Travels in the Riel World

What an election night! When was the last time that we saw spontaneous electoral celebrations breaking out in city streets, with horns honking and people dancing, hugging, and high-fiving strangers? Part of the celebration was due to the historic nature of yesterday’s election, but I also think part of it was a national release of pent up emotion. It was a catharsis.

A good many American voters are tired. Yes, tired of the constant sense of crisis of the past several years, from 9-11 to the Iraq war to the financial crisis. But tired, too, I think, of the decades-old cultural wars we’ve been fighting. Barack Obama, for many, represents an opportunity to put these cultural wars behind us, to put the 1960s and the Vietnam War in the rear view mirror, and most of all to bury the religious divide and the red state-blue state divide that have been at the center of our politics for too many elections.

So I think Obama won this year for a number of reasons. The low popularity of President Bush and our economic travails, for sure. But it was more than that. His sense of calmness and steadiness and his stated desire to get the country beyond its recent cultural divides were, to my mind, just as important. Americans are ready to turn the page. We are ready for the future, tired of the past, and tired of fighting, and that is why I think the hackneyed old negative attacks just didn’t stick this year. The pages of history are turning before our eyes and the country is thirsty for a fresh start, not only at home but in terms of our engagement with the rest of the world.

The fact that the president-elect is an African American with a name like Barack Hussein Obama just magnifies the symbolism of the moment. It is about the most dramatic symbol possible that the United States is reinventing itself. And don’t discount the power of symbolism. Can you imagine what it feels like today to be a young African American in Harlem or Atlanta or Birmingham, suddenly feeling that anything is indeed possible in this life? Or what it’s like for young Muslims in Cairo or Tehran or Islamabad, now re-evaluating their perceptions and beliefs about the United States? Or to be on the streets of Nairobi or Johannesburg or Jakarta, knowing that the new U.S. president cares about your corner of the world?

The euphoria can’t last and the reality of the challenges before us will soon settle in again. But for the moment, a wave of hope has swept across the planet.

For a sense of the historic nature of what we’ve witnessed, here is a small selection of newspaper front pages. From around the country…

Anniston, Alabama

Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Miami, Florida

Fayetteville, North Carolina

Orange County, California

And, from around the world…

Vancouver, Canada

Lisbon, Portugal

Medellin, Colombia

Kingston, Jamaica

Johannesburg, South Africa

A few months ago, I was of the opinion that this presidential election would shape up like the one in 1980. That year, voters wanted change but weren’t sure they were comfortable with the change they were being offered - that is, Ronald Reagan. Consequently, Reagan and Jimmy Carter ran close in the polls until near the end, when a critical mass of people finally decided they were comfortable enough with Reagan and the vote broke in his direction and gave him a decisive victory.

This year looked to be very similar, with the country yearning for a change of direction but unsure of the change agent before them, Barack Obama. And, in the past few months, as with Reagan in 1980, Obama has made voters comfortable enough with him to prompt a decisive late break in the polls in his direction.

So, end of story, easy win for Obama? Very likely, yes. But is it possible that 1980 is not, in the end, going to be the best comparison? Well, if John McCain manages a grand upset today, the comparison will of course be to 1948 when Harry Truman pulled off what is generally considered the biggest upset in presidential history when he defeated Thomas Dewey.

But another possibility also comes to mind. That would be the election of 1932 when, in the face of an economic crisis and after a long period of Republican rule, Franklin Roosevelt won a crushing victory and ushered in an era of Democratic dominance of national politics. It was the quintessential realigning election, in which a new coalition of voters coalesces to replace the previously dominant coalition. This tends to happen every 30-36 years, with the most recent example being when the Deep South in 1968 moved away from the Democratic party.

In recent days, as we’ve tried to ascertain the direction of this year’s vote, there has been a tightening of the polls in states such as Pennsylvania, Colorado and Virgina, all of which are crucial to any McCain hopes of an upset. If McCain indeed wins, this tightening of the polls will have been our early indicator. At the same time, though, we’ve also seen strong Republican states such as Indiana, Montana, North Dakota and Georgia slide into the toss-up category. A late-breaking wave for Obama could put all of these states into his column and mark an electoral landslide. This, combined with a large number of expected Democratic pickups in the Senate and House of Representatives, would make this an historic election along the lines of 1932.

