Melian Dialogue 2.0

Abstract

The “Melian Dialogue” was regularly used as a role-play in IAF-Trainings of Community Organizers. The Participants should learn how to negotiate, to anticipate the viewpoints and reactions of the opponents and to exercise power in a responsible way. It is based on a story in ancient Greece, the hotbed of democracy. The “Melian Dialogue” is a part a book about the Peloponnesian War (431-404 b.C.), written by the ancient historian Thucydides. Future Organizers should experience the difference between “having power” (as the Athenians) or “having no power” (as the Melians).

Practicing this role-play showed its limits during a Community Organizing training in Paris in 2022, where a migrant person was in the audience, who entered Europe in 2015 coming from Syria. He remembered situations, where people in Syria found themselves in negotiations and their situation was similar as that of the Melians. It is hard to negotiate while one side carries weapons and the other side does not. So, he experienced that the people in Syria were treated like the Melians. We asked ourselves also, in which way people from Ukraine would have commented our role-play on the Melian Dialogue while having the war with Russia on their minds. By using the Melian Dialogue, we also had in mind the methods of “Forum Theatre” according to Augusto Boal (Boal 1998). Using this method, participants have the possibility to change their role during the play and also members of the audience have the possibility to enter forum and replace the players.