August 1, 2024 • 40 mins
Innovating Peace with Stephen Gray: Embracing Inclusive and Adaptive Strategies
Join host Laura May in this episode of the Conflict Tipping podcast as we explore the world of inclusive peacebuilding with Stephen Gray, Director of Adapt Peacebuilding and Doctoral Researcher at the University of Sussex. With 18 years of experience in developing non-violent solutions for conflict zones, Stephen shares his journey and insights on transformative approaches to peace. Highlights include:
- Stephen's journey from New Zealand to various global conflict zones, exploring his motivations and experiences.
- The impact of the 2021 Myanmar coup on local peace processes and the role of social movements in challenging power dynamics.
- An in-depth discussion on the crucial role of women in peace processes, highlighting how their inclusion transforms power structures and outcomes.
- Stephen’s current PhD research on the differences between structured peace processes and broad-based social movements.
- Innovative methodologies used by Adapt Peacebuilding to empower local communities to create their own conflict solutions.
This episode offers a profound look at the evolving landscape of international peacebuilding, emphasising the need for innovative, inclusive, and adaptive strategies in addressing modern conflicts.
Links
- Adapt Peacebuilding: https://adaptpeacebuilding.org/
- Adapt Peacebuilding podcast: https://adaptpeacebuilding.org/podcast/
- Stephen's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-the-gray/
Bookmarks
- Introduction to the Conflict Tipping Podcast - [00:00:00]
- Stephen's Journey into Peacebuilding - [00:01:04]
- PhD Research and Myanmar's Peace Process - [00:06:07]
- The Role of Women in Peace Processes - [00:12:56]
- Defining Peace and Its Challenges - [00:18:07]
- Challenges in Peacebuilding Funding - [00:22:05]
- Adapt Peacebuilding's Approach - [00:28:43]
- Innovations in Peacebuilding - [00:30:10]
- Personal Reflections and Inspirations - [00:32:16]
- Conclusion and Contact Information - [00:39:04]
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Laura May (00:10):
Hello and welcome to the Conflict Tipping podcast from Mediate.
com.
The podcast that explores socialconflict and what we can do about it.
I'm your host, Laura May.
And today I have with me.
Stephen Gray, Director of ADAPTPeacebuilding and Doctoral Researcher
at the University of Sussex.
Stephen has spent 18 years helpingorganisations in conflict zones
(00:31):
develop non violent solutions.
His work revolves around inclusivepeace building, non violent strategies
and systems approaches with projectsin countries around the world.
So, welcome Stephen.
Stephen Gray (00:42):
Thank you for having
Laura May (00:44):
me.
Happy you could join, especially becauseit turns out you're surprisingly,
to me at least, in Thailand today,where I thought you would be much
closer to where I am in Spain.
Stephen Gray (00:53):
Yeah, I'm here for a few weeks and it's great to be back in this
part of the world working on some ofthe issues across the border in Myanmar.
Laura May (01:01):
So I'm glad you were able to make the time to join anyway.
And so I want to jump straight inand ask you, like, what initially
drew you to this field of peacebuilding and conflict resolution?
Stephen Gray (01:14):
Yeah,
well, I think it was a mix of twothings really, one kind of more noble
set of things and oneless noble set of things.
I'll start with the less noble.
I,
just, I really
enjoyed traveling to parts ofthe world that, you know, were
to me exotic and exciting, and I
(01:35):
spent time and Burma,Myanmar, North Korea, Cuba.
A lot of different parts of theworld that had come out of or were
coming out of unusual political
conditions, shall we say?
And I did that for years
and I really enjoyed it.
And somewhere along theway, I got pulled in by
(01:56):
the passion and the spirit ofthe people that were working
to change conditions in those
countries that
found themselves, youknow, at the wrong end of a
oppressive regime.
And
I used to love interviewing those people.
And I thought after a while, howcould I try to make a job out of that?
And ultimately,
(02:17):
you know,
make a living
where you could.
experience
different places andengage with people like
that.
So I ended up training to do that.
And here I am,
Laura May (02:28):
I mean, I have follow up questions about that, but is
that also the noble explanationor is that the not ignoble,
Stephen Gray (02:36):
maybe there's nothing noble about it.
Maybe there's nothing noble.
I mean, I don't know if it's noble.
There's something about, the injusticeof the conditions in which some people
found themselves that I didn't thinkthat there was any particular reason why.
Some people in the world seem tohave life a lot easier than others.
(02:57):
And that, that annoyed me.
I felt
called or driven to wantto engage in some of those
processes,
I don't know if that's noble either,
but I found it highly motivating
to work with those people that were
somehow
trying to
oppose
some kind of violent or oppressiveregime and the lengths at which
(03:19):
they were willing to go to
sacrifice for that seemed very
interesting to
me for a boy from small
town, New Zealand.
That seemed quite exciting and noble.
So I was drawn to it.
Laura May (03:31):
Amazing.
And I'm glad you mentioned you'refrom New Zealand, not just because
you're my first Kiwi guest, but justbecause it also makes me wonder.
Like I'm more familiar withthe Australian travel path.
You know, people either go to theUK for a gap year or they spend
a lot of time in Southeast Asia.
And yet I noticed when you'retalking about the countries that
really inspired you in this work.
(03:51):
I mean, you mentioned Cuba and NorthKorea, which weren't necessarily,
I would assume, accessible whenyou started with these travels?
Like, what drew you to those locations?
I mean, was there already something, Imean, it's a bit leading, but was there
something already underlying there thatcaused you to seek these places out?
Stephen Gray (04:09):
It really was about
a fascination with the politicalideologies of those places.
I mean, I wasn't going there because Ifelt like maybe I should be a communist,
Laura May (04:21):
I
Stephen Gray (04:21):
go check it!
out, see what it's seewhat it's all about.
But, you know, growing up in a
liberal, progressive, democraticcountry, was interested in
politics, was interested in rights.
And I, you know, I remembercoming out of university feeling
like I wasn't sure where New Zealand'splace in the world was because we're
(04:43):
a little bit different than Australia.
I don't know if we just think that becausewe're the little brother, a little sister,
but we are, you know, wehad the anti nuclear thing,
quite an environmental
country.
Liberally, progressive on gender,progressive on ethnic indigenous
rights and that sort of thing.
And, we didn't seem to be like the UKor the US or Australia on those points.
(05:09):
And we weren't communist either.
but I was curious around
different
types of politicalsystems and I wanted to,
I've never really
been one to to listen to what you'retold about what you're supposed to
follow or what you're supposed to believe.
(05:30):
And I'm
still
a big believer that you should go and talkto the people in these places and find out
how they experience.
politics and how they experience
justice and peace and all these big words.
And so there was somethingabout that and also just
the, there's something
interesting and crazy
to me about those places,
(05:51):
I wanted to go and check it outand I really enjoyed seeing how
people lived in those places and how
different it was to this kindof globalized, westernized
world that we have in so much of
the rest of the globe.
Laura May (06:08):
And so I mean I want to dig in a little bit to your PhD research too,
because I understand part of the reasonyou're in Thailand is to get away from
it all and do some writing on the PhD.
So what are you actuallyresearching in that?
Stephen Gray (06:22):
Yeah.
So I felt like the research wasa couple of years ago and the
writing is only just happening now.
But I used to live in Myanmar
and
at that time was working
with different kinds ofgroups in the country.
It's a very diverse country,ethnically, and a lot of
different political stakeholders.
And working with different groups
(06:43):
in relation to their peaceprocess that they had before 2021.
And, then they had a military coup
in 2021 and that peace process
fell apart
and
the civilian government was ousted.
So their democratization processjust took a huge step backwards.
And you saw this
(07:04):
massive,
popular uprising
that was
much more than ethnic armedgroups and much more than
democratic political parties.
It was this groundswell of popularresistance against the military regime
and Myanmar's done that a couple oftimes before, but they're like waves
that have never they've crested, but
they've never really broken.
(07:25):
You know, they've never really
always been a crackdown
from the regime.
So
I
was really interested and
comparing this
social movement, the
broad based
social movement to a peace process, whichis a structured process of political
dialogue that typically mostly involveselites and tries to include civil society
(07:50):
and the general public, but on elite
terms.
And I wanted to.
understand what's the differencewith respect to how does that kind
of system of actors
using a social mobilizationstrategy versus a
structured
peace process Become more inclusiveof more of the concerns of a society?
