Perspectives on Peace: Transforming Tomorrow
Perspectives on Peace: Transforming Tomorrow is the podcast hosted by The M. K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence that seeks to inform & inspire a better future.
We are based in Rochester, New York and seek to cover topics that are vital to our community and serve as the launching point to transform tomorrow. We attempt to do this in a way that feels authentic & inclusive.
Join us as we investigate perspectives on peace so that we can work on transforming tomorrow!
About The M. K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence:
The M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence (MKGI) is a nonprofit that equips people to use nonviolence to create a sustainable and just world for all.
MKGI collaborates with local organizations, academic institutions, students, and committed peacemakers in these areas: Nonviolence Education, Restorative Practices, Environmental Sustainability, & Racial Justice.
We prioritize programming for people between the ages of 12 and 24. We offer training in skills such as Nonviolent Communication, meditation, cultural humility, de-escalation and experiential interconnectedness.
By serving as a physical manifestation of Gandhian principles and Martin Luther King’s Beloved Community, the Gandhi Institute seeks to advance the cause of peacemaking regionally and beyond from within a neighborhood challenged by poverty and violence.
Perspectives on Peace: Transforming Tomorrow
The Power of Dialogue & Restorative Practices with Dominic Barter
Our world steeped in large and small conflicts. And each day we find a way to navigate these conflicts as best as we can. Dominic Barter, our guest for today’s episode, found his purpose in uncovering how we as a community solve conflicts in a way that meets people's basic human needs. Dominic started this in Brazilian shantytowns - transforming conflict and creating meaningful change through the power of restorative circles.
Listen as Dominic passionately shares how basic listening and creativity can be potent tools for transforming conflict. We journey with him through his experiences in the shantytowns, where he witnessed first-hand, the deep impact of systems of oppression and injustice. There, he experimented with the transformative potential of restorative practices, leading to his commitment to replace these oppressive systems with a more just, equitable approach.
As we delve deeper, Dominic shares the incredible power of restorative practices not just in reducing traumatic stress but also in fostering healing, community safety, and stronger relationships. We unpack the intricate interplay of creativity, dialogue and wisdom in understanding conflict and bringing about positive change. Dominic leaves us with an open invitation for further discussions and a challenge to actively involve ourselves in effecting change through these practices. Embrace this journey with us and let's together explore the transformative potential of restorative justice in our communities.
Learn more about Dominic's work: https://www.restorativecircles.org/
Contact Dominic: contatodominic@gmail.com
Welcome to Perspectives on Peace Transforming Tomorrow the podcast of the MK Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence. My name is Aaron Thompson. I'm joined with my podcast colleagues Michael Jones.
Katie Thomas:And Katie Thomas.
Erin Thompson:And in this podcast we discuss the four pillars, if you will, where the Institute focuses its activities, those being nonviolence, education, anti-racism, work of practices and sustainability. And so we have as our guest Dominic Barter, who is engaged in sort of work, especially in specifically restorative circles, which is a theft in practice that we'll be exploring along with his led him into this work and its applications and its prospects world today. Happy to have you here, Dominic, welcome. Thanks so much. Tell us what restorative circles are or what are practices. These are new terms to our listeners.
Dominic Barter:Sure, basically, when we have meaningful relationships with other people, at some point we're going to have conflict, and I think that happens because the important subjects come up with the important people, and so every relationship, every group of people who hang out together, eventually will have some way of responding to conflict, making sure that we can learn from it, that it can strengthen our connections, that it can bring new ideas and new possibilities.
Dominic Barter:So it's not a negative thing, but I think we've become accustomed to seeing it negatively, because the ways that have been imposed on us to respond to conflict like deciding who's right and who's wrong, punishing people, trying to educate them through violence basically exclusion, separation of people, lack of understanding between them the ways that have been imposed on us have created such tension that often, rather than contribute to strengthening our relationships, conflict turns into violence and then it turns into really horrific memories, fear, that sense of danger. Anytime there's a disagreement, people tense up, and so restorative practices are simply a recognition that can rediscover the ways in which people, relationships, emerge through a missing conflict, and we can recognize that conflict is actually more likely when you. Violence is more likely when you fear conflict than it is when you understand it and move into it and listen to each other deeply and find out what's wrong and make the changes.
Erin Thompson:Give us an idea about how you actually got into work?
