Why respect is overrated: view from fairy-tale land

Why respect is overrated | Fox News:

"As a conflict resolution specialist with 20 years of experience facilitating peaceful talks between warring parties in the Middle East, Cuba, Sri Lanka, Colombia, and Northern Ireland, you’re probably surprised to hear that I think respect is overrated."

No, Donna, I'm not.  You are a wealthy Harvard "peace" consultant.  You write nice, little cozy thought-pieces that are at home in Western  parlors at tea time...perhaps over a glass of sherry.

The places you mention in this little Rodney Dangerfield piece (btw, when will it be in HBR?  It's SUCH original thinking...can't wait!!) define respect differently than we in the west do.  The guy who gets the most respect is the guy with the most guns.  Period, end of story.  Only perhaps in Northern Ireland would your thinking have even the tiniest bit of traction with the populace, as well as the negotiators.  Possibly.

In the Middle East, Cuba, Sri Lanka, Colombia, Cambodia, the Phippines, Kashmir, 95 percent of Africa, and a dozen other hotspots -- plus the coldspot of Russia -- the only path to respect is muscle.  Arms.  He who has the most guns has the most respect.

Ask Thailand's military.  Or Turkey's military.  Both have kept the peace for decades because everybody understands quite clearly who has the guns and who doesn't.

Think Yassar Arafat turned down Ehud Barak's peace plan -- a plan the Palestinians may never see again -- because he didn't feel respected?  Puhlease.  War and conflict and terrorism and hating Israel was his business.  Not peace.  He chose terrorism to get respect....from his own people.  And it worked.

But, please, by all means...please keep writing these little fairy-tale dream sequences...the Upper West Side needs something vapid and vacuous to discuss at tea time to help them feel relevant.

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