(08:11):
How does it challenge some ofthose power dynamics that stop
issues of
everyday concern to peopleactually getting onto the agenda?
so I set off with that plan Fouror five years ago, and I'm thick
in the writing process now and
wondering if I'll ever get to theend of it, but hopefully there's
something useful to say at the end.
Laura May (08:31):
I mean, I'm sure there is something useful, right?
But I definitely relate to that painof wading through it all at the end.
And so, I mean, firstly, anirreverent note because I've
forgotten how time works since COVID.
I mean, the Myanmar coup, the latestone, wasn't that with the infamous
video of the girl who was doing like afitness video or something when tanks
(08:53):
rolled in behind her in the background?
That was, I feel like thatwas Myanmar, the coup.
But I remember that video went aroundthe world and everyone's watching it.
I think it's probably the firsttime a lot of people have ever
seen the name Myanmar before.
And then suddenly here they are,this very dramatic image of a
girl just in the background,just like tanks just everywhere.
Stephen Gray (09:13):
I don't remember that one.
But I certainly relate to itlike capturing popular attention
for like two to five days
and then it
just goes underneath
the radar
Compared to
Laura May (09:27):
other things that are happening.
You I've fact checked thislive and it was Myanmar.
Yeah.
So I'll have to share that video withyou, because it's really, I mean,
you start to question your sanity.
You're like, is this really happening?
Just what a surreal thingto, to see and to experience.
Stephen Gray (09:44):
I you know, what is so surreal and crazy
for me Is that this stuff is
going on all the
time,
but
we're not aware of it And it's something
so interesting
about news,
so It's probably not a good
example to use the United States right
now because some very big stuff
just did happen.
(10:05):
But sometimes, it's like we are privy tothe most intricate working details of that
political system and a handful of others.
And if something happens in thosecountries, it's super newsworthy
because that narrative we'reall connected into somehow.
And then we have these conflicts aroundthe world that are happening all the
(10:27):
time and there are no less brutalor the human consequence is massive,
but it's just not really news.
You know, if you were tosay, hey, conflict's still
happening in Myanmar, it's like,that's not a story or in the
Tigray conflict, which ended
a few years ago in Ethiopia,
I think well over a millionpeople were displaced and hundreds
(10:51):
of thousands killed.
And I didn't know that untilI went there earlier this
year and I work onthis, you know, so it's.
It's a crazy thing that weactually, we don't have a
really, a full picture of what'sactually happening in the world.
Laura May (11:05):
Yeah.
It's just that total lack of oversight.
I mean, I, I don't know how I fell intothese particular conflicts, but I mean,
I've sort of been keeping an eye onSouth Sudan and what's unfolding there,
but then also, I mean, yeah, Azerbaijan,because I mean, the Caucasus was, that
region was always a lot of interest to me.
And these are not inthe headlines anymore.
(11:26):
And yet there's still a lot going on.
Then you look at Yemen as
Stephen Gray (11:29):
Embassyria?
Laura May (11:29):
Yeah, absolutely.
Like there's so much conflictgoing on all the time.
And I totally agree with you.
It's just, but even Afghanistan.
Right.
We heard that the first initial collapse,once the U S pulled out, and then nothing.
So it's a bit of an indictmentabout how we, what we prioritize as
important and whose lives matter.
(11:50):
And yeah, like maybe what's entertaining.
Right.
Cause I feel like when we talk aboutAmerican politics, particularly like
it's a big entertainment component.
And certainly I was,
Stephen Gray (12:01):
The drama factor's been ratcheted up through the roof now.
I mean, It's
Laura May (12:05):
It's yeah.
Stephen Gray (12:06):
couldn't strip them.
Yeah.
Laura May (12:09):
as well, like when Trump was voted out of office just that relief
that I didn't have to be on the edge ofmy seat anymore because as a political
scientist, it was very exhausting.
And I don't want to go back to that.
Like, let's tone down the drama andtone down the entertainment, please.
Let's make politics boring.
Stephen Gray (12:26):
Mm
Laura May (12:26):
Please let's do
Stephen Gray (12:27):
I think that's a great slogan.
We should really, weshould end that campaign.
Let's make politics boring again.
Laura May (12:33):
Yeah, exactly.
Like MAPA, way better.
But I mean, yeah, there's a bit of ironyinto like making a campaign entertaining
while making the content boring.
So, but yeah let's workshop this for sure.
And so just getting back to your researchthough, I mean, as you're wading through
this and I understand you're in the thickof things, but I mean, was there anything
that really struck you or surprised youor made you go, huh, that's a bit weird.
Stephen Gray (12:57):
Yeah.
So, I'm going to be honest about thisand it probably doesn't reflect that well
on me, but for a long time let's say 20years, there's been a really big push.
From
western states around the inclusion ofwomen's perspectives and peace processes.
And I've been a supporter of that.
(13:20):
but at the same time, really wantedto understand strategically how that
changes the peace that's achieved.
And what you see is, all ofthese prescriptions where you've
got to have women at the table.
but then the men that are thereare like military commanders and
they don't listen to the women
and it's kind of a lot of the pushing ofit comes from certain organizations in the
(13:44):
international system that's their mandate
and they're going to do it no matter what.
And you wonder
like, is this, are we just pushing Western
norms on other countries thathave a different culture?
And is it
really serving the best interests of
a better peace for
everybody.
So, I wanted to know that.
how
does having women involvedmake things better?
(14:07):
And that's just come throughreally clearly in the research.
So, perhaps not surprisinglythat a lot of the closest
foreign
supporters
of the Myanmar peace process
for decades
are old
white dudes.
all of them,
Laura May (14:25):
Yep.
Stephen Gray (14:26):
every one of them that I interviewed made the same
point unprompted that by far themost impressive people and their
last 10, 15 years of experiencecoming that process were
the women's organizations.
And particular women.
And I asked why, what is it thatthey do that's so important?
(14:49):
And they all said in different ways
that
when you have spent your
life living in a very
oppressive system in which you can'tbe the person that you want to be,
you're getting pushed
down.
There's a power asymmetry between youand those that are holding you back.
You really learn how tochallenge power and peace
(15:13):
processes should be, if nothingelse, a process of transforming
unjust
Power relations.
So they explained to me howwomen's groups didn't take any
shit.
Like if something wasgetting talked about,
but not in a genuine way,and it wasn't going to lead
to what people had saidthey wanted to get to,
they would walk out.
(15:34):
They would form alliancesmuch more readily
across other types of identity divisions.
So very well established women'snetworks across the board.
Different ethnic groups,different parts of the country,
and they would work as collectives
without this
as much of a tendency tohave this kind of big man,
top down, authoritarianleadership style that,
(15:55):
that kind of more militaryfocused and political focused
men
would.
So, in various ways,
women were
changing, not just the content
that gets
talked about in a peace process,
but they were actually challengingpower dynamics in ways that, that
the men didn't know and the otherorganizations didn't know how to do.
(16:16):
So
that was a surprise to me because
it's actually not just a normativeconcern is that we should be talking.
about quote unquote genderissues and peace processes.
It's that these people have a range ofskills and techniques that others don't
And you
won't actually be as likely toget the outcomes of your movement
(16:37):
if you're
not including them asleaders and decision makers.
So
i,
Laura May (16:42):
was humble by that experience.
As you were talking, I was like, wecan just end the whole Conflict Tipping
podcast forever right there 'causethat was such a beautiful description.
Stephen Gray (16:52):
ha, ha,
Laura May (16:53):
I mean, it's fascinating 'cause obviously we've got the Women
Peace and Security Agenda that getstalked about a lot and then slated,
it becomes deeply politicized.
And I've had a number of guests talkabout the role of women in peace building
and how it's important, but also thisquestion specifically in Myanmar as well,
I remember when Julia Federer came on andwe were talking about, well, yeah, are
we imposing the role of women in thesepeace processes in Myanmar specifically,
(17:16):
but what you've just done is illustratedwell, actually, yeah, it matters.
And this is what it changes andthis is why it's so important.
So thank you for fillingthat puzzle piece in my head.
I really appreciate it.
So thank you for that.
Fascinating.
Stephen Gray (17:31):
Well, it was a puzzle piece for me as well,
because, you know, like I mentionedearlier, I've never been one to like to do
things just because we're told to do them,maybe from my upbringing or something,
but there needed to be a reason.
We can't just do it, it is the rightthing to do, and we should do it because
it's the right thing to do, but how'sit actually going to make a difference?