Dominic Barter:I moved to Rio in Brazil in 1992. And Rio is a that's where I've lived ever since. And Rio is this beautiful city that you see images of online beaches and forest, amazing culture and people but it's also a really troubled city where there's incredible disparities of wealth, people in shanty towns living in really desperate situations, and then you get people living like rich people in the US and everyone right next to each other. So naturally there's a lot of pain. That that generates a lot of fear and a lot of division, and so conflict emerges, like just like it does anywhere. But because there's this mechanism saying we've got to keep this difference, we've got to keep the poor poor and we've got to keep the rich rich, you get a lot of violence as well. So for me, it was really shocking to want to live in this beautiful place and, the same time, to be subject to this, basically like a civil war.
Dominic Barter:So I wanted to start doing things and people told me well, that's nice, but like it's really dangerous. You can't do anything. And who are you? You didn't grow up here and like where's your organization, where are the skills you know, where's your money and where's the team? It was true, I didn't have any of that, I started thinking about what I might be able to do that wasn't as dangerous as people said it was, but was still effective, and it seemed to me the only way I was going to begin to be able to begin was by listening to people to find out what was going on, and even that they said you can't do and you can't listen to those folks though and it's the drug gangs, they're the terrorists, they're whatever and it seemed that nothing was ever going to happen unless there was that basic listening.
Dominic Barter:So I just started listening to kids on street corners. That was it, like. The first group was like eight, nine years old. They were just sitting on the coyote doing nothing, and they're always curious like you know, who's the guy with the funny accent, where are you from?
Dominic Barter:And we started chatting, and it was through that conversation that just started hanging out with them, and sometimes we kick a ball around or that, and, you know, maybe someone trips someone else up because they get you know like really into the game and there's that moment of tension as a standoff Anything what's going to happen and I realized that, okay, so hanging out is good, that strengthens the connection with people and when there's a strength and connection, there's a better relationship. And then you're one thing you can see, if not the actual healing you can, but you can just see the people, people together, more trust, ownership. But how do you do that when there's conflict? So that was what I was really curious about. So we just started improvising.
Katie Thomas:So one person said yeah, you tripped me over. You've done that before.
Dominic Barter:You know. And then there's that return Like immediately the other guy's defending himself and they go hold on, I don't know if you heard each other first. So it's like super basic, just checking Message sent, is message received or not, because often it gets lost, it gets confused and we found just by improvising like this, just by playing, really, that often we didn't understand each other. And then I would go home thinking, wow, that's just like me at home, that's just like me, my sister, when I was their age, just the same. You know, my mom was tired and overworked, my dad wasn't there, and so my mom would shout, or my mom would just close the door and say I can't handle it, you sort it out, or whatever.
Dominic Barter:I got interested in how we do that. How do we do the sorting out? Because I never talk about that. We always talk about when there's trouble. No one comes up to me in school and says so you were having an argument yesterday with a friend and then you sort it out. Good job, get why they don't do that. But at the same time did nothing happen, because when I didn't sort it out, I'm going to punch someone or whatever. They paid attention, then we got loads of attention. Then they were super interested in us.
Dominic Barter:So I got really interested in how are people sorting out most of their conflict most of the time, and it seemed the same even in conditions almost like war in Rio. And so, working with these kids, we basically developed in our core restorative circles. We developed a way sit down, a community agreement that when conflict gets painful we sit down and we dialogue. We worked out what does that mean for us? What does dialogue mean for us? What does it look like happening? How do we know we got there? What does it mean to make an agreement? How can you check that the agreement has actually happened? How can you check if it was effective or not? So all that stuff came out of hanging out with the kids in the favela, in the shanty.
Erin Thompson:And I introduced you as a person who is deeply rooted in this work. You're really the force behind restorative circles, terro restorative circles and brainwork that is employed places around the world now, especially Brazil in particular, where you began your work, but it's international at this point.
Dominic Barter:Yeah, I think it's those kids who are the driving force behind it, like I'm the spokesman, that's really like I'm here because I speak English and because I get to travel. I think it's that community wisdom that actually makes happen everywhere you go. And we found that basically the same thing that those kids and their older brothers and sisters came up with in the shanty town, even while they were working for the gangs, while, you know, some of them would walk around armed. Now I'm thinking of one of them in particular who I spoke to right at the very beginning, and he was actually on patrol at the time. He was what called a falcon, which is someone who is pork.
