By Angela Ashby
Shaul E. Cohen, a professor of geography at the University of Oregon, spoke about the Jerusalem and Northern Ireland conflicts to an auditorium full of students on Oct. 29 as part of the International Forum Series sponsored by the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies.
Cohen joked that he came to Utah after hearing Utah looked like Israel, but after driving past the Jordan River Temple he was not so sure.
Cohen''s lecture, 'Whither Jerusalem, and Northern Ireland, Too,' focused on the how land and other geographical elements can become a political tool in these conflicts.
'I wanted to develop a model where people can think about sharing land like sharing water,' Cohen said.
He said when people are contesting water rights, they start by addressing what their rights are and end with discussing their needs.
'When they make the shift there is productivity with negotiations,' Cohen said.
Cohen created a model with the same principles and applied it to people in territorial disputes.
The first comparison Cohen made was to the Northern Ireland town of Londonderry. He used it as an example of how two sides used the same territory in different ways.
Cohen said both the Protestants and Catholics have historical and symbolic ties to the same space of Londonderry, yet they have compromised according to different needs.
He said both groups still have rights toward historical landmarks but have learned to cooperate. He said the groups have stopped focusing on their rights and are looking more toward their needs.
The Protestants and Catholics have negotiated by segregating themselves in different areas of the city. While segregation of groups is not optimum, he said this solution has reduced tension.
Cohen also addressed Jerusalem issues under the same model.
'If Jerusalem were water instead of rock and sand, how would they think about sharing it?' he said.
He said the goal in the Jerusalem conflict is to redirect negotiations from talks about permanent exclusive control to shared sequential or seasonal use of land.
Conditions existing in Jerusalem now, Cohen said, have led to a rapid growth in the city because everyone is trying to establish who has more rights.
'As long as there are conversations and negotiations driven by the notions of rights they are bound to fail,' Cohen said.
Cohen said when space is shared, an account of people''s needs and particular times must be considered.
'While people may still fight over issues,' he said, 'The goal is that people will stick to their sharing agreements just like they do in water sharing.
Cohen hopes some resolution can come out his research to help aid the twentieth century ethno-territorial conflict.