An Open Letter to Peacebuilders
A response from Lord Hylton
Dear Simon Fisher and Lada Zimina
Your "Open Letter" - a Response
I agree with your general thrust that peace-builders, whether individuals or organizations, should work more closely together and give each other more mutual support. They should demonstrate more strongly to opinion-formers and decision-makers that there are serious partners and alternatives for (a) conventional diplomacy, and (b) military methods. Every post-conflict or post civil war intervention should include a civilian component. This should be designed to work with whatever civil society elements may exist, whether it is included in the post-conflict team or whether it operates independently but in parallel. Facilitation should be recognized as a vital skill, needed to ensure that dialogue takes place and is fruitful, also that the population at local level consent (if possible) to what is being done by those holding interim or long-term power. Facilitation can be a way of empowering local groups and enabling them to participate in decision making, through articulation of needs, priorities and local ideas.
I would now like to be more critical, especially as regards geopolitical hegemony and globalized business. I see these as facts of life, which no-one can wish away , however much they may dislike them. For example, for the next say 15 or 20 years the USA is likely to remain the world's super-power. Similarly, multi-national companies are not suddenly going to melt away. Their turn-over and sometimes net profit, in some cases, exceeds the annual budget of small and poor states. They can, however, occasionally be persuaded to accept some social responsibility and to use some of their profits in enlightened and locally helpful ways.
Again, I agree that a world order exists which is partly "unjust, unsustainable and destructive". I attribute this to the old-fashioned catholic reality of original sin - what the present Pope calls the power of sin. Humans will often not learn from past mistakes. They are all too often moved to act by pride, ambition, greed, feelings of superiority, and contempt, also by inherited or acquired prejudices, fears and negative emotions. Peace-builders must be realistic about all this, because they are unlikely to be able to change it at all quickly. Change requires individual and group repentance and acceptance that there are better ways of doing things, that a renewed vision may help them to behave better. Forgiveness, whether sought or offered can have amazingly powerful effects. (There is by now quite a large literature on Politics and Forgiveness.) It has struck me quite strongly while listening to sessions devoted to conflict resolution, that the change of mentality required before conflicting parties can reach win-win solutions, is akin to the "metanoia" needed to pave the way to religious conversions. Analysis of the causes of the conflict in question may lead to this radical change of mentality, but it cannot be guaranteed to do so. If it does, those who have experienced it, may have serious "re-entry problems" when they return to their usual surroundings and companions.
I agree with you that it is important to develop sets of best advice, principles and practice. This may involve carefully distinguishing approaches based on secular and religious thinking, also trying to identify their common elements. Net-working will be important to enable this to happen. We perhaps need to ask ourselves what truly human and humane behaviour entails in practice. How can people be motivated to develop their human potential to the full, and then to act in truly humane ways?
I think we have to recognize that individual and group identity is a fundamental, if partly spiritual , human need. This has been noticed in countless national uprisings, anti-colonial struggles, intifadas etc. Together with the desire for freedom to determine one's future, a satisfying identity is a very strong motivating force. Denial or suppression of identity is something that easily makes people become violent, just as powerlessness generates very destructive forms of anger.
I agree that the onus is on peace-builders to show that both terrorism and excessive use of state force are usually counter-productive. Equally, they need to demonstrate as clearly as possible that there are other and better ways. These probably centre around values of forgiveness, humility and being willing to suffer, service of the common good, mutual respect and the search for harmony between cultures, religions, races etc, not forgetting truth and justice.
On a more practical note, could the Carnegie Endowment for Peace , or the Carter Foundation, be persuaded to sponsor a compilation of best practice, showing what has worked in particular situations? Academic work could be focused on just peace theory and effective dialogue between cultures.
In our audio-visual world, more use should probably be made of films, videos, discs, etc illustrating peace-building and its potential. There was reference to the joint South Caucasus film, reporting on six positive aspects arising from European conflicts.
I hope all the above is helpful; please feel free to use or quote from it, as you may wish.
Yours sincerely
Lord Hylton
Your "Open Letter" - a Response
I agree with your general thrust that peace-builders, whether individuals or organizations, should work more closely together and give each other more mutual support. They should demonstrate more strongly to opinion-formers and decision-makers that there are serious partners and alternatives for (a) conventional diplomacy, and (b) military methods. Every post-conflict or post civil war intervention should include a civilian component. This should be designed to work with whatever civil society elements may exist, whether it is included in the post-conflict team or whether it operates independently but in parallel. Facilitation should be recognized as a vital skill, needed to ensure that dialogue takes place and is fruitful, also that the population at local level consent (if possible) to what is being done by those holding interim or long-term power. Facilitation can be a way of empowering local groups and enabling them to participate in decision making, through articulation of needs, priorities and local ideas.
