Whats Happening 06.014.11

The Scary "C" Word

Jason Dysktra- The C-word is something that we are scared of. Many people even avoid saying the word for fear that it will happen to them. At the first sign of it they run, or fight, or freeze. We try to avoid it, we try to hide it, we walk on egg-shells around it. The word that I’m talking about of course is conflict.

There has been a few times on my Facebook and Twitter that I have asked people – What’s the first thing you think of when it comes to the word conflict? I also ask this question in the workshops that I facilitate. There has been many, many responses…everything from avoid, run, disagreements, ruined relationships, fights, screaming, compromising, freeze, I think you get the point. What do all these things have in common?

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This Week in Conflict

(ADRhub is happy to see this blog return! Support this by reading it & leaving comments)

Rebecca Sergant- I’ve finally returned to writing the This Week in Conflict report again after a nearly three month hiatus. In that absence, it seems that conflict has really begun erupting in many places across the globe. As such, it is incredibly difficult for me to remain abreast of all the details and nuances of each conflict, so I ask readers to please submit to me any reports or personal observations from conflict zones they find each week that they feel I have missed or overlooked or misunderstood.

These reports are all made on a voluntary basis, using publicly available news reports and as such are subject to error or media bias. I would also appreciate any suggestions on how to make this weekly report better. You can add these to the commentary below, or send them via email.

Since there are soo many conflicts brewing, and this weekly report has gotten so long; the conflicts are separated into regions with each region and country highlighted with bold lettering to make it easier for you to skim to find details about the specific conflict or region you are looking for.

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Why read and post in the book club- even if you have yet to read the book? Here's another example- it's a snippet from Jo Irvine's recent comments:

Extraordinary Talent...

Jo Irvine- It sounds easy, but we live in a society where our governments’ actions are dictated by multinationals and the economy in general, there is a reason, for example, why the western European countries and the USA at the end of the cold war and still today mainly promote/protect civil and political humans rights which do stand up for democracy but leave little room for the social, economic and cultural rights of the people they are governing. Indeed, the current huge economic crisis has given governments the excuse they need to make huge cuts in budgets for economic, social and cultural services for their people but yet they can plug billions of dollars, pounds and euros into saving banks and economies. My point is that we are a society that takes away the ‘personal’ and ‘humane’ to look at the rising numbers in our bank accounts. Wealth defines us and gives us power and people in power are scared to lose it.