The Journal of Transdisciplinary Peace Praxis (JTPP) is a peer-reviewed, biannual, scholarly journal of contemplative cutting edge research and practice on subjects related to human social flourishing and peace.

Editor: Dr Jeremy Rinker

Executive Editor: Abhijit Mazumder
Associate Editor: Nilanjan Dutta

ADVISORY BOARD

Dr Amii Omara-Otunnu • Dr Ashwani Kumar • Dr Bandana Purkayastha
• Dr Jacint Jordana • Dr John Doyle • Dr Lenin Raghuvanshi • Ms Michelle Ndiaye
• Dr Rahul Mukherji • Dr Shankari Sundararaman • Dr Vandana Shiva

JTPP (https://jtpp.uk), bringing together peace practitioners and academics, fills an important transdisciplinary gap that exists in current academic literature.

JTPP endeavours to support scholarship that highlights

○ the human potential for transformation,

○ a holistic and collaborative approach to complex systems,

○ the transdisciplinary nature of solutions to wicked social problems, and

○ a shared sense of purpose in human transnational activism for positive change.

JTPP thus provides a dynamic forum for sharing information and experiences primarily catering to academics, and activists particularly in the disciplines of Peace and Conflict Studies, Political Science, International Relations, Human Rights, History, as well as professionals, policymakers, organisations, institutions and individuals who nurture a firm belief in peace and human rights.

JTPP invites SUBMISSIONS from academics, scholar-practitioners, and social activists. Please see: Author’s Corner (https://jtpp.uk/authors-corner/) for Submission Guidelines.

JTPP follows the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

For SUBSCRIPTION, please see: https://jtpp.uk/subscription-plan/

Published by Frontpage Publications Limited (https://frontpagepublications.com), Level 2, 13 John Prince’s Street, London W1G 0JR, in both print and online versions, in July 2019.

Cover Photograph © 2019 Chuck Egerton

ASSOCIATES at: Delhi, Honolulu, Istanbul, Kampala, Kolkata, London, Madrid, Norwalk

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List of Contributors

AWODOLA, BOSEDE, PhD, is the Chief Research Fellow, Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR), Nigeria. She has worked and published extensively in the areas of peacebuilding and conflict management. Her research interests centre on women, children, and armed conflicts, post-conflict rehabilitation and reintegration and building capacities for peacebuilding. Awodola currently heads the National Peace Academy which is the capacity building unit of the IPCR.

BYRON, AMANDA SMITH, EdD, is an Associate Professor in Conflict Resolution at Portland State University, USA where she directs the Holocaust and Genocide Studies Project, and focuses teaching and research on unsettling the role of identity in conflict, understanding enmification and hatred as root causes of violence, and developing peacebuilding strategies to effectively address ethnoreligious conflict and prevent mass atrocities. Byron serves as the Research Chair on the board of the Peace and Justice Studies Association.

CHAPMAN, STEPHEN J is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey, USA. He received his PhD from Binghamton University (SUNY), USA in 2014. Chapman’s research focuses on representation and democracy within the context of the United States, specifically on state and local politics. His research agenda also includes a pedagogical focus, including analysing educational interventions as well as authoring instructional materials.

DAS, SAMIR KUMAR is presently Professor of Political Science at the University of Calcutta, India. Previously the Vice-Chancellor of the University of North Bengal, India, and a Postdoctoral Fellow of the Social Science Research Council, New York, Das served as Adjunct Professor at the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, USA and Visiting Professor at Université Paris 13 among many of his assignments. His latest book ‘Migrations, Identities and Democratic Practices in India’ (Routledge) was published in 2018.

DUTTA, NILANJAN is a journalist based in Kolkata, India, and a regular contributor to various print and web-based publications in India and abroad. As an activist, he has been involved in numerous social movements, particularly the civil liberties, environmental, anti-nuclear and peace movements. Dutta has authored, co-authored and edited a number of books on related subjects and made a few documentary films as well. He is now working on the history of civil liberties movement in India since the colonial period.

GHAZI, NOOR holds Master degree in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of North Carolina Greensboro, USA. Born and raised in Baghdad-Iraq, Ghazi’s research interest is focused on refugee, war displacement and peace building. She has co-authored an academic article: ‘Stuck Between War and Europe: Syrian Refugees in Turkey’ which has been published in the department journal; she has shared her experience as a refugee after her recent visit to Mosul, a city in north Iraq that was occupied by ISIS for three years (2014-2017).

LÉGARÉ, KATHIA, a PhD in Political Science from Université Laval (Québec, Canada), is now Professor (Part-Time) at Saint-Paul University, Ottawa, Canada. Her dissertation was titled: ‘A Messy Peace. A Political Reconstruction Subjected to Transnational Interdependence: A Comparative Case Study of Lebanon and Bosnia-and-Herzegovina’. Légaré studies peace processes, civil war endings and state-society interrelations from a comparative perspective. Her researches have been published in ‘Canadian Foreign Policy Journal’, ‘International Peacekeeing’, ‘Studies in Conflict and Terrorism’, ‘Études Internationales’, among others.

LEVESQUE, LAUREN MICHELLE is an Assistant Professor in the Providence School of Transformative Leadership and Spirituality at Saint-Paul University, Ottawa, Canada. She received her doctorate in Spirituality from Saint-Paul University and completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship with the Improvisation, Community and Social Practice (ICASP) Project at the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada. Her research and teaching interests include engaged scholarship, musical performance, and nonviolent social change.

RAMDHANI, NARISSA is the Honorary Consul General for the Republic of Chile in South Africa, the Director of Resource Mobilisation at the Vaal University of Technology, South Africa and a Director of the Ifa Lethu Foundation of South Africa. She holds a number of degrees from South African and US universities, including a PhD in International Relations from the University of KwaZulu-Natal and an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from the University of Connecticut, USA, awarded in recognition of her contribution to special projects for the late President Nelson Mandela.

RHODES, DANIEL is the Director of the Undergraduate Social Work Programme at the University of North Carolina Greensboro (UNC-Greensboro), USA. He received his PhD in Cultural Studies with a Graduate Certificate in Women and Gender Studies from the UNC-Greensboro in 2008. Before this, Rhodes obtained his Master’s in Social Work from the University of North Carolina -Chapel Hill in 1996 and is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. Rhodes has been engaged in community-based work for over 20 years, working in mental health, therapeutic foster care, and working with immigrants and refugees.

RINKER, JEREMY, the Editor of the Journal of Transdisciplinary Peace Praxis, is Assistant Professor & Director of Undergraduate Studies, Department of Peace & Conflict Studies at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, USA where he researches the intersections between narrative and nonviolent social change. Rinker’s research interests revolve around the centrality of justice discourse, trauma awareness, and collective resilience in movements aimed at transforming social conflict, historical injustices, and structural violence. His book, ‘Identity, Rights, and Awareness: Anticaste Activism in India and the Awakening of Justice through Discursive Practices (Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding in Asia)’ (Lexington) was published in 2018.

Disclaimer

While the information contained in this journal is believed to be true and accurate at the time of publication, neither the authors, editors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any errors and/or omissions that may have been inadvertently made. The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the materials contained in this journal.

Editor’s Welcome and Introduction

Welcome to the second issue (Vol. 1, No. 2) of the Journal of Transdisciplinary Peace Praxis (JTPP). We are glad that you found us and are even happier if you returned after reading our exciting inaugural issue focused on the complex transdisciplinary intersections between natural resource extraction, environmental degradation, and sustainable peace. We believe this second issue builds on the successful foundations of our debut release. As a still new journal of cutting-edge research and practice on subjects related to human social flourishing and peace, we remain committed to both critically reflexive scholarship and the foregrounding of pragmatic social change analysis and practice. We believe that through praxis, considered in these pages as a deep integration of peace theory and practice, peaceful social change can be better understood and, thereby, realised. If, as Paulo Freire has said, praxis is ‘reflection and action directed at the structures to be transformed’ (Freire, 1970: 126), then this second issue aims to reflect on the true human costs of conflict in a way that opens creative dialogue about real and transformative social action. By interrogating the human costs of conflict, we hope to both shed light on the epistemological assumptions of measuring human suffering and expose some little-travelled avenues for elevating the lived experience of human suffering in conflict.