Dominic Barter:So there is, these people are gutted for that, so they watch to see if the police are invading or if a rival gang is invading. So he had to be armed while we were chatting and he said no, I've known this stuff for ages. It's like a dream asleep in my heart, and talking to you about it wakes it up. But I really liked that image. It's not a new idea. He wasn't inventing it, nor was he learning it from me or anyone else. It was already there. It's just it was asleep, because where is the possibility of this?
Dominic Barter:You know, we look around and we go well, that's a beautiful idea, but that's not realistic. That's not what my life is like. So, creating, like waking that dream up and then working out the logistics, you know, how do you actually make that a real thing and the art of it? And what I do is I go around and I tell stories when I travel. You know, when I'm back there I'm doing the work. When I travel, I'm telling that story, really just to say, you know, maybe without even noticing it, you started to believe that this isn't possible. Like peace is this beautiful idea but it's not practical, it's not real world, and it's just to say, well, yes, yeah, thank you so much for talking.
Katie Thomas:Yeah, but what brought you to restorative this is, and really what there are in essence and I kind of have a question about aren't, and what some of them mischievs and perceptions of restorative circles are. What have you heard? You kind of pushed back already. Yeah, just wrong thoughts about like what kind of practices are really?
Dominic Barter:Yeah, well, I think the first thing is that most adults that I meet a friend of conflict. So the first thing that they think that this is gonna be is a way to make conflict go away. And that's pretty worrying to me because when we're facing so much injustice, making conflict go away sounds like just making everybody more passive. So I imagine you get that all the time in relation to the word nonviolence. Like people are constantly thinking oh, the word nonviolence means that you know, everyone calms down and goes home and lives life as if nothing is happening. So it's kind of interesting and where you were reading out like these four things that the Gandhi Institute, that the Gandhi Institute does, like for some people they'll be going hold on nonviolence education and anti-racist work in their heads. Maybe they won't even think it, but practically it's like a contradiction because they think that anti-racist work is likely to create more conflict, but in the healthiest sense, because yeah, we're supporting people to say, no, you don't actually have to take that stuff and there's something that you can do to overthrow and to transform those dynamics of oppression and that daily life in a system of oppression. That's not peace.
Dominic Barter:So a lot of the same misunderstandings. People are like, oh great, so you're gonna make the disagreements go away. And really the answer to that is well, it depends. Do you wanna live in a democracy? Because if you wanna live democratically, you're gonna have more conflict, not less In the best sense. You're gonna have people saying, well, I think the best solution to this issue over here is like that, and someone else says, really, cause, I got another idea. That's democracy. It's like you know, we talk it out till we find the best idea and then we test it and we see what works. We keep what works and we chuck what doesn't work.
Dominic Barter:So I think of non-violence and restorative and democracy as all being really, really interconnected to each other. And really the weakness in our current democracy the reason people are getting fed up with democracy and impatient with it and starting to dream of big leaders who just make decisions on their own is because the dialogue is getting lost. So non-violence and restorative are amazing places where you can say, okay, we're gonna bring the dialogue back in this specific area. So that's a misunderstanding that it's interesting to look at. And the other one is that people still think that all right, so there's gonna be someone in the circle who's gonna tell me who's right and who's wrong and tell us what to do, and that's a kind of laziness that we've got into. We're just like, we're not used to it. But young people are. I don't see young people. They know how to sort out their issues. So a lot of restorative justice work comes from the young and I don't think it's surprising.
Erin Thompson:And restorative expressly, and I'm wondering if then just for a moment about like, what circle looks like and what it's in is.
Dominic Barter:Right. So the first thing is it looks like what we decide. It looks like so when a group of people get together and they say, okay, so we care about each other, so we're doing something important. So therefore, we know conflict is gonna happen at some point. That's natural, that's healthy, even that's how we get to the best solutions. Sometimes we have to argue it out, sometimes those arguments get personal, and then we run the risk of getting lost and forgetting the connection between us. We'll then decide how they wanna respond in those moments.