We’ll know for certain which way this election is heading later tonight. In the meantime, if you’re hungry for some polling data or predictions, there are two great sites to check out. Pollster.com has a wealth of polling information from around the country. They currently have Obama at 291 electoral votes to 142 for McCain and 105 in the toss-up column. Also check out fivethirtyeight.com, which has run 10,000 simulations of the election based on polling, historical and demographic data. They peg Obama as having a 98.9% chance of winning the election and predict that he will accumulate at least 349 electoral votes.

Whomever you favor today, though, if you’re a U.S. citizen please go out to vote and make your voice heard.

Yes, the world is paying close attention to the upcoming presidential election in the U.S. Here is a fun example of that, as some Venetian gondoliers express their presidential preference.

Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan for first posting this link.

It’s no surprise that the French have a complicated relationship with the United States. One that is certainly reciprocated, as the Americans and the French seem to both love and detest what is most unique about the other’s country. This love-hate dynamic is uniquely examined through the prism of politics in a recent essayby Steven Erlanger in the International Herald Tribune.

An excerpt:

The French have always found American elections amusing, in a horror movie sort of way. They grumpily regard the American president as in some unfortunate sense also their own, but they see the campaign through their own cultural lens.

They value sophistication above almost anything, and so they regard their own hyperactive president, Nicolas Sarkozy, with his messy romantic life and model-singer wife, as “Sarko the American.”

But this year has been difficult for the French. Sarkozy has generally supported American foreign policy and has praised the United States’ openness and entrepreneurial verve. And the sudden emergence of Senator Barack Obama - black, and seen as elegant and engaged with the larger world - has sent many French into a swoon.

But the combination of two recent surprises - Governor Sarah Palin and America’s terrifying financial meltdown - has brought older, nearly instinctual anti-American responses back to the surface.

These two surprises, one after the other, have refreshed clichés retailed under President George W. Bush, confirming the deeply held belief of the French that the United States remains the frontier, led by impenetrably smug and incurious upstarts who have little history, experience or wisdom.

Even worse, from the French perspective, Americans are reckless optimists, incurably blind to the tragedy of life, to the weary convolutions of history and thus to the need for lengthy August vacations and financial regulations.

A lot can still happen between now and election day, but at this point an overwhelming win by Sen. Barack Obama in the U.S. presidential election is becoming more likely by the day. Some analysts are beginning to openly speculate about the possibility of an Obama landslide.

Three weeks of historic economic upheaval have done more than just tilt a handful of once reliably Republican states in Barack Obama’s direction. Democratic strategists are now optimistic that the ongoing crisis could lead to a landslide Obama victory.

Four large states John McCain once seemed well-positioned to win — Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio and Florida — have in recent weeks shifted toward Obama. If Obama were to win those four states — a scenario that would represent a remarkable turn of events — he would likely surpass 350 electoral votes.

Under almost any feasible scenario, McCain cannot win the presidency if he loses any of those four states. And if Obama actually captured all four states, it would almost certainly signal a strong electoral tide that would likely sweep the Southwestern swing states — Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada — not to mention battlegrounds from New Hampshire to Iowa to Missouri.

Want more than speculation? Start by checking out the electoral map at the Real Clear Politics site. According to their objective poll analysis, Obama is already on track to win a majority of electoral votes, not even taking into account the votes from eight toss-up states. McCain’s only chance at this point is to win all of the toss-ups and reverse the current Democratic trend in one other state, such as Virginia, Wisconsin or Pennsylvania.

Then check out the insightful statistical analysis by Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com. As of today, he gives an Obama a 91 percent chance of winning the election, with an average electoral vote total of 348. He also gives odds of 37 percent that Obama wins a landslide victory of at least 375 electoral votes.

Yes, much can still change in a month, particularly in light of the dizzying headlines of the past few weeks. But today’s trends are not looking rosy for Sen. John McCain.

There is a short but thoughtful article in The Atlantic about the current U.S. engagement with Afghanistan and the story contains some useful pieces of information about Afghan culture. Specifically, it speaks about the tremendous importance of tribes and clans in the nation’s social structure, while suggesting that the U.S. strategy is on the wrong track in that we’ve tried to rebuild the country from the top down rather than from the bottom up.

