PEACE
Definition
Peace may be defined as: “Absence of war or other hostilities; an agreement or a treaty to end hostilities; freedom from quarrels and disagreement; harmonious relations; public security and order; inner contentment; serenity”.
Introduction
Humans are the most intelligent and dominant form of life on this earth and have a natural desire to be free and live in peace. Peace is undoubtedly one of the most universal and significant of human ideals and is perhaps also one of the most complex concepts in human history. It is also described as "one of the few positive symbols having meaning for the whole of humanity". We can logically assume that World Peace is something that 99.9% of the 6.5 billion People in this world would want and support if there was a way to achieve that World Peace.
Peace has been used to refer to everything from “absence of war” to “equilibrium” to “a utopian state of spiritual and social harmony devoid of conflict.” Civilizing is something which the human race has instinctively done since the beginning of time. This natural instinct was the reason behind the development of the theories of being civilized. However the problem that the world faces today is the evolution of a multicultural globalized society, not functioning in a totally civilized manner.
As a consequence the world today is witnessing wars, atrocities, death, destruction, and violence in this world is the natural human response to the uncivilized acts carried out by uncivilized governmental, religious, and corporate structures or individuals that threaten the natural human desire to live in a civilized and peaceful manner.
How can we achieve Peace?
First and utmost, we must find it within ourselves. By sharing our inner peace with others, peace will spread. By raising our children properly and teaching them to respect and love their neighbors they will learn the joy of peace. The peace process should be a predominantly preventative measure - A gram of prevention is worth a kilogram of cure. Peace advocacy should start as a grassroots movement, thereby creating a "trickle-up" process. Not only can we teach others about peace but we can put pressure on governments and political candidates that continue to advocate conflict and violence as a main solution to civil and international conflicts.
Our nation's problems are problems for all of us. We must learn to see ourselves as one people and not be so concerned with our nationality, race or religion. When it comes right down to it we are all human. Think what we could accomplish if we all worked together to create a true national economy. We could end starvation, reduce poverty, create jobs and work towards common goals such as justice, peace education, pollution control and management of our resources.
Peace must mean social harmony throughout the country and between countries and not merely a time without war. It means that low intensity conflicts or civil wars that are being faced by many countries of the world need to be ended on a just basis for there to be a real environment for both democracy and development. Where there is internal or external discord, internally anti-terror and other extraordinary laws are enacted and imposed. These strikes at the very root of democracy and usually effect minorities and minority nationalities more.
For peace to be achieved, it is essential that we neither trivialize conflict nor become stuck in the language of good and evil, but work collaboratively and compassionately to redress the underlying injustices and pain each side caused the other. Ultimately, this means sharing power and resources, advantages and disadvantages, successes and failures, and satisfying everyone’s legitimate interests. It means collaborating and making decisions together. It means giving up being right and assuming others are wrong. It means taking the time to work through our differences, and making our opponents interests our own.
Making justice an integral part of conflict resolution and the search for peaceful solutions means not merely settling conflicts, but resolving, transforming, and transcending them by turning them into levers of social dialogue and learning, catalysts of community and collaboration, and commitments to political, economic, and social change. By failing to take these additional remedial steps, we make justice secondary to peace, undermine both, guarantee the continuation of our conflicts, and prepare the way for more to come.
Inert or Dead Peace
Peace, rather than confrontation or violence, is preferred by all, even by those engaged as parties to the conflict. Many believe that peace is a precondition to sense of security, development, happiness and well-being. But inert or dead peace out of fear psychosis or forced conditions is no less injurious to people and society.
Forced peace breeds fatalism, individual or social inertia, general discontent and even crisis generating disruption of societies and countries from inside. People tend to loose interest in their political and social responsibilities. The clever and powerful persons quickly occupy the resulting void. Such peace is detrimental to individual or social progress and development. The cult of male dominance and other socio-cultural anomalies are the result of such inert peace. Inert peace ultimately breeds more violent forms of conflict. ‘… great civilization is not destroyed by outsiders until it destroys from inside'.