As we continue to expand our critical aperture, in this second issue from Frontpage Publications Limited, UK, we believe that you will not be disappointed with the broad scope of this investigation of the true human costs of conflict. The critical scholarship in the following pages would again reaffirm Hannah Arendt’s claim that praxis is the highest ideal of human life (Arendt, 1958) while simultaneously working to complicate the multifaceted social and psychological human legacies of social conflict. Although social conflict is ubiquitous in all our lives, the true and lasting human costs of conflict are rarely discussed fully and debated. Indeed, when doing a preliminary review of those writing on the human costs of conflict, very little literature was readily available on the long-term social/psychological impacts of social conflict and war. While costs often get defined in economic terms, and authors like Collier (1999) have ‘had the largest impact on the literature’ (de Groot, 2011: 176), costs can and should be understood as other than simply economic. Even though the costs of social conflict are often assumed, and the drive to quantify them leads to economic analysis, the pieces in this second issue strive to broaden the scope of our understandings of costs while not falling into the immediate gravitational pull of the solutions-focused need to move to conflict resolution. In short, much of the literature on social conflict revolves around methods of resolution, transformation, and post-conflict peacebuilding in the immediate aftermath of violence, without considering conflicts’ full psycho-social impacts on communities. Despite tomes on the individual human and collective health costs of war (see Singer & Hodge, 2010 and Nordstrom, 2004, among others), few scholar-practitioners probe deeply into the true and lasting human costs of destructive social conflict. This second issue of the JTPP aims to open dialogue on these social and psychological costs.

At JTPP, we are working hard to expand our readership to become a resource for both activists and academics. Please share this second issue widely and encourage colleagues and fellow activists to submit to our recently opened third call, which aims to foster innovative dialogue about the problematic value propositions of the now dominant, and incessant, neoliberal capitalist agenda all over the world. Again, we are glad that you found us and hope that you feel in reading this second issue that you have, indeed, found your people. Ours is a tribe that must be nurtured and grown, and we hope this second issue acts as a coming together of those devoted to pragmatic approaches to peace.

In the first article in this second issue entitled The ‘Normality’ of Social Conflicts: Why Post-War Political Instability Might (Sometimes) be a Good Thing (pp.15-31), Dr Kathia Légaré from Saint-Paul University in Ottawa, Canada complicates the ‘widespread (mis)use of the adjective “post-conflict” ’ (p.16) by exploring what she calls the ‘normality of social conflicts’ (p.21). In arguing that ‘the absence of conflicts is not always very good news for peace either’ (p.16), Dr Légaré takes a sociological and functionalist approach to contrasting social conflict and argues that the practice of politics, as a venue for competing interests, cannot be separated from the important processes of ongoing peacebuilding. This first article frames nicely one way to ‘looking at conflict differently’ (p.27) and sees conflict as having both ‘negative or positive impact on integration’ (p.28). While often seen as a cost of conflict, political instability, in Dr Légaré’s reading, might actually be seen in a more positive pro-social light.

The second article, entitled Science and Art of Peace (pp.32-51) by Dr Samir Kumar Das, from the University of Calcutta, India continues to complicate our understandings of the human costs of conflict by interrogating, not conflict, but rather what we commonly mean by peace as a politically-oriented public good. By exploring the ‘peace mode’ (p.33) of India’s Northeast region, and Assam in particular, Dr Das complicates the dominant understandings of peace, and thereby the human costs of conflict. This region, long a fertile ground for insurgent groups opposed to the central (Indian) government’s ‘development’ of the region has over the last two decades seen a relative peace—albeit ‘one of a special kind, which does not necessarily result in the resolution of conflicts by securing people’s entitlement to rights, justice and democracy’ (p.34). While Dr Das laments that ‘little attention is paid to appreciate the importance of peace as public good’ (p.38), he takes pains to explain the importance of seeing peace as an experimental art as opposed to a science. This article, like the first, complicates our epistemological understandings of peace and conflict in this case by turning our original call on its head by questioning the human and developmental costs of peace.

The third and fourth articles turn the critical gaze towards North America. In Dr Stephen J Chapman’s (Monmouth University, USA) piece entitled Human Costs in Cleavage-Based Politics in the United States (pp.52-74), we see a deeper turn towards the discourse and rhetoric of populist politics. In this piece, Dr Chapman explores recent populist rhetoric in the United States and how it ‘serves as a partial explanation of shifting public sentiment on a range of issues’ (p.52). In calling for a more informed and policy educated public, Dr Chapman’s piece points towards the long-term costs of our current era of populist and identity-hardening political discourse. While calling for ‘an emphasis on objective evidence with respect to policy decisions’ (p.69) may seem simplistic at first glance, Dr Chapman’s polling research on the shift of social cleavages in public opinion presents a set of initial prescriptions for overcoming the growing social and psychological costs of political polarisation.

In line with this call for objective evidence is a call in the fourth article, by Dr Daniel Rhodes (University of North Carolina Greensboro), for scholars to engage students in critical pedagogy. In Dr Rhodes’ article entitled When the Local is Global : Critical Pedagogy as Practice (pp.75-94), he implores us to reflect ‘theoretically on the political, economic and human cost of international migration’ (p.77). In exploring global migration in local context of Greensboro, North Carolina, this article is a ‘journey of critical pedagogy’ (77) that challenges us as both educators and activists to ‘engage in a process of critical pedagogy that becomes global, while centring ourselves in the local’ (p.94). This reminder of our ‘rooted cosmopolitanism’ (Appiah, 2007) draws us away from focusing too deeply on the context of social conflict and towards the responsibility we all have to be in relationship with those that are suffering.

In her article, Human Costs of Conflict in Nigeria: Roles and Responsibilities of Stakeholders (pp.98-117), the fifth in this second issue, Dr Bosede Awodola from the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution, in Abuja, Nigeria calls us towards the ‘responsibilities of stakeholders in ameliorating human cost of conflict’ (p.100) in the context of Nigerian state instability. In privileging the ‘conceptual design’ (p.107) of Multi-Track Diplomacy, Dr Awodola argues that ‘patronage relationship[s]’ (p.113) have hampered the ability of local youth, business, and media, among other key stakeholders, to be able to effectively address the symbolic and cultural effects of conflict and instability. The argument that ‘social relations are intangible in terms of costs, but remain a critical element in rebuilding and stabilising post-conflict communities in Nigeria’ (p.114) underscores the need to look past costs in simple economic and rationalist terms.

This argument leads nicely into the sixth article in this issue, Human Costs of Reconciliation on South African Women in the South African Freedom (or Anti-Apartheid) Movement (118-137), written by Dr Narissa Ramdhani of Vaal University of Technology in South Africa. Exploring the role of women in the history of South Africa’s reconciliation process, Dr Ramdhani draws upon her own experiences of Apartheid, as well as, the experiences of other women. As a staff person to the late President Nelson Mandela, Dr Ramdhani brings a unique perspective on women’s ‘painful and torturous experiences’ (p.125) during the Apartheid era, as well as, men’s failure to take these experiences into account. In concluding that ‘reconciliation can only be considered to have been partly fulfilled’ (p.135) for women due to the intersections of structures of gender with class and racism (p.135), Dr Ramdhani raises important questions about who the costs of conflict are measured for, and how reconciliation extends to the excluded and marginalised.