(T)he current military engagement is also beginning to look like the Soviets’ decade-long Afghan adventure, which ended ignominiously in 1989. That intervention, like the current one, was based on a strategy of administering and securing Afghanistan from urban centers such as Kabul and the provincial capitals. The Soviets held all the provincial capitals, just as we do, and sought to exert influence from there. The mujahideen stoked insurgency in the rural areas of the Pashtun south and east, just as the Taliban do now…

National government has never much mattered in Afghanistan. Only once in its troubled history has the country had something like the system of strong central government that’s mandated by the current constitution. That was under the “Iron Emir,” Abdur Rehman, in the late 19th century, and Rehman famously maintained control by building towers of skulls from the heads of all who opposed him, a tactic unavailable to the current president, Hamid Karzai.

Politically and strategically, the most important level of governance in Afghanistan is neither national nor regional nor provincial. Afghan identity is rooted in the woleswali: the districts within each province that are typically home to a single clan or tribe. Historically, unrest has always bubbled up from this stratum—whether against Alexander, the Victorian British, or the Soviet Union. Yet the woleswali are last, not first, in U.S. military and political strategy…

The Taliban are well aware that the center of gravity in Afghanistan is the rural Pashtun district and village, and that Afghan army and coalition forces are seldom seen there…The rural Pashtun south has its own systems of tribal governance and law, and its people don’t want Western styles of either. But nor are they predisposed to support the Taliban, which espouses an alien and intolerant form of Islam, and goes against the grain of traditional respect for elders and decision by consensus. Re-empowering the village coun­cils of elders and restoring their community leadership is the only way to re-create the traditional check against the powerful political network of rural mullahs.

On living in a multipolar world. I think Eugene Robinson nailed it in a recent op-ed column:

The lesson that’s being brought home this summer is that we live in a multipolar world. We knew that, but in our political rhetoric we prefer to ignore it. Now, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are going to be able to make it through their convention without acknowledging the world’s complications and interconnections.

Obama will probably talk more about engagement and the “international community,” while McCain is likely to sound more confrontational. I’m pretty sure, though, that neither will come clean about a central truth: Our future is being decided not just in Washington but in Beijing and Moscow — and in Riyadh, Islamabad, New Delhi, Dubai, Caracas, Abuja, Brasilia. . . .

We still have the wherewithal to lead. But we’re deluding ourselves if we believe we won’t have to adapt to the new reality.

This is a bit longer than my typical post, but if you’re interested at all in U.S. politics there is a lot here that will interest you and hopefully provide some food for thought and debate…

Speculation over Barack Obama’s vice presidential candidate is reaching a fever pitch this week, with the selection widely expected to be made known between Wednesday and Saturday. Most reporting indicates that there is a three person shortlist - Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, and Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine.

If that’s truly the case, then Biden seems to be the best choice of the three for reasons that are quite well expressed here and here. Indeed, a lot of smart people today are predicting that Biden is going to be Obama’s pick. However, these things rarely go according to conventional wisdom. Therefore, I have to agree with Nate Silver that there is a reasonable prospect of a surprise choice.

Ah, but who would be the surprise? All along, Obama has really had two options - someone who “balances” the ticket by adding a long record in national politics and foreign policy, or an “outsider” who reinforces the message of bringing change to Washington. Silver thinks a surprise choice is more likely to come from the first group and he lays out the contenders: Hilary Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry and Colin Powell. Wow! Can you imagine the media shock wave any one of these would set off? It would be a perfect Obama head fake and produce reams of publicity heading into the Democratic convention.

Frankly, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Obama went in this direction. The problem is, I have difficulty making the case for why it would be any one of the four.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you follow U.S. politics, you’ll enjoy Jib Jab’s latest animated satire of this year’s election campaign. They poke fun at everyone involved. Check it out:

Jib Jab first became famous for a satire of George Bush and John Kerry during the 2004 presidential election. It’s a classic and is still fun to watch:

Mongolia is not the first place one thinks of when pondering the fate of budding democracies around the world. Heck, how many people could locate Mongolia on a map? Now, though, the country may become known as a poster child for the risks of mixing democracy with vodka.

