Diana presented the diagram below and circulated the notes which follow:
1. I see pacification and peacebuilding as emanating from two world views and approaches to human security. They are not in reality pure forms and do not correspond with two sets of people. Different institutions or people will tend more to one than the other and most will mix them.
2. I believe they bear a relationship to gender and to constructions of masculinity on the one hand and femininity on the other. That does not mean they correspond with men and women.
3. On the whole, for all this disclaiming, as regards the governmental and intergovernmental bodies with which Britain is associated, I see the MoD as related closely to Pacification, DfID more to Peacebuilding, the FCO likewise, and the PM’s office varying according to the tendency of the PM! The UN and the OSCE were both established to contribute to security through co-operation and can be seen as belonging mainly to the peacebuilding tendency.
4. The recently published study on global security attributes considerable success to international peacebuilding activities, intergovernmental and nongovernmental, in reducing the toll of armed conflict. But so much seems to be going in the other direction, on a massive scale.
5. Societies which may appear to be internally democratic and peaceful (in some respects if not all) may be the least democratic and peaceful – the most prone to pacification – in their external relations.
6. Those who are engaged in pacification often wear peacebuilders’ clothes.
7. Although coercion presents no problem on the pacification side, its place in nonviolent action is disputed and arguably finds its most appropriate and effective form in nonco-operation.
8. Both pacification and peacebuilding are confronted with the dilemma of uncontrollable violence.
9. The pivotal notion and structure of the state as the unit of monopoly of interest and violence is problematic for peacebuilding.
10. The separation of outcome from process that is favoured in the pacification paradigm is bound to present problems for those engaged in peacebuilding.
11. The all-embracing compass of peace suggests that although ‘peacebuilding’ in the conflict transformation field has the particular focus suggested in the interim levels of the ‘fan’ there should really be a story line also about economics, the environment, human rights and political participation: action and systems. This suggests that working for radical change is essential if we are ever to get beyond fire-fighting; by the same token it reinforces the need for ‘constructive conflict’. At the same time, it is clear that a degree of stability is needed for lives to be lived and the show to be kept on the road. ‘Building’ is therefore an important but problematic word.
12. Both nonviolent and military approaches to security are challenged by situations in which they fail to find any effective response to disastrous violence. (Think of Oliver Ramsbotham’s hour glass, where the tight bit represents all-out violence.)
13. Although coercion is not violence, it sits uneasily with Conflict Resolution, though it is a recognised element in Nonviolence. The challenge is to find effective ways of acting (within human limits) within situations dominated by the pacification model while not becoming part of it and perpetuating it – rather leading away from it.
PS I found the following in a piece I wrote for The CCTS Review, on Evaluation. It doesn’t fit the form of the notes I have written but it is relevant to notions of peace so I quote it here:
While we were in Sarajevo, one of our team met an old man in a meeting who came back to see her later on his own, to tell his own story and press his concern. He had been ‘somebody’ in his younger life – had worked for the government in Africa and elsewhere, owned a nice apartment and was widely known and respected. Then in the war he had been forced to flee. When he returned, he found his flat occupied by strangers. They would not even allow him to collect his personal papers, let alone his other possessions. He was now without property or status, floating on the edge of a society of which he had once been an integral and respected part. He argued that if human rights were important to peace, then the plight of old people like him was important and should receive concerted attention.
In any general and generous view of peace and stability, this man matters. The sad truth is that at the strategic level, in terms of Peace and Stability with capital letters, his plight is unimportant. It is a truism that young people ‘are the future’. Top politicians or the economically powerful are seen as important because they are the ones who wield power on the large scale. An old man without power is, by definition, unimportant. Many of the refugees who have not been able to integrate themselves into new contexts or to return to their original homes are not ‘important’ people, except in so far as they provide grist for the political mill or can be manipulated to fuel resentment. Yet I would argue that the foundations of peace are laid in respect for the weak and that, without that respect, what I want to call peace cannot exist. Without the values that would give such members of society a dignified place within it, the only stability that can be achieved is the stability of control – a contradiction in terms. But in the short term, which must be secured if the long term is to be reached, do there have to be other priorities? That would be hard to accept, and maybe we should resist the idea that a choice has to – or can – be made. Can peace exist within a society without compassion at the individual level?
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