This is a follow-up to PressInfo 148.
We continue the peace-making analysis with these dimensions:
The peace process
Negotiation as the only method
There has been an emphasis on “getting them to the table”, on negotiations and compromise. When not knowing what to do, call a conference!
What if the emphasis had been on dialogues with each party first, based on active listening to their stories, fears and hopes? In other words, deep understanding first, and the development of a minimum of trust and mutual respect. After that there would be talks/conversations and more confidence. And finally, some kinds of negotiations shaped around the core issues as defined by the parties rather than a negotiation agenda set up by external governments that seek simultaneously to promote their own interests in the region?
What if the principle of compromise had been scrapped and we had recognised that no side should be expected to make compromises about security, human rights, or freedom? If envoys, secretaries and presidents had been conflict-resolution professionals they would have known that compromise can be relevant when a conflict is about quantities such as land or money but not when it is about existential qualities such as dignity, rights, freedom and security.
Intellectually, compromises are about “meeting on the middle” or “go an extra mile”, i.e. losing something. The whole point is that creative solutions aim to make both/all the conflicting sides winners by exploring future possibilities they have not necessarily seen precisely because they are in conflict.
Participants
All the time the peace process has been populated with top leaders, governments and diplomats, including lately the CIA.
What if civil society groups, youth and women, peace movements and respected personalities in culture and sports had been invited to participate in the process and contribute their (presumably much more creative) thoughts to the peace process? If media are free, could they not just ask what peace-making qualifications CIA has.
Mediation
US monopoly
The United States has taken on (and been given) the monopoly on mediating a settlement. We hear repeatedly that the U.S. is the only player who can bring peace to the Middle East.
The reason is not that the U.S. has an impressive peacemaking record. The succession of U.S. peace-making failures grow by the day: Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Somalia, Afghanistan, etc. Neither has any of the US-mediated peace plans for the Middle East worked. The reason is that the U.S. has power, clout, weapons and money. And it has “interests” in the region.
What if instead some kind of unity in diversified peacemaking efforts had been developed among, say, the United States and the United Nations, the European Union, the OSCE and the Arab League? And government and non-governmental organisations had co-operated from the very start?
What if, long ago, we had set up an OSCE-like process not only covering this conflict but the larger region of which it is part? It could have dealt with many issues from many angles and gone through the meticulous time-consuming process of integrating political, economic, cultural and security issues into one larger forum and, eventually, a comprehensive peace package in which all parties had a stake.
What if – again – local Israeli and Palestinian and regional NGOs had been invited together with international ones with special insights into this region?
Personalised peacemaking
The United States sends CIA (Mr. Tenet) and a naval officer (Mr. Zinni) who have no professional competence diagnosing or treating conflicts. When everything fails, Secretary of State Powel is sent to the region (April 2002). News reports tell us that he is on a peace mission, that he is now the only hope, that peace in the Middle East rests on this one man’s shoulder.
What if peacemaking and mediation was finally perceived as a complex process requiring teams of professionally trained individuals coming from many and different organisations and with different skills and backgrounds?
What if – together with diplomats – there would be more countries and organisations sent on peace missions as complex as this? What if these teams included area experts, people of different faiths (Jews, Christians and Muslims, of course, but also Buddhists, Gandhians and Quakers), social workers, psychologists and others who know something about how people think and behave in deep, protracted conflict?
What if the Western paradigm of quick fixes, militarily backed-up pressures and peace-making Messiahs had been recognised for what it is: fraud, megalomania, propaganda, self-aggrandisement (choose the word you like) – and totally unrealistic? No single individual has ever brought sustainable peace to any complex conflict, but there are many out there who would like to take the credit for “peace” agreements.
The war/peace cycle
Cease-fire followed by some territory-based agreement remains the basic formula.
What if, instead, we looked at the whole cycle from the root causes in the past through the present and focussed on the future in particular?
What if we tried to focus on the desired futures and hopes as ordinary citizens see them?
What if mediators had used brainstorms to elicit constructive, future-oriented energy from the citizens on all sides; it is their future that is at stake?
What if we had heard just one leader/mediator say: the real problem is not the past but the future. The task is to envisage various scenarios for a good future not the least for those who are children and youth today. Let’s therefore ask: how do we help everybody develop tolerance, mutual respect, reconciliation and forgiveness? How do we help move people move from fear to hope, from hatred to tolerance – because, if we don’t, NO peace agreement about territory or sharing of power will ever hold.
Change the focus and learn the lessons
In summary, it is time we ask critical questions about the peace-makers rather than the war-makers. Contrary to the common perceptions, peace-makers like the United States are part of the problem and not the solution. While no war-maker is also a peace-maker, some peace-makers seem increasingly to be both. And it’s the millions of ordinary citizens who pay for it, either as Western taxpayers or as victims of the peace-making games.