Dominic Barter:What does dialogue look like to you? Like a brother and sister at home, or with your group of friends or your classmates or whatever it is, whatever group you're in. So there isn't a pattern. There isn't like a manual that you can download that tells you what to do in a way that, in our experience, is sustainable. You can do that. There are manuals, you can download them. They can be useful, they can get you started, but if you're just copying other people's ideas, probably not gonna work as you want them to for you. So the first thing is to recognize it looks like you. And the second thing is that it probably needs to include certain ingredients, like inner disagreement in a fight, misunderstanding between people, there's usually on more people who have one position the people are concerned about. So you have kind of initially have those two groups. You probably have a third group. You probably have the people who care about everyone involved, the people who are indirectly affected by what's going on. So like if I, if we all work together and two of you start having an argument, then rest of us are, we're still impacted, but we're not directly having the argument. So there's something about having that third group there which is really important, because they have Wisdom that maybe the two of you don't have because you're in the middle of the heat at the moment. So most of these practices, most of these circles, will have some Representative of these three groups there.
Dominic Barter:And then the question is okay, so how do we talk? Well, we know how to express ourselves, but often we don't know how to listen. So you see a lot of that in the moment with social media, because social media is always saying what do you think, what's important to you, what do you feel? You know, express yourself. And that's like amazing and people are, voices are coming out that haven't come out for like hundreds of years. It's incredible. So, like in Brazil, we have, like you know, young indigenous leaders who never had a voice and now they have millions of followers. So we have extraordinary transformation happening in that sense, but it's a lot of talk and it's not so much listening. There's a lot of expression on it and the understanding, yeah, it's kind of it's not so clear.
Dominic Barter:So one of the main things that you're probably gonna want to look at is how do we make sure that someone is hearing Not just the words but the meaning that the other person is wanting to get across? So we have to work out some solution for checking the person is hearing. The speaker is saying, and then the question is okay, the needs that are in the meeting, in this situation, and if someone has done something painful, what are the good reasons why people have done the bad things? Like, what is it that someone was trying to take care of when they acted in the way that they did, when they use those words, when they did that thing? Because, if we can get back the original intention and get beyond the idea that the intention was to hurt, the intention was to dominate, the intention was to Was to insult me, and I've got to defend my dignity and we can get out of that cycle. It doesn't ask people to give their dignity up, like make peace when it's not really true inside and like pretend the fight is over when it isn't really.
Dominic Barter:If we can, if we can work out what that original need was, then we can start planning. Okay, so now we know what's on the table, what we're dealing with. Now we can make a plan to work it out. And people's creativity is just incredible. In a moment like that, you don't need anyone to tell you what to do. You know each other better than anyone. You know the situation, you know what's at stake. The people come up with such creative solutions. So probably those three pieces are gonna be that those three groups of people, like the person who did the act, or the people, people who received the impact of it, and then the community, and then probably those three phases like learning how to hear each other, finding out what it is that we need and then making a doable plan. Most circles will probably look like that.
Michael Jones:I don't know you're being understood.
Dominic Barter:You know, I think a good question. Yeah, we can see it in the shift in and other people Saying something that you're defending yourself against and you're not really taking on board. It's not really. I mean. We say it like what I want is understanding, I want you to understand me, but we're not talking about English. Like you understood the words I used. That's not what we mean. We mean somehow I know that you feel what I'm saying and then I want to know that there's a shift in your attitude because of that. So we say that right, do you feel me?
Dominic Barter:Yeah that's sometimes don't think about what we're saying when we say those things. That's a really wise phrase. The person who says that knows perfectly well. It's not about the words, it's about something else. It's about what I call the meaning, like when I know that you get me see it in your face, I can see it in your eyes.
Dominic Barter:Something shift so often in painful conflict that has got lost. It's like a phone without a signal. A Phone without signal is kind of useless. There's not much you can do with it. Take a photograph, that's it really. So.
Dominic Barter:Either signal in order for the message to get across and I think there's signals between humans as well and sometimes that signal is strong and sometimes it gets weak and sometimes it drops all together. When it drops all together, we're in danger, because that's when people start creating these kind of monster images of each other, these scary ideas in the heads. They dehumanize each other. They don't see the other person as being Part of the community, having a legitimate voice, having a legitimate place, whatever group you're part of, when it gets dangerous. So every time there's violence, every time there's painful conflict, I'm looking for the signal. How's the connection going? Is the connection strong? Because the connection isn't strong, it doesn't matter what brilliant things we're saying to each other, my words aren't going to reach you right now. Without the internet, no one's hearing what we're saying. So what we're saying is not internet, internet, internet. But without it, no one's. No one's able to hear us. We're just talking on our own in a room. So I'm always looking for the signal, for the connection. When the connection is strong, then we're looking for the action which transforms. Whatever dynamic is painful, because that's what conflict wants. Conflict wants change.