(17:53):
And so, yeah, that was useful to learn.
Laura May (17:57):
Fascinating.
And so beyond your finding aboutthe key role of women, I understand
you're also raising some questionsabout the nature of peace itself?
Stephen Gray (18:07):
yeah,
would like to talk about how we don'thave a common understanding of what
peace is,
Laura May (18:14):
good one.
Stephen Gray (18:15):
And
that's a real disservice
to what we all do as peace builders.
And, you know, I'm far from the
only person
to talk about this, but
it, that word gets instrumentalizedin such different ways by different
actors in the internationalsystem or within a country
(18:36):
that have completely different agendas,
and it
leaves
the peace building system, whateverthat is so, so disparate and incoherent
that you know,
we don't see eye to eye onso many different issues.
And I think that's gonewell beyond crisis point.
I've been in conversations
(18:57):
a
lot recently around howthis thing that we call
peace building
needs to undergo some kindof creative destruction.
And we need to
reclaim not
just language, but but a clearer sense
of what we are actuallyworking towards, and how that's
distinct from what other typesof actors in the international
(19:20):
system are working towards
under
the name of peace.
but that's what my PhD looksat within Myanmar is how that's
conceived of differently.
You know, if you're a person who'sgrown up at the end of a gun, how you
describe peace
and at least in my research isa lived experience of finally
being able to live without
(19:41):
fear.
and all of the things in your lifethat would be different if you
weren't so constantly intimidatedliving under a threat of violence.
That's not the same as a state wanting tostabilize a country that it has diplomatic
relations with so it can do business.
In fact, it's very different.
And sometimes they work welltogether and sometimes they
(20:02):
don't.
So,
I don't know if my PhDreally helps in that sense,
it just creates more confusion, butour, what we call the peace building
sector, I think is kind of unraveling.
in
part because we don't have a common sense
of
Laura May (20:18):
these, goals.
Yeah, no, I
Stephen Gray (20:20):
these goals.
Laura May (20:22):
mean it sounds really interesting and maybe one
really concrete example of that.
what it means to be peace isthis, you know, touted idea of
a frozen conflict, where it'sreally about stabilizing a country.
So yeah, you can do business withthem, as you mentioned, or at least
not kicking off anything else.
Cause as long as nobody's dyingright now, everything must be okay.
(20:43):
Versus hot conflict where it's,more active type of violence.
But do you have some ideas about whatkinds of peace, what shades of peace?
Are there things that we should be workingtowards, or at least what you personally
would like to be working towards the most?
Yeah,
Stephen Gray (20:57):
you know, if you go back to the,
what I think of as the heart ofpeace building, where it came from,
out of Galtung and down through JohnPaul Lederach and others, there's
always been an idea, an intrinsicassociation between peace and positive
peace or a conception of justice.
(21:18):
So it's not about
stability,
it's not about the absence of violence.
It's a more comprehensive set of
allowances for somebody, rights,protections that enables them to live
a life of peace.
Flourishing to their full potential.
That's a broad definition of peace.
and
it's not to say that there'sone way to get there.
(21:38):
You would have to do many things ina society to create those conditions,
but it helps you to,distinguish what it is
not.
And it's not
countering violent extremism or it's not
stabilization
operations.
It's not
having a, it's not peacekeeping,you know, peacekeeping
might be on a step towards
(21:59):
building something I just feel like
we've got away from that as a sector.
and even me calling it a sector,
kind of connotes the games you haveto play to get funded As a peace
building organization, and then
so many of our organizations,I think, have got pulled
(22:19):
in other directions because sometimes,
increasingly, you can't getthat fuller conception of peace
funded if it doesn't have, some other
Laura May (22:29):
us.
It's like
Stephen Gray (22:30):
foreign policy goal for a state, for example.
Laura May (22:34):
A rider clause.
Like, you know, this is the thingwe'll do because this is what you said
you want, but also we're just goingto sneak in this little bit, which is
the thing we actually want to do isas whatever we're called, peacemakers,
peacebuilders, general good vibes people.
Yeah, so it sort of detracts the focus,because that's not where the money is.
The money is what, I mean,what the states want.
(22:56):
Like, collectively as countries, I mean,
Stephen Gray (22:58):
Yeah.
Laura May (22:58):
the U.
S., just for clarity, yeah.
There's a bit of a mess.
Stephen Gray (23:02):
So that's the, question
that I would throw back into theether, is that if, we wanted to
build
peace in a
way that actually
really
takes
care
of
the aspirations of people that aremost affected by conflict, you could
talk about Palestinians, you couldtalk about many other people, then if
we want to do that as organizations,
(23:24):
how do you do that without resources?
Because as soon as you needresources, you start to play the game.
And whose game are you playing?
You're playing States' games.
And if you're playing the game ofStates, then you play by their rules.
And that means you don'tserve certain populations.
We don't work on certain topics.
We don't work in that way.
(23:45):
And what we need to do, if we want to
return to
a different conception of
peace, we
Laura May (23:50):
we want to actually stand on
Stephen Gray (23:53):
going to come
from,
Laura May (23:53):
and where's the I feel it...
Stephen Gray (23:56):
Is Bill Gates, gonna fund
all of this, Get
Laura May (23:58):
him on the phone, yeah
Stephen Gray (23:58):
Bill, are you listening?
Laura May (23:59):
that's Oh my goodness.
Yeah, it's crazy that as you'retalking, I just, I keep thinking
of parallels to corporate life.
I know this is a bitof a weird one, right?
Because my most recent role was inpeople and culture, so like, I mean, some
people would say HR, I say good vibes.
And there's that tension between onthe one hand, the company is paying you
(24:21):
and you don't want to lose your job.
Although obviously, ultimatelyI did, this is probably related.
But on the other hand, I mean, myobjective was to leave people better
than we found them, which is quitea radical approach for company.
And so, I mean, I was recently ata meeting with a whole bunch of
different people from around the place.
And, you know, I asked the question, Iwas like, okay, well, what stops you?
(24:43):
Like what gets in the way of, doingthe work that you actually want to be
doing in terms of empowering people.
Like what limits are we under and howcan we navigate within those limits
to do the best for people and to keepachieving these more radical goals.
And it's exactly the same thing.
Well, I mean, it's slightlydifferent scale, right?
But it's just like in thepeace building, like asterisks.
(25:03):
Okay.
So whenever we decide to call it, I'mgoing to call it peace building for now.
In a peace building world, thecorporation is the States, the HR
persons, the peace building organizations,and then the staff are the people
that the HR actually want to help.
And it's just a big old mess.
We just need a magical moneytree is what I'm hearing.
Like, to solve all of our problems.
Stephen Gray (25:22):
I feel like in that example, customers, probably have more power than
beneficiaries of peace building programsor people that are affected by conflict.
People that are affected by conflictoften don't have democratic voice.
Are often marginalized byviolence and intimidation.
(25:42):
They can't necessarily move around.
We're not hearing from them on the global
stage, and in the same sort of way.
So it's actually hard for them toexercise power to say what they actually
want or to vote out the leaders or to
rise up against those guyswith guns carries a lot
of risks, right?
So
at least
(26:02):
if I'm a consumer,
Laura May (26:04):
I can opt out, I'm
Stephen Gray (26:06):
it.
Yeah.
Yeah, or like what's happening now, here.
So the military government and Myanmar
enacted the conscription law
about six months ago.
They've
so far conscripted 50, 000 young people
to join their army to fightagainst their own citizens,
which is currently
(26:27):
brutalizing,
bombing villages of displaced people
not that far away at the border.
And all the kids, allthe young people, are
fleeing the country.
So that's really what youcan do is actually just try
and get out of the country.
so I think I took a little bit off track.
I'm still very interested in how weimagine a different kind of system.
(26:48):
Or a way of doing work that givesbetter opportunities to these
people to change their lives.
that it doesn't just rely on the statebased system because the resources
that are available for peace workare really drying up quite rapidly
at a time when conflict is higher now
(27:09):
in the world than it has been at any timesince the end of the second world war.
So, we have there a scary
situation that's emerging and youdon't have the appetite among the
traditional donors, some of themat least, to support peace work
anymore, which is somewhat alarming.
Laura May (27:29):
And why do you think that is?
I
Stephen Gray (27:31):
I think it's a few different factors, I mean, the 2010s, a
couple of very high profile and expensive
international
failures and trying to
change
violent states into democracyand human rights loving states.
It's
kind of like pulling backfrom interventionism.