The last two articles in this issue delve into the realm of auto-ethnography to explore the important, and often unaddressed, themes of self and dignity in post-conflict peacebuilding. In this issue’s second to last article, Dr Amanda Smith Byron from Portland State University, USA, ‘seeks to (re)claim human dignity as an important element in the peacebuilding process’ (p.139). The article entitled (Re)Claiming Human Dignity (pp.138-153) takes the reader on a personal defining of dignity through the telling of the story of the author’s mother and her felt need ‘to maintain[her] dignity in the aftermath of the Holocaust’ (p.147). Dr Byron’s heartfelt analysis of dignity not only foregrounds the critical role of dignity violations as an under-studied cost of social conflict, but also develops the beginnings of a model to reclaim dignity in the aftermath of atrocity. This important contribution to the literature on dignity as ‘the foundational human right’ (de Matos, 2013) represents a heroic and personal appraisal that is central to any measurement of the real costs of human conflict.

The last article continues this intellectually honest form of heroinism by foregrounding failure as critical to restoring trust in any attempt at successful nonviolent social change. Dr Lauren Michelle Levesque’s article entitled Restoring Trust in the Self through Failure: An Exploration of Singing as Reflective Practice and its Role in Nonviolent Social Change (pp.154-173) is a sincere and honest ‘self-reflection in understanding and sustaining advocacy for nonviolent social change and teaching peace’ (p.155). Much like Dr Rhodes’ piece on critical pedagogy, found early in this second issue, Dr Levesque’s work calls for a ‘critical pedagogy for nonviolence’ (p.159) through an analytical self-reflection as a teacher and activist. Through reflexive analysis of her own failure as a singer, Dr Levesque articulates the need to create ‘the space for students to do their emotional work’ which, in turn, ‘requires teachers do the same through their own processes of self-reflection’ (p.166). By probing deeply into the question of ‘Who is it that I am meant to be as a teacher, as a peacebuilder?’ (p.156, 169), Dr Levesque’s piece will leave readers of the JTPP’s second issue in a state of personal reflective praxis. This is a place in which I personally hope our readership sits long and hard; a place of critical reflection, from which positive change and human flourishing can grow.

Again, I am glad you joined us for our second transdisciplinary journey. I sincerely hope that you enjoy reading these eight articles as much as I did as JTPP’s editor. As of yet I have still not been unconvinced that this journal represents a vital voice of creative collaboration, reflective expression, and informed peace activism. As you turn the pages of our second issue, you will be reminded of the hope for change inherent in the acts of writing and knowledge production. A deeper and wider understanding of the human costs of social conflict develops informed resistance and hope for change in an uncertain, and increasingly individualistic world. The dominant narratives of war, violence, and neoliberal globalisation will not change quickly, but with mindful awareness, critical reflection, and scholarly attention, change will come nonetheless. Again, I encourage you to share this knowledge with friends, colleagues, and fellow activists. I believe that the articles in this second issue of the Journal of Transdisciplinary Peace Praxis (JTPP) provide the hope necessary to achieve change in the violent narratives that we, as a human race, must desperately transform. We wish you well in your work of peace praxis and welcome your feedback and continued support for our shared work.

With metta (loving kindness and compassion),

DR JEREMY RINKER

Department of Peace and Conflict Studies

The University of North Carolina Greensboro, USA

Editor, Journal of Transdisciplinary Peace Praxis (JTPP)

E: E: jarinker@uncg.edu

REFERENCES

Appiah, Kwame A, The Ethics of Identity, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007

Arendt, Hannah, The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958

Collier, Paul, ‘On the Economic Consequences of Civil War’ Oxford Economic Papers, Vol. 51, No. 1, 1999, pp.168-183

de Groot, Olaf, ‘A Methodology for the Calculation of the Global Economic Costs of Conflict’ in Caruso, Raul (ed.), Ethnic Conflict, Civil War and Cost of Conflict, London: Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2011, pp.171-193

de Matos, Gomes, Dignity: A Multidimensional View, Lake Oswego, OR: Dignity Press, 2013

Freire, Paulo, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 1970

Nordstrom, Carolyn, Shadows of War: Violence, Power, and International Profiteering in the Twenty-first Century, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004

Singer, Merrill & Hodge, Derrick G, The War Machine and Global Health: A Critical Medical Anthropological Examination of the Human Costs of Armed Conflict and the International Violence Industry, Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2010

The ‘Normality’ of Social Conflicts: Why Post-War Political Instability Might (Sometimes) be a Good Thing

Kathia Légaré

KEYWORDS

Social conflict, conflict transformation, conflict theory, peacebuilding, civil war, peace settlement

ABSTRACT

Peacebuilders often look at social conflicts as problematic. They have sought ways to neutralise them, for instance by imposing settlements. However, expecting to strengthen institutions and create state capacities without generating conflicts is not realistic and can be counterproductive. For sure, conflicts can be destructive, when they paralyse the institutions and the decision-making processes. War recurrence is also a serious risk. However, conflicts are ‘normal’ social interactions. They play key constructive roles in peace processes by helping societies adjust to the social changes brought by the war, by preventing peace from becoming intractable, and by strengthening the relations between social groups, thus helping to restore social cohesion. Notwithstanding the risks, politics, despite its ‘messiness’, might offer the best way out of war as a process of continuous adaptation to complicated social changes. This is why post-war politics instability might be, in certain circumstances, as a good thing. The nagging question is why some conflicts have positive repercussions on social ties and others have negative outcomes. To further the understanding of the paradoxical impact of conflicts, this article suggests that it is first necessary to consider the three levels of conflict in divided societies—inside the groups, between the groups and across the groups—and their interactions.

INTRODUCTION

Mainstream approaches to peacebuilding tend to look negatively at social conflicts. They are seen as problematic and need to be ‘solved’ or ‘managed’ because the interveners’ priority is generally short-term stability. In this light, fierce debates and conflicts are seen as a waste of energy and a threat to peace. However, this view implies a certain contempt for politics. What is seen as ‘normal’ politics in most democratic countries is seen in the peacebuilding context as dangerous atavistic behaviours. ‘Politics is then regarded simply as an obstacle.’ (Crick, 1964: 20) The widespread (mis)use of the adjective ‘post-conflict’ is indicative of this generalised perspective. The term, which became widely used in the early 1990s, is used to characterise the countries where armed conflicts of higher or lower intensity came to an end. More specifically, it is used to identify the areas where peacebuilding operations are taking place. However, this is a misnomer since there is no such thing as a ‘conflict-free society’. This choice of words reveals a misconception and a bias: that the end of violent hostilities is the end of conflicts . It is not the case, because the transition from one state to another, from war to peace, is often not clear-cut and involves elements of continuation. Indeed, war and peace are not always two opposite elements of a dichotomy. Political violence might decrease in intensity or disappear altogether but conflicts always remain. As argued by Max Weber, ‘ “(p)eace” is nothing more than a change in the form of conflict or in the antagonists or in the objects of the conflict, or finally in the chances of selection’ (Weber, 1949: 26-27). Thus, the existence of conflicts should be seen as ‘normal’. Understandably, the peacebuilders’ fear that war will recur makes their view understandable. However, the absence of conflicts is not always very good news for peace either. Indeed, it might be the symptom of a protracted peace, of a status quo being enforced either by a despotic government or by a political oligarchy. It also often means that issues go unaddressed, and that the political process is hampered.

The absence of conflicts is not always very good news for peace either. Indeed, it might be the symptom of a protracted peace, of a status quo being enforced either by a despotic government or by a political oligarchy. It also often means that issues go unaddressed, and that the political process is hampered.

These contrasting perspectives about conflicts are reminiscent of a debate that raged through the 1960s and 1970s between two schools of thought about the fundamental nature of the social bond. One side depicted conflicts as signs of a social ‘disease’, threats to the social order; the other, on the contrary, saw conflict as often ‘constructive’ that is one crucial mechanism of social change. This article revisits and actualises this debate to reflect on the roles of conflicts in post-war societies.