Learning Peace
Peace, like reading, writing, mathematics, drawing, emotional intelligence and enlightenment ("understanding, comprehension, compassion, meditation, intuition"), are learned skills that improve our knowledge, maturity, health, happiness and longevity. Through knowledge, Peace will evolve. Knowledge is power. Knowledge combined with enlightenment leads to wisdom. Wisdom is Peace! Peace is probably the most important lesson we should learn during our lives and the sooner the better.
Developing Peace
Peace development requires leaders: those who can envision a world without violence and design its blueprints. It also requires actors who will transform the elements of non-peace into the fabric of peace. The shadow of peace assumes that geopolitical entities called nation-states are the fundamental units of analysis, and that the political and military leaders of these nation-states are the primary actors and leaders. The development of essential peace, on the other hand, is not limited to nation-states and their leaders. Rather, essential peace requires the effort of individuals, communities, local and regional governments, teachers, nongovernmental organizations, international nongovernmental organizations, networks, and the nontraditional loci of nonviolent power.
“There is no one “right” path to peace and there is no one “right” leader who will take us to it. This awareness allows for everyone to contribute to the building of peace in their lives and in their communities. According to many Eastern religions and philosophies, peace at all levels of existence is interconnected. Therefore, the development of peace in one arena of the world may contribute to the development of peace in many arenas of the world.
Peace Quotes
* Finding peace is not just about learning how to obtain it, but also learning how to hold onto it without slipping back to angry ways.
* If you want to achieve Peace, do not talk only to your friends, talk to your enemies.
* An eye for an eye just makes for a world full of blind people.
* World peace (in our lifetime) may not mean that evil goes away, rather that good so overwhelms evil that evil cannot ruin the peace shared between all peaceloving beings.
* The farther we are from peace is proportional to our distance from happiness. The closer we are to hatred is proportional to our distance to ill-fortune.
* "It is not possible to be in favor of justice for some people and not be in favor of justice for all people." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
* You can lose your money, you can spend your money, and if you work real hard you can earn it all back, but if you waste your time you'll never get it back.
"In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the inter-related structure of reality." Martin Luther King, Jr.
CONFLICT
Definition
Conflict is defined as a state of: “open, prolonged fighting, belligerency, confrontation, hostility, strife, struggle, war and warfare.
A state of disagreement and disharmony: clash, confrontation, contention, difference, disaccord, dissension, dissent, friction, strife and variance.
Introduction
Conflict is understood differently by different persons. Understanding of conflict shapes individual’s decision and behavior. Thus frequent dialogue and interactions on conflict are necessary to bring a more or less common and collective understanding of a conflict, its origin, root causes, historical trends, temporal development, existing and long-term impacts, and future perspectives to facilitate conflict transformations.
Conflicts and contradictions are inherent in any place, condition, society, group and time. If we care to understand the philosophy of ‘Unity of Opposites’, peace and conflict face each other as two sides of a coin. The so-called times of peace or conflict are thus relative to a dynamic equilibrium determined by an ever-changing scenario relating these. Hence, the logic of addressing or solving a conflict, face to face, with dialogue and communication of understandings! A conflict can’t be eliminated by force or wishful thinking.
Adverse Impacts of Conflict
Violence and conflict have a negative effect on human, social, political and economic development. They trigger forced displacement, destroys infrastructure and human and social capital, and leaves enduring scars that have a long-term impact on reconstruction and reconciliation efforts. When associated with large-scale criminal activity, it can undermine State institutions, spread fear and insecurity and contribute to a climate of impunity. It both contributes to and is sustained by transnational crime, such as the illicit trafficking of persons, and drugs, arms and other illegal goods. When associated with interpersonal and gender-based violence, it can destroy the fabric of families and communities and leave survivors and victims with deep psychological and physical scars. In all cases, armed violence and conflict have negative effects that go beyond the pain and suffering of the immediate victims and survivors.
Armed Conflict and Violence
Conflict, especially the armed conflict, is viewed as disrupting all benefits of peace and development. There may be too much loss of life, property, and physical, social and cultural infrastructure. As the conflict grows, peace recedes farther and further away from the lives and hopes of people in conflict. The losses may be too painful to measure. However, a suppressed conflict is not synonymous to a resolved conflict. If root causes are not addressed, they will be reborn in complicated and violent reincarnations that are rarely predictable and usually far wider in their destructive power and impact. Peace requires not simply ending conflict but confronting it as thoroughly as possible, particularly the conflict that underlies the ruling class’s conception of peace.