(27:54):
the U.
S.
leadership declining And
in a kind of multi polar world You seethese emergence of different ways of
supporting different conceptions of peace.
So West Africa,
like all of the UN peacekeepingmissions are getting kicked out.
the
governments are getting kicked out.
(28:15):
And
Wagner Group is getting invited in
to
provide security for thoseemerging military dictatorship.
So you see this kind of competition,
and then fiscal, no one'sgot money after COVID.
And so they're looking to trimtheir budgets and, when economies
are doing
poorly, there's anti immigrant sentiment.
(28:36):
There's also a tendency to try to pullback on your international aid spending.
That's what's happened.
Sweden, for example, in other places.
Laura May (28:43):
So thinking then of Adapt Peacebuilding, so your
organisation, what kinds of thingsdo you actually do as a practitioner?
Stephen Gray (28:53):
Well as a practitioner now, I probably do more
fundraising, than anything else.
I
mean, we have a team of eightpeople in Colombia that do a
really good job implementing ourpeace building program there,
which is a way of working withconflict affected communities,
using an action research approach to
(29:14):
Come up
iterate and prototype, and thenimplement their own solutions
to challenges of conflict
as they
experience them
in
their local area.
sometimes they relate to likeenvironmental conservation,
water conservation activities.
Sometimes it's like micro financeschemes for women that also double
as safe spaces for women to escapegender based violence if they need to,
(29:39):
sometimes it's dialogue mechanisms withthe states, sometimes it's related to
reintegration of formal combatants whenarmed groups are getting demobilized.
So we have that work in Colombia
and
a lot of the aim of that workand also what we used to do in
Myanmar is about how do you improve
the connection betweenconflict affected people
(30:00):
And elites that are
making peace agreements and,you know, deciding what issues
get, put in and left out.
Laura May (30:07):
um,
Stephen Gray (30:08):
what we do in those
Laura May (30:09):
we Okay.
So, I mean, I noticed, when youlook at your profile and the
Adapt Peacebuilding website, yousee the word innovation a lot.
And I'm wondering, like, whatinnovation, what needs innovating?
Or, what innovations have youseen, or do you want to see?
So, three part question in one.
I mean, tell me all about this innovationaspect as it comes to peace building.
Stephen Gray (30:31):
I would say, you know, it's a way of
bringing assistance to places in which
the people
that are in that context are able to
innovate
for themselves.
So the intervention
doesn't
carry all the designs and assumptionsof outsiders around what should be
prioritized um, how it should get done.
(30:53):
And it tries to create a process oflearning and iteration and prototyping
where the people in that context
can
research and then start to design andimplement the solutions for themselves.
So a lot of
peace building approaches
bring in
best practices from
elsewhere, but the risk is it mightnot be fit for the context or,
(31:18):
they might not be able to adapt,
hence the name, or like respond tothe changing dynamics in that place.
So what we try to do is
accompany a process using a particular
action
research based methodology
that
enables people to innovate,
to scale things
up
(31:38):
when they're working.
really well to discontinueparts of their work that aren't
working that well, and
you'd think that would be common sense
to work
that
way
in a dynamic contextwhere people don't have
clear information and thesituation is changing, but it's
actually quite rare
that
you can
(31:58):
work in that way because
international aid
is not
like businesses
that can be nimble and innovate.
It's bureaucratic and there'sreporting and compliance.
So
we try to make things more,more flexible so that the
do innovation for themselves.
Laura May (32:14):
Fantastic.
And so then reflecting back on yourtwenty-ish years of experience in
this sphere, like what have beenyour most significant challenges?
Stephen Gray (32:25):
I think I think it's,
it can be challenging to stay optimistic
and positive and really believing
in.
the more virtuous
or
exciting
things that, that broughtyou into the work.
it, it
is a machine, you know, there's aguy called Bertil Lintner That lives
(32:49):
in this town, Chiang Mai, where I am
who described what
happened in Myanmar when we all moved inas the peace industrial complex, you know,
as like
hoards of NGOs and donors thatcame in to like deliver peace
and democracy to the country.
And
there's a significant element of truth inthat, like it is a capitalist enterprise
(33:11):
that's masquerading as like thesenoble organizations, noble intentions.
And,
I mean, that's fine.
That's how it is.
But it kind of eats away at the,
kind of empathy and,
the like what
it was that maybe got youinto that work when you see.
so that's been at different times,
it kind of goes in a wave,
(33:32):
you know, you get
sick of doing zoom meetings and like
another
rejected funding proposal and then yougo and meet people and that's actually
one of the key reasons why I'm here
Because I get
recharged By
meeting real people that are reallyin the thick of it, like I said at the
(33:53):
start, and their lives, their stories
are no less incredible to me
than
they were when I started,
what they've
fleed from,
what they're prepared to do todefend the people that they love
what they're, how they're able to
organize.
With each other and with other groupsto try to oppose something much more
(34:15):
powerful than them for the rightreasons that still really inspires me.
So as long as I get to go to interesting
places and meet these people, once ina while, I manage to keep motivated.
I mean, you got to getmotivated somehow, right?
And it's, you know, I think we do
follow our
hearts maybe more thanwe realize sometimes.
(34:37):
well you know, I could tell storiesabout other people because I think
me complaining about funding is
Laura May (34:42):
have thought
Stephen Gray (34:43):
it's probably not,
you know, the kind of inspirationalstories that you might've thought of,
but there are a lot of characters thatyou encounter in this work that are
much more interesting than what I do.
And they're the
reason why I do this work.
And
one is a guy called Haram Yankley,and I think it's one of the world's
(35:06):
most interesting untold stories.
So,
People know who Aung San Suu Kyi is, youknow, she won a Nobel Prize and she's
been famous.
But
this guy, Ha Rang Yong Hui,
really
has a political lineage, whichis almost just as interesting.
Like he's the son of
the first
(35:26):
president of Burma and comes from aline of kings in the Shan ethnic group.
And,
his brother was assassinatedwhen the coup happened in 62.
So all of this stuff.
But then,
he moved to Canada,
and I think for a
lot of his life,
like he was working in agas station or something.
(35:46):
And then 20 years later,
1988
when, Myanmar had its
big civilian democracy uprising,that one, he came back, and
he started playing this role
to help to work between the different
ethnic groups, like hisfather famously had,
and try to
forge political unity in the country
to oppose
(36:07):
what the Burmese militarywas doing at the time.
He's
kept doing that for the last 30 years.
And the price that he's paid for mediating
and being prepared to
be the go
between person
between the Tatmadaw,different armed groups
work a lot with international actors,
(36:27):
is that
so many people in thecountry hate him for it.
And that is the price that you pay for
putting the peace of the entirecountry and the unity above your own
group's interests,
is that you're ostracized by everybody.
So he's an incredible inspirationto me, and he probably doesn't want
(36:48):
this story to be told, that's why
these people's stories don't get told.
but there are a number of peoplethat I've worked with like
Haram, and several others who
have just had the most incredible
life experiences and,are prepared to do things
that we've never had to do,
they've make choices
that we've never had to make becauseour lives are quite different.
(37:09):
And for me,
Laura May (37:10):
for me, that's what Mm.
A bit of a random question.
Are you a reader?
If you had to choose a favoritefictional character, be it from a book
or a film, otherwise, like a characterthat represents everything that you
think should be brought to the world.
Who would that fictional character be?
Stephen Gray (37:32):
Is Jesus fictional?
No, I'm just
Laura May (37:34):
Oh, shots fired!
Stephen Gray (37:36):
ha ha.
Whoa.
Good
Laura May (37:40):
I mean,
Stephen Gray (37:45):
Ah, that's so hard to say.
I mean, it's not a fictional, youasked for fictional, I think Mandela's
story is genuinely interesting becausehe wasn't like this clean cut peace
loving dude, you know, like he wasmilitant, edgy with, a dark side
and he spent a lot of time in prison.
(38:08):
And that process was like some kind ofpurification transformation process.
And he came out with the most
amazing abilities
of leadership and
the ability to to leadby empowering others.
And, you know, famously
leaned
across the divide to F W deKlerk and wore the Springbok
(38:32):
rugby jersey, the symbol of Afrikaan.
So he had that kind of senseof how to do that politically.
But, he was also amazing at
not trying to do everything himself,
which is
why things didn't work in Burmais that Aung San Suu Kyi was
not that kind of person.
She tried to do everything herself.
