Friedrich Glasl, who since 1967 has been working as an adviser for and mediator in different organizations, as well as in political conflicts, civil wars and international war situations, is in Armenia these days, with a short visit, during which he will give lectures and have meetings.

He is the author of numerous books and articles on leadership, organization and conflict management, including the works of "Conflict Management", "Self-help in Conflicts", "Dynamic Business Development".

During the last 10 years, the organizations that applied to Mr. Glasl for consultation and mediation included "Austrian Airlines Group", "BMW AG", "Deutsche Bank AG", "Frankfurt Airport AG", "Porsche Holding", "Raiffeisen International Bank" etc.

Below we present an interview with Mr. Glasl.

The role of mediator is quite important in conflict resolution processes. What primary qualities should a person have, to become a mediator?

There are some core qualities, and one of this is to be able to see how things are connected, interrelated with each other,  what is the pattern of what is happening, paying attention to details, to see and recognize the patterns in social behavior.

One should understand what is going on in each side of the conflict, without being judgmental, i.e. there should be interest in the resolution of the conflict, but not sympathy or antipathy towards any side.

The willingness for critical self-reflection is also important. One of the weak points in conflicts in the world is the lack of critical self-reflection. If one side of the conflict criticizes, it criticizes the other side, not itself. However, they should also ask themselves, "Did I do wrong, how can I change, how to improve my behavior?" Since this is a very important attitude.

People in their essence are divided into two types, those who rule, and those who are ruled. Do you agree with such a division? And what if in a conflict, such people are involved, where one side is more of a dominant type, the other is of submissive type, which conflict is harder to solve, when there are two leaders involved in the conflict, or a leader and the submissive type of a person?

Well, first of all I do not agree that some are leaders, others are not, since both features are present in a person, in one situation one can be courageous and leading, in another the same person can behave conversely. Important is that if we look at power relationships, they are always two way relationships, it is about giving and taking of both sides, there should be a balance of how much you give and how much you receive. For dealing with imbalance in this process, it is important to pay attention in which issues you depend on the other side, and in which issues the other side depends on you.  

What concerns the question of which conflict is relatively easier to solve, then it should be mentioned that conflicts, where both sides are stronger, are easier to solve, since they do not consider themselves depending from the whole group, they seem to be more autonomous. In this case the result you achieve is of better quality. When you have a weak side in a conflict, which greatly depends on the whole group, the results you achieve may have no value, because they may be rejected by the people who didn't participate in the negotiation process.

If people have a conflict and one side perceives that it is going to lose, this can be a starting sign for getting into mediation, and in most cases the signal and the initiative starts from the weaker side, not from the dominating side.

Donald Horowitz: ethnic groups, existing on a same territory, are filled with aversion towards each other, the moment fears arise of extinction of one of them. As a result, prejudices are formed about the other group, which deepen the tense and bring to conflict.

Can this phenomenon be based on the fact, that there exists collective or group psychology, and is it possible to influence the group psychology in a way, so as to avoid conflicts?

Confirming the mechanisms described by Horowitz, it should be mentioned that creation of stereotypes of collective identities of "us" and "them" is a mechanism which needs some time to be produced. And one can definitely influence this and there are many ways to do this. One way is to look at so called connectors. Although both sides of the conflict have differences, maybe some different interest or attitudes, but there are also things they can have in common, i.e. persons whom they like, events in the history, values etc. The worst thing is to have as a connector a shared enemy. To be united because of the enemy provokes negative forces such as aggression, defensive behaviour. So there is a need of positive connectors, not negative.

Other thing is that it is very important to strengthen individualistic characters. The collectivistic cultures foster this kind of stereotypes. The stronger the collectivistic identity becomes, the weaker the individual identity gets. So it is important to pay attention to individualistic feelings, understand what you feel as a separate member of a group, as an individual, and how you feel as a part of a group. The more you stress on this, the weaker the collective stereotype becomes. Those people who manage to do this, if they would approach each other, they could build a bridge.

Another very powerful technique which I use especially in civil war or post war situations, is to observe with both parties how the conflict can escalate and imagine to what results this worsening of conflict may lead for each of the side. A question is raised here whether we can do something to prevent this further escalation. Otherwise, getting worse would mean that it will affect the living conditions of both sides. Very often I work with the parties separately, to help them to express what according to them could get worse. Then exchange of ideas takes place, and then we observe what each side could do to take initiative to put an end to further escalation. Thus a connector here becomes the desire to prevent something bad.

Can this type of technique, that you use, be applied in Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict?

The both sides of the conflict can sit and discuss how could the situation escalate, and when they see they do not want the further escalation, they would start to think of how they can prevent it. However, any fear, such as fear that may be affected by political manipulation, can destroy everything.

Can there be any other solution to such type of conflict, such as economic cooperation?

Economic cooperation actually can lead to conflict resolution, but it can occur only in case the cooperation will be mutually equally beneficial. In 2008 in Yerevan, I was participating in a conference with Turkish and Armenian people from economic and governmental fields and there was a very strong agreement among Armenian and Turkish participants, that the border should be open, there should be economic exchange among the countries, also a contribution to a more peaceful settlement of the economic problems should take place. But economic relationships are not guarantees, that there will not be again a political conflict, in which case the economic relations will immediately stop. If we look at Libya, all the countries, in which the Gaddafi family had investments, they started freezing the investments and interrupt the economic relationships, just because the country was in war. So economic relations are not a guarantee, but they are a very good precondition.

The logic of economic exchange fosters political de-escalation. The most effective concept is the multi-track diplomacy, when there are very different levels of relationship - in the economic field, in the cultural field, in politics, science. So as many as possible contacts should be made, which lead to making people less sensitive for political propaganda.

When speaking of cultural diplomacy, and take the intercultural meetings between young people of Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Turks, we quite often have the situation that they are quite friendly out of their countries, but not when they are back. Any answers to this type of situation?

Well, it is quite important to be friends in such trainings, but more important is to stay friends after they finish. But I have examples like in Israel and Palestine, where there are hundreds of people who exchange phone numbers and whenever something happens in Israel or Palestine, they call each other and exchange information, because they know that their radio, their newspapers, their TV channels are broadcasting selective news. And phone calls are less controlled than mails. So they get more objective coverage of information, than they could have by watching TV or reading newspaper.

How can a conflict be handled, when both parties of the conflict, like in case of Turkey and Armenia, sign an agreement of opening borders, for example, without any preconditions, however, later on one of the sides brings certain preconditions? (definitely, the agreement can be declared void, but the conflict won't be solved).

When sides make such an agreement, it is very important, that a paragraph is included there about what we are going to do if there are difficulties in implementing or ratifying the agreement. One must never forget to include this, because, yes, now we agree to sign, but later we have differences in interpreting it. So if one forgets to do this, then it's a pity. It means that there should be a kind of a hotline, just in case some troubles appear later on. This is important so that not to get trapped later.

For meeting Mr. Glasl, to participate in the open lecture and direct your own questions, you are welcomed to Civil Society Institute on May 10, 2011, at 18.00 p.m. The subject of the open lecture will be "Internal Political Conflicts and the Role of the Civil Society".

Interview by Sofia Manukyan

Source: www.hra.am