Armed violence also undermines peace and security. In severely affected areas it may endanger political stability, undermine the rule of law, and hinders national progress and development. It is recognized that “development, peace and security and human rights are interlinked and mutually reinforcing”. Armed violence, whether political, criminal or interpersonal in nature, challenges the State and undermines the bonds between States and their citizens.
Gun Culture
I believe that gun culture is bad both for the peoples and their countries. Despite this, some continue to glorify their past and present battlefields exploits. Gun turns its holder a headless demon. With the participation of people in all spheres of political and social life of the country, the gun culture can become more or less irrelevant. Voices of peoples can become more powerful than guns and bombs.
Individual states, international organizations and civil society organizations are actively engaged in efforts to prevent and reduce conflict and violence. Efforts by these stakeholders to develop holistic approaches to policies and programmes with practical responses require cooperation between and across different agencies and organizations, and their coordinated implementation among the stakeholders.
Conflict Risk Assessment
Conflict risk assessments are based on a number of variables. A history of armed conflict, political instability, culture of conflict, poor governance, lack of accountability Denial of civil and political liberties and level of democracy are all risk indicators and need to be looked into. Suppression of grievances can aggravate the risk of violent outbursts. Transitional states are at higher risk of violent change, until they become fully consolidated democracies. All of those will eventually lead to violent expression if there are no peaceful alternatives for resolving disputes.
The history and degree of militarization in a country or population heterogeneity identify tensions which may be greater in ethnically or religiously heterogeneous populations. The distribution of resources along ethnic or identity lines, demographic stresses, and so on, are often precursors of violence. Other indicators include economic decline, numerous unemployed young men with no opportunities for the future, high debt burdens, low involvement in international trade. All these factors are associated with a higher risk of state failure.
Human & Human Development Indicators
Look at the human development indicators. The countries in the bottom half of the human development indexes are much more likely to experience violent conflict. Now that's a chicken and the egg problem. Are they in the lowest development indicator positions because they have been prone to violent conflict or are they in conflict because they are extremely poor and have no other options to resolve their issues? It's hard to build democracy on an empty stomach. Also examine environmental stress. The degradation and depletion of resources can generate tensions in communities. Look at international linkages: Are neighboring or other countries making incursions across the border?
Examining different aspects of the relationship between conflict, violence and development several common risk factors emerge. Young men make up the majority of perpetrators, as well as victims, of armed violence. In certain situations — including in some armed conflicts — women, girls and boys suffer from acute forms of sexual violence.
CONFLICT RESOLUTION
Definition
Conflict Resolution is defined as: “the methods and process of negotiation, arbitration, and institution building which promote the peaceful ending of social conflict and war”.
Conflict Resolution is a range of methods for alleviating or eliminating sources of conflict. The term "conflict resolution" is sometimes used interchangeably with the term dispute resolution or alternative dispute resolution. Processes of conflict resolution generally include negotiation, mediation, and diplomacy.
Dispute Resolution: The processes of arbitration, litigation, and formal complaint processes such as ombudsman processes, are usually described with the term dispute resolution, although some refer to them as "conflict resolution." Processes of mediation and arbitration are often referred to as alternative dispute resolution.
Conflict Management
Conflict, if properly perceived and managed, brings about much needed revolution or transformation in political, social, economic, cultural and mental interfaces of peoples. These changes facilitate overall well-being of a nation and its peoples, especially the poor, deprived, socially excluded, women and disabled. It gives fresh impetus to develop and progress, as most of edifices generating inertia and inaction will be demolished. People will have opportunity to understand their failures and to think and react afresh as better informed and empowered persons.
Conflict Prevention
What is perhaps the best way to prevent conflict and violence? Conflict prevention and Conflict resolution/transformation requires that we eliminate the nature of the hostilities and attempt to create harmony and equality between the various parties. Restorative justice implies that the perceived injustices must be resolved through either negotiation, mediation, arbitration, community conferencing, community meditation, negotiated rulemaking, collaboration, international law, or as a last resort, military action.
