From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
It's okay to have differences... it's okay to have different religions... it's okay to not agree on everything. However, respect should always be there. Sometimes you have to listen before you talk.
Our strategy is to try and find elements which can create a common ground, a common agenda, which can then build confidence for sides to work together. Often, a common-agenda comes from issues outside the source of the conflict, such as economic and social well-being.
As two adversaries accumulate a longer history of conflict, their rivalry relationship tends to become 'locked-in' or entrenched, with future conflict becoming increasingly difficult to avoid; characteristics of their past confrontations can hasten or reverse this movement toward rivalry.
They help us to understand that there is no 'us' versus 'them', and that 'The Other' is, in fact, my brother, my sister; the other is me.
As war ravaged Liberia, I realized it is women who bear the greatest burden in prolonged conflicts. We began organizing Christian and Muslim women to demonstrate together, launching protests and a sex strike to help oust Charles Taylor.
The media often diverts attention when parties need to be focussed on the actual process. It can often create expectations and momentum which forces parties to break from processes to deal with situations back home defending positions.
The fundamental starting point is to acknowledge that outside actors can rarely create peace, local ownership in resolving the conflicts is vital. You cannot import peace, it is created within society.
In the short-run, my fear would be that we've mismanaged the relationship with China through miscalculation to produce a 1914-like situation. I think it's a low-probability outcome, but it could of course be mismanaged. There's obviously the danger of nuclear weapons and a miscalculation leading to their use, and inevitably therefore, catastrophic outcomes.
A resilient position means that you are not always on the brink of war. The cost of war is so great that being on the brink is a deeply uncomfortable place to be. We have to make leaders and societies pay more attention to the costs of conflict.
There is no such thing as one-sided victory in diplomacy, perhaps in war there is, but not in diplomacy. You are always, or at least should always be, mindful of the other side.
We're afraid of living under constant terrorism, and the constant threat of a neighbour who wants to kill you and destroy everything you care about. The escalation is already here. He has already reached a point of escalation that we must not tolerate – he is already doing everything he is capable of.
The Olympics elevate this understanding; there, athletes' origins become secondary. You don't dwell on their life stories; their athletic prowess and the spirit of competition captivate you. The focus is on their dedication and the culmination of years, sometimes lifetimes, of preparation, free from the constraints of politics and geographical divides.