in doing so we have the possibility to dissolve our us’s and them’s. The balcony is a sacred space to pause and be curious. It helps me find the rightness in your wrongness and it also helps me find the wrongness in my rightness.
As you step up to the balcony, may you be committed to dignity, to wisdom and to the good in conflict. Thank you.
