Home | Novidades | Revistas | Nossos Livros | Links Amigos ADDENDUM - Justification
By Roseli Fischmann, to complement the letter of nomination of HERBERT C. KELMAN for the UNESCO-MADANJEET SINGH PRIZE on Promotion of tolerance and non-violence
“My life is my message.”
Mahatma Gandhi“There are some structural core issues in Dr. Kelman's work and life to be stressed in this nomination. In defending the ethics of action against injustice by non-violent means, aiming at peace, Herbert Kelman exemplarily practices his ethical commitments as a public person and a scholar, starting by making the same demands of himself as he makes of others. This is more than practicing what he preaches, since he has been practicing long before he began preaching, if we can consider teaching activities as preaching. This core characteristic combines with a hallmark of Kelman's methodology, which is the presence of dialectics in questions he has been addressing in theory and practice, not just in his academic work, but throughout his life.
As a scientist, Herb Kelman questions some of the attitudes and assumptions of science and scientists, while attributing special value to the important contributions of science to humanity. As an American citizen, he questions United States policies and practices that risk human dignity for all, not just his compatriots, while elucidating the important role of the country for world destiny. As a Jew supporting Israel, he questions Israeli attitudes toward Palestinians, while emphasizing the importance of full recognition of both partners in that part of the globe. As a Holocaust survivor, he questions oversimplified explanations of the motivations of perpetrators, analyzing the process of dehumanization that both victims and perpetrators undergo, each in their own distinctive way. These points will be further developed and exemplified one by one in the appended justifications.”
(From Roseli Fischmann's letter of nomination of Herbert C. Kelman to the UNESCO-Madanjeet Singh Prize)A) As a scientist, Herb Kelman questions some of the attitudes and assumptions of science and scientists
In 1951, as a result of an empirical study for his PhD candidacy at Yale University advised by Carl Hovland, Herbert Kelman presented a celebrated dissertation, published as article in 1953 (Annex II-5), exploring some of the conditions under which influence, for instance in the context of mass communication, leads merely to public conformity and those under which it leads to private (attitude) change. In the discussion of the experiment, he raised the issue of the internalization of group norms as an important topic for further research. Indeed soon later__during his three post-doctoral years in Baltimore, in 1951-54__he developed the distinction between processes of social influence and carried out the first experimental test of the model. Its theory and the experimental results in detail had then published as book-length essay, in 1958, becoming a classic its conceptualization on the three processes of attitude change: compliance, identification, and internalization. Its fruits blossomed for a long time: it was published in different versions as articles and chapters of books, republished in different journals, in different languages, over decades (Annexes II-6, 7 and 8). Herb's first prize from a scientific society__the AAAS__came from that work as first reported in 1956 (please, see CV), beginning his reputation as a respected scientist. Fifty years later, in 2006, the Annual Review of Psychology honored Herb, inviting him to write the prefatory article__traditionally a review essay of the author's lifelong work__for the volume of the year. Dr. Kelman summarizes in that article the structure of his accomplishments, demonstrating coherent and fruitful theoretical accomplishments over decades (Annex II-9), although he assumed them as lifetime “work-in-progress”.Those two events are here invoked to prove the higher recognition Dr. Kelman has received as a scientist, as a social psychologist and beyond. Obviously, Herb Kelman could rest on the glory of his accomplishments, if he wished to do so. Nevertheless, he chose the road of questioning, taking philosophical reflection on science as one of the permanent axes of his work. Moreover, as he proposes to develop his work dialectically, so does he develop his questioning. One route is directed to questions concerned with scientific assumptions, methods and results, another to scientists' attitudes towards social reality, on national and international levels. Then, dialectically, he shifts to routes of proposing. Herb presents different possibilities for dealing with the ethical commitments he proposes to science and scientists, in additional to endless crosscutting possibilities in gathering them all.
Dr. Kelman first have played a central role__in talks, publications, and organizational activities__in raising the consciousness of the profession to the issues regarding the ethics of research with human subjects, and one of his articles on the theme also had been considered a classic (Annex II-10). His contributions here were both in calling attention to the issue and in providing conceptual analysis. Herb also (along with colleagues) addressed these issues in relation to cross-cultural research, itself a very special and sensitive theme.
Another of those paths is regarding responsibilities generated to scientists by adopting social psychological perspectives of the individual and social changes. Quoting Kelman (1968) in “Manipulation of Human Behavior”: “The social scientist today__and particularly the practitioner and investigator of behavior change__finds himself in a situation that has many parallels to that of the nuclear physicist. The knowledge about the control and manipulation of human behavior that he is producing or applying is beset with enormous ethical ambiguities, and he must accept responsibility for its social consequences” (1968, p.13 - Annex II-11 and also, see Annex-II-12).
The chapter he wrote with Donald Warwick (1973) on the relations between micro and macro approaches to social change (Annex II-13) is yet another example of Kelman's dialectic means. In that work the authors point out substantive contributions that social psychology can offer, emphasizing also how in the methodological and theoretical debate are already present the possible contributions to social questions in terms of policies aiming at the betterment of human welfare. For instance, the article recalls Paulo Freire's work in Brazil and other Latin American countries (p. 51-52), indicating its value in changing the view on illiterates, giving them worth as possible agents of change, shaping their own destiny through means that education could offer, giving a new meaning to the ability to read; Kelman discussed Freire in a time when the Brazilian educator was in exile because of Brazil's military dictatorship.
Regarding scientists' attitudes towards social reality, on national and international levels, an excellent example is the book “A Time to Speak: on Human Values and Social Research”, 1968 (Annex II-11), a collection of essays strictly devoted to the theme of the responsibility of science and scientists. This point will be expanded upon in Part B of this Addendum.
