[MANNAM] Dialogue: The Way To Peace

Hi, MANNAM International friends! Do you know things that you can’t do alone? For example, you can’t shake hands alone; you can’t play ping-pong alone; and you can’t get married alone. There is one more thing you can’t do alone and that is dialogue.

There is a word “pul-da (풀다)” in Korean. It is a verb. Koreans use the word in both situations when resolving a misunderstanding or untying the knot. Using the same verb “pul-da” in different situations, then there must be one thing in common.

Let’s look at the situation of resolving a misunderstanding first. When you have a misunderstanding with your friends how do you resolve it? You may break the relationship, maintain the awkward relationship, or actively repair it. Among the three, everyone will agree that the last one is the best but also the most difficult solution. However, if you don’t want to lose your friend, you have to do it. Then, how to resolve the misunderstanding? You may have different ways to do it, but what is essential is dialogue. Through dialogue, both persons become to know why the other one did so at that time and to understand his or her situation, and finally the misunderstanding and conflict gets resolved.

However, sometimes through several kinds of dialogue, you can’t get any sympathy from the other one, and if worse, the dialogue may end as a more terrible conflict. Nevertheless, unless you start a dialogue, the chance of peace will never come to you.

From past to present, conflict has been an agenda which humans have tried to resolve for numerous times but never succeeded. It must be a giant ball of entangled knot. To untie the knot, the only way is the dialogue. Do you agree?