It argues that, although conflicts are risky in this highly volatile context, they might in fact prevent peace process to become intractable, which threatens the long-term peace. It is argued that, in some circumstances, social and political conflicts can support the adaptation of society and the state to social changes which occurred during the war. They could also help with the social and political inclusion by helping to regulate interrelations among different groups. This paper’s aim is to substantiate this idea and to reflect on the role played by conflicts in the post-war context. It first discusses the contrasting perspectives on the role of social conflicts. Second, it underlines the specificities of the post-war context and assesses the risks and the opportunities associated with conflicts. There are reasons to believe that all the conflicts do not have the same effect on society. The article seeks to advance the understanding of the factors which make some conflicts constructive and others destructive in the particular post-war setting.

CONTRASTING PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIAL CONFLICTS

Positive or negative views on conflicts are based upon different theories of social integration. The controversies raged from the 1960s to the 1970s in response to Talcott Parsons’ normative functionalism, according to which social integration ascribed priority to consensus on a value system as the source of social order. Societies are based upon cooperation, and harmony is normal, while conflicts are symptoms of a ‘disease’, signs of dysfunction. They destroy the social fabric and threaten political cohesion (the ‘order model’).

Parsons’ functionalism was criticised because it projected ‘an over-socialised conception of the individual and an over-integrated conception of society’ (Wrong, 1995: 209). Lewis Coser and others challenged this view because it disregards conflicts and their positive functions. According to the conflict theory, within a society, the consensus over norms is not so strong and the nature of the social bond is looser than described by Parson (the ‘conflict model’). The underlying theoretical perspective was that society does not hold together thanks mainly to a consensus on common values, but that it relies chiefly on relations of power and struggle over scarce resources. Consequently, conflicts must be viewed as indicators of power struggles and normal mechanisms of social change in a dynamic society. According to Coser, conflicts are one of the most important ways that society holds itself together: ‘Far from being necessarily dysfunctional, a certain degree of conflict is an essential element in group formation and the persistence of group life.’ (Coser, 1956: 31)

Useful elements of synthesis of the duality of the conflict model versus order model are offered by Dahrendorf (1965) and Hirschman (1995). Dahrendorf agreed with the conflict theorists, but insisted on the part played by roles, values and norms in society, as underlined by the functionalist approach...

Science and Art of Peace

Samir Kumar Das

KEYWORDS

Democracy, justice, pacification, precarity, public good, rights

ABSTRACT

The paper argues that there are different kinds of peace and peace achieved through pacification and peace based on some durable solution to conflicts by respecting the triadic principles of rights, justice and democracy are certainly not the same. These two different kinds of peace also extract two very different kinds of cost for their production and reproduction. The cost of pacification just enough for the purpose of bringing the economy back on developmental track is amenable to utilitarian cost-benefit analysis and is considered worth paying for mainly in official circles, when compared with the exceedingly high cost that societies in conflict over a prolonged period of time are condemned to pay. This peace, however, is not necessarily a recipe for people’s entitlement to and realisation of the triadic principles of rights, justice and democracy. How does one make the journey from one peace to another? Who pays the cost of peace that benefits all? Is peace then a public good? The paper with the help of a series of recently conducted ethnographies seeks to find out answers to these questions. While the peacemaking initiatives of this nature do not stand the test of utilitarian calculations for they appear to be costly, they are nevertheless considered as significant—so significant that the cost is always considered at least by some as worth paying for.

INTRODUCTION

In the earlier phase [in an obvious reference to the Assam movement, 1979-85, India], [the agitators-turned-peacemakers] deceived the people by [promising] to deliver Golden Assam (Sonar Asom) by driving out the foreigners. In the current phase, [the insurgents vow] to set Assam free (swadhin) from India. All are the same, everyone is eager to loot and plunder, to become the king oneself. We are only strangled in the middle [between the State and the insurgents] and Assam will be a graveyard (Morisali).¹

Arupa Patangia Kalita, Felani (Kalita, 2007: 132)

India’s Northeast presently comprises seven Indian states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura—also known as ‘Seven Sisters’, with Sikkim as the ‘Brother’ incorporated into the Indian Union in 1974. The region has been the theatre of the earliest and longest lasting insurgency of the country starting in the Naga Hills—then a district of Assam—back in 1952 when the demand for independence was first raised, followed by the Mizo rebellion in 1966 and a multiplicity of more recent conflicts that proliferated especially since the late 1970s. Every state² in the region excepting Sikkim is affected by some form of insurgent violence, and four of these (Assam, Manipur, Nagaland and Tripura) witnessed scales of conflict that could—at least between 1990 and 2000, be categorised as ‘low intensity conflicts’ in which fatalities were over 100 but less than 1,000 per annum.

The United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA)—the largest insurgent organisation of Assam albeit amongst many of them—questions Assam’s inclusion in the Indian Union and calls for the formation of a ‘Sovereign, Socialist and Independent Assam’. Although attempts have been made to bring ULFA to the negotiating table, no formal ceasefire agreement could yet be reached with this militant outfit. The State’s response to these independentist demands has so far ranged from deploying strong arm tactics of enacting and implementing extraordinary legislations (like The Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958 etc.) and ‘firmly dealing’ with these organisations with the help of ever-stronger security forces to trying to reach some form of agreement with them.

India’s Northeast in general and Assam in particular has, however, been in peace mode for close to two decades since the loss of human lives and property has come down significantly in the first decade of the new millennium compared to what it was, let us say, in the early 1990s. Back in 2012, the Government of Assam, to cite an example, announced suspension of operations vis-à-vis most of the insurgent groups with one or two groups announcing unilateral ceasefire. ULFA (Independence) led by Paresh Barua—its elusive ‘commander-in-chief’—however continues to stay away from the ongoing peace process. As on 24 January 2012, 676 cadres belonging to eight rebel organisations³ ‘laid down’ arms in Guwahati—the capital city of Assam. Peace is believed to have ‘arrived’ in Assam and the Northeast.

The story of arms surrender will have to be read against many other stories. The number of arms surrendered on the eve of India’s Republic Day (26 January) in 2012 is only 201—all of which are said to be ‘locally made’ with the obvious implication that the high-calibre, ‘foreign-made’ ones are retained by the insurgents.⁴ Some of the outfits shown on the TV channel were reported to have ‘laid down’ their arms for the second time after they had done the same a few years back—implying thereby that they made it a ritual to be performed at regular intervals with pomp and publicity. Surrender of arms thus turns into a public spectacle watched by one and all and surrounded by the dignitaries and young women greeting them with garlands and gifts. Many of the rebel leaders threatened to go back to the jungles—if their demands were not met—again an inseparable part of the same ritual of surrender—although it might turn out to be difficult for them in actual practice. Armed cadres—by then well entrenched in peace thanks to unusually prolonged peace process—are, by all indications, no longer interested in returning to the jungles, taking up arms and resuming the battle. Peace has started paying its dividends. Hefty peace packages in cash and kind are announced to lure away the insurgents from the path of violence and cash award is also provided against every single gun being surrendered to the security forces in the event. A sense of fatigue seems to have gripped them as they live in designated camps with all the amenities of modern living for years.

THE PARADOX OF PEACE

The above example points to a paradox: On the one hand, peace, by all conventional indicators, has returned to the Northeast with the effect that the region is now back on the fast track of development. Never before in its history has the region been subjected to such intense experimentation with development policies commonly clustered under India’s ‘Look East Policy’ or its new avatar —the ‘Act East Policy’. On the other hand, if ‘peace’ has returned, it is one of a special kind, which does not necessarily result in the resolution of conflicts by securing people’s entitlement to rights, justice and democracy.

