Saturday, September 2, 2017

Mechanisms to Solve Conflicts


A specialist  on conflict resolution has an article in the Catholic Peace Weekly on the subject. He writes about the problems faced: regional conflict, gender, left/right. The government with plans to raise taxes, decrease our dependence on nuclear power, policies on real estate etc. will all come up against public opinion.

Korea is known to have a high level of conflict in society and few provision for their resolution. We have no mechanisms working to resolve conflicts. Parties involved in the conflict need  to find satisfaction in the resolution, without  a great outlay of money and time. We need a way that the two parties will be satisfied with the outcome. We usually call this mediation and arbitration. 

Conflict between North and South Korea presently is the biggest. Here we have to move with the changing  circumstances and continually make proposals for resolution. The writer feels the present government has many such proposals ready. When negotiations don't go well we look for another proposal and with the North/South conflict he wonders whether this is not the way to go. 

In Korea we have the separation of the three powers of government: administrative, legislature and the judiciary. Considering this the citizens need to support the legislative branch of the government with their authority. Public opinion committees that are formed and when the citizens are actively involved this is a great help to the legislative branch of government. Committees formed to make agreements should be supported.

In Europe  public opinion meetings are important. In the United States in the past they used the help of foundations and universities. Korea has to find a way to easily access pubic opinion.

How does Korea arrive at a smooth method of solving conflicts? To this question he responds a trust in society. He praises highly the movement of candle light processions that were present recently.  In contrast to this the culture does not  find it easy to discuss and go deeply into social problems. We need occasions to devote time to these discussions. Here we have the possibility of solving our conflicts. Each of our conflicts  needs this type of  mechanism to allow for discussion as a means of finding a resolution.