Resolution, transformation and transcendence

Before I go to class this week I go to the college library. I have only just started going there and, semi-recluse that I am, find it a little uncomfortable with so many people. But they are an impressive crowd: mostly in the their twenties and, seemingly, from every country of the world. They study hard in front of rows of computer screens, drinking bottled water. I’m sure you’ve seen it. The school library is even bigger: a huge factory of learning. Looking at shelf after shelf of journals and reports from minor UN agencies I can’t help wondering what the ‘outcome’ of all this study will be. Somebody help me. Where does all this lead?

An admirer of Said

I find an empty desk on the fourth floor looking out over a rainy and, therefore, deserted square. I have a spare hour to start re-reading ‘Culture and Resistance, interviews with Edward Said’, with a view to using this text for my book review assignment. I love the book because it provided the inspiration for my last essay. His rebuke to Western intellectuals for having deserted the Enlightenment project and his joining of the call to work towards the ‘Rendezvous of Victory’ got my juices flowing. Since then I’ve read ‘Orientalism’ and started to understand why he was so widely respected as an academic: such painstaking analysis of such a wide range of texts and such a coherent thread of argument.

As I pack up my things to go to class, my neighbouring library-user sees the book I’m reading and silently indicates his approval. I don’t know who the guy is, or where he’s from, but there seems to be something about Edward Said that attracts a lot of people and their respect.

Session five

Class this week is about conflict transformation. We launch into the ideas of John Paul Lederach, a Menonite sociologist who developed peace-building techniques and theories based on his practical work with communities in Nicaragua. The ideas flow over me without really adhering: ‘conflict is socially constructed’, ‘it emerges in our relationships and the interpretation we give them’, ‘we are actively involved in creating our own conflicts’, ‘we create meaning by comparison’. Conflict is ‘natural’, ‘not negative’, a ‘motor of change’. Peace is more than ‘ending conflict’, it is ‘constructive social change’, it is ‘empowerment to get needs met’. The method is ‘dialogue’. Dialogue, not debate. Listening, not point scoring. Peace is a ‘structure’, a ‘process’: something embedded in the quality of relationships. Like I said, the guy’s a sociologist.

I’m nodding. Yeah, sounds fine, makes sense. I am having a little difficult in placing this approach in the scheme of things. What makes it distinctive? I figure this approach must have worked for Lederach, so I should listen some more. A contrast helps: the paradigm being displaced is ‘conflict resolution’ which didn’t necessarily include ‘change’. What we are talking about with Lederach is ‘conflict transformation’. We have to go ‘broader and deeper’. On four levels. Personal: ‘minimize the destructive, maximise the constructive’. Relational: ‘build constructive communication, acknowledge interdependency’. (You still with me on this?) Structural: ‘root causes of conflict, social conditions, non-violent alternatives, justice, human needs’. Cultural: ‘understand patterns leading to violent conflict, identify alternative non-violent modes IN THAT CULTURE’. ‘Conflict resolution’ (mistakenly) focuses on ‘content’, whilst ‘conflict transformation’ focuses on ‘process’.

Our teacher, Irene, finishes the section on Lederach by touching on criticisms of his approach. Those who say he’s too "utopian", in as much as he doesn’t sufficiently acknowledge the reality of violence, the power of greed. Hmm. Yes and no, I’d say. I can see how his facilitation approach could work with a ‘will-to-peace’ on all sides. But how to achieve the ‘will-to-peace’? It usually takes a long and bloody war.

A five minute break and here comes a what seems a beefed up version of the same thing: Johan Galtung’s ‘Transcend Approach’. (Check out transcend.org) This being my first venture into the study of ‘peace making’ I am still a little disorientated. I guess we haven’t touched on the ‘peace making’ paradigms that dominated before Lederach and Galtung: the orthodoxy that they were kicking against. I’d have to think about that. ‘Conflict resolution’ is one that’s been mentioned. (I guess the problem wasn’t really so much of an issue before the end of the cold war. Inter-communal conflicts were largely seen in that context. Mind you, I bet a history of attempts to resolve the Ulster conflict probably would give a pretty good history of the different approaches. Attempts to bargain, to subdue: carrot and stick…)

Galtung. We start with his analogy: peace is to violent conflict as health is to sickness. To cure violent conflict we must have a diagnosis, a prognosis and therapy. Creativity is the new ingredient. Don’t try to find a compromise, try to ‘transcend’. Find an approach, a solution, that breaks out of the limited perspectives. I’m sure we are all up for this. Irene mentions an example of an ‘out of the box’ idea. Two ‘virtual states’ in Israel/Palestine sharing the same space, but with two co-existent political, social and legal structures. Dig it? I make the point that this is pretty much how it was under the Ottomans. Yes! Irene agrees there is such a parallel to be drawn. (The fact that Ottoman Jews and Christians had to pay a different rate of tax from Sunni Muslims does not diminish the comparison; in fact it is exactly the sort of differences you could expect to develop under the ‘two virtual states’ model.)

I need to find out more about what Galtung actually achieved. Theory is fine, but does the approach work? ‘Peace is the ability to handle conflict with empathy, non-violently, creatively’. ‘Empathize with yourself’. He also wants to move away from ‘negotiation’ to ‘endless dialogue’ (what lies beneath the goals, be creative, find better broader goals). He has a formula. Conflict is the sum of Attitudes, Behaviours and Contradictions. (OK, so we are into therapy now.) Again, I accept that when people are highly motivated to make peace, these approaches would be useful. But how to reach that point? Where’s the model for that?

Now we have a couple of class presentations. The first one is from a young woman whom, because she says so little, I have seriously underestimated. She talks clearly about South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Truth, justice, mercy, peace. A process that had success because it was preceded by a negotiated political settlement, was explicitly based on shared Christian values and chimed with traditional African concepts of humaneness and compassion. Why did such an approach fail in Rwanda? A number of reasons are advanced: other countries interfered, priests betrayed or abandoned their parishioners, hate of ‘the Other’ had become completely internalised.

The second presentation is less routine, more zen. Could transformational peace-making techniques be used to bring peace to a proto-parliamentary peace group? There is a project to establish a ‘Ministry of Peace’ in the UK. No, not a new nightclub. A government department like the Ministry of Defence. (If the name seems vaguely sinister that maybe because there is such a ministry in Orwell's 1984.) An all-party parliamentary group for ‘conflict issues’ has been formed; they couldn't manage the word ‘peace’ apparently: it has a very negative image with Tories. Ho hum, ho hum.

We also get to hear about the concept of ‘peace research’. You aren’t a 'peace activist' anymore, but a ‘peace researcher’. ‘Peace researchers’ don’t preach or debate: they enter into dialogues, they listen. They ask of defence specialist 'Why we need nuclear weapons? What is our ultimate goal? Could the same goals not be achieved some better way?' Sounds a bit cutesy, but it makes some sense to me. Peace, surely, can’t happen if there is no dialogue on the subject even among members of the same society. The warriors prepare for war. Ok. Maybe it comes to that. But aren’t there other ways, sometimes? End of session.