Other important point in Herb's focus on social responsibility of science and scientists is related to peace research, as he asserts in his approach to the “peace research movement”. Among others, two of his articles, written within a decade of each other, present an important retrospective on the history and status of Peace Research (Annexes II-14 and II-15). Considering that the field of studies of war and peace traditionally is considered as arisen from the period between the two world wars of the twentieth century, Herb pioneers emphasizing in his work the behavioral science perspective in the field (Annex II-16), promoting much more the idea of “international behavior” as he did in the book “International Behavior: A social-psychological analysis” (Annex II-17). That book was published as a result of a multi-year effort led by Dr. Kelman in the 1960s. It represents the first comprehensive attempt to bring together the contributions of social-psychological theory and research to the study of international relations. It joined scholars working from different disciplinary bases on the common theme of international relations, centered in the concept of “international behavior” and the role of Social and Human Sciences in its development. To develop such interdisciplinary effort, about half of the authors were social psychologists and half were political scientists; one was an anthropologist. For many years the book served as a basic text for graduate students in international relations around the world.
Included in that focus of international studies connected to questioning science, Herb invites reflection (once more beginning with his own commitment to reflect) on international cooperation in psychological research. He has been dedicated to that for a long time. For instance, in 1964, in collaboration with E.P. Hollander, he published an article with suggestions for the United Nations International Cooperation Year that would be celebrated in the next year (Annex II-18). Another of Herb's accomplishments in the 1960s, with Raphael Ezekiel and the collaboration of Rose Kelman, is an extensive, systematic evaluation of the exchange program for broadcasters, including professionals from approximately fifteen countries, for sharing activities at carried out by the Communication Research Center at Brandeis University, sponsored by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, US Department of State. That evaluation included a phase in the field, which took the authors and collaborator to the countries of the participants, including countries from Africa, Asia, Oceania, Eastern Europe, Europe, Scandinavia and North America. The results were presented in the book “Cross-National Encounters: The Personal Impact of an Exchange Program” (Annex II-19, which is just the summary of the book).
In addition, Dr. Kelman has been seeking to demonstrate how the developed world and developing world are interdependent in the field of science. He proposes a respectful, inclusive approach with the developing world (with us, I say as Brazilian), as partners, not as the object of any particular favor or generosity from colleagues from the developed world. For instance, he organized and chaired an international conference on social-psychological research in developing countries that was held at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, in December 1966 - January 1967, with participants from twenty-five countries, including Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The conference was co-sponsored by the Nigerian Association of the Behavioural Sciences, the Scientific Council of Africa, the International Social Science Council, and the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI). For the SPSSI, of which he was president at the time, the conference was a contribution to the already mentioned U.N.'s International Cooperation Year (1965). In addition, at Harvard University Dr. Kelman often sponsored scholars from developing countries, supporting and strengthening relevant works not yet sufficiently known in the international sphere.
Herb's personal commitment to science involves his active participation in scientific associations, in the creation of new journals, and in supporting those that already have been issued (please, see CV). For instance, among other important positions in scientific societies (see CV), he was the President of the Peace Science Society, international scientific organization (1975-76), and he has been on many editorial boards of important publications in those fields. Considering his attitude regarding not just questioning but as well getting new initiatives, Herb played a major role in a number of foundational activities towards establishing new societies or scientific networks and/or journals. A good example is his involvement in the project of the Journal of Conflict Resolution, an experience which deserves to be told.
In 1951 (while he was still a student at Yale) his colleague Arthur Gladstone and him published a letter in the American Psychologist, in which we proposed that some of the basic assumptions of the pacifist/Gandhian approach were consistent with psychological theories and findings and that it would be important to subject them to systematic research (Annex II-20). Some of the correspondence and meetings generated by this letter led, in the following year, to the establishment of the Research Exchange on the Prevention of War__which was, to his knowledge as Herb's tells, the very first organization dedicated to peace research. The narrative in his own words is the following: “While at CASBS (Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, where Herb had been a member of the very first group of Fellows), in 1954-55, I convened a group of Fellows, including Kenneth Boulding and Anatol Rapoport (who were already very well known leaders in their fields but later became stars in the peace research movement) to tell them about the Research Exchange and get their advice on how to make it more effective and attract more International Relations specialists to this work. The meetings we held at CASBS led to the decision to start the new Journal of Conflict Resolution and to base it at the University of Michigan. A few years later, the University of Michigan faculty members who collaborated on putting out the Journal decided, in turn, to establish the Center for Research on Conflict Resolution, with which I was closely affiliated during my years (1962-69) at University of Michigan. The Journal of Conflict Resolution was the first journal in the field of peace research, which will be completing its Fiftieth year of publication at the end of this year (2006).”
Another sensitive point regarding tolerance and the promotion of the respect for others to which Herb Kelman, as a scholar, has been applying himself is the quest for better communication through the languages of others. His research has focused on the role of language in nation building (particularly in newly independent states in the developing world). The main point was to propose that development of a national language can contribute to uniting a diverse population and creating sentimental and instrumental attachments to the state; but__in a multilingual society__language may also be a source of disunity, competition, and alienation (Annex II-21). On the other hand, there are autobiographical bases for such concern, as I understand it. According to him, when he was young he had to decide on how to proceed to college, and he chose studying English as a way to be a better writer__a vocation he felt was his own, whatever area he would work in later.
Probably that insight came first from his tough experiences during his first year in Antwerp. Besides living as a young refugee under the threat of the eminent arrival of Nazism to Belgium, as soon as arriving in Antwerp he had to study in a school which had Flemish__which he did not speak__as its teaching language, before getting a slot in a Jewish school. Nevertheless, the basic teaching language in the Jewish school that he attended when the new school year started was also Flemish. His narrative is that his Flemish became quite fluent__and, he tells in addition, at that age it would almost certainly have become fluent even if he had not transferred to the Jewish school. Herb and his colleagues also had a French lesson every day, which helped to make his French fluent (although he had learned some French before, in private lessons in Vienna). Half of the day in this school (called the Tachkemoni School) was devoted to the study of Hebrew and to Jewish Studies (which was taught in Hebrew); so his Hebrew, which he had started learning in Vienna at age 4, became fluent. The language that he mostly used in talking to his classmates and to his fellow-members of the Zionist youth group to which he belonged was Yiddish--a language to which he had had a lot of exposure through the Yiddish theater in Vienna, but which became a regularly spoken language for him in Antwerp. As a result of all this, he came away from his year in Belgium fluent in 5 languages (including, of course, his native language, German)--none of which was English!
