There is also a school of thought that says direct negotiations rarely work. A good example: Northern Ireland. The Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

Historically, neutral third party negotiators usually have had much better, more long lasting results at ending communal violence. That is why we have the United Nations. So people like George Bush and Saddam Hussein don't have to be left to their own devices to "work it out". Ahem.

The majority of people tend to believe that a central pillar of successful conflict resolution includes making the parties "change their minds" or "change their thinking". That isn't the purpose or the function of conflict resolution. The purpose and function of conflict resolution is stopping communal violence, so a peaceful space can be created where justice and fairness can be imagined, and then worked toward, by any parties who wish to move in that direction.

The belief that warring factions must sit down in the same room together and agree to agree is "the best" solution is just plain wrong. Most successful ceasefires are brokered by third parties. Hence my statement, "never negotiate with the enemy".

It takes a certain amount of arrogance and egomania to believe you can preach to your enemy, and believe the result will be that they will change their evil ways, and come on over to your side.

If the problem you are having is the the word "enemy", then substitute whatever seems applicable to the situation. In this case, Larry chose to label these people "the far right" and "Hindu fundamentalists". Whatever. Mindset is still the same. Larry might claim that the far right and Hindu fundamentalists aren't his "enemies" but the fact remains, he is using oppositional language (fundamentalist vs progressive, far right vs progessive left, etc) by using the word choices he uses. To think those words aren't just as emotionally volatile in our society as the word "enemy" is pretty naive.