Blue vs. Yellow Ribbon Factions Foment facebook unfriending Fracas!

        As students and police clash in Mong Kok, families and churches fall divided against themselves, and facebook users face a flurry of 'unfriending', we are all told of the need for dialogue. Well, duh! But what is dialogue? How is it different from any other way of talking together and how do we do it?
 
 Politics would appear to be, even by definition, decidedly adversarial. Elections

produce winners and losers; legislatures are fields of conflict where the ruling government is held accountable by the constant challenges of the official opposition. Where does dialogue fit into that picture?I

      I ran as a candidate for the Green Party in the 2001 Alberta Provincial election in Canada.  No Green Party Candidate stood a chance – I knew that (I received only 334 votes) but the reason I participated was to promote dialogue on important issues and to participate in the democratic process. I believe strongly in dialogue and in the principle that all sides of a discussion probably have important pieces of the puzzle (the puzzle being whatever societal problem is being grappled with or solved by the government) to bring to the table. It’s thus necessary to listen even to one’s opponents because we can all learn from one another.

      I shocked even my own party members on one occasion as I demonstrated my commitment to this understanding. An all candidates debate had been organized at the U of C’s Students’ Union Building (our riding was Calgary Varsity) and since I was a student with friends in the student’s union, I was aware I could get a table set up on the day to promote my campaign. I was also aware that none of the other candidates had done this. The day before the debate I called up all the other candidates' election offices and as it was too late for them to get their own tables, I invited them to share the table I had booked and put up their signs around it and place their pamphlets there for distribution as well. Only the NDP (Socialist) candidate responded to my revolutionary offer.  Even Green Party members thought I was crazy; “What political candidate in their right mind, goes out of their way to promote the opposition?” But, I insisted that my action had very much been in keeping with the Green Party philosophy of valuing diversity and acting to preserve its full expression in the public dialogue. We are all so deeply ensconced in the oppositional way of thinking and speaking (argument) that even the very progressive among us are not ready for the radical openness to the 'other' that genuine dialogue demands.

 The government system in Canada, is not structured in such a way as to bring all the political voices expressed by citizens during the election to the table of government. If you look at my own riding's results (linked above) you will notice that the winning candidate, Murray Smith, received only 59% of the vote and yet would rpresent 100% of the electorate of this riding in the government. The other 40% of citizens voted for other parties. This 40% of the electorate would go completely unrepresented in the government for the following 4 years. Their voices were completely absent from the table of government and this constitutes a serious flaw in the Canadian democratic system. It utterly prevents a genuine dialogue where the views of the whole electorate are represented in the conversation of government. Why does this matter? Most certainly, the views of that missing 40% would have carried important truths to the decision making process. There were parts of the puzzle missing when decisions were made and all of society was poorer for it. 

The point I am trying to make is that all sides of an issue express at least parts of the truth of the whole issue. If we ignore one or more perspectives on an issue - sides in a debate, if you prefer, then we impoverish whatever outcome (decision) that will be produced in the end. Argument results in just such an impoverishment, because the goal of argument is to win - argument seeks to destroy the opponents' perspectives and have them completely removed from the table having their own ideas fill the discussion completely. 

 In teaching my students about the difference between argument and dialogue, I asked them to consider the situation in Hong Kong at the present time and to choose their own position by selecting one or more squares of paper from a stack of yellow and blue papers. For those less aware with the Hong Kong situation, Occupy Central supporters wear yellow ribbons while those opposed to the protest are wearing blue. In most classes about 1/4 took yellow, 1/4 blue and 1/2 took both yellow and blue. After assuring them that I would not let it all descend into chaos but that we were going to discover together how to enter into dialogue, they happily shared a list of strong arguments in support of Blue( opposed to Occupy Central), which I wrote on the left side of the board and Yellow (supporting Occupy Central) on the other. I pointed out that at the present time each side was shouting at the other with the goal of either getting their opponents to change their colour or, failing this, getting them to shut up and/or disappear. If shouting doesn’t work, we decided, then the argument may progress to throwing objects, physical fighting and in the worst case scenario, all out war. This form of arguing was, we all agreed, unworkable .

     ‘Dialogue’ on the other hand involves discovering a shared question that could be considered central to the concerns of both sides. So, I then asked the students to consider reasonable arguments of both Yellow and Blue and to find what concern was shared by BOTH sides of this debate. They all were fairly quick to come up with 'They both want HK to be a better place."

     “This,” I informed them, “would provide the basis for a shared question,” which we worded simply, ‘How can we make Hong Kong a better place?’ Dialogue involves shifting the centre of my thinking/speaking from my own perspective (I happen to be Yellow) into the shared question. As a ‘Yellow.’ Dialoguing with a ‘Blue’ I would then be able to see how both Yellow and Blue raise important concerns pertaining to our shared question about improving Hong Kong. When arguing, I am certain that Yellow has all the answers, and similarly, that Blue is 100% wrong. Whatever conclusions arise for me regarding improving Hong Kong will be weaker if they are missing the important insights offered by the Blues. Also, my feeling about Blues will soften when I shift from considering them an enemy to realizing that we are dialoguing together with a shared concern – in fact, we may actually come to regard one another as allies.

  

      There is a great deal more to Dialogue than this: being prepared to question our own assumptions standing first and foremost. But one step at a time. Realizing that we share a fundamental question in common with those we formerly took to be enemies will move us a lot closer to engaging in dialogue and diffusing the divisive and destructive anger that has been plaguing all levels of relationship in Hong Kong society.