In the dominant understanding of the concept, peace is defined as a function of power whereby two conflicting parties reach peace only when either (a) one is too powerful to comprehensively defeat the enemy and thus impose ‘peace’ on the other, or (b) there is a kind of uneasy yet stable balance of power between them that makes them realise the mutually hurting nature of the conflict and restrains them from continuing with it. In either of these two cases, peace implies pacification without, however, ensuring people’s entitlement. Peace thus is predominantly viewed as a ‘science’—Peace Science as it is called now.⁵ If peace is regarded as science, it is the science of power—that special knowledge which helps establish complex permutations and combinations in the power relations amongst conflicting parties and their respective role in the making of peace. For instance, Vadlamannati’s work, in his own words, offers a ‘first cut exploration into the causes of some of the oldest unresolved armed conflicts of the world’ that took place in the Northeast (Vadlamannati, 2011: 616). Knowledge of these ‘causes’,...

Human Costs in Cleavage-Based Politics in the United States

Stephen J Chapman

KEYWORDS

Social cleavages, social conflict, public opinion, trust in institutions, populism

ABSTRACT

This analysis presents a case-study of shifts in public opinion within the United States (US). The study focuses on social cleavage theory in order to illustrate the existing social cleavages in the US and how three recent political events, the ‘birther’ conspiracy, the Tea Party, and the Trump campaign/administration, provide examples of cleavage-based politics. Stemming from that, the study then presents a summary evidence of mass-level opinion shifts on a range of issues. The study then offers a discussion of the tangible human costs associated with cleavage-based politics. This has important implications for both the provision of public goods as well as the stability of democracy within the country. By offering perspective on the manipulation of social cleavages and its consequences, it is possible to seek potential solutions.

INTRODUCTION

In recent years, the topic of populism has seen growing interest in both public media outlets as well as scholarly inquiry. This is a result of a wave of political actors around the world gaining public support via populist strategies. The goal of the current analysis is to illustrate the consequences of populist rhetoric. Specifically, the current study presents the longstanding social cleavages of the United States in order to show how the recent increase in populist rhetoric serves as a partial explanation of shifting public sentiment on a range of issues as well as direct human costs. The issues of interest include trust in democracy, governmental institutions, economic policies, and immigration rules. Such an analysis speaks of the health of democracy and potential for democratic decline. In addition, the analysis provides insight as to how shifting public opinion on important dimensions can alter the defence of providing public goods. If a population is split, the collective will to provide for the whole diminishes and the opportunity for conflict increases. The study also provides an opportunity to understand how these cleavages impact society, thereby offering potential avenues for interventions.

There are multiple definitions of social cleavages. However, the commonality in each is the idea of creating divisions in society, an in-group and an out-group. Rae and Taylor (1970) contend that relevant political cleavages consist of trait (race/class), attitudinal (ideology), and behavioural cleavages that stem from group membership. They view that these cleavages are not static, but can shift depending on time and space. Conversely, Flanagan (1973) thinks of cleavages as potential points of separation within society. This is similar to Rae and Taylor’s definition, although they differ on the types of important cleavages. Flanagan focuses on three divisions: segmental (race/language/class), cultural (age/urban-rural/ideology), and economic-function (class/status/societal role). While there are disagreements as to the structural definition, the operational definition consists of splitting society into groups. This is significant as the study attempts to show as to how recent populist movements and leaders in the US have made particular issues salient to seize on the existing social cleavages within a society, thereby shifting public sentiment.

The paper proceeds with a discussion of the theoretical perspective, mainly focusing on social cleavage theory. It is important to highlight previous scholarship on how divisions in society impact long-standing stability in order to assess the current political climate within the US. The study then moves onto offering a descriptive view of social cleavages within the US setting. By dissecting the cleavages individually, it allows for understanding as to how each contributes to the declining sense of public good. The analysis then moves to highlighting three major political events that relied on populist-type rhetoric: the ‘birther’ movement, the Tea Party movement, and special emphasis is given to the Trump campaign/administration. While these three events are not the only instances that have contributed to increasing conflict, they illustrate important examples of ambitious actors seeking to segment the population via social divisions. Following this, the analysis provides an overarching view of how cleavage-based rhetoric has shifted public opinion on multiple dimensions. The emphasis on public opinion data allows for direct evidence of how elite messaging can increase division in society, further contributing to an unstable political environment. The study then offers a discussion of the tangible human costs associated with cleavage-based politics prior to concluding. By providing a descriptive case-study, it has the potential to assist scholars and practitioners in locating possible interventions to thwart the further rise of populism.

The analysis provides an overarching view of how cleavage-based rhetoric has shifted public opinion on multiple dimensions. The emphasis on public opinion data allows for direct evidence of how elite messaging can increase division in society, further contributing to an unstable political environment.

THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE

The literature on social cleavages includes a vast array of scholarly work contains two main dimensions. The first, where social cleavages are used as the explanatory variable for party system formation stems from Lipset and Rokkan’s (1967) critique. They contend that social cleavages, divisions in society created by long-lasting historical forces, create the fault lines in society that morph into a party system whenever it becomes possible. For example, during a transition period within a country or an influx of voters to the system. While they note that not all cleavages are transformed into political parties, Lipset and Rokkan mainly emphasise on religious, ethnic, geographic, and class-based divisions in society. These divisions then crystallise and create a stable system of party choices, although they do leave open the possibility for new historical junctures to reshape the party system and create standard in-group/out-groups within a society (see also Bartolini, 2000). As it relates to the current argument, it is the first attempt to arrive at a comparative political sociology approach to understanding societal outcomes, and provides a framework for understanding long-standing societal divisions.

Another seminal work by Lijphart (1999), however, focuses on how issues can be politicised by political entrepreneurs. While Lijphart highlights the same four dimensions of Lipset and Rokkan, he also adds issues that create divisions in society. Such issues are not brought about by pre-existing cleavages (views of materialism, foreign policy, and regime support), but rather ambitious politicians who are able to make an issue salient within the distribution of voters. Lijphart finds evidence of this within his analysis that countries do have significant issue divisions beyond the standard cleavage argument.

This dimension of the literature is a critical underpinning of the current study as it attempts to merge these two positions. Long-standing cleavages exist in society and have implications for the ideological movement of parties. However, ambitious politicians can instigate the presence of a salient issue that offers political advantages. These salient issues can tap into the pre-existing social cleavages, thereby sorting citizens’ votes into the already existing party structure.

This line of reasoning is consistent with additional major works in political science. Riker’s work (1983; 1986) on electoral competition centres on the idea that party leadership plays an active role in making issues salient with the goal of shaping the policy discussion. While this meshes well with Lipset and Rokkan...

When the Local is Global: Critical Pedagogy as Practice

Daniel Rhodes

KEYWORDS

International migration, immigrants, refugees, critical pedagogy, community, rooted cosmopolitanism

ABSTRACT

Those of us in the global West witness images of people in other countries fleeing their homeland. War, ecological and economic disasters are leading to greater numbers of international migration and these displaced peoples are directly impacting Western countries and specifically local communities. The global West has historically suffered from ethnocentrism and Westerners often do not feel the need to understand or respect those from other cultures. However, with this increase in refugee and immigrant populations, those who live in the West no longer have the luxury to ignore the sociopolitical events that lead to mass migration. In this paper, I will explore some of the issues that have created this migration crisis and the impact this has had on local communities.

INTRODUCTION

In September 2015, the image of a Syrian child’s lifeless body washed up on a beach in Turkey was emblazoned all over social and mainstream media. It was the symbol of the treacherous plight of Syrian refugees; fleeing their country from a conflict that most people in the West did not understand. The child’s name was Aylan Kurdi and he was only three years old. He, along with his siblings and mother, perished attempting to escape from war-torn Syria. Media sources were following the flight of the 4.9 million Syrians (UNHCR, 2015: 3) from the protracted conflict, but little information about the nature and history of the conflict was covered. As the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in their 2015 Global Trends report noted, ‘By the end of 2015 there were close to 5 million Syrian refugees worldwide, an increase of 1 million men, women, and children within a year’ (p.7). By 2017, the UNHCR reported the number of Syrian refugees increasing to 6.3 million (p.3).