The charred shells of two Soviet-style buildings rising from the center of this capital stand as a warning of the dangers of mixing vodka with voter frustration.

In a barren land where nomads still gallop across pastures to polling booths, that potent mix led last week to the literal gutting of some of the country’s most prominent political and cultural institutions. Now, with an election in dispute, Mongolia’s fledgling democracy faces its biggest challenge since its birth in 1990.

Following cries of fraud in parliamentary elections — accusations that were disputed by international election observers — hundreds of rioters, many of them drunk, attacked the headquarters of the dominant political party and the neighboring national art gallery on July 1. Fires were started. Five people were killed. More than 1,000 pieces of artwork were destroyed, damaged or looted…

(J)ust as shocking as the violence was the government’s reaction — it declared a four-day state of emergency, sent soldiers into the streets and shut down television and radio stations. The outburst of violence was without precedent in democratic Mongolia, and many here — from sheepherders to business executives — are deeply ashamed of what unfolded.

For nearly two decades now, Mongolia has had one of the few true democracies in northern Asia, a fact which made this outburst of electoral violence there all the more unfortunate.

On the surface, Mongolia is an unlikely place for an experiment in democracy. It is the most sparsely populated country in the world. Half the population still lives in round felt tents called gers, and livestock outnumber humans eight to one.

Yet Mongolia’s literacy rate is 98 percent, a legacy of nearly seven decades of Communist rule. The country held a constitutional referendum in 1990 and a vote in 1992 that led to its first democratic change of Parliament. Since then, it had held peaceful elections every four years — until June 29…

As the country’s leaders grapple with how to resolve the election, everyone knows nothing less than the future of Mongolia is at stake.

“We made our democracy ourselves, we will defend it ourselves,” Oyungerel said. “I love democracy. I want to give this society to my children.”

I hadn’t planned on following up yesterday’s post with another one connected to politics, but I think it’s important to take a moment to reflect on how the U.S. presidential election is being viewed around the world, especially in light of the history that was made yesterday when Barack Obama became the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party.

An obvious place to begin is in Kenya, where Obama’s family roots have sparked an outpouring of interest and celebration. This is how The Standard newspaper of Kenya described events in an article published today:

Prime Minister Raila Odinga said Obama’s victory was a momentous occasion in history. “Barack Obama’s success will inspire us all to break the shackles of ethnic preoccupations in determining political leadership,” Raila said…

Obama’s grandmother, Mama Sarah, 86, led villagers of Alego Kogelo, Siaya, where the senator’s father — Barack Obama Senior — was born, in thanking American voters for nominating her grandchild. At the home of Obama’s father, relatives, neighbours and students celebrated the triumph…

Amid song and dance, Mama Sarah announced she was preparing for an epic journey to America to witness the swearing in ceremony of her grandson as the country’s first black president.

She said: “I will go there to witness the swearing in ceremony, and to pray for him, his family and the people of America for demonstrating unity and love beyond race and colour by picking a black person to lead them.” …

At the nearby Senator Barack Obama-Kogello Secondary School, which neighbours Mama Sarah’s home, students danced, sang and shouted: “Obama Juu! Obama Juu!” The school principal, Ms Yunita Obiero, said she announced the good news to the students at assembly in the morning after hearing of Obama’s victory.

Of course, you’d expect Kenyans to be interested in this historic event, but take a look at the front pages of these newspapers from around the globe.

The Globe and Mail from Toronto, Canada:

El Mundo from Madrid, Spain:

Peru 21 from Lima, Peru:

The United Evening News from Taipei, Taiwan:

Well, you get the idea. Needless to say, this is a story that is fascinating the rest of the world.

U.S. News and World Report has a story this week that explores how the multicultural nature and “aloha spirit” of Hawaii helped shape the beliefs of Barack Obama as a young man. It’s a glimpse into the culture of one of the most famous but perhaps least understood states in the U.S. An excerpt from the article:

In Hawaii, they call it Barack Obama’s ohana or family—a reference to his philosophy that America at its best should be a big, harmonious community like his idealized version of the Aloha State, where he was born and spent his boyhood and adolescence.

