In fact, I suspect ‘legacy conflicts’ are a pretty ubiquitous feature of civil society work around the world. Certainly, my experience has been that the echoes of long-past disagreements and discord continued to fester in people’s consciousness many years after the original problem has dissipated. It may be understandable; I’ve also heard some pretty shocking stories of misbehaviour in our sector, and as the great philosopher-poet George Michael said, “some mistakes are built to last”.

I myself was once hired into a relationship management role and, upon getting started, promptly told that part of the job was to bring harmony and ease to an ecosystem of relationships that had long been beset by tension, suspicion and resentment. I did my best, and made some modest impact, but had neither the skills nor expertise to deliver the desired transformation. In the years since, I have discovered that this is a very common experience. Someone gets hired into a new position and, somewhere around day two or three, they’re told: “Oh, by the way, X, Y and Z hate us, and we’ve been fighting with them for 5 years now, so try to sort that out, ok?” …. Um, wait, what?….

In the face of a ‘systemic conflict’, the response of many CSO leaders is to think of a new process or structure to make the problem go away. Or hire a new person, hoping their personality will appease the situation. It’s a natural, intuitive response, and one generally put in place with the very best of intentions. But alone, such approaches fail to address the real human core of every conflict, which runs deeper than the issue at hand.

It’s shouldn’t surprise us that conflict can be so enduring in civil society. People in our sector tend to have strong personal identities tied to their values and missions, and, because their work reflects deeply held beliefs, disagreements can feel personal rather than purely professional. This makes them more emotionally intense and more difficult to move past than they might be in the private sector. Our organisations also frequently lack the skills or systems needed to resolve disputes effectively (sadly, the private sector is far ahead of us in this area). As a result, conflicts can drag on for years, sometimes even decades.

Finding our way out of a conflict effectively means we have to deal with the emotional experience we are having; the feelings that are being stirred up by the conflict, and the things we want to feel in order to be ‘ok’ with the other person or persons. That generally requires a rather different approach than just seeking some common ground on the issue. These emotional needs tend not to be a core focus when we seek to address legacy conflicts, and that is key to why the necessary healing so often fails to materialise.

One of the most striking things that has been thrown into relief in my own research on conflict in civil society is just how long they last, and how frequently they are passed down from one leader to the next. When conflict is never properly dealt with, resentments and suspicion take hold and a kind of dark mythology enshrouds the relationship.

By comparison with the private sector, legacy conflicts are far more common, and concomitantly far more damaging in civil society. It’s a somewhat depressing reality when we generally consider ourselves to be the ones most committed to care and solidarity. But this is only more reason to tackle the problem head on.

The erroneous belief that ‘we’re all on the same side, so we should be able to easily agree’ also keeps us trapped. It would be better to say, ‘We’re all on the same side, so we should be able to fight and figure it out’.Our passion, our commitment to the mission, our willingness to accept persistent discomfort, set us up to remain in conflict indefinitely and, with painful regularity, to pass the conflicts on to our successors. Too many civil society leaders live their working lives in a state of chronic low-level siege, with the impact of their organisations and movements profoundly undermined as a result.

None of this is inevitable. The tools and expertise needed to navigate even the most deep-rooted legacy conflicts exist. What’s often missing is the will to name it and ask for support. Asking for help can feel like an admission of failure, particularly as we in civil society take pride in our resilience. But there is a far greater strength in choosing to heal than in choosing to endure.

We owe it to our moment. Because the work is too important and the opposition is too well-organised for us to keep fighting each other instead of fighting together.

🤝 Conflict shapes the world. Let’s learn to shape it wisely  🤝