So I think his story is reallyinspiring and I hope that
(38:56):
not everybody needs to go to jail for 25
years to find within themselves
Laura May (39:01):
how to Mm-hmm.
Amazing.
Okay, well look, thank you somuch for joining today, Stephen.
And so, I mean, for those who areinterested in learning more about
your work, where can they find you?
Um
Stephen Gray (39:12):
they can look on our
website, www.
adaptpeacebuilding.
org.
That's probably the most important place.
Otherwise they can find me on LinkedIn.
Laura May (39:22):
Absolutely.
So I'll include that link below.
And I mean, I will highlight you'veactually got a podcast of your own
on the Adapt Peacebuilding website.
So so yeah, you can like see Stephenin the, not in the hot seat, I guess,
in the cold seat of the interviewer.
I don't know what that metaphor is.
No, look, Stephen, it's beengreat chatting with today.
So thank you so much for joiningand for everyone else until next
(39:42):
time, this is Laura May with theConflict Tipping podcast from Mediate.
com.
Hello and welcome to the Conflict Tipping podcast from Mediate.
com.
The podcast that explores socialconflict and what we can do about it.
I'm your host, Laura May.
And today I have with me.
Stephen Gray, Director of ADAPTPeacebuilding and Doctoral Researcher
at the University of Sussex.
Stephen has spent 18 years helpingorganisations in conflict zones
(00:31):
develop non violent solutions.
His work revolves around inclusivepeace building, non violent strategies
and systems approaches with projectsin countries around the world.
So, welcome Stephen.
Stephen Gray (00:42):
Thank you for having
Laura May (00:44):
me.
Happy you could join, especially becauseit turns out you're surprisingly,
to me at least, in Thailand today,where I thought you would be much
closer to where I am in Spain.
Stephen Gray (00:53):
Yeah, I'm here for a few weeks and it's great to be back in this
part of the world working on some ofthe issues across the border in Myanmar.
Laura May (01:01):
So I'm glad you were able to make the time to join anyway.
And so I want to jump straight inand ask you, like, what initially
drew you to this field of peacebuilding and conflict resolution?
Stephen Gray (01:14):
Yeah,
well, I think it was a mix of twothings really, one kind of more noble
set of things and oneless noble set of things.
I'll start with the less noble.
I,
just, I really
enjoyed traveling to parts ofthe world that, you know, were
to me exotic and exciting, and I
(01:35):
spent time and Burma,Myanmar, North Korea, Cuba.
A lot of different parts of theworld that had come out of or were
coming out of unusual political
conditions, shall we say?
And I did that for years
and I really enjoyed it.
And somewhere along theway, I got pulled in by
(01:56):
the passion and the spirit ofthe people that were working
to change conditions in those
countries that
found themselves, youknow, at the wrong end of a
oppressive regime.
And
I used to love interviewing those people.
And I thought after a while, howcould I try to make a job out of that?
And ultimately,
(02:17):
you know,
make a living
where you could.
experience
different places andengage with people like
that.
So I ended up training to do that.
And here I am,
Laura May (02:28):
I mean, I have follow up questions about that, but is
that also the noble explanationor is that the not ignoble,
Stephen Gray (02:36):
maybe there's nothing noble about it.
Maybe there's nothing noble.
I mean, I don't know if it's noble.
There's something about, the injusticeof the conditions in which some people
found themselves that I didn't thinkthat there was any particular reason why.
Some people in the world seem tohave life a lot easier than others.
(02:57):
And that, that annoyed me.
I felt
called or driven to wantto engage in some of those
processes,
I don't know if that's noble either,
but I found it highly motivating
to work with those people that were
somehow
trying to
oppose
some kind of violent or oppressiveregime and the lengths at which
(03:19):
they were willing to go to
sacrifice for that seemed very
interesting to
me for a boy from small
town, New Zealand.
That seemed quite exciting and noble.
So I was drawn to it.
Laura May (03:31):
Amazing.
And I'm glad you mentioned you'refrom New Zealand, not just because
you're my first Kiwi guest, but justbecause it also makes me wonder.
Like I'm more familiar withthe Australian travel path.
You know, people either go to theUK for a gap year or they spend
a lot of time in Southeast Asia.
And yet I noticed when you'retalking about the countries that
really inspired you in this work.
(03:51):
I mean, you mentioned Cuba and NorthKorea, which weren't necessarily,
I would assume, accessible whenyou started with these travels?
Like, what drew you to those locations?
I mean, was there already something, Imean, it's a bit leading, but was there
something already underlying there thatcaused you to seek these places out?
Stephen Gray (04:09):
It really was about
a fascination with the politicalideologies of those places.
I mean, I wasn't going there because Ifelt like maybe I should be a communist,
Laura May (04:21):
I
Stephen Gray (04:21):
go check it!
out, see what it's seewhat it's all about.
But, you know, growing up in a
liberal, progressive, democraticcountry, was interested in
politics, was interested in rights.
And I, you know, I remembercoming out of university feeling
like I wasn't sure where New Zealand'splace in the world was because we're
(04:43):
a little bit different than Australia.
I don't know if we just think that becausewe're the little brother, a little sister,
but we are, you know, wehad the anti nuclear thing,
quite an environmental
country.
Liberally, progressive on gender,progressive on ethnic indigenous
rights and that sort of thing.
And, we didn't seem to be like the UKor the US or Australia on those points.
(05:09):
And we weren't communist either.
but I was curious around
different
types of politicalsystems and I wanted to,
I've never really
been one to to listen to what you'retold about what you're supposed to
follow or what you're supposed to believe.
(05:30):
And I'm
still
a big believer that you should go and talkto the people in these places and find out
how they experience.
politics and how they experience
justice and peace and all these big words.
And so there was somethingabout that and also just
the, there's something
interesting and crazy
to me about those places,
(05:51):
I wanted to go and check it outand I really enjoyed seeing how
people lived in those places and how
different it was to this kindof globalized, westernized
world that we have in so much of
the rest of the globe.
Laura May (06:08):
And so I mean I want to dig in a little bit to your PhD research too,
because I understand part of the reasonyou're in Thailand is to get away from
it all and do some writing on the PhD.
So what are you actuallyresearching in that?
Stephen Gray (06:22):
Yeah.
So I felt like the research wasa couple of years ago and the
writing is only just happening now.
But I used to live in Myanmar
and
at that time was working
with different kinds ofgroups in the country.
It's a very diverse country,ethnically, and a lot of
different political stakeholders.
And working with different groups
(06:43):
in relation to their peaceprocess that they had before 2021.
And, then they had a military coup
in 2021 and that peace process
fell apart
and
the civilian government was ousted.
So their democratization processjust took a huge step backwards.
And you saw this
(07:04):
massive,
popular uprising
that was
much more than ethnic armedgroups and much more than
democratic political parties.
It was this groundswell of popularresistance against the military regime
and Myanmar's done that a couple oftimes before, but they're like waves
that have never they've crested, but
they've never really broken.
(07:25):
You know, they've never really
always been a crackdown
from the regime.
So
I
was really interested and
comparing this
social movement, the
broad based
social movement to a peace process, whichis a structured process of political
dialogue that typically mostly involveselites and tries to include civil society
(07:50):
and the general public, but on elite
terms.
And I wanted to.
understand what's the differencewith respect to how does that kind
of system of actors
using a social mobilizationstrategy versus a
structured
peace process Become more inclusiveof more of the concerns of a society?
(08:11):
How does it challenge some ofthose power dynamics that stop
issues of
everyday concern to peopleactually getting onto the agenda?
so I set off with that plan Fouror five years ago, and I'm thick
in the writing process now and
wondering if I'll ever get to theend of it, but hopefully there's
something useful to say at the end.
Laura May (08:31):
I mean, I'm sure there is something useful, right?
But I definitely relate to that painof wading through it all at the end.
And so, I mean, firstly, anirreverent note because I've
forgotten how time works since COVID.
I mean, the Myanmar coup, the latestone, wasn't that with the infamous
video of the girl who was doing like afitness video or something when tanks
(08:53):
rolled in behind her in the background?
That was, I feel like thatwas Myanmar, the coup.
But I remember that video went aroundthe world and everyone's watching it.
I think it's probably the firsttime a lot of people have ever
seen the name Myanmar before.
And then suddenly here they are,this very dramatic image of a
girl just in the background,just like tanks just everywhere.
Stephen Gray (09:13):
I don't remember that one.