Dominic Barter:Conflict isn't a bad thing, it's a good thing. It's like an update, like again on your phone. You're getting an update saying you know the system has been updated, do you want to download it? And then you get the new features. Well, that's the same thing with conflict. Conflict is bringing innovations, bringing new ideas.
Dominic Barter:So people are frightened. The conflict gets stuck. They can't move forward, and I think that's really difficult for young people now, because a lot of old people are really frightened of conflict. So every time someone speaks and someone else is putting them down without actually listening to what they're saying. They're just putting them down because of the volume of the voice or because the language that they use, or because they're excited about Something or because they're contesting some injustice, and people are saying no, no, no, no. You know, if you speak, you have to speak this way. And the nice thing about restorative spaces is, finally, this is a space where we can speak the truth. This is a space where we're not frightened of the fact that there's a difference, because we're dialoguing, so it's not dangerous.
Michael Jones:Thank you for the answer.
Katie Thomas:I love that analogy of, yeah, restorative work and connecting through conflict as being like an up a phone or technology being Needing to upgrade and really hone in on that relationship and the fact that it can take form in so many different, like Individualized ways. That's really interesting and, if you don't mind, I'd like to pivot us a little bit to just Some things that you've been touching on a little bit already about our society in the way that we are approaching restorative practices. Why do you think now, especially in society, currently in 2023? Why do you think, being a rise in restorative practices through schools, criminal justice systems and workplaces? Why, right now, is that becoming more prominent in our society?
Dominic Barter:Yeah, I think there's probably two reasons. One is the, the. Is it doing things unable to deal with going on? So the, the institutions, you know, the police, the courts, the prisons, much going on, and the way in which they're organized, the use of punishment as a way of resolving conflict, obviously ineffective. That a pressure within those systems. They know that they are a sure response to injustice but much of the time they know they are also injustice. So what's called the justice system, like it has to produce justice right, that's in the name.
Dominic Barter:If, like, a certain degree of the population looking them, saying, yeah, that ain't justice, that's a fortune. And damage the community is huge. Like you know, I'm losing my dad for 12 years and I don't get to see him. My brother just disappears for four years. You know he. He doesn't finish school, he doesn't go into work. Like everybody's gonna be affected by that. And we know that we can. We can measure those things. If you get put in prison, we know that your children's teeth won't be as good Like the crazy correspondence, but we can measure. It's just a fact. So the current system isn't keeping us safe, isn't strengthening communities and it's just producing more and more pain.
Dominic Barter:So I think that's one reason a lot of people are looking systems saying I can't believe it. Is this really the best we can do? I was just in Maine last week and they spend basically around twenty three thousand dollars a year putting a kid through school $46,000 a year putting someone in prison Like, just by coincidence, exactly twice as much to lock someone up. If someone a good education. So after a while. But I start thinking, is this really a good idea? Plus, going to prison increases the chance that you're gonna commit more crime when you leave. It doesn't change you, it doesn't educate you. There's always some, but a lot of people. They're just sitting there Biting their time, waiting till they can get out. So I think that's one, one big reason. And the second big reason is that starting to educate themselves more and more, starting to realize okay, will these systems of oppression, this whole colonial project, it doesn't have to be like that. Okay, it's been like that for four or five hundred years.
Dominic Barter:That's, that's a lot of pressure. It's in our heads, it's not just in our political, social world, it's in our relationships with each other. So dismantling it is complex and the language I use, it's in my posture, it's in my relationships, even when the people I really love, I end up repeating those same dynamics, even if I don't want to do something which someone else's experiences is repressive. So if I'm gonna dismantle this inside my head, in my relationships and in society, then I need to stop waiting for some you know big plan that's gonna come and solve things. I need to start working now and again young people at the forefront of I'm not waiting, start doing this right now. Like that thing that you said to me yesterday that was sexist, that thing that just happened, that was racist, that just it wasn't just what it was. It was also this other thing a kind of awareness and sensitivity and, in a good sense, that intolerance like I'm not gonna stand for it. That work and that energy and that creativeness and that kind of persistence that young people are putting into it.