Decades later, as at first Herb seeks to apply to himself what he preaches and he had concerns regarding the interaction between scientists from different backgrounds, particularly aiming to avoid the establishment of any relation of sovereignty attached to the conditions of the countries of precedence and the spoken languages, when he was the President of the Interamerican Society of Psychology (1976-79) he took Spanish classes for he was interested in promoting the integration of researchers from North, Central and South America and the Caribbean. In a recent article, Dr. Kelman mentions how he still regrets having considered himself too old to learn Arabic in the late 1970s when he decided to concentrate on the relations between Israelis and Palestinians.
B) As an American citizen, he questions United States policies and practices that risk human dignity for all
In 1945, at the age of eighteen, Herb Kelman was introduced to American peace movements by his sister Esther and his brother-in-law Max Ticktin, a rabbi. My first impression of his everyday work environment came many years later, in 2003 when I arrived in Cambridge to work with him as a visiting scholar. On the door of his office hung a beautiful poster of War Resisters' International, with a big image of Gandhi sitting on the ground, legs crossed, for that organization was honoring the Mahatma in the celebration of the Centenary Year of his birthday. The poster was from the year 1969, and Herb keeps it there to this moment in 2006 (Annex II-22).In the intervening sixty years, Dr. Kelman dedicated himself to intense work against intolerance, in favor of non-violence, aiming at the promotion of peace, with the United States as the everyday ground for his efforts, although the work he lives as a mission often leads him to other countries and other regions of the world.
As a result of his first contacts with pacifists thanks to his family, Herb Kelman got in touch with CORE, Congress for Racial Equality, an organization strongly influenced by Mohandas Gandhi's principles. At that time, CORE activities were synchronically working on behalf of civil rights while Mahatma fasted for independence for India and other relevant issues, inspiring CORE action. As a college student, the young Herb participated in non-violent direct action against segregation in New Jersey, occupying the ticket line of public swimming pools, and he was arrested in one of those activities in the summer of 1947.
During the first years of 1950, Dr. Kelman went to Baltimore as a Post Doctoral Fellow at John Hopkins University, suffering the impact of his first experience in an officially segregated urban environment. His testimony is that it was impossible for him to overcome that environment as if it meant nothing to him. He then founded a branch of CORE in Baltimore to combat the politics of segregation by non-violent direct action as he was trained to do. At that time he met and then married Rose, also an activist in those pacifism “combating” activities, such as sit-ins in public eating places. Simultaneously in the 1950s, Dr. Kelman had been working intensively in Baltimore and in Los Angeles. He held the position of CORE National Field Representative (1954-1960).
Martin Luther King's main mentor and advisor on Gandhian methods was Bayard Rustin, a leader and (from his office at the Fellowship of Reconciliation) strong supporter of CORE. It is also relevant to mention some achievements of CORE in the struggle against racism that became famous worldwide, inspiring related experiences, since they are examples of Herb's network. Examples are “Brown versus Board of Education”__the founding event of the desegregation of schools in the US__and the resistance of Ms. Rosa Parks by taking a front, white-reserved seat on her bus as a form of non-violent action, as had been imagined by the members of CORE.
Herb Kelman's activities in favor of desegregation and civil rights are a source of pride to many in America, since the US historically has the honorific role of world leadership in questions of civil rights and race matters, particularly from the President John F. Kennedy mandate. In the already mentioned book “A Time to Speak” (Annex II-11), the chapter “The Relevance of Nonviolent Action” (pp.229-260) reflects on such experiences with CORE, among others. Dr. Kelman stresses powerful possibilities of nonviolent action in the face of social challenges of racial discrimination and segregation, as then in discussion in the United States, oriented by values and methods proposed by Gandhi (Annex II-1, pp.248-9). Although Herb was applying himself in a kind of domestic struggle, his results still have international repercussions, particularly when considering how those matters have been combined with Human Rights' international claims worldwide.
On other occasions, Dr. Kelman directly questioned US public policies on the international level. Those times he wrote, taught, and acted as an American with hope for the best possibilities for his country, as a citizen of the world, and as a scholar, applying experimental research in social psychology to social responsibility.
At the time of the Korean War, Dr. Kelman invoked the condition of Conscientious Objector. Here, in his own voice, is this relevant and sensitive experience: “We were in the middle of the Korean War and, having finished my studies, I was called up for induction shortly after I came to Baltimore. I had registered as a conscientious objector, but my New Haven draft board denied me CO status (on the basis of a narrow interpretation of the religious criteria for that status). I lost my appeals, and, having exhausted my legal options, I chose to refuse induction. I was prepared to go to jail__knowing that the customary sentence for draft refusal was a year and a day__and I was making plans for using my prison time most productively. Fortunately, however, the grand jury that considered my case, on the recommendation of the district attorney, ruled in my favor. The draft board finally gave up on me, granted me the CO classification, and even agreed to designate my NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health) fellowship as the alternative service required of COs in those days.” (Annex II-1, p.247).
At the time of the Vietnam War and in protest against it, Herb refused to pay the telephone tax, which was a specific war tax and the only one, in practical terms, within his reach to decide to pay or not (for instance, the income tax was__as regularly is for all__withheld from his salary, so he had little choice). One of the costs of that refusal was that his taxes were audited for three years in a row__definitely not a random event. In the book “A Time to Speak” (Annex II-11), the chapter “Alternative Perspectives on Foreign Policy: the Intellectual and the Dissenter” (pp. 261-332), Herb presents reflections on the Vietnam War and on the role of the intellectual, not as a militant of a particular party, but as a public voice to propose reflection, having as bases the results of his/her research.His experience in applying his scholarly effort to this theme became an important work. At that time he mentored V. Lee Hamilton on her PhD dissertation, resulting later in a publication on the My Lai massacre, “Crimes of Obedience” (Annex II-23__also, please see Dr. Jorge Domínguez's comments in his letter of nomination). It is a central study on the relations between authority and obedience (to be focused on again in part D of this addendum). Dr. Kelman did though use his country as a starting point of analyses, suggesting some possible directions and actions to prevent any similar situations in the future, possibly to be applied universally.