But I certainly relate to itlike capturing popular attention
for like two to five days
and then it
just goes underneath
the radar
Compared to
Laura May (09:27):
other things that are happening.
You I've fact checked thislive and it was Myanmar.
Yeah.
So I'll have to share that video withyou, because it's really, I mean,
you start to question your sanity.
You're like, is this really happening?
Just what a surreal thingto, to see and to experience.
Stephen Gray (09:44):
I you know, what is so surreal and crazy
for me Is that this stuff is
going on all the
time,
but
we're not aware of it And it's something
so interesting
about news,
so It's probably not a good
example to use the United States right
now because some very big stuff
just did happen.
(10:05):
But sometimes, it's like we are privy tothe most intricate working details of that
political system and a handful of others.
And if something happens in thosecountries, it's super newsworthy
because that narrative we'reall connected into somehow.
And then we have these conflicts aroundthe world that are happening all the
(10:27):
time and there are no less brutalor the human consequence is massive,
but it's just not really news.
You know, if you were tosay, hey, conflict's still
happening in Myanmar, it's like,that's not a story or in the
Tigray conflict, which ended
a few years ago in Ethiopia,
I think well over a millionpeople were displaced and hundreds
(10:51):
of thousands killed.
And I didn't know that untilI went there earlier this
year and I work onthis, you know, so it's.
It's a crazy thing that weactually, we don't have a
really, a full picture of what'sactually happening in the world.
Laura May (11:05):
Yeah.
It's just that total lack of oversight.
I mean, I, I don't know how I fell intothese particular conflicts, but I mean,
I've sort of been keeping an eye onSouth Sudan and what's unfolding there,
but then also, I mean, yeah, Azerbaijan,because I mean, the Caucasus was, that
region was always a lot of interest to me.
And these are not inthe headlines anymore.
(11:26):
And yet there's still a lot going on.
Then you look at Yemen as
Stephen Gray (11:29):
Embassyria?
Laura May (11:29):
Yeah, absolutely.
Like there's so much conflictgoing on all the time.
And I totally agree with you.
It's just, but even Afghanistan.
Right.
We heard that the first initial collapse,once the U S pulled out, and then nothing.
So it's a bit of an indictmentabout how we, what we prioritize as
important and whose lives matter.
(11:50):
And yeah, like maybe what's entertaining.
Right.
Cause I feel like when we talk aboutAmerican politics, particularly like
it's a big entertainment component.
And certainly I was,
Stephen Gray (12:01):
The drama factor's been ratcheted up through the roof now.
I mean, It's
Laura May (12:05):
It's yeah.
Stephen Gray (12:06):
couldn't strip them.
Yeah.
Laura May (12:09):
as well, like when Trump was voted out of office just that relief
that I didn't have to be on the edge ofmy seat anymore because as a political
scientist, it was very exhausting.
And I don't want to go back to that.
Like, let's tone down the drama andtone down the entertainment, please.
Let's make politics boring.
Stephen Gray (12:26):
Mm
Laura May (12:26):
Please let's do
Stephen Gray (12:27):
I think that's a great slogan.
We should really, weshould end that campaign.
Let's make politics boring again.
Laura May (12:33):
Yeah, exactly.
Like MAPA, way better.
But I mean, yeah, there's a bit of ironyinto like making a campaign entertaining
while making the content boring.
So, but yeah let's workshop this for sure.
And so just getting back to your researchthough, I mean, as you're wading through
this and I understand you're in the thickof things, but I mean, was there anything
that really struck you or surprised youor made you go, huh, that's a bit weird.
Stephen Gray (12:57):
Yeah.
So, I'm going to be honest about thisand it probably doesn't reflect that well
on me, but for a long time let's say 20years, there's been a really big push.
From
western states around the inclusion ofwomen's perspectives and peace processes.
And I've been a supporter of that.
(13:20):
but at the same time, really wantedto understand strategically how that
changes the peace that's achieved.
And what you see is, all ofthese prescriptions where you've
got to have women at the table.
but then the men that are thereare like military commanders and
they don't listen to the women
and it's kind of a lot of the pushing ofit comes from certain organizations in the
(13:44):
international system that's their mandate
and they're going to do it no matter what.
And you wonder
like, is this, are we just pushing Western
norms on other countries thathave a different culture?
And is it
really serving the best interests of
a better peace for
everybody.
So, I wanted to know that.
how
does having women involvedmake things better?
(14:07):
And that's just come throughreally clearly in the research.
So, perhaps not surprisinglythat a lot of the closest
foreign
supporters
of the Myanmar peace process
for decades
are old
white dudes.
all of them,
Laura May (14:25):
Yep.
Stephen Gray (14:26):
every one of them that I interviewed made the same
point unprompted that by far themost impressive people and their
last 10, 15 years of experiencecoming that process were
the women's organizations.
And particular women.
And I asked why, what is it thatthey do that's so important?
(14:49):
And they all said in different ways
that
when you have spent your
life living in a very
oppressive system in which you can'tbe the person that you want to be,
you're getting pushed
down.
There's a power asymmetry between youand those that are holding you back.
You really learn how tochallenge power and peace
(15:13):
processes should be, if nothingelse, a process of transforming
unjust
Power relations.
So they explained to me howwomen's groups didn't take any
shit.
Like if something wasgetting talked about,
but not in a genuine way,and it wasn't going to lead
to what people had saidthey wanted to get to,
they would walk out.
(15:34):
They would form alliancesmuch more readily
across other types of identity divisions.
So very well established women'snetworks across the board.
Different ethnic groups,different parts of the country,
and they would work as collectives
without this
as much of a tendency tohave this kind of big man,
top down, authoritarianleadership style that,
(15:55):
that kind of more militaryfocused and political focused
men
would.
So, in various ways,
women were
changing, not just the content
that gets
talked about in a peace process,
but they were actually challengingpower dynamics in ways that, that
the men didn't know and the otherorganizations didn't know how to do.
(16:16):
So
that was a surprise to me because
it's actually not just a normativeconcern is that we should be talking.
about quote unquote genderissues and peace processes.
It's that these people have a range ofskills and techniques that others don't
And you
won't actually be as likely toget the outcomes of your movement
(16:37):
if you're
not including them asleaders and decision makers.
So
i,
Laura May (16:42):
was humble by that experience.
As you were talking, I was like, wecan just end the whole Conflict Tipping
podcast forever right there 'causethat was such a beautiful description.
Stephen Gray (16:52):
ha, ha,
Laura May (16:53):
I mean, it's fascinating 'cause obviously we've got the Women
Peace and Security Agenda that getstalked about a lot and then slated,
it becomes deeply politicized.
And I've had a number of guests talkabout the role of women in peace building
and how it's important, but also thisquestion specifically in Myanmar as well,
I remember when Julia Federer came on andwe were talking about, well, yeah, are
we imposing the role of women in thesepeace processes in Myanmar specifically,
(17:16):
but what you've just done is illustratedwell, actually, yeah, it matters.
And this is what it changes andthis is why it's so important.
So thank you for fillingthat puzzle piece in my head.
I really appreciate it.
So thank you for that.
Fascinating.
Stephen Gray (17:31):
Well, it was a puzzle piece for me as well,
because, you know, like I mentionedearlier, I've never been one to like to do
things just because we're told to do them,maybe from my upbringing or something,
but there needed to be a reason.
We can't just do it, it is the rightthing to do, and we should do it because
it's the right thing to do, but how'sit actually going to make a difference?
(17:53):
And so, yeah, that was useful to learn.
Laura May (17:57):
Fascinating.
And so beyond your finding aboutthe key role of women, I understand
you're also raising some questionsabout the nature of peace itself?
Stephen Gray (18:07):
yeah,
would like to talk about how we don'thave a common understanding of what
peace is,
Laura May (18:14):
good one.
Stephen Gray (18:15):
And
that's a real disservice
to what we all do as peace builders.
And, you know, I'm far from the
only person
to talk about this, but
it, that word gets instrumentalizedin such different ways by different
actors in the internationalsystem or within a country
(18:36):
that have completely different agendas,
and it
leaves
the peace building system, whateverthat is so, so disparate and incoherent
that you know,
we don't see eye to eye onso many different issues.
And I think that's gonewell beyond crisis point.
I've been in conversations
(18:57):
a
lot recently around howthis thing that we call
peace building
needs to undergo some kindof creative destruction.
