exposed

Former Israeli military, currently Krav Maga head instructor Sam Sade stayed after class to passionately discuss Middle East conflicts and his solution with my classmate Ben. Ben, half Australian, and half Egyptian scholar, was in for a fierce debate. Regretfully, in my view, Ben was not well equipped to get into “this” – namely he was not bull-headed enough about the issue to be getting into it with someone like Sam. Since Sam could always and did cite his personal experience of having lived in Haifa, and fought in the (first) Lebanon War, he will inevitably be more than emotionally attached to his side of argument.

Ben remained extremely polite, carefully listening to Sam’s point without disqualifying it directly.  It was difficult to watch as I was certainly in support of Ben. But just as Ben, I was not equipped with the point by point historic opposition against Sam’s. I mostly restrained my expression, and decided to just watch. Though I occasionally chimed in to disagree with Sam, but stepped back as soon as I know I was looking at a … brick wall. I’d quickly step the hell back and rooted for Ben to cover it. And in his best manner, Ben did. (Can’t say the same for Sam’s)

What I did learn that day was that, for sure – one can NOT begin to discuss politics with a known opposition by accusing them of being ‘wrong’. One can certainly be too close or too far from the issue. The best thing to hope for is for those of us who care to shift the world’s direction, to affect anything positive, one must win argument by learning to listen, acknowledge emotions, and plant perspective seeds in your opponent’s mind. Then continue to question the origin plus the goals of your opponent. This is the point of dialoging, is to bridge understanding. With the difference in style of discussion, I was clear on who stood the chance to a better and positive solution.

Sam and Ben