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Introduction:
Sarah Peterson describes a negotiation process in South Africa involving land reform that has, with effort, led to longer-term coexistence. But maintenance of coexistence takes continual effort, she explains.
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This rough transcript provides a text alternative to audio. We apologize for occasional errors and unintelligible sections (which are marked with ???).
Coexistence Community Consultations in South Africa
Angela Khaminwa and Sarah Peterson
Program Officer for Outreach and Communication, The Coexistence Initiative
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S: One of the projects that we are working on
is called the Coexistence Community Consultations. Basically the idea is to
bring two or more groups together that have formerly been in conflict and have
on their own initiative, emerged into a state of coexistence, and that state of
coexistence is how they define it. I mean that there is not a presence of
violence between the two groups. Where there once was violence, it is no longer
there. They've emerged into a state of coexistence. What we are asking them is,
"how do you define coexistence, what does it mean to you, why is it
important, how do you sustain it in your community, and how do you see
coexistence actually helping you get to a better place together?"
We have these consultations as a pilot project in South Africa, and in one of
the communities, it was called Nuden ??? , it was a farming community in
South Africa and there was conflict, still is, over land reform between the
Farmers Association, primarily of white farmers, and the community members which
were primarily black farmers and community workers and also unemployed community
members. There was a process of land reform where the land was redistributed to
the black communities from the white farming communities. They went through a
period of negotiations but prior to the negotiations there was a lot of
violence. Somehow though they managed to take the initiative and form a mixed
working committee where it was comprised of five of one side and five of the
other.
Q: Locals negotiating on their own?
S: Exactly. Five members of the Farmers Association and five members of the
local black community center came together and negotiated the process of land
reform so that both sides felt that they were being represented in the process.
It was a pretty amazing feat given the nature by which the conflict over land
reform has created such deep rifts between the two sides and still does today in
South Africa. They underwent this negotiation process and built a kind of
coexistence out of conflict. We went in, they talked about how they went through
that process but they also said that they face so many challenges today, that
coexistence is very difficult if not impossible to sustain partly due to new
challenges such as crime, economic problems, poverty, starvation, and so forth.
Through these consultations they were able to talk about some of the ways they
thought their relationship could be improved.
Basically, the ways that they could work toward coexistence together, meaning
they need new schools that provide services to the black community, more
opportunities to get together for town hall meetings so that both sides can
interact with one another socially. The importance of social practice is
immensely critical for sustaining coexistence. What does coexistence mean? They
really captured it as a spectrum. For some of them, it was simply mutual
respect, tolerance, not stepping on each other's toes, show respect for property
rights, other kinds of human rights. At the other end it was also about unity
and oneness and this whole South African principle of ubuntu ??? , which is
mindedness, the fundamental interconnectedness of the human spirit and human
beings.
Q: These were questions framed by?
S: TCI in cooperation with the African Center for the Constructive Resolution
of Disputes, which is ACCORD in South Africa, they partnered with TCI on this
project. In one of these communities we used a methodology that we designed
together to elicit community feedback on their understanding of coexistence. Now
we're going to be releasing a publication in January of 2004 that will capture
these portraits that were painted by community members of what coexistence means
and how it can be sustained. But the interesting aspect of the consultations is
that in describing the way coexistence is present in their community, and ways
that coexistence can help them move forward together to a better place, they
actually did, because once we left they made phone calls to one another and
said, "We have to start working better together."
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