Co-Destruction

Angela Khaminwa

Program Officer for Outreach and Communication, The Coexistence Initiative

Sarah Peterson

Program Officer for Dialogue and Mainstreaming Coexistence, The Coexistence Initiative

Interviewed by Julian Portilla, 2003


This rough transcript provides a text alternative to audio. We apologize for occasional errors and unintelligible sections (which are marked with ???).

A: Susan Colin Marx has a wonderful sound byte, she says and I'm not sure if she originated it anyway, "If we don't coexist we all co-destruct." In situations where you have unequal power the person with the power is obviously going to say, "Well why should I?" There are security implications to not coexisting, and I think that's clear if you look at any conflict in the world right now.

S: Or coexisting in the way that TCI talks about, as the active embrace of diversity, because, again, during the apartheid period in South Africa, why would the apartheid government want to change things? They had everything exactly the way the wanted it. What was the incentive to actually dismantle the apartheid regime? It was for the very reasons that you talked about. Without having the active engagement of diversity you don't have human security intact.