The image sparked worldwide outrage against a humanity that would allow such a young child to needlessly perish while fleeing for his life. Hashtags on social media outlets started tagging his picture with, ‘ “KiyiyaVuranInsanlik”—Turkish for “Humanity Washed Ashore” ’ (Bloch, 2015). Western countries started demanding accountability and promised to support refugees so that nothing like this would happen again.

A couple of months after the image became a universal icon for refugee’s plight, a coordinated terrorist attack erupted in Paris resulting in the death of 130 people (BBC, 2015). Western response shifted from supporting fleeing refugees to blaming the influx of refugees for the terrorist attack. Many in the West became concerned that refugees were not properly vetted for security. Almost immediately after the attack in Paris, around thirty United States Governors made public proclamations that their individual states would no longer accept Syrian refugees (Seipal, 2015). The outpouring of concern for the suffering of Syrians after the image of Aylan Kurdi became so ubiquitous, ceased. After the initial outrage died down, the UNHCR reported that by the end of 2015 an estimated ‘11.7 million Syrians were displaced’ still continuing to seek safety and protection (UNHCR, 2015: 6).

Refugees fleeing for their lives became maligned and the refusal of the United States to assist Syrians split mostly down partisan lines, quickly becoming a political issue. Political figures began disseminating misleading information as a way to scapegoat the suffering of refugees and to rally support from their predominant electoral base. This is nothing new, however, as Khalid Koser (2016) notes,

Yet all too often the debate on migration is unsatisfactory. Concepts are unclear. Statistics are at times quoted in ways that alarm rather than inform. Only a very partial picture of migration is normally presented. Overall, the real diversity and complexity of migration is often ignored. (p.12)

Around the time of death of Aylan Kurdi and the terrorist attack in Paris, the USA was moving into a major election cycle for 2016. During political campaigns, Presidential candidate Donald Trump explicitly ran on a platform of misinformation and derogatory comments aimed specifically at immigrants and refugees; at one point accusing Mexican immigrants of being, ‘rapists and criminals’¹ (Kopan, 2016).

Becoming sound bites for corporate mainstream and social media, the accurate story of immigrant and refugee’s struggles is obfuscated. As Khalid Koser (2016) notes, ‘The majority of migration is largely overlooked by the global media’ (p.2). Misleading and inaccurate information about geopolitical events and the adversities of immigrants and refugees is nothing new with the media and political figures, ‘One aspect of the electronic, postmodern world is that there has been a reinforcement of the stereotypes by which the Orient is viewed’ (Said, 1979: 26).

Ethnicities and cultures are conflated into ‘Oriental’ caricatures as a result of the West’s global illiteracy and misunderstanding of non-Western countries. One of the leading critics of the Western notion of Orientalism, Edward Said, defines it as a, ‘Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient’ (p.3).

(O)nce referred to romantically and even emotionally as the Third World—is enmeshed in a debt trap, broken into dozens of fractured or incoherent entities, beset with problems of poverty, disease, and underdevelopment that have increased in the past ten or fifteen years. (Said, 1979: 346)

The media often depicts those from the Global South using this Orientalism framework. Images of fleeing refugees, often emotion provoking, do not actually lead many in the West to a deeper understanding of the complexities of the story behind an image. These images rarely invoke substantial empathy for those fleeing for their lives from war and poverty. Nor do these images inform and educate the Western public of the long-term impact that colonisation has had on people living in the Global South, especially protracted poverty. Images themselves become pop culture symbols, but the actual substance of these images is lost. These are some of the reasons why educators in the West must inform their practice with a critical pedagogy. This becomes a praxis that reflects theoretically on the political, economic and human cost of international migration.

Images of fleeing refugees, often emotion provoking, do not actually lead many in the West to a deeper understanding of the complexities of the story behind an image. These images rarely invoke substantial empathy for those fleeing for their lives from war and poverty. Nor do these images inform and educate the Western public of the long-term impact that colonisation has had on people living in the Global South, especially protracted poverty..

In this article, I will embark on a journey of critical pedagogy. Beginning with examining migration itself, I will briefly review migration and the differences between voluntary and forced migration. Noting how forced migration has become an immense concern for the world, we will better understand how it has greatly impacted local communities. This essay will also reflect on the issue...

Human Cost of Conflict in Nigeria: Roles and Responsibilities of Stakeholders

Bosede Awodola

KEYWORDS

Stakeholders, conflict, human cost, multi-track diplomacy, roles, responsibility

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the human costs of conflict in Nigeria vis-à-vis the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders in conflicts areas. While the paper acknowledges political, economic and social cost of conflicts to humans, it observes that some major losses associated with the destruction and distortion of networks of social relationships within the society also constitute human costs of conflict, and they are often overlooked with attendant impact on inclusiveness, trust, social capital and mobility, which are prerequisites for peaceful co-existence. The paper relies on secondary sources for analysis. Contemporary conflicts in Nigeria are a web of complex situations and the need for collaboration and cooperation of stakeholders cannot be overemphasised. Therefore, the Multi-Track Diplomacy (MTD) framework is employed to explain relationships and connectivity between stakeholders as well as their roles in an intra-state conflict perspective, which may be impacted by human cost of conflict. With critical stakeholders such as local governments, as well as religious and traditional leaderships who have closer proximity and influence in the community, the possibility of communities to transform conflict and rebuild the society is high. The paper concludes that these critical stakeholders should be empowered policy-wise to reduce human costs of conflicts and the scope of their conflict management strategies broadened to incorporate broad-based partnership and collaboration with the various actors.

INTRODUCTION

The rising incidence of violent conflict in Nigeria is posing grave consequences to the security establishments of the country. Following the amalgamation of 1914, Nigeria has had a tortuous period, trying to construct a nation-state out of several nationalities that were merged together by British rule. Thus, the amalgamation process created the basis for dysfunctionality, as ethnic groups that were merged together had no clue of what would become of them (Yoroms, 2017: 59). Many scholars, in their conflict analysis of Nigeria, have attributed the spate of conflict in the country to this amalgamation and perceive Nigeria as a conflict-prone society (Omeje, 2005: 34-37). What raises anxiety about the Nigerian situation is the sheer magnitude, complexity, frequency, ramifications and apparent intractability of most violent conflicts that exists in the six geo-political regions of the country (Odoh, 2014: 9). In the South-South Niger Delta Region, resource control and environmental conflicts are constantly waged by ethnic militias; the North-Central has been ravaged by farmers/herders conflicts. While the North-East has continued to experience insurgency from the Boko Haram terrorists and other splinter groups, the North-West has been awash with banditry, cattle rustling and kidnapping. The South-West is not immune from such violence as it has recently recorded high incidences of kidnapping, cultism and intra-communal conflicts. Also, self-succession in the South-East threatens the unity of the country, as this region recounts its experience from the Nigerian civil war (Biafra), and this has become a major reason for agitation.

At the heart of all these conflicts are issues of religion, ethnicity, politics and economy. These problems became worse since the return of democracy in 1999, as Nigeria has been grappling with diverse security challenges, chief among them are insurgency, election violence, kidnapping and most recently, the herder-farmer conflicts among others (Egbuta, 2018). It is important to note that contemporary conflicts in Nigeria are intra-state and inter-communal in nature, often involving a multiplicity of actors. Whereas, it is common knowledge that violent conflicts rescind development and the human costs are usually devastating, evidently as the case of Nigeria. In the first half of 2018, more than 1,300 persons reportedly died in the violence involving herders and farmers, while over 300,000 fled their homes in the Middle Belt region only (International Crisis Group, 2018). In the same vein, about 2 million persons have been displaced internally and, over 239,000 Nigerians are refugees as a result of the Boko Haram insurgency (UNHCR). This violence has also left over 20,000 dead, with private and public infrastructure destroyed. Additionally, the Nigerian civil war left untold stories of humanitarian catastrophes (UNICEF).

