Transcriber: Marie-Claude Bélanger Reviewer: Denise RQ
Good afternoon.
Amongst all the troubling deficits we struggle with today,
we think of financial and economic [ones] primarily,
the ones that concern me most is the deficit of political dialog.
Our ability to address modern conflicts as they are,
to go to the source of what they are all about,
and to understand the key players and to deal with them.
We, who are diplomats, we are trained to deal
with conflicts between states and issues between states,
and I can tell you our agenda is full.
There is trade, there is disarmament,
there are cross-border relations.
But the picture is changing.
And we are seeing
that there are new key players coming on to the scene.
We loosely call them groups.
They may represent
social, religious, political, economic, military realities,
and we struggle
with how to deal with them, [and with] the rules of engagement:
how to talk, when to talk, and how to deal with them.
Let me show you a slide here
which illustrates those kinds of conflicts since 1946 until today.
The green is the traditional, interstate conflicts,
the ones we used to read about.
The red is modern conflicts, conflicts within states.
These are quite different,
and they are outside the grasp of modern diplomacy.
And the core of these key actors are groups
who represent different interests inside countries, and therefore,
the way they deal with their conflicts
rapidly spreads to other countries,
so in a way it is everybody's business.
Another acknowledgment we have seen during these recent years
is that very few of these domestic, interstate, intrastate conflicts
can be solved militarily.
They may have to be dealt with with military means,
but they cannot be solved by military means.
They need political solutions.
And we, therefore, have a problem
because they escape traditional diplomacy.
And we have, among states, a reluctance in dealing with them.
Plus, during the last decade we've been in a mode
where dealing with the groups was conceptually and politically dangerous.
After 9-11, either you were with us or against us.
It was black or white.
And groups were often immediately labelled "terrorists,"
and who would talk to terrorists?
The West, as I would see it, comes out of that decade weakened
because we didn't understand "the group."
So we've spent more time on focusing on why we should not talk to others
than finding out how to talk to others.
Now, I'm not naive, you cannot talk to everybody all the time,
and there are times you should walk.
And sometimes, military intervention is necessary.
I happen to believe that Libya was necessary,
and that military interventions in Afghanistan was also necessary.
My country relies on its security,
through military alliance, that's clear.
But still, we have a large deficit
in dealing with and understanding modern conflict.
Let us turn to Afghanistan.
10 years after that military intervention, that country is far from secure.
The situation to be honest, is very serious.
Now, again, the military is necessary,
but the military is no problem solver.
When I first came to Afghanistan in 2005 as a foreign minister,
I met the commander of ISAF, the international troops.
And he told me:
"This can be won militarily, minister, we just have to persevere."
Now, four ISAF commanders later,
we hear a different message,
"This cannot be won militarily."
We need military presence, but we need to move to politics.
We can only solve this through a political solution,
and it is not us who will solve it, Afghans have to solve it.
But then, they need a different political process
than the one they were given in 2001-2002,
they need an inclusive process
where the real fabric of this very complicated society
can deal with their issues.
Everybody seems to agree with that,
but it was very controversial to say [so] three, four, five years ago;
now everybody agrees.
But now, as we prepare to talk,
we understand how little we know
because we didn't talk.
We didn't grasp what was going on.
The International Committee of the Red Cross, the ICRC,
is talking to everyone.
And it is doing so because it is neutral.
And that's one reason why that organization
is probably the best informed key player
to understand modern conflict.
Because they talk.
My point is that you don't have to be neutral to talk,
and you don't have to agree when you sit down with the other side,
and you can always walk.
But if you don't talk, you cannot engage the other side.
And the other side which you don't engage
is the one with whom you profoundly disagree.
Prime Minister [Yitzhak] Rabin said when he engaged the Oslo process:
"You don't make peace with your friends, you make peace with your enemies."
It's hard, but it is necessary.
Let me go one step further.
This is the Tarhrir Square, there's a revolution going on.
The Arab Spring is setting into fall and is moving into winter.
It will last for a long, long time.
And, who knows what it will be called in the end?
That's not the point.
The point is that we are probably seeing
for the first time in the history of the Arab world,
a revolution bottom-up, a people's revolution.
Social groups are taking to the streets.
And we find out in the West
that we know very little about what is happening.
Because we never talked to the people in these countries.
Most governments followed the diktat of the authoritarian leaders,
to stay away from these different groups,
because they were terrorists.