Recently, in 2005, when all the photos and information on Abu-Ghraib became public to the world through American media, Dr. Kelman accepted the invitation of the Red Cross to write an article on torture (Annex II-24), also published in the book “Crimes of War: Iraq” (2006), edited by Falk, Gendzier, & Lifton.
C) As a Jew supporting Israel, he questions Israeli attitudes toward Palestinians
In the 1930s, the young Herb was in Vienna participating in the Zionist youth movement, which was important to his development to the point that he states: “I grew up in the Zionist youth movement”. Zionism was even a source of feelings of belonging when Herb had to face his first two years as a refugee in Antwerp, and then the first times in New York, when he became affiliated with the Zionist local groups and connected with his past experiences. About his affiliation with the group, particularly in the immediate aftermath of the Anschluss, he wrote in one of his autobiographical articles: "I know that my membership in this group, my commitment to Zionism, and my strong Jewish identification in general sustained me during this period and enabled me to hold on to my self-worth in the face of the calculated degradation of the Nazi onslaught" (Annex II-3, p. 199). In 2006 Dr. Kelman is recognized as one of the most important facilitators of the possibilities of dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians, to the point that influentials involved in that conflict, even under the hardest conditions, tell him to never stop trying, as a symbol of still having peaceful alternatives to destructive conflict.In the shape of these more than seventy years, the questions Herb has proposed brought his work to at least three different and interconnected developments. One is regarding the broader relations between Israelis and the Arab World. Another is focused in the relations between Israelis and Palestinians. A third one is the enormous potential of theoretical and practical development his experience brought up, opening possibilities of better understanding international conflict processes in general__which potential Herb has made actual, leading and in cooperation with his colleagues, collaborators__academics and practitioners__, and students of all levels and from the most different academic, national, ethnic and religious backgrounds.
Although the theme of the Land of Israel has been present in Dr. Kelman's life as it has been for many Jews, to summarize it briefly one must focus on two main events. While the Six Day War called his analytical efforts to the relations of Arabs and Israelis, the Yom Kippur War had a special impact on him, given his circumstances then. Recovering from his heart attack, Herb was following the news on that war when he decided to put his life at the service of the dialogue among Arabs and Israelis and, especially, among Palestinians and Israelis__or to say it more properly, at the service of peace in the Middle East. As Herb already had high public respectability from his previous work and more than twenty years researching, teaching and publishing, he soon became recognized as a Middle Eastern studies expert.
The context and theoretical/practical basis for that personal decision had, amongst his professional background, one experience which the development of his work showed as relevant. In the mid 1960s, Herb had the opportunity to meet with the Australian former diplomat and then scholar John Burton, whose theory and practical works were on conflict resolution. Dr. Burton invited Dr. Kelman to participate personally to compose the third party team of contributors in an exercise on conflict resolution, in actual practice, on Cyprus, held in 1966 in London. Herb shared over the years other personal experiences and exchanges with Dr. Burton, but that one in special opened his confidence on the possibilities of such work, wondering how to combine his own theory on processes of influence, international behavior, and the role of communication in social environments, including international relations.
Dr. Kelman then decided to develop efforts towards the case of the Israel-Arab world conflict in 1967. He had started talking in Israel to Israeli academics, proposing the possibility of building a process through communication and negotiation with the Arabs to overcome the difficulties and barriers (which later would be an important theme of his research, as seen in the Annex II-25). His goal was and still is a peaceful coexistence among neighbors in the Middle East. To him, “someone had to begin”, he said then to his Israeli colleagues.
It had been a process of reflections, visits and conversations, writing articles and teaching as usually, and in 1971 Dr. Kelman and Dr. Stephen Cohen__then a young faculty member at Harvard__ had agreed to jointly teach a graduate seminar on social-psychological analysis of international relations at Harvard. In Herb's words: “Steve had read a draft of my first article on problem-solving workshops in conflict resolution (the published version appeared in 1972), and he suggested that we try a workshop in conjunction with the seminar. It turned out to be an Israeli-Palestinian workshop.” The participants of that first workshop at Harvard were graduate students, young professionals or visiting fellows/scholars mostly recruited in the Boston area (known as a dense academic urban location).
After that first Israeli-Palestinian workshop still in 1971, Herb and Steve Cohen agreed that there was some problem with having two Jews as the third party in Arab-Israeli workshops. Herb tells that: “We did, however, have a strong interest in this work and felt that we had a contribution to make and should not be disqualified because of our ethnicity. We decided, therefore, that__if we are to continue this line of work__we will need to develop an ethnically balanced team that includes scholars of Arab origin. In 1973, when we decided to invest major effort in this work, we began to form this team. The first person to join us was Edward Azar, a political scientist/international relations specialist of Lebanese origin. Subsequently we were joined by Samir Anabtawi, a political scientist of Palestinian origin; and Hussein Tuma, a psychologist of Iraqi origin.”.
In the summer of 1975, Herb and Steve decided to visit parts of the Arab world__to learn about it first-hand, to establish contacts, to explore possibilities for future work. Indeed it was the first visit to that part of the world for Herb, Rose and Steve. Herb's narrative brings that Ed Azar__who was intimately familiar with Lebanon and Egypt and had many contacts there__was their guide for the trip to Egypt and Lebanon. Steve, Rose, and Herb then continued on their own to Jordan and Israel, where they also started to establish Palestinian contacts. These were Herb's founding activities for that that became intense exchange joining him, Israelis, Palestinians and the Arab World.
