Crisis as a failure of negotiation

In the paper, drawing from research done in academia and religious practices of Prophet Muhammad (SAW), I argued the point that crisis mainly stems from failure in negotiation -negotiation with self, family, friends and foes. Enjoy. On the evening of 15 December 2013, fighting erupted in South Sudan (independent from Sudan for just over two […]

In the paper, drawing from research done in academia and religious practices of Prophet Muhammad (SAW), I argued the point that crisis mainly stems from failure in negotiation -negotiation with self, family, friends and foes. Enjoy.

On the evening of 15 December 2013, fighting erupted in South Sudan (independent from Sudan for just over two years) between forces loyal to President SalvaKiir, an ethnic Dinka, and the former vice president, RiekMachar, whom Kiir sacked in July of the same year.Immediately, 1,000 people were killed.
Nigeria and the United State intervened.  Now here’s the interesting part: the opposing parties had two different positions:
Marchar:
 “My message was let SalvaKiir release my comrades who are under detention and let them be evacuated to Addis Ababa and we can start dialogue straightaway, because these are the people who would (handle) dialogue.”
President Kiir:
Information Minister, Makeui, said on behalf of Kiir: “They are criminals who must be brought to the books, so there is no way we can negotiate with (Machar).”
This was after Kiir had assured the United States that he was ready for peace negotiations without any preconditions.
So these were dominant positions: One, release my people, so that we can talk. Two, no, we wouldn’t do that; we must punish them, but let’s talk anyway.
Remember at this time, although casualties were still high, they were not as scandalous as they’re now even by African standards.  The continuous rise in casualties was chiefly due to the warring factions positions which stymied the peace efforts and cause deaths of their own people.
Thus, two positions.  But did they have same interest?  Or could they have harmonised these positions into one interest that would have served them both and save the lives of their people?  Yes.  How? Let’s turn to academia for the answer.
Roger Fisher, William Ury and Bruce Patton of Harvard Negotiation Project championed what they called Interest-focused negotiation.  That is, we should seek to negotiate from a position of interest – not a positional one as the South Sudan people have been doing.
In fact, if the South Sudan leaders had done that, over 10,000 deaths and one million internally displaced people might have been avoided.
Moving on to religion:
Long before Roger Fisher, William Ury and Bruce Patton of Harvard Negotiation Project advocated interest focused negotiation instead of a positional one, Muhammad (SAW) lived it.  He never allowed emotions to becloud his judgment or positional disposition of an opposing team to provoke anger in him.
 An example will make this point clear.  In 628 CE, fourteen hundred Muslims led by Prophet Muhammad (SAW) left their base in Medina to perform Hajj in Mecca.  Mecca was then controlled by the non-Muslims and they denied the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) and his followers access to it. This dismayed the Muslims and they wanted to fight, since Muslims had a superior army; but Prophet Muhammad’s interests were to avoid bloodshed, perform the Islamic rites and visit the city of his birth. A position would have been: “I’m here to perform the Hajj and that’s what I will do!”
Thus he opted to reach a diplomatic agreement with the non-Muslims of Mecca. In the ensuing treaty, Suhail bin Amir, the envoy of the Meccans objected to the reference “Muhammad the messenger of Allah” in the document and wanted it removed, because, as far as they were concerned, Muhammad wasn’t a messenger of God.  Ali, Prophet Muhammad’s nephew and secretary, didn’t want to remove it, because he believed doing so would undermine the position of the prophet.
But instead of taking a position and insisting that he was a messenger (and causing an impasse), the holy Prophet  asked Ali to show him (since he was unlettered) where the word “ messenger” was, and personally rubbed it out.  The document finally read “Muhammad the son of Abdullah…”
The author of this monograph stated in the paper that:
Crisisology  is the scientific study of issues, events or circumstances with the slightest and greatest probability of causing pains, injuries, illnesses, disabilities, deaths, property damage, psycho-social trauma and other undesirable situations. More so, it considers the potential for losses, liabilities, shortages or expenses resulting from interaction between natural or human-induced hazards and vulnerable conditions.
Therefore, I submit that although we can’t entirely eliminate the vulnerabilities the author mentioned, we would do well to consider crisis from the perspective of failure in negotiation: negotiation with ourselves, with our friends, with our families and with our enemies.  And this can be anywhere: on the road, in the bedroom and so forth.
Finally, the author has chosen to be among those whom a philosopher once described as innovators, inventors, creators and thinkers who prefer to be interesting rather than happy.
And if this field has to emerge and someone has to create it, why can’t it be our brother?
Crisisology: Charting A Course through Crises can be recommended for further studies to the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC), National Universities Commission (NUC), National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE),and the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) for a broader exposition. At the same time, they will find a moral call to improve and learn from this insightful research.