How can we use the power of language to avoid conflict and arrive at
peaceful solutions?
When there is a conflict, be it emotional or social, our way of
communicating changes. We stop listening
to the other person, we take no responsibility for the matter, we decide that
it is either good or bad and we allow ourselves to be carried away by our
feelings … We can be sincere about our feelings without offending others,
certainly by means of empathy, and more profoundly by means of compassion
understood as knowing how to listen to the feelings of others and knowing how
to express our own without pre-judging.
(From the introduction to
the book “Non-violent Communication” by
Marshall B. Rosenberg )
On the Day of Peace and Non-violence, we offer you the
following story which confirms the above quotation and helps us to reflect.
When he was studying Law at London University, a professor named Peters took a dislike to him but the student – who was Gandhi – did not let this affect him and their meetings were very pleasant.
One day Professor Peters was eating in the dining room
of the university and the student came with his tray and sat down beside him. The
Professor said to him haughtily, “Mr. Ganhdi, you do not understand… A pig and
a bird do not sit down to eat together.” To which Gandhi replied, “Don’t worry,
Professor. I will fly away” and he
changed tables.
Mr. Peters, red with rage, decided to get his revenge
at the next examination but the student answered all the questions brilliantly.
He then put the following question to him, “Mr Gandhi, you are walking along
the street and you find a handbag containing wisdom and a lot of money. Which
would you take?” Without hesitation,
Gandhi replied, “The money, of course, Professor!”
Professor Peters smiled and said to him, “If I were in
your place I would have taken the wisdom.” "Each of us would take
what he hadn’t got already” replied the student. Professor Peters was furious, wrote “Idiot”
on the exam paper and handed it back to the young Gandhi. Gandhi took the paper
and sat down. After a few minutes he said to the professor, “Mr. Peters, you
signed the paper but you forgot to write the result”.
A peaceful, intelligent and sincere way of responding…