Why do misunderstandings drive wedges in relationships? Why is it hard to admit mistakes to your boss? Why can’t I confront my friends when their actions leave me dejected?

Maybe conflict is innately painful, and we cannot escape facing the trials of human connection.

But maybe we’re thinking about it all wrong. Maybe there are ways through hard problems, without pushing us apart from each other? Maybe we need philosophers to go forth and find how.

Or, maybe we already know how.

Traditional institutions of conflict resolution offer three practices to reveal the answer: intentional physical space, intergenerational dialogue, and a willingness to believe.

Arising in Pre-Islamic Bedouin culture, the Majlis is designed from its outset to facilitate dialogue in its physical space. Cushioned seats circle the room, art drapes against the walls, and low tables carrying gahwa rest on a collage of rugs.

Dancing flames lick the brass base of the coffee pot and play along the walls /

Twenty-four rough hands softly overlap as cups make their way around

The Majlis’ form is vital to its role in Bedouin culture. Inside the Majlis, poets come as diplomatic envoys, history is transcribed through oral tradition, and the most salient conflicts to the community are resolved. The physical space inside Majalis disarm before a word is spoken. The soft cushions beg members to sink into their seats and share connection to those nearby. The circular orientation directs attention to any speaker, no matter their rank or status. The coffee is shared between friends and enemies alike when it passes between hands.

The Majlis stands in stark contrast to the Boardroom, its long cold table, led by one figure, designed to protect hierarchy. When voices stand on unequal footing, or in opposition to each other, their meaning can get lost in power dynamics. Once I stand opposed to you, one of us will come out of this a winner, the other a loser. The Boardroom is a physical reminder that each voice is not equal, the Majlis begs to differ.

Fifteen centuries of cultural and political shifts later, the Majlis remains a vital ecosystem for dispute resolution in Arabia. What has let the Majlis stand the test of time? The answer may lie in Subsaharan Africa, beneath the Iroko trees.

The Palaver tree, spread wide across the African continent south of the Saharan desert, stands as an institutional twin to the Majlis. Gathered beneath the Iroko or Baobab tree in village centers, entire communities solve civil disputes. Around the Palaver, all voices are respected and no member of the community is denied participation.

The Palaver is primarily a technology for sustainability. The community’s most difficult conflicts are solved around the Iroko tree. After congregating, no actions may be taken by the community until consensus is reached, a process that can take hours if not days. Not only is the contemporary community taken into consideration, but generations past, and generations yet to be are considered. The dialogue extends beyond just those visible, to the invisible.

The two children draped in white reappear before a whispering elderly man /

Light flickers in their eyes and they nod to teachings known

The practices of the Palaver acknowledge each individual, accept them into the community, then orient solutions to be to the benefit of the many, permeating down to support each individual. The Palaver is not in a hurry.

Ultimately, institutions like the Majlis and the Palaver arise from social and political decisions. These institutions are developed to ease the burden of both civil and political conflict resolution. They have real practical use-cases as tribunal spaces. They serve similar purposes to a Western Court of Law, or a corporate Boardroom, yet there is something distinct about the Majlis and the Palaver. Their legitimacy as institutions does not come from a monopoly of violence or financial coercion, it comes from something less tangible, but perhaps more powerful. Their legitimacy comes from a willingness to believe in the technology.

I step towards the hearth and the shifting around me slows to a hush /

Their eyes are curious, their hands lie open, and I am found

At the Majlis, rituals of song, oral history, and the propagation of the poetic tradition inspire a belief in the power of the Majlis, rooted in culture, art and connection. At the Palaver, song, dance, and storytelling serve as a reminder of the wisdom of ancestors. These rituals ease tension and remind the participants of the Ubuntu principle that it is paramount not to sever the sacred bond between an individual and the community. These institutions do not get their legitimacy through coercion, they give each individual the opportunity to believe in something bigger, and more powerful than themselves.

If we seek more conscious paths through hard problems, we must engage together, then project solutions accordingly. How communication feels is up to us, and the institutions we believe in. Conscious communication is conflict resolution that does not pit participants as opponents, but rather as collaborators. In conscious communication, we all share the goal of listening to, putting forth, and coming to conclusions not as winners or losers, but as one.