Of course, Hawaii has its own history of conflict and prejudice, but that’s not the part of the islands’ culture that Obama chooses to emphasize. Instead, it is the parallel tradition of respect for diversity, tolerance, and inclusion that he prizes as a model for what he hopes to bring to the country if he wins the presidency this fall. In fact, his Hawaiian background is, in many ways, a key to understanding who the Democratic front-runner really is and what an Obama presidency would mean.

There are other important parts of Obama’s past that also provide insight into his values and his modus operandi, but Obama says the “aloha spirit” remains his personal and political inspiration.

“I do think that the multicultural nature of Hawaii helped teach me how to appreciate different cultures and navigate different cultures, out of necessity,” Obama says. “That carries over now to the work that I do because obviously that’s part of my job, not just as a candidate but also as a senator. The second thing that I’m certain of is that what people often note as my even temperament I think draws from Hawaii. People in Hawaii generally don’t spend a lot of time, you know, yelling and screamin’ at each other. I think that there just is a cultural bias toward courtesy and trying to work through problems in a way that makes everybody feel like they’re being listened to. And I think that reflects itself in my personality as well as my political style.”

I’ve long believed that, if Barack Obama were to win this year’s presidential election, the most important outcome would be a sea change in America’s relations with and image in the rest of the world. I just came across two articles that look at how some foreign leaders see the prospect of an Obama presidency and, although there are never any guarantees for how events will unfold in reality, their responses seem to at least confirm a shared hope for change.

In the first story, Newsweek interviewed Juwono Sudarsono, the Indonesia minister of defense. Here is an excerpt from his interview:

How do you think an Obama presidency would affect U.S.-Indonesia relations?
Symbolically it would be very, very important for us, as it would be for the whole Asian [and] African continents. If Obama is elected as president, I think it would reignite the United States as the real light star of hope—that it symbolizes a multiethnic, multicultural, multireligious nation. That’s the most important aspect, the symbolism of it. Translating it into American foreign policy will be much more difficult…

So you want to be friends with America, then?
I would like to engage Indonesians, particularly poor Muslims, that under Obama, America will be a much better force for good for the world. That its size, reach, economic and political influence can provide hope … If he wins, it would create an optimism among Indonesians, particularly minorities, that perhaps in the next 10 to 15 years there can be a non-Javanese president in Indonesia. It’s doable.

In the second article, Scott MacLeod of Time recounts a fascinating discussion that he had with some Iranian leaders, who suggest that an Obama presidency could potentially transform relations between the countries. MacLeod’s whole piece is worth reading for its insights into the mind of Iranian strategists, but here is the relevant section about Obama:

Besides reflexively sympathizing with an African-American with Islamic family roots, they believe Obama’s personal experiences in that regard make him more understanding of the developing world and especially the Muslim world and hence more capable of approaching Iran with a better perspective and with more sincerity. They are also impressed with what they feel is Obama’s diplomatic, respectful language, which they see as being in utter contrast with insulting U.S. rhetoric dominant during the Bush administration.

Some Iranian officials and analysts go so far as to say that Obama’s election could be a historical turning point. As one Iranian put it to me, “This could be a moment of truth for the U.S. and for Iran.” What he probably meant was that Obama’s possible willingness to make a significant outreach to Iran could be what is needed to convince Iran’s leadership that Washington is truly serious about ending the 30 years of hostile relations…

Iranians believe such a bold diplomatic initiative by Obama would be a moment of truth for Iran in the sense that Iran’s leadership would have to decide whether to continue its “controlled” hostility to the U.S., which it uses for domestic and international support, or bite the bullet and enter into a cooperative relationship entailing major compromises on issues like the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Iranians realize that another Obama may not come on to the American scene for quite a while, and that rejection of his olive branch–if one is indeed extended– might inexorably push the region to the World War III that Bush has warned about.

 Interesting stuff. What do you think?

The Pennsylvania primary is only four days away. So here’s Baracky - channeling Rocky and new politics at the same time. It’s fun and ingenious. Take a look.

Nicholas Kristof had a thought-provoking column in the Sunday NY Times about the dumbing down of America and what this says not only about U.S. culture, but also about the potential future of our competitiveness in the global arena. An excerpt…

Americans are as likely to believe in flying saucers as in evolution. Depending on how the questions are asked, roughly 30 to 40 percent of Americans believe in each. A 34-nation study found Americans less likely to believe in evolution than citizens of any of the countries polled except Turkey.