Dominic Barter:I think that's the other reason there's such a rise in in restorative practices, because there's a demand for it and we're re reproducing some of the problems and communities, so that I think I think that really helps.
Dominic Barter:That's kind of the worst thing really, when you set off to do something else and then you realize, oh my goodness, I am repeating the same dynamics that I want to. I want to mantle in other places, like playing someone, like when millions of people gang up on someone to counsel someone. How is fundamentally? How is that different from a courtroom where we just decide to do something that's not right, from from a courtroom where we just decide who's good and who's bad and then we just all punish who's bad? So I think a lot of people are starting to think if we're gonna do things differently, we got to do things differently. You can't just have it in your head, you've also got to have it in practice. So I think restorative practices are, I mean, because people are thinking about that and Then and they're wondering how to actually do it, not just to talk about it and dream that it would be good if it could happen.
Michael Jones:Reply have never been involved in restorative practices and feel this need for change and end these cycles of oppression. And how can people get involved, like how can they start?
Dominic Barter:Well, I think the first thing is if you've ever worked out an issue with your family or with your friends. You have been involved in restorative practices. You just didn't use that name, so I've never really met anyone who doesn't know that sometimes you need to circle up, speak the truth and make the right decision. To circle up, speak the truth and listen to each other and then you can work it out. But there is a difference between doing that in an improvised way and doing it with some structure. So people have been re-enacted out like oh, there's you know a piece of bread around and you know butter or whatever, and they and they make a sandwich. That's one thing. But another thing is to go into a kitchen and meet someone who knows how to work the kitchen and knows how to cook. It's a whole different thing. It's all food. But, like you know, an improvised sandwich is one thing and a really good meal that's a whole other thing. And when you're really really hungry, you need a good meal. If the sandwich is all you got, that's what you eat, but it's not as good. So I think when we talk about restorative practices, we're talking about that good meal. So to make a good meal you need to build a kitchen.
Dominic Barter:So some of us need to learn how to build conflict kitchens. We build kitchens for food Because there's an art to that. You can and it's not that difficult, but it is a specific thing, like a classroom is like a little kitchen for learning, and a kitchen is a kitchen for food, you know, and there's, I think there's, there's rooms, there's spaces dedicated specifically for wanting to conflict. So one thing is to these agreements with other people, this thing I'm calling a restorative system Make agreements so that not just today with this conflict, also next month, if something else comes out, but when something else comes up because if we're doing important work, it will. You know, if the relationships are important to us there will be moments of misunderstanding. I so rise, it's already ready and set up, waiting for us. So that's out of the alibi.
Dominic Barter:And the other one is to start thinking really consciously about how OG functions, because we know about monologues Like I say my stuff and then you say yours, but that's not necessarily enough. Established connection when it's damaged or lost. So what does that pay? Is it useful to have someone else Like an emcee, you know, like someone who's kind of taking care of the interaction between us? Is that a useful job? And if it is, what does that person do? So they don't interfere, but they do support us to listen to each other.
Dominic Barter:So luckily, these days, there are increasing numbers of people who dedicate their time to understanding these things and can help others. So I know that that's one of the things that you do. It's there in the four things that you mentioned. The beginning of the program Great. You know, mk Gandhi Institute is a resource and many schools now have someone who knows something about this or have the beginning of some kind of practice, and in many communities there are people who are self-educating who can be a source of understanding. So I think the thing is to firstly always remember you already know how to do this, you already do it, so you don't give up your own wisdom. But if you can meet someone who's thought about it more and dedicated their time to it, that could be a really great resource.
Erin Thompson:Dominic, is the restorative process infinitely scalable or does it reach a point of, like diminishing returns or where it starts to buckle under its own weight? Is it just for little small groups or can involve communities and countries, or you know?
Dominic Barter:Yeah, I wish I knew Okay, Because we need like large scale you know, every week there's some new violent conflict happening in the world.