In 1976, Dr. Boutros Boutros Ghali__who was at the time Professor of International Law and International Relations at Cairo University and President of the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo__visited the Massachusetts Institute of Technology__MIT, in Cambridge. Herb Kelman was interested in meeting him, because he was a leading Egyptian academic and because Herb wanted to explore the possibility of some collaboration with that center, which had Dr. Boutros-Ghali as the president. So Herb called Dr. Boutros-Ghali and, when we had trouble finding a suitable time to meet, they agreed that Herb pick him up at his hotel and drive him to the airport. So they had plenty of time to talk while waiting for Dr. Boutros-Ghali's flight. It was a face-to-face talk, without interruptions or intervening situations or people, just the two of them. In addition to other themes, they jointly came up with the idea of organizing a Roundtable on Mutual Images in Arab-Israeli Relations, to be held at the Al-Ahram Center. Ed Azar told Herb then that the very use of the term "Arab-Israeli Relations" was an innovation in the Egyptian context. They had spoken about the "Arab-Israeli Conflict," but never before used the word "relations" in this context.
The Roundtable at the Al-Ahram Center took place in November of 1976 over a three-day period at the Al-Ahram headquarters. It brought together Herb's team, with practically all of the important political and social scientists of Egypt. Herb and his colleagues talked about their work__its purpose, assumptions, procedures; and the researchers from the Al-Ahram Center spoke about their work__particularly their analysis of Israeli politics. Among the things he heard from the Egyptian participants, two things stood out in particular for Herb: First, the Egyptians were very interested in learning about Israeli society. Second, in their remarks they frequently referred to the "post-settlement" period. Herb states about that exchange: “These two elements led me to the conclusion that there must be some new thinking going on in Egyptian intellectual/political circles about a settlement of the conflict and a change in the relationship with Israel”. After the round table, most of the Herb's team went to Israel and there they shared their impressions on that experience, provoking different reactions from Israelis to whom they talk, opening the possibility of new (and good) expectations.
Also at the opportunity of the Roundtable, an Egyptian professor came to him to talk about an invitation to be a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at American University of Cairo. Herb said it would be a pleasure; however he would like to hear from the other inviting colleagues if they were aware that he, Herb, was Jewish, in case that makes a difference. The colleague returned to tell him it would not be a problem at all__Herb would be welcome.
When Herb was preparing for travel, in October 1977, Dr. Boutros-Ghali had been appointed as Minister of State. Part of the new political vision in the international relations of that country included a historical step from Egypt: President Anwar Sadat decided to visit Israel officially as a sign of diplomatic recognition, opening conversations__a decision which later would cost no less than his life, as known (Annex II-26). Dr. Boutros-Ghali played a central role in Sadat's initiative and went to Jerusalem with him. In fact, the historic decision broke out a crisis; the Minister of State of Foreign Affairs resigned in protest and then Dr. Boutros-Ghali was designated to the position. This happened exactly some days before Herb Kelman went to Cairo and in fact he was in Israel during the days of that historical visit. Then Herb initiated his term as Distinguished Visiting Professor in December 1977 and both universities, Harvard University and American University of Cairo, had published headlines in their respective campuses' newspapers about Herb's presence in Egypt and also about his preliminary analysis on Mr. Sadat's visit to Israel (Annexes II-27 and II-28). Shortly after his arrival in Cairo in November 1977, Herb had a meeting with Boutros-Ghali at his office at the Foreign Ministry. As Herb wrote about that meeting: he "greeted me very warmly and said words to the effect: Do you see the process we started at the Boston airport last year?" As Herb explains, Boutros-Ghali clearly saw the Al-Ahram roundtable as part of the larger process of rethinking Egyptian policy toward Israel, which led up to Sadat's historic initiative. (Annex II-26, pp. 113-114)
Another important relationship Dr. Kelman had the initiative to open and nurture was the one he established with Mr. Yasser Arafat. Indeed, Herb wanted to meet with Arafat, both in order to have a first-hand opportunity to learn about his thinking, and to tell him about his work in the hope that he would give the green light to people who might come to him to ask if it was alright to participate in Herb's workshops (Annex II-29). So he decided to try to arrange a meeting on his trip to Beirut in January 1980. As Herb presented in his narrative: “I activated three channels; the one who actually got me on his calendar was Shafiq Al-Hout. I did wait for an invitation for several days and had given up on the night before we were scheduled to leave Beirut. And then__after 11 PM, as I was getting ready to go to bed__the call came (‘I am downstairs to take you to see the chairman').” Beirut was in the middle of a civil war, and that was the night when Herb went to see Arafat for their first meeting.
More than twenty years later he remarked to me carefully that he has been told that some people, for instance journalists, who were brought to see Arafat, were blindfolded so that they would not know the location of his office, so for security reasons. However he says with respect in his narrative that: “I was not blindfolded__probably an indication that I was trusted.” He crossed the night with Arafat during more than two hours of conversation. Warmly he still remembers that: “In my meeting with Arafat, he noticed that I had a bad cold and he said: “I know just what you need__I must order you some of our white tea. He then asked his staff to bring me what turned out to be rose hip tea. I think it helped my cold!”. He had other conversations with Arafat, which he published in articles (Annex II.30 e II.31), developing a good relationship with him based on mutual consideration. In June 2004, Herb had provided for his wife and himself a way of getting to Ramallah to have a personal meeting with Mr. Arafat, when he was not feeling well at all, and which turned out to be their last exchange on their common work.
Historically Dr. Kelman's attitudes towards Palestinians and Israelis have made possible the development of many different activities, beyond the workshops, all of them driven to primarily offering opportunity of people from the both groups in conflict meeting, then building trust among them, facilitating the possibilities of negotiation. (Annex II-32) For instance, there were meetings that Herb carried out under confidentiality due to the public role many times played by the protagonists, who were influential representatives from the parties in conflict. Many times he offered his home as faithful place to those people who were eventually open just to a meeting one-by-one; however, I would like to mention that I learned about those meetings from one of the letters of support to this candidacy, not from him. This is just an example of the ethical commitment and loyalty Herb practices himself, making him confident to all those people who are in need of concrete reflective and interactive help, in a strictly confident climate, to get new resources to apply in their responsibilities as leaders of groups in conflict. At the same time, bearing in mind the same commitment, it is easy to understand that most of the times Herb probably will not receive the full recognition he would deserve, because many of his accomplishments he has not made public for he will always takes confidentiality in respect of his partners in first place.
