How do we humans deal with our deepest differences? While conflicts basically have two sides, I’ve found that resolving differences and transforming the most challenging situations come from the involvement of the Third Side — the surrounding community. Those colleagues, family, neighbours — the rest of society — can play a constructive role in fostering resolution and even reconciliation.

This paraphrase is from William Ury, the Harvard specialist in conflict resolution, who has worked for more than 30 years helping to resolve challenging circumstances in South Africa, Yugoslavia, the Middle East and other parts of the world. Our latest conflict in Bermuda demonstrated the importance of the role of the Third Side. There were several people in the wider community offering help to foster a resolution to the impasse.

Many offering to help were unaware of the efforts of others. I met with the MPs Walton Brown and Kim Wilson on March 8 regarding the impasse. We agreed that I would contact Michael Fahy and offer mediation. Unknown to us, on that same morning, Chris Furbert, the Reverend Nicholas Tweed and Jason Hayward had begun a series of meetings with the home affairs minister.

Since I didn’t hear anything back from Mr Fahy, I reached out to Michael Dunkley, the Premier, regarding the offer of mediation, unaware that direct talks were proceeding. The lack of success of those talks led to “Crisis Friday” on Parliament Hill.

Aware that a variety of persons across our community appreciate the role of the Third Side, I reached out, pulling together an ad hoc team prepared to provide options for the facilitation of the impasse. This team included people such as Ken Dill, the retired Head of the Civil Service, Pam Barit Nolan and Gordon Johnson as facilitators, Dame Jennifer Smith, the former Premier, John Barritt, a former MP. The idea was to initially mediate a framework agreement and then have facilitators work with a longer-term process.

While recruiting more team members, we found out that a group of business leaders had volunteered to mediate between the parties over the weekend of March 11 to 13. While this additional Third Side involvement was not directly successful, it would have had some impact, a point that Ury is making.

On Monday, March 14, I spoke with Sir John Swan, inviting him to join a small team of us to address the impasse. He agreed that a Third Side intervention was vital, but expressed the opinion that a single individual would be more effective at that particular stage. That said, I let Sir John know that a group of four would be available as a contingency, if his intervention was not completely successful. That group included: Dame Jennifer, Dame Pamela Gordon, David Saul and Alex Scott — all former Premiers.

Of course, the rest is history and the group of four was not needed for this impasse.

That said, Ury implies that the energy from everyone with a Third Side intention is essential. This includes hundreds of people across the community expressing best wishes in their thoughts and prayers, as well as those who actively counselled friends and colleagues, helping them to address challenging emotions that were brought to the surface. This would have assisted the people involved in gaining perspective and fostering a climate in which resolution was possible.

Out of that agreement, the stakeholders are forming a working group to take a deep-dive on the matter of immigration reform. The success of this phase will also be affected by direct or indirect input from the Third Side. Going forward, our community is called to make some appropriate contribution, given the circumstances, for the best outcome for our island’s shared future.

•Glenn Fubler is a social commentator who represents Imagine Bermuda