And we need to
reclaim not
just language, but but a clearer sense
of what we are actuallyworking towards, and how that's
distinct from what other typesof actors in the international
(19:20):
system are working towards
under
the name of peace.
but that's what my PhD looksat within Myanmar is how that's
conceived of differently.
You know, if you're a person who'sgrown up at the end of a gun, how you
describe peace
and at least in my research isa lived experience of finally
being able to live without
(19:41):
fear.
and all of the things in your lifethat would be different if you
weren't so constantly intimidatedliving under a threat of violence.
That's not the same as a state wanting tostabilize a country that it has diplomatic
relations with so it can do business.
In fact, it's very different.
And sometimes they work welltogether and sometimes they
(20:02):
don't.
So,
I don't know if my PhDreally helps in that sense,
it just creates more confusion, butour, what we call the peace building
sector, I think is kind of unraveling.
in
part because we don't have a common sense
of
Laura May (20:18):
these, goals.
Yeah, no, I
Stephen Gray (20:20):
these goals.
Laura May (20:22):
mean it sounds really interesting and maybe one
really concrete example of that.
what it means to be peace isthis, you know, touted idea of
a frozen conflict, where it'sreally about stabilizing a country.
So yeah, you can do business withthem, as you mentioned, or at least
not kicking off anything else.
Cause as long as nobody's dyingright now, everything must be okay.
(20:43):
Versus hot conflict where it's,more active type of violence.
But do you have some ideas about whatkinds of peace, what shades of peace?
Are there things that we should be workingtowards, or at least what you personally
would like to be working towards the most?
Yeah,
Stephen Gray (20:57):
you know, if you go back to the,
what I think of as the heart ofpeace building, where it came from,
out of Galtung and down through JohnPaul Lederach and others, there's
always been an idea, an intrinsicassociation between peace and positive
peace or a conception of justice.
(21:18):
So it's not about
stability,
it's not about the absence of violence.
It's a more comprehensive set of
allowances for somebody, rights,protections that enables them to live
a life of peace.
Flourishing to their full potential.
That's a broad definition of peace.
and
it's not to say that there'sone way to get there.
(21:38):
You would have to do many things ina society to create those conditions,
but it helps you to,distinguish what it is
not.
And it's not
countering violent extremism or it's not
stabilization
operations.
It's not
having a, it's not peacekeeping,you know, peacekeeping
might be on a step towards
(21:59):
building something I just feel like
we've got away from that as a sector.
and even me calling it a sector,
kind of connotes the games you haveto play to get funded As a peace
building organization, and then
so many of our organizations,I think, have got pulled
(22:19):
in other directions because sometimes,
increasingly, you can't getthat fuller conception of peace
funded if it doesn't have, some other
Laura May (22:29):
us.
It's like
Stephen Gray (22:30):
foreign policy goal for a state, for example.
Laura May (22:34):
A rider clause.
Like, you know, this is the thingwe'll do because this is what you said
you want, but also we're just goingto sneak in this little bit, which is
the thing we actually want to do isas whatever we're called, peacemakers,
peacebuilders, general good vibes people.
Yeah, so it sort of detracts the focus,because that's not where the money is.
The money is what, I mean,what the states want.
(22:56):
Like, collectively as countries, I mean,
Stephen Gray (22:58):
Yeah.
Laura May (22:58):
the U.
S., just for clarity, yeah.
There's a bit of a mess.
Stephen Gray (23:02):
So that's the, question
that I would throw back into theether, is that if, we wanted to
build
peace in a
way that actually
really
takes
care
of
the aspirations of people that aremost affected by conflict, you could
talk about Palestinians, you couldtalk about many other people, then if
we want to do that as organizations,
(23:24):
how do you do that without resources?
Because as soon as you needresources, you start to play the game.
And whose game are you playing?
You're playing States' games.
And if you're playing the game ofStates, then you play by their rules.
And that means you don'tserve certain populations.
We don't work on certain topics.
We don't work in that way.
(23:45):
And what we need to do, if we want to
return to
a different conception of
peace, we
Laura May (23:50):
we want to actually stand on
Stephen Gray (23:53):
going to come
from,
Laura May (23:53):
and where's the I feel it...
Stephen Gray (23:56):
Is Bill Gates, gonna fund
all of this, Get
Laura May (23:58):
him on the phone, yeah
Stephen Gray (23:58):
Bill, are you listening?
Laura May (23:59):
that's Oh my goodness.
Yeah, it's crazy that as you'retalking, I just, I keep thinking
of parallels to corporate life.
I know this is a bitof a weird one, right?
Because my most recent role was inpeople and culture, so like, I mean, some
people would say HR, I say good vibes.
And there's that tension between onthe one hand, the company is paying you
(24:21):
and you don't want to lose your job.
Although obviously, ultimatelyI did, this is probably related.
But on the other hand, I mean, myobjective was to leave people better
than we found them, which is quitea radical approach for company.
And so, I mean, I was recently ata meeting with a whole bunch of
different people from around the place.
And, you know, I asked the question, Iwas like, okay, well, what stops you?
(24:43):
Like what gets in the way of, doingthe work that you actually want to be
doing in terms of empowering people.
Like what limits are we under and howcan we navigate within those limits
to do the best for people and to keepachieving these more radical goals.
And it's exactly the same thing.
Well, I mean, it's slightlydifferent scale, right?
But it's just like in thepeace building, like asterisks.
(25:03):
Okay.
So whenever we decide to call it, I'mgoing to call it peace building for now.
In a peace building world, thecorporation is the States, the HR
persons, the peace building organizations,and then the staff are the people
that the HR actually want to help.
And it's just a big old mess.
We just need a magical moneytree is what I'm hearing.
Like, to solve all of our problems.
Stephen Gray (25:22):
I feel like in that example, customers, probably have more power than
beneficiaries of peace building programsor people that are affected by conflict.
People that are affected by conflictoften don't have democratic voice.
Are often marginalized byviolence and intimidation.
(25:42):
They can't necessarily move around.
We're not hearing from them on the global
stage, and in the same sort of way.
So it's actually hard for them toexercise power to say what they actually
want or to vote out the leaders or to
rise up against those guyswith guns carries a lot
of risks, right?
So
at least
(26:02):
if I'm a consumer,
Laura May (26:04):
I can opt out, I'm
Stephen Gray (26:06):
it.
Yeah.
Yeah, or like what's happening now, here.
So the military government and Myanmar
enacted the conscription law
about six months ago.
They've
so far conscripted 50, 000 young people
to join their army to fightagainst their own citizens,
which is currently
(26:27):
brutalizing,
bombing villages of displaced people
not that far away at the border.
And all the kids, allthe young people, are
fleeing the country.
So that's really what youcan do is actually just try
and get out of the country.
so I think I took a little bit off track.
I'm still very interested in how weimagine a different kind of system.
(26:48):
Or a way of doing work that givesbetter opportunities to these
people to change their lives.
that it doesn't just rely on the statebased system because the resources
that are available for peace workare really drying up quite rapidly
at a time when conflict is higher now
(27:09):
in the world than it has been at any timesince the end of the second world war.
So, we have there a scary
situation that's emerging and youdon't have the appetite among the
traditional donors, some of themat least, to support peace work
anymore, which is somewhat alarming.
Laura May (27:29):
And why do you think that is?
I
Stephen Gray (27:31):
I think it's a few different factors, I mean, the 2010s, a
couple of very high profile and expensive
international
failures and trying to
change
violent states into democracyand human rights loving states.
It's
kind of like pulling backfrom interventionism.
(27:54):
the U.
S.
leadership declining And
in a kind of multi polar world You seethese emergence of different ways of
supporting different conceptions of peace.
So West Africa,
like all of the UN peacekeepingmissions are getting kicked out.
the
governments are getting kicked out.
(28:15):
And
Wagner Group is getting invited in
to
provide security for thoseemerging military dictatorship.
So you see this kind of competition,
and then fiscal, no one'sgot money after COVID.
And so they're looking to trimtheir budgets and, when economies
are doing
poorly, there's anti immigrant sentiment.
(28:36):
There's also a tendency to try to pullback on your international aid spending.
That's what's happened.
Sweden, for example, in other places.
Laura May (28:43):
So thinking then of Adapt Peacebuilding, so your
organisation, what kinds of thingsdo you actually do as a practitioner?
Stephen Gray (28:53):
Well as a practitioner now, I probably do more
fundraising, than anything else.