Nigeria has been grappling with diverse security challenges, chief among them are insurgency, election violence, kidnapping and most recently, the herder-farmer conflicts among others.

However, most discussions on the human costs of conflict have always concentrated on the killings, destruction of properties and displacements of persons with high attendant socio-economic and political instability of the country. While we cannot overemphasise these aspects to cost of conflicts to humans, some major losses associated with the destruction and distortion of networks of social relationships within the society, especially in post-conflict settings, also constitute human costs of conflict and they are often overlooked. This is with attendant impact on inclusiveness, trust, social capital and mobility, amongst others, which are important for peaceful co-existence. It has been argued that the persistent re-occurrence of conflict in several communities in Nigeria has posed devastating consequences on human relationship and national development (Adetula, 2004). Put differently, these may also be fundamental obstacles to harmonious and peaceful coexistence of people within communities and conflict settings.

Likewise, the dynamics of conflicts experienced in Nigeria have led to negative profiling and stereotyping of ethnic groups, religions and political identity, leading to mutual suspicion and prejudice, consequently affecting confidence building, stabilisation and trust measures among the people. This has often been the case in post-conflict communities, where conflict works to destroy the social relations that existed due to the magnitude of violence committed. Unfortunately, while the actual human cost of conflict is lost in relationships, quantifying them in terms of numerable costs may be quite difficult. Nevertheless, figures for devastation and consequences such as loss of lives, internal displacements and destruction of properties, amongst others, can easily be measured. Hence, within the context of this paper, human cost of conflict is seen from a sociological perspective, focusing on social relations in post-conflict settings. Social relations are critical and should not be overlooked when discussing the human cost of conflict. While conflict generates social disconnect, high hopes are placed on the de-escalating or conflict-transforming power of stakeholders and communities in conflict areas.

In view of the above, this paper examines the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders in ameliorating human cost of conflict by improving, strengthening and rebuilding relationships in conflict settings, in order to build confidence, trust, social cohesion and improve social relations. To this end, the questions are—what are the human costs of conflict in Nigeria? What are the impacts of the human cost of conflict to social relations in Nigeria? What are the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders in rebuilding social relations in conflict areas in Nigeria? What are the areas of collaboration available to stakeholders to improve social relations in conflict areas/setting in Nigeria? However, the approaches to these questions are derived from Multi-Track Diplomacy (MTD), the most comprehensive approach to contemporary peacebuilding. This is done for the purpose of reconciliation, rebuilding, reconstruction and confidence-building among the various groups and communities in conflict areas in the country, and ultimately to build social relationships for sustainable peace and development in...

Human Costs of Reconciliation on South African Women in the South African Freedom (or Anti-Apartheid) Movement

Narissa Ramdhani

KEYWORDS

Apartheid, public good, social conflict, women’s struggle, reconciliation

ABSTRACT

In the backdrop of atrocities of Apartheid and the gross violation of Human Rights in South Africa, this article primarily explores two interrelated themes: how women’s public and private lives are impacted by protracted social conflict and the ways in which reconciliation is initiated after prolonged conflict to restore a sense of trust and faith in public good. Women were always directly and indirectly victimised by the apartheid regime. South African women of colour were placed at the bottom of the ladder, with white men and women occupying the uppermost rungs. Moreover, women were discriminated against even within the anti-apartheid movement. Often, male activists failed to take into account the painful and torturous experiences suffered by women. President Nelson Mandela too lamented the dearth of research on the role of women as he continued to call into question the treatment of women in South Africa. However, 100 women’s groups under the banner of the ‘Women’s National Coalition’ made their voices heard throughout the negotiations during the peace processes. Yet, in spite of President Mandela’s inclusive vision and the presence of strong and vocal women leaders, the task of reconciliation did not extend fully to heal the women’s wounds. The structures of gender, along with class and racism, embedded within communities and at the national level, weakened the efforts towards inclusion of women’s experiences in the histories and testimonies of suffering. As a result, the task of reconciliation has remained partially unfulfilled.

INTRODUCTION

Conflicts are part of our global histories, involving shifts between periods of violence, attempts to restore peace, some transformation, and further violence. Many societies have attempted to move beyond conflict as in the case of South Africa in 1994. This article presents some glimpses of histories, within the context of the South African dilemma arising out of the atrocities of Apartheid and the gross violation of Human Rights. How would the society, where the majority has been controlled and subjected to extreme racism, begin its journey to become a ‘Rainbow Nation’, a nation in which people of all colours could move above the hatred of the past and find a way to live together? As a historian, I will partly draw upon my own experiences of apartheid as well as accounts of some women who were part of the anti-apartheid struggle. These data form the first part of the article which provides the overview of lives under extreme social injustice. I will then turn to the views of President Nelson Mandela to outline the vision of reconciliation and transition. As a staff member of President Mandela, I was privileged to have access to his many views on violence, reconciliation and transition, while also managing his many projects devoted to the growth of his leadership in our new democracy, including an involvement with the United Nations on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I will end by linking earlier accounts of reconciliation, with a focus on women, with my own analysis of moves towards peace.

APARTHEID, WOMEN’S EXPERIENCES

A considerable literature now exists on South Africa’s attempts to foster reconciliation and build a society with human rights access for all after many decades of apartheid. The extreme violence which enveloped all the people deemed not-white has been documented elsewhere, as have the struggles to dismantle the system. Like other countries around the world (see Hayner, 1994), South Africa attempted to get beyond the structures and conditions that had degraded the majority of the human beings who lived within the South African territory. One such attempt was through the Truth and Reconciliation (TRC) Commission. Vora and Vora (2004) argue that different groups in South Africa have differing perceptions of the success of the TRC. Notwithstanding these views, I would contend that a focus on women’s experiences, and their victimisation under the apartheid regime, brings to light some important aspects of reconciliation after prolonged conflict. As Grayhill (2001), Ross (1996) and others have documented, the ways in which victimhood was defined did not allow women’s oppression under apartheid to be fully reflected in the proceedings. Women were called sometimes to testify to men’s oppressions, as though, in this process they were indirect victims. Yet, this silencing undermined their economic and sexual exploitation, and their repression under the harsh regime. I will discuss President Mandela’s initiatives to foster reconciliation, along with the efforts of the TRC. However, my assessment of the process of reconciliation will be in broader terms that include women’s victimisation.

Women are still underrepresented in South African historical scholarship (Hiralal, 2014; Govinden, 2008; for recent exceptions, see also South African History Online, https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive). They were underrepresented, publicly, in the reconciliation process. As part of President Mandela’s directive to unearth and record silenced histories, I was part of the effort to document the voices of almost 1,200 South African activists and freedom fighters as well as anti-apartheid activists and exiles from ten countries. Among these were the narratives of 505 women, including 105 South African Indian women. These voices spanned a variety of sources from high profile women to illiterate and poverty-stricken women who had nothing else but their commitment to social justice, to give to the fight for freedom from apartheid. This experience has led me to reflect on South African women’s legacy, their losses and gain and their contribution to the new democratic order.

