Francis Deng - Talking It Out

TALKING IT OUT

This innovative work by Francis Deng, the noted scholar, diplomat, legal expert and author, moves the study of negotiation out of the limited traditional context of industrial relations and resituates it in the broader arena of negotiating human relations, drawing on his childhood experiences, inter-racial and cross-cultural encounters at home and abroad, and incidents from his diplomatic career. Talking It Out provides an account of the authors family and background as a son of the leading Dinka Chief in a long line of leaders believed to be spiritually-endowed peace-makers, a cultural context that has helped shape his perspective on conflicts and how to manage or resolve them. His distinctive perspective became manifest in his response to the conflicts in Sudan between the Arab-Islamic North and the African-Christian South, in which he was ironically both a victim and a peacemaker. Dengs account of interpersonal relations abroad in the course of a diplomatic career that linked international civil service in the United Nations with representing his country as Ambassador to the United States, Scandinavian countries and Canada, along with serving as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs for Sudan, describes the way in which he was able to engage his domestically rooted cultural values on an international level. The volume concludes with an analytical commentary that places these experiences in a thematic framework that matches the values of his upbringing with his responses to negotiating human relations in conflict situations. Dengs unique approach to the cultural dimension of conflict management has wide relevance in todays world. This is an exceptional work by one of the outstanding cultural authorities of our time.

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Talking It Out: Stories in Negotiating Human Relations
Francis Deng

TALKING IT OUT

Stories in Negotiating Human Relations

FRANCIS M. DENG

First published in 2006 by

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Francis M. Deng, 2006

Printed in Great Britain

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electric, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying or recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7103-1278-5

ISBN-10: 0-7103-1278-4

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Deng, Francis Mading, 1938-

Talking it out: stories in negotiating human relations. 1.Deng, Francis

Mading, 1938- - Anecdotes 2.Negotiation 3.Dinka (African people) Social

life and customs 4.Sudan - Politics and government 1985- 5.Sudan -

Foreign relations

I.Title

302.3089965

ISBN-13: 9780710312785

ISBN-10: 0710312784

Acknowledgements

Every book is the culmination of an incremental process that expands over a period of time and involves the contribution of people who often cannot all be identified. This is particularly true of this book whose stories of mediating human relations go back far into my youth, if not childhood, and build on values that are part of my heritage and upbringing. Of course, without the challenging request for stories from Guy Olivier Faure and the late Jeffrey Rubin, I would neither have thought of writing the book nor had the moral courage to do so. My profound gratitude goes to them. My colleague and dear friend, Professor I. William Zartman, was among the first to read the manuscript and encouraged its publication. We have indeed used the manuscript for his courses in negotiations. Another colleague, Dr. Terrence Lyons, who helped me establish the Africa branch of the Foreign Policy Studies Program at Brookings, also read the manuscript and encouraged me to have it published. I am very grateful to both of them. Professor Janie Malan of The Africa Center for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD) in South Africa, not only supported the publication of the book, but also did exhaustive editing, always attentive to details and making essential corrections. I am deeply indebted to him. I am also grateful to Vasu Gounden, the Executive Director of ACCORD, and Hussein Solomon, who read the manuscript and encouraged its publication. My long-time friend and colleague, Dr. Mansour Khalid, brought the manuscript to the attention of Peter Hopkins of Kegan Paul who decided to publish the book. I owe them both profound gratitude. While appreciating the role of those acknowledged here, I alone remain responsible for any defects and shortcomings in the book. Needless to say, I do not claim to reflect the African wisdom in my recollection of mediation stories from my experience, but I hope the book will at least add to the reflections of what individual experiences can contribute toward a culturally relevant African perspective on this otherwise universal challenge of negotiating human relations. Even more importantly, I hope it will stimulate others to share their own stories, experiences and reflections on that challenge.

Francis M. Deng

Woodstock, NY

September 2002

Introduction

When I began reading the letter of invitation from Guy Olivier Faure and Jeffrey Rubin asking me to contribute to a compilation of a set of interesting and unusual negotiation stories from which they were planning to prepare an edited volume, my interest was immediately aroused. According to Faure and Rubin (1993), So much of what has been written about negotiation has come from a rather shallow pool of experience, based on illustrations taken from industrial societies. We wish to leave that traditional work behind and, with your help, to strike out in a more unconventional direction.