Review: Negotiating with the Devil
By Pierre Hazan, translated by Susan Mutti (2024)
“War’s relationship to peace is forged in the cauldron of history”
Written by former journalist and current advisor to the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue in Geneva, Pierre Hazan, this book examines the underbelly of armed conflict negotiations over the past thirty years. Despite the complex and substantial topic, Hazan conveys it elegantly, and at a fast pace.
Having studied politics and International Relations at university, and specifically, transitional justice and security, this book contained themes and events I had grappled with before. The vivid, personal anecdotes from Hazan, however, made for a more intimate read; Hazan details first-hand experiences of mediating conflict, which form a tapestry from which we build a picture of the complexities of peace, neutrality/impartiality, and dialogue.
Hazan contextualises his thoughts through the lens of the changing international landscape; we’ve gone from Pax Americana to multipolarity, from soft to hard power, and from the Cold War to the War on Terror. An increasingly important aspect of this is the delegitimisation of American hegemony, which, some would argue, was the most pivotal moment of change in the political landscape over the last thirty years. The loss of a ‘central authority’ left the international stage with no chief mediator. Of course, this is a deeply realist perspective - international institutions and their role in a multipolar world is a whole other topic.
Three themes stuck out to me in particular: morality, peace, and ‘the devil’. Morality, in times of conflict, becomes a grey area. Naturally, the aim should always be to keep as many people alive, and unharmed, as possible. However, as Hazan has noted, through his own experience, in trying to appease and compromise, you open the floor to a dilemma. Often, this dilemma is a choice between short term gain (i.e. saving lives) but long term pain (i.e. facilitating an ethnic cleansing by removing civilians from dangerous areas), or vice versa. This brings us to peace. Peace means something different to each belligerent, which leaves little room for compromise; the mediation process seems like treading on eggshells. This bring us to the devil. Who is ‘the devil’? Aren’t both belligerents each other’s devil? This is an interesting concept. I also found Hazan’s take on the redundancy of the idea of refusing to negotiate with terrorists interesting. Can a state causing genocide be considered a terrorist? Does negotiating with a perceived terrorist mean you are trying to appease them? Again, these are the eggshells scattered on the floor of mediation.
Overall, I found this a thought-provoking, disturbing, and necessary read. It is written in such a way that makes the content easy to digest, without being patronising. Hazan uses his experiences to educate, and better inform mediation processes. With the brief preface to the English edition being written as events began to unfold between Israel and Hamas, this book is a poignant read.