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Introduction:
Dennis Sandole discusses the dangers of going back to one's own group after attending a cross-group dialogue or meeting.
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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 ???).
The Dangers of Re-entry
Dennis Sandole
Institute of Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University
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We don't just get people to agree to be nice to each other, having them then go home to the ghetto, that doesn't do much. In fact you might put them at risk, they have to go home to
their parents, wives, neighbors, and say they're not so bad after allÂ… Traitor.
The Israeli and Palestinians who come home and says that those guys aren't so
bad, those guys are the first one killed by their own side. One example of this
is Rabin, who was killed by an Israeli zealot settler, a bible student, who felt
that the occupied area were Judea-Sumeria and part of ancient Israel that the
Old Testament gives Jews the right to have. The African American comes home and
says I just met some white boys and they are great. He may be knee capped by
their own brothers. That's something else we don't spend that much time on, the
ethical part of reentry. Sending people back home after we have intervened with
them and they have learned all of this stuff from us but they go back home and
we have not brought any change. This is sort of a cheap criticism because there
is very little I can do to bring about social change as a one-person third party
but it is something we should be aware of. We send people back to unchanged
structurally, violent social political economic conditions so we have got to
think about that one and somehow work on that.
It is not just bringing people together. If you bring them together and don't
do the other stuff then you might be sending them back into harms way. Know
yourself.
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