The many workshops Herb developed joining Israelis and Palestinians over thirty five years have allowed a new design of practice__the interactive problem solving workshop__in the context of international conflict analysis and resolution as theoretical framework, with the possibility of applications to other situations of conflict where human needs could be involved. As an academic and practical result, Dr. Kelman trained students in the theory and practice of international conflict resolution at Harvard for more than 30 years, allowing his experience to consistently spread all over the world (see Dr. Jorge Domínguez's letter of nomination and Annexes II-1 to II-3, in addition to the letters of support).
This framework, as proposed and developed by Herbert Kelman, involves having one pillar in national identity, another in the process of influence, and yet another in the communication process, all of them involved in touching values, internalization, and changing attitudes. His work over many years helped to lay the ground, for example, for the Oslo Agreements and the Geneva Initiative (Annex II-33). As theoretical results from all those processes the chapter “Conflict Analysis and Resolution”, written by Dr. Kelman and Dr. Ronald Fisher for the Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology, gives “a social-psychological approach to the analysis and resolution of international and intercommunal conflicts” (Annex II-34).
Beyond the workshops, from the 1980s Herb developed at the Weatherhead Center groups of research on conflict resolution and simulation of workshops to prepare people from many countries on the methodology he developed and keeps increasing through its practice. In the late 1980s, a group of Herb's students, with his enthusiastic support, formed a working group on conflict analysis and resolution. After Herb raised funds from Hewlett Foundation, that group became the Program of International Conflict Analysis and Resolution (PICAR), which from 1993 to 2003 represented a privileged space for such debate and preparation of scholars and practitioners. Herb dedicates the deepest recognition to the Weather Center of International Affairs at Harvard, affirming: “All of my work in this field, before and after PICAR, was carried out under the auspices of the Center”.
As it has been detailed in Dr. Domínguez's letter of nomination, PICAR contributed to the general intellectual life at the Center. As told before, nowadays Herb is Emeritus and besides other activities, including uninterrupted publishing, his permanent contribution to the Center has been the continuity of the two central regular activities which sprout from and as part of his efforts towards the fair solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. One is the Middle East Seminar, which still is an international reference on that matter, held as a joint cooperation of the Weatherhead Center and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard; Herb chaired the seminar from 1975 to 1996 and since 1996 he co-chairs the Middle East Seminar with Dr. Lenore Martin and Dr. Sara Roy, bringing people who are making History in that part of the globe (see Dr. Martin's and Dr. Roy's letters of support on the public and academic role of that seminar). At the time of PICAR closing, in 2003, the Seminar on Conflict Analysis and Resolution had a new beginning, with the new name of the “Herbert C. Kelman Seminar on Conflict Analysis and Resolution”, which still continues to be active and innovative, under the leadership of Donna Hicks, who also had been Deputy Director of the PICAR (see Dr. Hicks' letter of support)__that is the second structural activity to which Herb is permanently dedicated at the Center.
Therefore, it is possible to say that Herb Kelman had been actively present in relevant moments of the Middle East History. In the prologue of the first publication in English of his article on “The Psychological Impact of the Sadat visit on Israeli Society”, Herb presents an analytical retrospect on his visit to Cairo. The article had originally been written to be lectured in 1977, as part of Herb's activities as Distinguished Visiting Professor at the American University of Cairo. Once delivered, it was immediately translated into Arabic, and published in full in the weekend edition of Al-Ahram and later reprinted in a commemorative publication on Sadat's trip to Jerusalem. In 2005, at the time of publishing it in the Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology (Annex II-26), Herb presented it as a celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Egyptian__Israeli peace treaty (2004) and states about that: “I still consider it a historic turning point although clearly it is not__I prefer to say, not yet__fulfilled itself”. Some more paragraphs and Herb comments on the Oslo Agreement: “That accord, of course, is another breakthrough that has not (again, I would say, not yet) fulfilled itself.”
As Herb shared with Boutros-Ghali in different ways that important phase of the Egypt opening to Israel, many of the people involved in the Oslo Agreement, directly or indirectly, had participated in earlier years in his problem-solving workshops for politically influential Israelis and Palestinians. It's not insignificant that Mr. Arafat__the person previously dismissed by the political mainstream as a terrorist but first recognized by Herb Kelman as the best possibility for effective dialogue with Palestinians__was the person to sign the Oslo Agreements (1993) and receive the Nobel Peace Prize for that, together with the late Mr. Yitzhak Rabin and Mr. Shimon Peres (Annex II-35). It proved that Mr. Arafat was indeed the influential leader Herb Kelman said he was. Indeed he made the most concrete step to date in favor of peace between Israelis and Palestinians (Annexes 36 and 37). Following his assertive that to solve a conflict it is necessary to consider needs, fears and concerns of the groups in conflict, Herb directs his expectation to the point that could demonstrate why the promises that those accords are not fulfilled (yet): “Nor it will be fulfilled without a solution to the Palestinian problem based on the establishment of an independent, secure, and viable Palestinian state alongside of an Israel that is fully accepted in the Middle East.” (Annex II-26, p.112).
To conclude this part of the addendum, one more emblematic example of Herb's courage and solidarity in practice is provided by a particularly touching event at the end of the 1970s. Part of the efforts to make visible to the international public opinion the possibility of cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians in favor of Peace were to make heard the voice of those who had been applying themselves to the efforts. In 1979 the late Dr. Edward Said got a special permit for a Palestinian leader to speak at Harvard at the Middle East Seminar, chaired at the time by Herb Kelman, with strong national and international repercussion.