I
mean, we have a team of eightpeople in Colombia that do a
really good job implementing ourpeace building program there,
which is a way of working withconflict affected communities,
using an action research approach to
(29:14):
Come up
iterate and prototype, and thenimplement their own solutions
to challenges of conflict
as they
experience them
in
their local area.
sometimes they relate to likeenvironmental conservation,
water conservation activities.
Sometimes it's like micro financeschemes for women that also double
as safe spaces for women to escapegender based violence if they need to,
(29:39):
sometimes it's dialogue mechanisms withthe states, sometimes it's related to
reintegration of formal combatants whenarmed groups are getting demobilized.
So we have that work in Colombia
and
a lot of the aim of that workand also what we used to do in
Myanmar is about how do you improve
the connection betweenconflict affected people
(30:00):
And elites that are
making peace agreements and,you know, deciding what issues
get, put in and left out.
Laura May (30:07):
um,
Stephen Gray (30:08):
what we do in those
Laura May (30:09):
we Okay.
So, I mean, I noticed, when youlook at your profile and the
Adapt Peacebuilding website, yousee the word innovation a lot.
And I'm wondering, like, whatinnovation, what needs innovating?
Or, what innovations have youseen, or do you want to see?
So, three part question in one.
I mean, tell me all about this innovationaspect as it comes to peace building.
Stephen Gray (30:31):
I would say, you know, it's a way of
bringing assistance to places in which
the people
that are in that context are able to
innovate
for themselves.
So the intervention
doesn't
carry all the designs and assumptionsof outsiders around what should be
prioritized um, how it should get done.
(30:53):
And it tries to create a process oflearning and iteration and prototyping
where the people in that context
can
research and then start to design andimplement the solutions for themselves.
So a lot of
peace building approaches
bring in
best practices from
elsewhere, but the risk is it mightnot be fit for the context or,
(31:18):
they might not be able to adapt,
hence the name, or like respond tothe changing dynamics in that place.
So what we try to do is
accompany a process using a particular
action
research based methodology
that
enables people to innovate,
to scale things
up
(31:38):
when they're working.
really well to discontinueparts of their work that aren't
working that well, and
you'd think that would be common sense
to work
that
way
in a dynamic contextwhere people don't have
clear information and thesituation is changing, but it's
actually quite rare
that
you can
(31:58):
work in that way because
international aid
is not
like businesses
that can be nimble and innovate.
It's bureaucratic and there'sreporting and compliance.
So
we try to make things more,more flexible so that the
do innovation for themselves.
Laura May (32:14):
Fantastic.
And so then reflecting back on yourtwenty-ish years of experience in
this sphere, like what have beenyour most significant challenges?
Stephen Gray (32:25):
I think I think it's,
it can be challenging to stay optimistic
and positive and really believing
in.
the more virtuous
or
exciting
things that, that broughtyou into the work.
it, it
is a machine, you know, there's aguy called Bertil Lintner That lives
(32:49):
in this town, Chiang Mai, where I am
who described what
happened in Myanmar when we all moved inas the peace industrial complex, you know,
as like
hoards of NGOs and donors thatcame in to like deliver peace
and democracy to the country.
And
there's a significant element of truth inthat, like it is a capitalist enterprise
(33:11):
that's masquerading as like thesenoble organizations, noble intentions.
And,
I mean, that's fine.
That's how it is.
But it kind of eats away at the,
kind of empathy and,
the like what
it was that maybe got youinto that work when you see.
so that's been at different times,
it kind of goes in a wave,
(33:32):
you know, you get
sick of doing zoom meetings and like
another
rejected funding proposal and then yougo and meet people and that's actually
one of the key reasons why I'm here
Because I get
recharged By
meeting real people that are reallyin the thick of it, like I said at the
(33:53):
start, and their lives, their stories
are no less incredible to me
than
they were when I started,
what they've
fleed from,
what they're prepared to do todefend the people that they love
what they're, how they're able to
organize.
With each other and with other groupsto try to oppose something much more
(34:15):
powerful than them for the rightreasons that still really inspires me.
So as long as I get to go to interesting
places and meet these people, once ina while, I manage to keep motivated.
I mean, you got to getmotivated somehow, right?
And it's, you know, I think we do
follow our
hearts maybe more thanwe realize sometimes.
(34:37):
well you know, I could tell storiesabout other people because I think
me complaining about funding is
Laura May (34:42):
have thought
Stephen Gray (34:43):
it's probably not,
you know, the kind of inspirationalstories that you might've thought of,
but there are a lot of characters thatyou encounter in this work that are
much more interesting than what I do.
And they're the
reason why I do this work.
And
one is a guy called Haram Yankley,and I think it's one of the world's
(35:06):
most interesting untold stories.
So,
People know who Aung San Suu Kyi is, youknow, she won a Nobel Prize and she's
been famous.
But
this guy, Ha Rang Yong Hui,
really
has a political lineage, whichis almost just as interesting.
Like he's the son of
the first
(35:26):
president of Burma and comes from aline of kings in the Shan ethnic group.
And,
his brother was assassinatedwhen the coup happened in 62.
So all of this stuff.
But then,
he moved to Canada,
and I think for a
lot of his life,
like he was working in agas station or something.
(35:46):
And then 20 years later,
1988
when, Myanmar had its
big civilian democracy uprising,that one, he came back, and
he started playing this role
to help to work between the different
ethnic groups, like hisfather famously had,
and try to
forge political unity in the country
to oppose
(36:07):
what the Burmese militarywas doing at the time.
He's
kept doing that for the last 30 years.
And the price that he's paid for mediating
and being prepared to
be the go
between person
between the Tatmadaw,different armed groups
work a lot with international actors,
(36:27):
is that
so many people in thecountry hate him for it.
And that is the price that you pay for
putting the peace of the entirecountry and the unity above your own
group's interests,
is that you're ostracized by everybody.
So he's an incredible inspirationto me, and he probably doesn't want
(36:48):
this story to be told, that's why
these people's stories don't get told.
but there are a number of peoplethat I've worked with like
Haram, and several others who
have just had the most incredible
life experiences and,are prepared to do things
that we've never had to do,
they've make choices
that we've never had to make becauseour lives are quite different.
(37:09):
And for me,
Laura May (37:10):
for me, that's what Mm.
A bit of a random question.
Are you a reader?
If you had to choose a favoritefictional character, be it from a book
or a film, otherwise, like a characterthat represents everything that you
think should be brought to the world.
Who would that fictional character be?
Stephen Gray (37:32):
Is Jesus fictional?
No, I'm just
Laura May (37:34):
Oh, shots fired!
Stephen Gray (37:36):
ha ha.
Whoa.
Good
Laura May (37:40):
I mean,
Stephen Gray (37:45):
Ah, that's so hard to say.
I mean, it's not a fictional, youasked for fictional, I think Mandela's
story is genuinely interesting becausehe wasn't like this clean cut peace
loving dude, you know, like he wasmilitant, edgy with, a dark side
and he spent a lot of time in prison.
(38:08):
And that process was like some kind ofpurification transformation process.
And he came out with the most
amazing abilities
of leadership and
the ability to to leadby empowering others.
And, you know, famously
leaned
across the divide to F W deKlerk and wore the Springbok
(38:32):
rugby jersey, the symbol of Afrikaan.
So he had that kind of senseof how to do that politically.
But, he was also amazing at
not trying to do everything himself,
which is
why things didn't work in Burmais that Aung San Suu Kyi was
not that kind of person.
She tried to do everything herself.
So I think his story is reallyinspiring and I hope that
(38:56):
not everybody needs to go to jail for 25
years to find within themselves
Laura May (39:01):
how to Mm-hmm.
Amazing.
Okay, well look, thank you somuch for joining today, Stephen.
And so, I mean, for those who areinterested in learning more about
your work, where can they find you?
Um
Stephen Gray (39:12):
they can look on our
website, www.
adaptpeacebuilding.
org.
That's probably the most important place.
Otherwise they can find me on LinkedIn.
Laura May (39:22):
Absolutely.
So I'll include that link below.
And I mean, I will highlight you'veactually got a podcast of your own
on the Adapt Peacebuilding website.
So so yeah, you can like see Stephenin the, not in the hot seat, I guess,
in the cold seat of the interviewer.
I don't know what that metaphor is.
No, look, Stephen, it's beengreat chatting with today.
So thank you so much for joiningand for everyone else until next
(39:42):
time, this is Laura May with theConflict Tipping podcast from Mediate.
com.
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