straight talk
MARK BARNES: Talking about the future will give peace a chance
I hate conflict so much I could start a fight about it. You’d have to be weird to like it. And yet it is pervasive in our everyday lives, particularly as we engage with the changes we need to embrace in our transformation. Conflict resolution must be right up there with the most valuable of human skills. Differences of opinion, particularly those between the people and the authorities, are requiring ever more violent acts and equally violent retaliations to get resolved. Forced resolution is almost an oxymoron. In Paris, protests about a fuel tax went way beyond placards and slogans — fires and smashed windows and blockades and extremist thugs are the new instruments of populism. It appeared to work, but didn’t really. The government blinked and the crowds now want even more blood for their march. British Prime Minister Theresa May may have survived the no-confidence vote but she has been sent back to get a better deal on Brexit, when the only thing to do is scrap it, really, populi...
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