Indeed Mr. Shafik al-Hout, a PLO official specifically in charge of the Palestinian refugees, was already invited to talk to the United Nations Assembly but was not allowed to go beyond the UN building and territory. With this permit, Mr. al-Hout went to Harvard, as the first Palestinian to speak at that University in his role as a PLO leader, as Mr. Kelman was one of the first to sponsor the presentation of a Palestinian leader in public in the United States. At the end of Mr. al-Hout's presentation, a group of young Jews had gone to the exit to express hostility to the visitor, and then, from Jew to Jew, frontally offending Herb: “You are a disgrace to your people!”.
To today even, Herb's apparent emotion when talking about that event tells us how hard is the task to face ourselves and our roots in search of respect for others__and yet he continues to do so.
D) As a Holocaust survivor, he questions oversimplified explanations of the motivations of perpetrators
In the 1930s, the boy Herb, some time between the ages of 8 and 10, was walking home from school with a few other boys, and a gentleman was walking in the other direction, elegantly dressed, including white gloves. Herb's friends stopped to harass the man, as if making it clear to him that he was not welcome and he was not one of them. Herb told them not to do that. His friends called him to join them, but Herb kept protesting against their attitude. In 2006, trying to understand his little friends' motivation still, seventy years later, Herb told me that a person like that was “a rare sight in Vienna in those days”, not for the clothes he was wearing, but for the color of his skin: he was black. Herb recalled: “After he passed us, the other boys turned around and shouted after him: ‘Schwarzer! Schwarzer!' I was quite upset about this and I said something to this effect: ‘Stop it! How would you like it if someone called you Weisser! Weisser!'.” I asked him why he had not done the same as his friends since he lived in the same place and had the same social experience. And he answered: “As a Jew__and a Jew whose parents came from Eastern Europe__I was especially sensitive to discrimination and hostility toward people based on their group characteristics. It seems to me that I have always understood__from the earliest time I can remember__that this was not just a problem of hatred against Jews, but a problem of hatred against any group of people.”When awarded the “Kurt Lewin Award for Psychologists for furthering in his work, as did Kurt Lewin, the development and integration of psychological research and social action”, from SPSSI (Annex II.38), in his address he stated: “(…) as a Jew, brought up in Vienna, who managed to get out of Nazi Austria a year after the Anschluss and then to get out of Belgium a few weeks before the Nazi invasion, and who lost countless relatives and childhood friends to the gas chambers and the execution squads, I am only a step removed from the category of Holocaust ‘survivor', although I would not presume to arrogate to myself the authority of true survivors__those who survived the Holocaust in the death camps or in hiding within Nazi territory”. Perhaps we can understand how strong his emotions related to that address, considering that when he was delivering it, close to the end, he suffered that heart attack that led him to reflect on his career directions: a hypothesis that he himself initiated as a possibility in an article.
- In 1996 Herb was invited by Dr. Peter Suedfeld, Dean Emeritus and Professor Emeritus of Psychology, University of British Columbia, to a round table on the impact and repercussions of the Holocaust on its survivors who later developed academic careers. That round table originated the book Light from the Ashes (2001). Its editor, Dr. Suedfeld, himself a survivor, classified the collaborators for the book in three categories: the survivors from the camps; the survivors who lived under the Nazi rule but were hidden or protected by people who were not themselves victims of the persecution (in general Christian families); and the survivors who had lived a time under Nazism but got to refuge at some point__as is Herbert Kelman's case, who also authored an autobiographical article in that book (Annex II-3).
Although Dr. Kelman touched on the theme at other times, the chapter in this book was the first time he addressed in detail his condition of Holocaust survival. Dr. Kelman there states, as “an important qualification”, that__and I have to quote him in that article__“just as it is a mistake, in my view, to construct Jewish history and culture entirely around the Holocaust and the experience of persecution over the centuries, it would also be a mistake to construct my own intellectual history entirely around the Holocaust” (Annex II-3, p.201). As much as he points to other decisive influences in his life, some of them even before encountering Nazism, at the same time he stresses that it would be impossible not to recognize the relevance of such an experience and, especially, the pervasive influence of the Holocaust on his life and work: in the themes he decides to apply his efforts to; in the practices he decides to take; and, in fact primarily, in the very choice of to be a psychologist and social scientist as a lifelong career.
A manifestation of such influences of the Holocaust on Herb Kelman can be found in his narrative about what happened after the heart attack, when he was delivering that already mentioned Kurt Lewin Award address on victims and perpetrators (Annex II.38). It was 1973 and in convalescence, Herb had the sense that he was being graciously rescued and saved for the second time in his life. As said before, it was the time of the Yom Kippur War. Indeed since a long time Herb had concerns about the themes he had reflected on by then__from the 1940s as for the Palestinians' rights (for example, he stood for the creation of two states before 1948), from the 1960s as organized efforts towards the Arab World, as seen before. Nevertheless at that very moment the combination of those two independent events brought something new to him. The war underlined the urgency of the issue; the heart attack reminded him forcefully that he will not live forever, as he told me. Then he decided to put this work on the top of his agenda, as he said: “If I was going to do this work__‘now' was the time to do it, and to the commitment to pursue this effort energetically”.
In his Kurt Lewin Memorial Address, Herb recalls from that in 1946 he prepared a term paper for a course that he entitled “Towards an Explanation of Nazi Aggression”. His courage in proposing to himself such a question, when the Holocaust as a historical fact was so close, demonstrates how deep he had the need of at least seeking to understand, as he says in that address, “how such things are possible”. The reflection he did in the “Kurt Lewin Address”__in fact a cornerstone of Herb's reflection on the victim-victimizers relationship__addresses the problem of violence and the loss of moral restraint against violence, or how the availability for violence is created and/or developed. Taking results from his previous researches, Herb discusses three processes that lead to the weakening of moral restraints against violence: authorization, routinization, and dehumanization.