Dominic Barter:I was in Ukraine just a couple of weeks before the invasion happened and people didn't know the invasion was coming, but they knew there was something going on. You know there was already low level fighting in the east of the country and I got to hang out with people who were right there on the front line that work. I got to meet folks in the government who were saying okay, so along what they call the contact line, which is the point at which the you know, the two fighting forces were meeting, we need to set up a series of restorative systems along this line, on a village level, so that when there's conflict we can do something about it. And I know there are people doing that kind of work in Palestine and Israel, you know, who at the moment are just having to shelter and try and save their life. So the sooner we can set up these practices at scale the better, because we never know when we're going to need them. And it's the same in our own communities and our own families.
Dominic Barter:You know things might be okay now. We don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. You know, accident or not, an accident happens, someone gets hurt, and then people justifiably rise up because they can't tolerate that kind of oppression anymore, and yet the only tools they have are the petition of the old ways. So in how to fight back at scale in productive ways, through dialogue, I have to recognize that there, yeah, there's a lot of us who are training our muscles to be able to get there, and more and more people to dedicate themselves to that as part of their responsibility for being part of a family, part of a community, part of a neighborhood. So there's amazing work being done to try and scale this up. But most of our kind of inspiring stories are still at a recently low level. But in Brazil, we done, we done okay. You know, 28 years ago that was me just wandering around the favelas talking to kids. Within about 18 years, we were in the justice system, like mentally celebrated our anniversary, as it were, setting up a system that took a million people in a little of a state in the south of Brazil. So all use crime for a million people. When it went to court, the judge would say two options. You can do it the old way I'm here for that or, if you want to, in the room next door you can sit down with the people you heard. You can sit down with everyone else involved your neighbors, family members. You choose, not us, it's going to choose for you. The people involved will say, no, this person needs to be here, this person needs to be here and you can listen to each other and you can come to an agreement, not like you know oh, I promise I won't do it again on the handshake but like a concrete agreement to meet the needs that weren't met before. We need to see evidence that has changed, that things are different, and if you need resources for that, then we need to organize those resources. So this is going to be as impactful as the original act. Like you went into a bar, you hold someone up, you took the money from the till. The action agreement has to be as powerful as that. That changed your life Now. Now we're looking for a new change. It has to be as serious and if you're doing that day in and day out and you're making that level agreement and you're checking them, it's not like good luck and bye-bye In two weeks. I want to see the results In three months. I want to see the results A year later. I'm going to be checking in. So when you do that and you do that all through the day and we had like several rooms working at once, we had people coming in and coming out of circles every day.
Dominic Barter:That's not quite the same as, I think, the scale that you were talking about, but it's pretty powerful because you're also producing stories. Like everyone who participated in a meeting like that, you know, I've been saying I just did Like I just saw someone who had their store held up on else offer that guy a job and that guy it sounds crazy. That guy said, yeah, because I was thinking which store to rob and I robbed your store because I think it's so cool. I mean I heard that and I was. He was really excited. Yeah, I really take care of my store. You know, I'm glad that you appreciate it. And he ends up working there and again, we're checking three weeks, in three months, in a year in. So that kind of scale I think we do know how to do the big scale how to respond to, like large urban disturbances, how to respond to moments of war.
Michael Jones:We're working on it and we're not there. Hearing that we have not experimented with this at scale. Is there any data on restorative practices and their effects?
Dominic Barter:There's a lot. We've been really lucky. A lot of people in universities really like measuring what we do. So you know, I like the stories, like the one I just told, but they like the numbers and I've learned to like the numbers over time. So the besetivism rate, which is the tendency of people to do the same crime again, that definitely diminishes with almost all restorative projects. So that's great. So it proves I would rather choose a harmonious way of living with others when they can.
Dominic Barter:Sometimes they just don't know how to, and a restorative practice can be a really useful way of effacing that. They have a need. They don't want to give it up. They don't know how to express it in the other way. Okay, well, that's not just an individual responsibility, that's the whole community is responsible for that, because people don't invent painful behavior. You know people don't invent new crimes. They learn them and they learn them from society. So if we want them to learn new ways of behaving, we're gonna provide new examples. I mean need spaces where we can work that out. So restorative practice might be that space. And that's yet greater community safety, strength in relationships. You get more agile communities and we have all the numbers to show this and you get people recovering from trauma. You get people recovering from a lot of pain.
