My father once told me, “Whenever you are arguing with your neighbour, do not say everything that comes to your mind.”
“Why not?” I asked him.
“Because your mind is full of counter-arguments that never end. If you respond to your neighbour’s argument and say everything that comes to your mind, be ready for a never-ending quarrel that can result in a fight.”
My father’s counsel hinges on ADR, and it preserved peace in our home.
Reconciliation
Those of us who advocate for the propriety of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) over the acrimony of the courts of law are not unaware that ADR can fail or that one party can refuse an out-of-court settlement.
We are also aware of this weird African example, where an aggrieved person chooses neither ADR nor the courts, but heads for the shrine.
I once overheard an angry person tell a colleague, “Have you forgotten where I come from? Joke with me and I will report you to the ancestors!”
I don’t know how the ancestors can arbitrate between living humans who are at each other’s throats.
But be that as it may, it is better to seek human settlement than hobnob with ancestral spirits.
In other words, support for ADR is not necessarily the choice of an easy way out of resolving disputes.
Depending on the parties involved and their readiness for a peaceful arbitration, ADR would face its own challenges.
Preferred choice
Yet ADR is preferable because it promises speedy adjudication and invigorating arbitration.
It is often less complex, cost-effective and leaves fewer traces of protracted enmity.
The keyword in ADR, to me, is “alternative”—the need to look for other ways of dealing with the inevitable conflicts that plague human existence.
On a daily basis at home, at workplaces, in the church and in our neighbourhoods, many situations generate conflict.
Don’t the Akans say, “Trees that are close are the ones that rub against each other?”—which means as long as we live together, conflict will not be lacking among us.
But if we were all to head for the courts seeking redress at the least provocation and misunderstanding, what time would we have to do anything else?
So ADR-related attitudinal statements such as “I’m sorry!”, “Please, forgive me”, “Let’s live in peace”, “I apologise”, followed by genuine handshakes, clean hugs and the smoking of the peace pipes help us achieve unity.
In this regard, we must acknowledge the role of chiefs, queen mothers, and other opinion leaders in promoting ADR.
They are well-positioned in traditional societies where they take advantage of cultural systems and local customs to reconcile disputing factions.
Other realities
Besides ADR and the law courts for adjudication, there is also the case of mob justice or taking the law into one’s own hands.
That is clearly jungle behaviour where survival is by the fittest and the most cunning.
In this regard, while ADR is definitely great for promoting social cohesion, where it is not preferred, the courts exist to sort us out.
That’s preferable to mob justice and taking the law into one’s own hands.
Better worship
We learn from the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount that one priority for worship is a right relationship with others.
While the Lord invites our gifts, he values right relationship and reconciliation above the gift.
“If you are offering your gift at the altar (as an act of worship) and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you” — that is, if you’re not fine with someone — “leave your gift there in front of the altar.
First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:23–24).
This biblical ruling on reconciliation promotes ADR.
Real world
My publisher friend got the surprise of his life when he received a summons to appear in court. For someone who had always tried to avoid controversy, the summons disturbed him greatly.
One of his authors sued him, claiming that my publisher friend had used his intellectual property without permission.
“How can that be?” my friend moaned, showing me the contract he and the author had signed, along with the receipt for the amount he had paid.
“How could he then summon me to court?”
I told him, “Welcome to the real world!” The real world is the world of contradictions, of false accusations, of wrongful indictment, even of wrongful imprisonment.
Maybe I’m reading too many of John Grisham’s legal thrillers, in which people are charged and imprisoned not because they are guilty, but because they couldn’t argue their case properly.
When the two counsels decided on ADR, my friend was only too glad to accept, despite being in the right, just to avoid going to court.
Peacemakers are blessed because they will be called children of God (Matthew 5:9)!
The writer is a publisher, author, writer-trainer and CEO of Step Publishers.
E-mail: lawrence.darmani@gmail.com
