I MET Adam Kahane, a native of Montreal, Canada, in the lobby of his hotel in Bangkok on Tuesday evening, just hours before he was due to fly out at the end of a 6-day trip to Thailand’s capital.
Adam Kahane is from Reos Partners, whose website describes it as 'an international organisation dedicated to supporting and building capacity for innovative collective action in complex social systems.'
The 49-year-old has 20 years of experience of 'problem solving' in some intensely conflicted environments, from South Africa to Guatemala. His appearance in Bangkok, where he was pictured meeting Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, caused a bit of a stir amongst political observers.
The man chooses his words carefully, often pausing to search for the right word. I asked him first how Thailand had landed on his plate, and who had brought him here.
‘’I’ve written two books, both of which have been translated into Thai,’’ he said. He presided over the launch of the second – ‘’Power and Love : A Theory and Practice of Social Change’’ – in Bangkok during his visit.
‘’Some Thai people heard about the work and.. thought this approach could be fruitful here and contacted me and I’ve come here with a colleague to share what it is we do, and talk with people about whether it might be useful here,’’ he said.
A diverse collection of over half a dozen organizations banded together to get him to Bangkok. Among them are the National Defence Academy, the Sufficiency Economy Institute, and several media associations.
Kahane said, ‘’I’ve had many trips like this but never one where the media was so involved, and I think it’s very promising, because if they choose to move forward with this work as I think they will, the question of how to communicate it will not be difficult.’’
Explaining the role of ‘’scenarios’’ in his work, he said, ‘’The general thing we do, is we help teams of leaders from across a given social system, a city, an industry, from across a country… who don’t necessarily agree on things, who might not like each other, who might actually be in violent conflict with each other, but have figured out that they can’t get where they want to go unless they work together.’’
‘’We help those people work together, develop an understanding of what’s going on, what should we do about it and then get on with doing it. Specifically within that, using scenarios turns out to be a helpful part of the work. Scenarios are simply stories of what’s going on and what might go on.. and this turns out to be a very useful ‘’on ramp’’ to this kind of multi stakeholder problem solving work.’’
I was keen, given his experience, of his impression of the issues in Thailand.
He said, ‘’I get the feeling in Thailand, that people believe themselves to be in violent and dangerous disagreement. What surprises me is not the disagreement because I’m used to being in places where people disagree. What surprises me is the Thais consider their disagreement so unusual and so difficult to deal with.’’
‘’Of course there are serious conflicts here, there has been violence, there could be more violence, and one person said the conflict in Thailand has just begun. So of course it is a difficult and complicated and dangerous situation, but I wouldn’t say it’s an unprecedented situation. There are lots of places where people disagree and don’t like each other and fight.’’
‘’But Thais seem more than worried about it, (they seem) anxious about it. There’s an anxiety about the future here, which is striking. So helping people talk with and listen to each other across these various chasms and in particular think together about the future would probably be helpful.’’
‘’Anxiety is something different from fear. Anxiety is more.. more fundamental. The example I can think of, it’s a bit of a strange example, but in late 1991 I think it was, I need to check the year; I was in Argentina, and that was a time when Argentina had five presidents in five weeks, it was really chaos. And one of the UN officials said to me, he was really upset; the Argentines were really upset; he said if we don’t do something Argentina won’t exist.’’
‘’I remember thinking at the time this is not a rational statement, of course there’ll always be something there. But it’s that anxiety that everything could disappear here. Of course scorched earth is possible, (though) I’d be surprised, but it is that level of anxiety vis a vis the future which I find striking.’’
How receptive had Thais been to him? I knew he had met with former Thaksin Shinawatra Cabinet ministers Chaturon Chaisang and Pongthep Thepkanchana; and at the beginning of our meeting he had said that, not anticipating having to meet so many people, he had run out of visiting cards.
Kahane said, ‘’I was surprised, because I expected more resistance and more defensiveness. A few of them were not interested at all, but really only one or two. Most of them (were) receptive in the sense that they thought it would be useful not to replace the current reconciliation process, the committees, NGO activities and political activities; not to replace them but to try something in addition. So I found people receptive, and in addition not defensive. Almost nobody said well don’t worry we really have it completely under control, what we’re doing is fine.’’
‘’Even government people who have a lot of pressure and responsibility, (who) might have been defensive, I found them not defensive. So.. people are willing to start. In this work all you need to do is start and then you can take it from there.’’
I asked whether he would be approaching former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
'I don't know,' he said. ‘’Now that there’s, I would say, general agreement on moving forward with this kind of new space, lots of specific decisions have to be made, who to invite, at what level, and who to talk to about it. So I’ll wait for their next step. I met whoever they suggested I meet, including people close to Thaksin.’’