So now that they are emerging in the streets,
and as we salute the democratic revolution,
we find out how little we know.
Right now, the discussion goes: "Should we talk to the Muslim Brotherhood?
Should we talk to Hamas?"
"If we talk to them, we may legitimize them."
I think that is wrong.
If you talk in the right way,
you make it very clear that talking is not agreeing.
And how can we tell the Muslim Brotherhood, as we should,
that they must respect minority rights
if we don't accept majority rights?
Because they may turn out to be a majority.
How can we escape being a double-standard
if, at the same time we preach democracy
we don't want to deal with the groups that are representative?
How will we ever be interlocutors?
My diplomats are instructed to talk to all these groups.
But talking can be done in different ways,
we make a distinction
between talking at a diplomatic level and talking at a political level.
And talking can be accompanied with aid or not,
talking can be accompanied with inclusion or non-inclusion.
There is a big array of ways of dealing with this.
If we refuse to talk to these new groups
that are going to be dominating news in years to come,
we will further radicalization, I believe.
We will make the road from violent activities into politics
harder to travel.
And [we should] demonstrate to these groups
that if you move towards democracy,
if you move towards taking part
in civilized and normal standards among states,
there are some rewards on the other side.
The paradox here is that the last decade
was probably a lost decade for making progress on this.
And the paradox is that the decade before the last decade was so promising!
And for one reason primarily,
and the reason is what happened in South Africa: Nelson Mandela.
When Mandela came out of prison after 27 years of captivity,
if he had told his people: "It's time to take up the arms, it's time to fight,"
they would have been followed.
And I think the international community would have said:
"Fair enough, it's their right to fight."
Now, as you know, Mandela didn't do that.
In his memoirs, "Long road to freedom,"
he wrote that he survived during those years of captivity
because he always decided to look upon his oppressor
as also being a human being.
Also being a human being.
So he engaged a political process of dialog,
not as a strategy of the weak, but as a strategy of the strong.
And he engaged talking profoundly by settling some of the trickiest issues
through the "Truth and Reconciliation" process,
where people came and talked.
Now, South African friends will know that that was very painful.
So, what can we learn from all of this?
Dialog is not easy, not between individuals,
not between groups, not between governments,
but it is very necessary.
If we're going to deal with political conflict solving or conflicts,
if we're going to understand these new groups
which are coming from bottom up
supported by technology which is available to all,
we diplomats cannot be sitting back at the banquets
believing that we are doing interstate relations.
We have to connect with these profound changes.
And, what is dialog really about?
When I enter into a dialog, I really hope that the other side
would pick up my points of view,
that I will impress upon them my opinions and my values.
I cannot do that unless I send the signals
that I will be open to listen to the other side's signals.
We need a lot more training on how to do that.
And a lot more practice
on how that can take problem solving forward.
We know from our personal experiences
that it's easy sometimes just to walk,
and sometimes you may need to fight.
And I wouldn't say that that
is the wrong thing [to do] in all circumstances;
sometimes you have to.
But, that strategy seldom takes you very far.
The alternative is a strategy of engagement and principled dialog.
And I believe we need to strengthen this approach in modern diplomacy.
Not only between states but also within states.
We are seeing some new signs.
We could never have done the Convention against anti-personnel landmines,
and The Convention on Cluster Munitions,
unless we had done diplomacy differently
by engaging with civil society.
All of the sudden, NGOs were not only standing in the streets,
crying their slogans, but they were taken into the negotiations,
partly because they represented the victims of these weapons.
And they brought their knowledge.
And there were some interactions
between diplomacy and the power coming bottom up.
This is perhaps a first element of a change.
In future, I believe we should draw examples
from these different illustrations
[in order] not to have diplomacy
which is disconnected from people and civil society,
[and we should also] go beyond traditional diplomacy,
to the survival issue of our times: climate change.
How are we going to solve climate change through negotiations
unless we are able to make civil society and people
not part of the problem but part of the solution?
It is going to demand an inclusive process of diplomacy
- very different from the one we are practicing today
as we are heading to new rounds of difficult climate negotiations -
[where] we move towards something
which has to be much more along [the lines of] a broad mobilization.
I believe it's crucial to understand
- because of technology and because of globalization -
societies from bottom up.
We, as diplomats, need to know the social capital of communities.
What is it that makes people trust each other
not only between states but also within states?
