| Committee for Conflict Transformation Support | CCTS
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| Demilitarising Minds and Societies
Report of a seminar held on 7 December 2000 at John Adams Hall, 21 Endsleigh Street, London Introduction This seminar, the second in a series on Supporting Post-Conflict Peacebuilding Processes organised by the Committee for Conflict Transformation Support (CCTS), was attended by 31 people (whose names and addresses are listed at the end of this account). Its purpose was to examine the different forms of demilitarisation that are needed if a society is to achieve any measure of security and stability. This involves changing not only institutions (eg the police, local and national government) but also the values, attitudes and mindsets of 'ordinary' people. The seminar discussed the obstacles to these changes and looked for ways in which they could be overcome. Howard Clark, former coordinator of War Resisters International, whose book Civil Resistance in Kosovo has recently been published by Pluto Press, opened the seminar with a discussion of his paper, Demilitarising Minds, Demilitarising Societies, (above). He urged participants to avoid considering some miltarisation as 'good' and some as 'bad' - as Western governments tend to do when they send their armies in to 'solve' other countries' problems - but to consider on a continuum the possession and use of weapons in all societies. He distinguished between 'surface' demilitarisation: the immediate actions that put an end to fighting, such as disbanding or isolating forces and implementing ceasefire agreements (often under high-level international pressure), and 'deep' demilitarisation: the more fundamental cultural and structural transformation that is necessary in order to build a peaceful society. 'Deep' demilitarisation, which includes such action as disarmament and the (re)building of trust between opposing factions, requires grassroots action; it cannot be enforced. A politically-imposed and militarily-policed peace is generally illusory, and can perpetuate a dependence on military action, as well as on the hierarchic, goal-based military mindset. Much of the subsequent discussion was focused on these two levels of demilitarisation and on the interaction between them, so the description of plenary and group discussions at the seminar have been combined in what follows.
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