President Bush is also the only Western leader I know of who doesn’t believe in evolution, saying “the jury is still out.” No word on whether he believes in little green men.

Only one American in 10 understands radiation, and only one in three has an idea of what DNA does. One in five does know that the Sun orbits the Earth …oh, oops.

“America is now ill with a powerful mutant strain of intertwined ignorance, anti-rationalism, and anti-intellectualism,” Susan Jacoby argues in a new book, “The Age of American Unreason.” She blames a culture of “infotainment,” sound bites, fundamentalist religion and ideological rigidity for impairing thoughtful debate about national policies.

How does any of this really affect us? Kristof suggests that…

…we as a nation will have difficulty making crucial decisions if we don’t have an intellectual climate that fosters an informed and reasoned debate. How can we decide on embryonic stem cells if we don’t understand biology? How can we judge whether to invade Iraq if we don’t know a Sunni from a Shiite? (editor’s note: for a scary view of how little even our government leaders know about this topic, check out this older post of mine.)

Our competitiveness as a nation in coming decades will be determined not only by our financial accounts but also by our intellectual accounts. In that respect, we’re at a disadvantage, particularly vis-à-vis East Asia with its focus on education.

From Singapore to Japan, politicians pretend to be smarter and better- educated than they actually are, because intellect is an asset at the polls. In the United States, almost alone among developed countries, politicians pretend to be less worldly and erudite than they are…

There’s no simple solution, but the complex and incomplete solution is a greater emphasis on education at every level. And maybe, just maybe, this cycle has run its course, for the last seven years perhaps have discredited the anti-intellectualism movement. President Bush, after all, is the movement’s epitome — and its fruit.

This past week saw a unique event in the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, as residents trekked to the polls for the first time in the country’s history at the behest of the king, who voluntarily decided to give up royal power in order to move his country towards a democratic future. The Washington Post has the story:

Without revolution or bloodshed, this tiny Himalayan kingdom became the world’s newest democracy Monday, as wildflower farmers, traditional healers, Buddhist folk artists and computer engineers voted in their country’s first parliamentary elections, ending a century of absolute monarchy.

In a historic event for this country of 700,000, entire families took to winding mountain roads, traveling in some cases for days in minivans, on horseback and on foot to cast their ballots, marking Bhutan’s transition to a constitutional monarchy.

Despite concerns that Bhutanese would be turned off by the rough-and-tumble world of politics, more than 79 percent of the estimated 318,000 registered voters turned out at polling places.

It was the king, as well as his father and predecessor, who ordered his subjects to vote, in the belief that democracy would foster stability in a country wedged between China and India and known as the Land of the Thunder Dragon…

Before abdicating the throne to his son in 2006, the country’s fourth king, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, had taken methodical steps to give power to the people, saying that he believed no leader should be “chosen by birth instead of merit.”

As part of his “gross national happiness” plan, he reformed the country’s feudal system, giving land and jobs to the poorest farmers and launching free health and education systems. He and his Harvard- and Oxford-educated son, King Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck, remain immensely popular. Many Bhutanese still refer to both father and son as “His Majesty.”…

The fifth king, who is 28, will remain commander in chief of the army and will be able to appoint five members to the upper house of parliament. Many Bhutanese said they hoped his opinions would continue to carry enormous weight.

Interesting story in the Christian Science Monitor about female leaders from 45 countries who met in India last week to mark International Women’s Day and to discuss a feminine style of leadership that they believe could help move the world beyond war.

She is one of several hundred prominent female leaders from 45 countries who have come to India this week to seek ways to raise women’s voices worldwide, hoping that their ideas – so often ignored – begin to move the world away from war.

It is a unique approach to International Women’s Day – and intentionally so, says Dena Merriam, who has organized “Making Way for the Feminine,” a five-day conference that began Thursday in Jaipur.

“This is not about empowering women,” says Ms. Merriam, who also co-chaired the United Nations’ Millennium World Peace Summit in 2000. “It is about how women can transform society to help us find new ways of addressing conflict.”

There are men here, too. The goal, participants say, is not to antagonize men. Yet each believes that women bring to the issue of conflict resolution