In his words: “Authorization helps to define the situation in such a way that standard moral principles do not apply; the individual, in obeying authority orders, is not acting as an independent moral agent and therefore feels absolved of the responsibility to make personal moral choices. Through routinization, the action becomes so organized that there is no opportunity for raising moral questions and making moral decisions; the action comes to be seen as part of a normal job without attention to its larger meaning. Through dehumanization, the actors' attitudes toward the target and toward themselves are so structured that it is neither necessary nor possible for them to view the relationship in moral terms; the victim is excluded from their moral community." (Annex II-38). This analysis based on three processes had provided bases for new approaches in many fields, in his research and others', particularly in themes related to sanctioned massacres (and My Lai is also a reference), torture and other gross violations of human rights (An. II-39).
Furthermore in that address, Herb developed a gender approach to the question of violence (Annex II-38, pp.58-59); considering the time (the beginning of the 1970s) he was among the pioneers, particularly considering men's involvement in the theme. Most remarkable and tightly attached to his experience with the Holocaust is the debate on “the sanctioned definition of victim categories”, encouraging all sort of violence against certain groups within the society, those who officially (or near to officially) are considered “legitimate targets for massacre”, “categories of people who are less than human and who are expendable” (Annex II-38, p. 54).
Merely as an invitation for further analysis directly from his works, listed here are concepts Herb elaborated in his works, quoting the classifications he makes in that autobiographical article (Annex II-3), which he mentions are related to the Holocaust. To each one is the indication of at least one of Herb's articles or books, corresponding to the theme__they can be found in the annexes, as indicated. These classifications are: (a) conformity and obedience (Annex II-23); (b) nationalism and national identity__ including the debate on patriotism, I would like to add (Annex II-40); (c) ethnic conflict and its resolution (Annex II-41 and II-42); and (d) the ethics of social research and social intervention (see, please, Part A of this Addendum).
As mentioned before, in addition to developing a better understanding of situations that dehumanize people and thus, implicitly and explicitly, encourage violence against them, Herb once more (see Annexes from II-43 a II-50) takes the risk of suggesting ways of confronting and overcoming such situations. He offers analyses that are beneficial to understanding how the individual level connects to bureaucratic levels and the political power, aiming to demonstrate the psycho-social or psycho-political factors of the situation, taking recommendations from those analyses. In his words:
“One type of corrective effort against the sanctioned definition of victim categories is to use every opportunity to individualize the targets of violence, at home or abroad. As long as they remain identityless and are described in terms of stereotyped categories, they can more readily be dehumanized. Furthermore, just as we must constantly protest any tendency within the society to treat violent actions as normal and legitimate, so must we protest all implications that there are groups__within our society or outside of it__that are subhuman and fair game. No attempt to exclude from the human community a group, by whatever criteria that group may be defined, must remain unchallenged. It is particularly important to challenge such attempts when they are made by public officials, and especially by officials who speak with the highest authority.” (Annex II-38, p.56).
Final remarks
Finishing this addendum, complementary to the letter of nomination, and after presenting Dr. Kelman's continuing dialectic questioning within the four themes previously presented as a living testimony of personal coherence, also manifested in his lifelong work, it is possible to state that Herbert C. Kelman is a living patrimony of humanity. He has made his life and work a result of lived experiences in several countries, languages and scientific institutions, over almost eight decades of history. The crosscutting themes within and bridging Dr. Kelman's practical and theoretical achievements are connected themselves, singularly embraced by his cooperation with scholars and practitioners, in addition to his dedication to his students.
To be in touch with Dr. Kelman's impressive, multi-directional, and interdisciplinary work is to experience the extent of the reflections and possible learning present to ease our understanding of the complexity of the human condition. At the same time, it is an invitation to go further in search of applying those concepts in the near reality, no matter the national, cultural, or religious context. In some sense, the universal dimension of his works is revealed by that clear commitment to human life and dignity, which is for all, encompassing all his theoretical and practical works.
As one of the Harvard University faculty, Herb Kelman has made the most of that ancient institution, which has made the difference for him being heard when disseminating non-violence principles in processes of international conflict analysis and resolution. Yet the University alone would not be enough; the combination of such a trustable University__having the openness to pioneer and the courage to innovate__with the especially confident person Herb is shows the reach and the sense of the role to be developed by any university. It shows as well the possibility of achievement when academic institutions and scholars devote their works and themselves to the betterment of humanity. If it is to be done, likewise Herb does it, through very concrete points originating from the rich possibilities of the resources provided by theory and scientific methods of investigation, always aware that science is not an end in itself but is a means to improving human condition.
Dr. Kelman's dedication to solving the Israeli/Palestinian conflict benefited from the experiences he had accumulated from much work in the United States in the 1940s, 1950s and in different parts of the world in the 1960s, complementing his firm and concrete positioning against all forms of oppression or violence against peoples from different regions of the globe. His diversified academic experience in the fields of social psychology and social relations on national and international levels allowed him to work from a privileged point, as his accomplishments are respected by his peers, facilitating the inclusion of the theme in the academic agenda and aided as well by his personal and professional maturity. Only such maturity, combined with his coherence and confidence, would allow him to carry on such a delicate work of silent and invisible social engineering, firmly based in the belief that non-violent action__particularly applied to international conflict analysis and resolution__could have many faces, some of them composed by academics such as himself.
It is also remarkable that Herb Kelman refuses the possibility of receiving the slight comfort and honor that the role of being a victim of the Holocaust could have bestowed on him; instead he launches a debate on dehumanization, with many venues, and as he says, far from complete, with universal repercussions. Beyond exercising his role as an American citizen, Dr. Kelman has continued to live and work as a scholar-practitioner, and in such condition, as a universal thinker and global academic leader, as a guardian and promoter of human dignity and, jointly, against all forms of intolerance and dehumanization.
Therefore this is the moment the world needs Herb Kelman's work most, for his experience and wisdom, for his moral strength and vivid serenity. Herbert Kelman is an example and model to all those who get in touch with any part of the humane richness of his life. His work is so important that generations of scientists and students have benefited from the phases and multiple repercussions of his creative research and action, but many more could continue to benefit, if he wins the Prize. His life and work could be spread all over the world, disseminated as a live example for all, forever attached to the life and teachings of Mahatma Gandhi and to UNESCO's mission and goals.
São Paulo, July 25, 2006.