I would now like to be more critical, especially as regards geopolitical hegemony and globalized business. I see these as facts of life, which no-one can wish away , however much they may dislike them. For example, for the next say 15 or 20 years the USA is likely to remain the world's super-power. Similarly, multi-national companies are not suddenly going to melt away. Their turn-over and sometimes net profit, in some cases, exceeds the annual budget of small and poor states. They can, however, occasionally be persuaded to accept some social responsibility and to use some of their profits in enlightened and locally helpful ways.
Again, I agree that a world order exists which is partly "unjust, unsustainable and destructive". I attribute this to the old-fashioned catholic reality of original sin - what the present Pope calls the power of sin. Humans will often not learn from past mistakes. They are all too often moved to act by pride, ambition, greed, feelings of superiority, and contempt, also by inherited or acquired prejudices, fears and negative emotions. Peace-builders must be realistic about all this, because they are unlikely to be able to change it at all quickly. Change requires individual and group repentance and acceptance that there are better ways of doing things, that a renewed vision may help them to behave better. Forgiveness, whether sought or offered can have amazingly powerful effects. (There is by now quite a large literature on Politics and Forgiveness.) It has struck me quite strongly while listening to sessions devoted to conflict resolution, that the change of mentality required before conflicting parties can reach win-win solutions, is akin to the "metanoia" needed to pave the way to religious conversions. Analysis of the causes of the conflict in question may lead to this radical change of mentality, but it cannot be guaranteed to do so. If it does, those who have experienced it, may have serious "re-entry problems" when they return to their usual surroundings and companions.
I agree with you that it is important to develop sets of best advice, principles and practice. This may involve carefully distinguishing approaches based on secular and religious thinking, also trying to identify their common elements. Net-working will be important to enable this to happen. We perhaps need to ask ourselves what truly human and humane behaviour entails in practice. How can people be motivated to develop their human potential to the full, and then to act in truly humane ways?
I think we have to recognize that individual and group identity is a fundamental, if partly spiritual , human need. This has been noticed in countless national uprisings, anti-colonial struggles, intifadas etc. Together with the desire for freedom to determine one's future, a satisfying identity is a very strong motivating force. Denial or suppression of identity is something that easily makes people become violent, just as powerlessness generates very destructive forms of anger.
I agree that the onus is on peace-builders to show that both terrorism and excessive use of state force are usually counter-productive. Equally, they need to demonstrate as clearly as possible that there are other and better ways. These probably centre around values of forgiveness, humility and being willing to suffer, service of the common good, mutual respect and the search for harmony between cultures, religions, races etc, not forgetting truth and justice.
On a more practical note, could the Carnegie Endowment for Peace , or the Carter Foundation, be persuaded to sponsor a compilation of best practice, showing what has worked in particular situations? Academic work could be focused on just peace theory and effective dialogue between cultures.
In our audio-visual world, more use should probably be made of films, videos, discs, etc illustrating peace-building and its potential. There was reference to the joint South Caucasus film, reporting on six positive aspects arising from European conflicts.
I hope all the above is helpful; please feel free to use or quote from it, as you may wish.
Yours sincerely
Lord Hylton
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Goran Bozicevic on -
Dear Lada and Simon, Wow!
'Wow' here means: Grazie tante, Thank you, Finally, Eppur si muove, ...
Your text made my day. I have already fwd it to several friends and mailing lists in Croatia and post-Yugoslav countries.
Some two weeks ago I was talking in Sarajevo to group of regional peacebuilders: Peacebuilding is rather about HOW than about WHAT.
"Creative, innovative, value based, transformative peacebuilding is practiced here on daily level." was hanging on the wall at the Zagreb based Centre for Peace Studies www.cms.hr
and we all were laughing at it but were also proud knowing/sensing that is at least where our deep commitment/ daily struggle is.
I would like to host some kind of meeting/gathering in beautiful medieaval Groznjan-Grisignana in Istria, Croatia www.groznjan-grisignana.hr
where Miramida Centar - Regional Peacebuilding Exchange exists beacuse of ideas
and dreams like ones I can feel in your letter.
Big hug
Goran
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Permalink Reply by Milt Lauenstein on -
What the suffering world needs is effective action to stop such evils as mass violence. Too often, interested parties write "should", "could", "is needed", is important", etc. without any consideration of what is likely to motivate whom to act. For example, each of the first five sentences in Lord Hylton's contribution contains the word "should", and parallel thoughts are liberally sprinkled through "Just Wasting Our Time?" and one such appears in the first sentence of this paragraph. In my defence, however, I can say that I have initiated action that has been effective, and promises to be much more so, in reducing the likelihood of violence.
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