What is the legitimacy of diplomacy,
of the solutions we devise as diplomats,
if they cannot be reflected and understood
by all these broader forces of societies,
that we now, very loosely, call "groups"?
The good thing is that we are not powerless.
We have never had as many means of communication,
means of being connected, means of reaching out,
means of including.
The diplomatic toolbox is actually full of different tools
we can use to strengthen our communication.
But the problem is
that we are coming out of a decade where we have the fear of touching it.
Now I hope that in the coming years,
we will be able to demonstrate through some concrete examples
that that fear is receding.
And that we can take courage from that alliance
with civil society, in different countries,
to support their problem solving;
among the Afghans, inside the Palestinian population,
between the peoples of Palestine and Israel.
And as we try to understand this broad movement across the Arab world,
we are not powerless,
we need to improve the necessary skills, and we need the courage to use them.
In my country, I have seen how the consuls
of Islamist groups and christian groups came together
not as a government initiative, but on their own initiative,
to establish contact and dialog
in times where things were pretty low key tension.
And when tension increased, they already had that dialog.
And that was a strength to deal with different issues.
Our modern western societies are more complex than before
in these times of migration.
How are we going to settle and build a bigger 'we' to deal with our issues,
if we don't improve our communication skills?
So there are many reasons, and for all of these reasons,
this is the time, and this is why we must talk.
Thank you for your attention.
(Applause)
Bruno Giussani: Thank you.
That's for you, not for me, that's for you! JGS: Thank you!
(Applause)
BG: Thank you. JGS: Thank you.
BG: Mister Støre, I would like to ask you a couple of questions
about the Norwegian experience [on] terrorism
and your own personal experience of it.
In 2008, you were caught in a terrorist attack in Kabul,
you escaped unhurt, others did not,
and then, just five months ago,
Norway was hit by its own domestic version of it
with the Utøya attack and we all remember that tragic day.
Now, just a couple of days ago,
the transcripts of the interrogation of the terrorist Breivik
were leaked to the Norwegian press.
And they revealed that you were on his target list.
Now, I'm wondering; you just told us
that you have a strong belief in dialog,
but have these very private events ever made you doubt?
JGS: Well, I think these are the moments
when you have to try to distinguish between two parts of yourself.
Now, being caught in a [terrorist] attack in Kabul,
and being at the top of the hit list
of this terrorist in Norway,
gave me some [matter for] private reflection, obviously.
To me and to my family.
And every individual has to ponder on that, to deal with that kind of news.
But the politician in me and the minister in me, tell me:
"this is all the more a reason why we need to move forward
in improving the way we deal with conflict."
Because if we are going to [use] the old way of dealing with conflicts,
then we are going to keep on dealing with terrorists,
we are going to keep on dealing with problematic issues
as a result of violence,
- which will always be with us -
but as foreign ministers, with all the opportunities we now have,
we have to take that as,
I wouldn't call it an inspiration but a very, very compelling case,
for doing things differently.
BG: Seen from abroad, the Norwegian response
to the attacks in Utøya was really amazing.
it was strong, rational,
it felt like coming from a very strong community,
from a very strong sense of community.
A non-violent society was hit,
and it responded without closing up.
And I feel that many among us have mentally compared this
with the reactions of other countries hit by terrorism,
so we are all wondering
what makes Norway and Norwegians so resilient and so committed to openness?
JGS: This is not the end of the story,
we are in the early phases of a very dramatic healing process.
Firstly, because there are many, many, many people hit by this dramatic event,
the wounded, the affected, families, and so on,
and we will have to keep looking after them very, very carefully.
Secondly, we have not had a trial yet,
we don't have the complete picture,
but it seems as though this is a "lone wolf" version,
so I think it's a scary reminder
that one individual - if that's how it turns out -
can do such an horrendous thing.
So we need to study that carefully: "How could that happen in our country?"
Still, I think you'll find that Norway is a country
with a strong social capital base which I think is absolutely key;
with a strong common denominator
of what it means to be a society, what it means to be a community.
I think the test for our country now is are we able to do two things,
look after the people who need to be looked after,
and they are many,
and then return to democratic, pluralistic life.
We stood very close together for some weeks,
but that is not a normal thing in a democracy,
we have to move back to normal ways of dealing with issues,
disagreeing in a sensible and civilized way.
We are on that road, and hopefully, we can get through it.
BG: And the whole world is going to be watching.
Mr. Støre, thank you very much.
JGS: Thank you. BG: Thank you.
(Applause)