"My opinion on who's wrong or who's right has nothing to do with the fact that we have to bring together people who are against each other, to transform antagonism into cooperation"
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Holkeri points to a core ethic of mediation: put aside personal judgments about blame to make space for a process that converts hostility into joint work. When adversaries are locked in stories about who is right, the very act of adjudicating those stories hardens positions. The mediator’s job is not to declare a verdict but to create the conditions under which enemies can become partners in solving shared problems.
That stance is not moral indifference. It is role clarity. In deep conflicts, insisting first on apportioning fault often guarantees there will be no future to negotiate about. By turning attention to common interests, concrete incentives, and fair procedures, a mediator lowers the emotional temperature and opens a path to incremental cooperation. The work is less about changing hearts overnight than building structures that make cooperation rational, repeatable, and safe.
Holkeri lived this logic during the Northern Ireland peace process, where he co-chaired talks with George Mitchell and John de Chastelain. After decades of violence, the breakthrough came not from proving one side right but from designing a framework that respected competing identities while institutionalizing shared governance. The Mitchell Principles, inclusive participation, parity of esteem, and power-sharing arrangements created a political arena where grievances could be channeled into bargaining instead of bullets. Decommissioning, policing reforms, and cross-border bodies were practical steps that transformed antagonism into cooperation by embedding it in rules, timelines, and reciprocal commitments.
The insight scales beyond geopolitics. In polarized societies, organizations, even families, the reflex to assign blame first is a recipe for stalemate. Reframing the task as joint problem-solving allows face-saving, builds trust through small wins, and gradually shifts incentives from zero-sum confrontation to positive-sum collaboration. Moral assessment still matters, but it follows rather than precedes the creation of cooperative channels. By prioritizing the architecture of engagement over the allure of being right, Holkeri captures a disciplined, hopeful realism: peace grows when procedure outruns pride and when former opponents find themselves busy, together, solving the future.
That stance is not moral indifference. It is role clarity. In deep conflicts, insisting first on apportioning fault often guarantees there will be no future to negotiate about. By turning attention to common interests, concrete incentives, and fair procedures, a mediator lowers the emotional temperature and opens a path to incremental cooperation. The work is less about changing hearts overnight than building structures that make cooperation rational, repeatable, and safe.
Holkeri lived this logic during the Northern Ireland peace process, where he co-chaired talks with George Mitchell and John de Chastelain. After decades of violence, the breakthrough came not from proving one side right but from designing a framework that respected competing identities while institutionalizing shared governance. The Mitchell Principles, inclusive participation, parity of esteem, and power-sharing arrangements created a political arena where grievances could be channeled into bargaining instead of bullets. Decommissioning, policing reforms, and cross-border bodies were practical steps that transformed antagonism into cooperation by embedding it in rules, timelines, and reciprocal commitments.
The insight scales beyond geopolitics. In polarized societies, organizations, even families, the reflex to assign blame first is a recipe for stalemate. Reframing the task as joint problem-solving allows face-saving, builds trust through small wins, and gradually shifts incentives from zero-sum confrontation to positive-sum collaboration. Moral assessment still matters, but it follows rather than precedes the creation of cooperative channels. By prioritizing the architecture of engagement over the allure of being right, Holkeri captures a disciplined, hopeful realism: peace grows when procedure outruns pride and when former opponents find themselves busy, together, solving the future.
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| Topic | Peace |
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