Trauma recovery / Indentity renewal can help prevent conflict torn areas from falling back into further fighting. Youth development strategies can help our future adults from repeating the mistakes we have made that have lead us to this aspect. Philosophy suggests that nations that have found peace should help less peaceful nations by sharing knowledge, food and other resources. Our conscience tells us that we should treat others the way we want to be treated, with dignity and respect.
Response to Violence
By responding to violence with violence, we loose the opportunity to unite the people and the governments, in joining and opposing to the forces of violence and conflict, thereby helping to strengthen a culture of war and conflict rather than peace building, rather than compassion, revenge rather than forgiveness, and isolation rather than collaboration. By our aggressive statements and unilateral actions, we can depreciate the importance and prestige of peace-making, conflict resolution, international partnership, and public dialogue, thereby contributing to future conflicts and making them more serious, and constricting opportunities for settlement and resolution.
An Evil for an Evil
There may be people, times, and places when it is impossible not to answer violence with violence and evil with evil, it is difficult to distinguish these moments from those that occur everyday in ordinary interpersonal conflicts, except by subjective measurements of their proximity and impact on us. The greater and closer the harm feels to us, the easier it is to justify committing an equal response to it. Many people view truth, forgiveness, and reconciliation as laudable, yet impractical in the face of evil and terror, and believe the only effective response is to crush them wherever they exist with whatever power is available. Yet evil has always been a response to prior evil acts that are used to justify the commission of equal or greater evils in return. In this way, “eye for an eye” responses add to the total sum of blindness, while assumptions of evil turn suffering in a circle. While there may be times, as Bertold Brecht wrote, when it is necessary to “embrace the butcher” to end an evil that will not desist until forced to do so, these cases cannot be contained or defined.
The Approaches
Ultimately, there are three consistent responses to evil that do not end up replicating it. The first is to use whatever means may be required to isolate, disarm, and contain it, while at the same time addressing the underlying injustices that brought it into existence. The second is to shift the way we react from power- to rights- to interest-based approaches that do not invite evil responses. The third is to systematically strengthen our skills and abilities in heart-based communications, including forgiveness and reconciliation, which disable evil at its source in the tormented hearts and minds of those who feel powerless to end or grieve their suffering.
These responses require us to encourage dialogue, joint problem solving, and conflict resolution, while simultaneously acting to discourage vengeance, retaliation, and unilateralism. They require us to negotiate, especially with our enemies, while simultaneously minimizing their ability to create harm. They require us to accept responsibility of neglecting the striving communities in respect of their inherent rights under the constitution of the land and in all aspects of development including social, political and economic. Finally, they require us to recognize that there can be no peace without justice.
The recent events of terrorism in our country challenge us to take a lead in developing dispute resolution skills and applying them proactively, preventatively, and strategically to the full range of the current conflict and dispute – to create the conditions under which conflicts can be resolved without war or conflict. We must try to understand that we cannot separate peace from justice and must link interest-based conflict resolution skills with an unwavering commitment to political, economic, and social justice, without which it will prove impossible to build a community that can resolve its differences without terrorism and war.
In order to discourage conflict and violence and acts of evil and to sustain warring parties in dialogue and negotiation, we need to recognize that their root cause is injustice, and as long as it continues, peace will be fleeting, fragile, and a disappointing reminder of all we have suffered and lost. Under such conditions it is easy to agree with Socrates’ adversary Thrasymachus that “justice is the interest of the stronger”. Genuine, lasting peace is impossible in the absence of justice. Where injustice prevails, peace becomes merely a way of masking and compounding prior crimes, impeding necessary changes, and rationalizing injustices.
Quotes on Conflict
A conflict begins and ends in the hearts and minds of people, not in the hilltops. Amos Oz All treaties between great states cease to be binding when they come in conflict with the struggle for existence. Otto von Bismarck
I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict. Plato
In situations of military conflict, civil strife, lawlessness, bad governance, and human rights violations, terrorists find it easier to hide, train and prepare their attacks. Gijs de Vries
Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"The courage to imagine the otherwise is our greatest resource, adding color and suspense to all our life." Daniel J(oseph) Boorstin
“Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.” Paulo Freire
“The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow” Thomas Paine
|