Dominic Barter:So in that example I just gave with the robbery and the bar, when we interviewed the young guy who'd been held up working in the bar afterwards we said what's the main effect that you had from that circle? And he said the monster's gone. So I didn't believe that that was a person anymore. He was just like he was the figure I saw in my nightmares and I was terrified of him every day, even if I didn't see him. So in the action agreement they made for that circle, he actually said to the guy I want you to come back to the bar Three times in the next couple of months. I don't want you to do anything, I'm not gonna tell anyone who you are, just want you to come in, order a drink and leave, because I need like a reminder that when I see your face, that doesn't automatically mean danger.
Dominic Barter:So we know that it reduces levels of traumatic stress. So when someone has been through a really upsetting experience, they get that trauma in their body, that kind of jumpiness that relax even when nothing's happening. So it diminishes that level of stress. So yeah, we have good numbers that this is an effective way of individuals, relationships and communities healing from fear and learning to be stronger. Because a strong community is not a community without conflict. It's a community that understands the position of conflict, the contribution that it makes, and understands how to channel that energy into something positive. Like Gandhi said, it's like electricity it can electrocute you or it can give you light. So the difference is how you channel it.
Erin Thompson:We have a few minutes left. Are there a message that you would share with folks who are intrigued by what they're hearing today, or find out more about things restorative I'm curious about, like how to proliferate around the world restorative practices in a way that's full and in keeping kind of with the true intent, considering there's not a centralized certification body and such. So I guess, kind of those two things. What are your thoughts as the prospects for restorative practices proliferating meaningfully around the world and any other kind of closing thoughts that you would share with us?
Dominic Barter:I think the first thing is to trust your own creativity and trust the care that you have for the people in your family, your friends, the people you hang out with, people you work with. People care deeply about their own communities and this is one of the ways in which we show that care is we understand when someone's upset that we can't just dismiss that Some of it is. You know they're raising their voice, they're speaking more loudly because it's more important that they're heard and because there's distance. They're experiencing that people are far away from them. So they're shouting to kind of bridge that distance and move closer, move towards conflict and then we're gonna have safer relationships. Some idea we have that conflict is dangerous so we back away from it and actually what it needs is his proximity. So I think that's one thing Recognize that the absence of dialogue is fatal. We can't live together if we don't listen to each other and if we're not speaking the truth to each other. So you know, first of all you lose understanding between each other, then you lose the relationship, then lives start getting lost. So you can interrupt that cycle at any moment and move in the opposite direction and then search out people who have that wisdom.
Dominic Barter:Some of the people who have that wisdom use terms like restorative justice. So go after them, like you know, knock on the door here at the Institute and ask what's happening. How can I get some of this? I heard it's good, I want some. You know my school doesn't have it. I want it. Ask, talk to teachers, talk to elders, talk to your parents, talk to friends and colleagues.
Dominic Barter:But a lot of people who have this wisdom don't use their name restorative justice. They've just always been there and they're always looking out and so they learn. So in smaller communities, you know, the old people used to sit outside in the afternoon, you know, drag up a chair and just sit on the stoop or sit on the street and just watch. And those are the people you could go to when you were lost, when you were confused, when there was pain and they knew stuff. And now it's harder.
Dominic Barter:We can't just walk down the street and find those people every day. Some of us still can. That's great, but most of us can't anymore. But looking for those people and listening to them and learning from them can be really, really valuable. And then the internet is this incredible source of wisdom, so you can see people doing this stuff all over the world. You can see what we do in Brazil, you know. You can just search for it and people can write to me if they want to and find out what I'm doing. I'm always happy to hear from people who are curious about what's happening.
Erin Thompson:How would they do that?
Dominic Barter:How would they connect to you? You can search for me it's a little strange to say in English because my handles are all in Portuguese but contato C-O-N-T-A-T-O, then Dominic D-O-M-I-N-I-C. That's my Instagram and that's also my email address, contatodominiquecom, so you can send me a message there. I'm always happy to talk to people.
Erin Thompson:This has been good. Thank you for your time today, Dominic. Appreciate your wisdom and your steady efforts. Thank you.
Katie Thomas:Yeah, thank you so much for being here.
Michael Jones:It's been a pleasure to have you here in Rochester.
Dominic Barter:Yeah, thanks so much for all that you're doing locally. It's a really powerful example and it's amazing to be able to come and visit and learn from you and share a little bit of what we're doing.
Erin Thompson:This has been Perspectives on Peace, transforming tomorrow with our guest Dominic Bader. Take care, folks.