How were women affected by apartheid? The short answer to this question, as others have also recorded, is that they were directly and indirectly victimised by the harsh regime. My own experience is a starting point. I came of age at the height of South Africa’s freedom struggle and today, despite earlier obstacles, I am a successful executive, a diplomat, an academic, an Africanist, a feminist, an activist (former and present), a mother, grandmother and a wife. The same is true for thousands of South African women who were not only products of an apartheid, colonial and largely patriarchal society, but who also subverted traditional norms of femininity narratives of nine South African struggle ‘icons’—Phyllis Naidoo, Poomoney Moodley, Edna Mathilda Miya, Ela Gandhi, Navanethem Pillay, Baleka Mbete, Amina Cachalia, Rajes Pillay and Munniamah Naidoo—provide a glimpse into the struggles of women during the apartheid regime. They engaged constantly on issues of gender, gender hierarchies, resistance and conflict, identity and nation building and their legacies are shaping the newer generations in post-apartheid South Africa.

STRUGGLES AGAINST THE BACKGROUND OF APARTHEID

Their struggles have to be understood against the background of apartheid. While colonialism was devoted to the oppression of Indians and Africans, such oppression reached unprecedented levels when the Nationalists came to power in 1948 and introduced apartheid. Apartheid is an Afrikaans word meaning keeping apart. It was formalised into law by the ruling Afrikaners in 1948 and divided the population into four separate groups. They were the Asians, Africans, Coloured and Whites....

(Re)Claiming Human Dignity

Amanda Smith Byron

KEYWORDS

Dignity, human rights, peacebuilding, storytelling, conflict transformation

ABSTRACT

The field of Peace and Justice Studies is focused on the social and political transformations that are necessary to increase the peace, which are traditionally explored within the practice of peacebuilding. Building upon the work of Donna Hicks (2011) and other scholars, this paper seeks a better understanding of the role human dignity plays in the conflict resolution process of peacebuilding. Consideration is given to how the presence of human dignity fosters peace, and how the absence of dignity contributes to the human costs of conflict. Liberal peacebuilding is critiqued as lacking a mechanism with which to address dignity, and humanitarian peacebuilding and human security peacebuilding are considered as a more likely means for (re)claiming dignity. Weaving in the literature of storytelling as a social change mechanism that can be used to increase the experience of dignity, this paper recognises the importance of engaging dignity as a vital component in peaceful process, and as a necessary ingredient for achieving peaceful ends. A test case study is offered to illustrate the ideas and theories presented in the paper, and to build a new model for understanding the steps to (re)claiming dignity in the aftermath of atrocity.

DEFINING DIGNITY DIDACTICALLY

Dignity has to do with character elevation

It also refers to one’s wisdom in conversation

Dignity has to do with conduct integrity

It also refers to an everyday relational quality

Dignity has to do with personal worthiness

It also refers to one’s moral thoroughness

Dignity has to do with the deepest foundation of human rights

It also refers to being able to live inspired by compassionate lights

(Gomes de Matos, 2013: 23)

INTRODUCTION TO DIGNITY

This paper seeks to (re)claim human dignity as an important element in the peacebuilding process. Expanding upon Gomes de Matos’ poem, Defining Dignity Didactically, and drawing from Hicks’ (2011) recognition that dignity is central to successful conflict resolution processes, this inquiry explores the impacts of dignity’s presence and absence in reaching and maintaining peace. This impact is particularly important in places and during eras where divisiveness, blame, and humiliation are the habituated practices used to address differences. Today’s crises of polarisation, intractable conflicts, and violence play out from interpersonal conflicts to global contexts, causing an epidemic of dignity violation and pointing to the growing need for both awareness and skill to address the need for dignity.

Hicks (2011) writes that ‘unacknowledged feelings of shame (created by dignity violations) are at the heart of all human conflict’ (p.11). She believes that recognising the importance of dignity, and honouring the dignity of others could ‘ward off a lot of conflict as well as prevent a good deal of human suffering’ (p.16), speaking directly to the human costs that are associated with conflict. To help educate about dignity, Hicks developed a model that builds upon John Burton’s human-needs theory of conflict, reflects Kelman’s interactive problem solving approach to resolving conflict, and shares inspiration from Evelin Lindner and Linda Hartling’s ground breaking work in Dignity and Humiliation Studies, which is dedicated to turning dignifying ideas into practical actions. Hicks’ model presents categories of dignity that she has observed in her many years of international peacebuilding work, where she has witnessed group dynamics routinely devolving in response to unaddressed dignity violations.

By understanding these elements of dignity, the peacebuilding field becomes better equipped to address deficits in dignity—or dignity violations—that people experience as part of the human costs of conflict. Without addressing dignity concerns, people are at risk of falling back into habituated patterns of conflict and polarisation.

Hicks (2011) finds that human beings share a longing for dignity, which is ‘the feeling of inherent value and worth’ (p.6). She explains that ‘people need recognition for what they have suffered. And dignity violations, as ubiquitous as they are, have not been adequately recognised as a source of human suffering’ (p.xxiii-xiv). Recognising dignity as an important step in the peacebuilding process is a key component to healing the harms of conflict, small or large. The ten essential elements of dignity described in Hicks’ model include: acceptance of identity, inclusion, safety, acknowledgement, recognition, fairness, benefit of the doubt, understanding, independence, and accountability.

By understanding these elements of dignity, the peacebuilding field becomes better equipped to address deficits in dignity—or dignity violations—that people experience as part of the human costs of conflict. Without addressing dignity concerns, people are at risk of falling back into habituated patterns of conflict and polarisation. The goals of peacebuilding include finding more constructive ways to navigate conflict, and to bring the ‘other’ into productive engagement. Hicks explains, ‘we can choose to override our destructive instincts and learn more dignified ways of responding to threats—ways that would not only maintain our dignity but preserve the dignity of those who threaten us’ (2011: 15). Through prioritising human dignity, people increase their chance of regaining resilience, and as a result, develop a greater capacity to contribute to the tasks of sustainably restructuring society and restoring humanity.

Table 1: The Ten Essential Elements of Dignity (Hicks, 2011)

The Ten Essential Elements of Dignity
Acceptance of Identity | Recognise that there is no hierarchy of value, act without prejudice or bias, presume the best in others, find value in humanity despite identity, religion, sexuality, or any particular social location.
Inclusion | Foster a sense of belonging for all.
Safety | Create ease and freedom of fear for people physically and psychologically, allow expression without fear of retribution.
Acknowledgement | Listen with attention, validate perspectives, respond to concerns.
Recognition | Appreciate others for their contributions, efforts and ideas.
Fairness | Treat others justly and equitably, in accordance with any agreed-upon rules or laws.
Benefit of the Doubt | Presume that others are trustworthy, and are acting with integrity.
Understanding | Recognise that others’ thoughts and opinions matter, listen to understand.
Independence | Encourage people to claim and use their voice and agency, fostering a sense of power and possibility in their lives.
Accountability | Be responsible for own actions, apologise for dignity violations, seek to change hurtful patterns or behaviours.

Restoring Trust in the Self through Failure: An Exploration of Singing as Reflective Practice and its Role in Nonviolent Social Change

Lauren Michelle Levesque

KEYWORDS

Failure, singing, reflective practice, nonviolent social change, space

ABSTRACT

This paper explores singing as a practice that opens spaces to reflect on the emotional and social costs of ‘failure’ in our roles as advocates for nonviolent social change (Cobb, 2016; Jones, 2002). Inspired by autoethnographic research on singing and songwriting as reflective practice (Carless, 2018), I ask: Can singing create spaces to re-imagine ‘failure’ as a catalyst for renewed thinking on nonviolent social change in times of social conflict? This question leverages my own experiences as a ‘failed’ singer and advocate committed to teaching and researching nonviolent social change at a small Canadian university. The connection between singing and nonviolence is not new (Reading, 2015); however, I argue that creating and documenting singing practices can open up reflections on the ways in which these practices shift perceptions of ‘failure’ that can accompany the work of advocating for change at multiple levels: individual, communal and institutional. Addressing these perceptions can encourage creative engagements with failure as a stigmatised, yet productive space that bridges theory and practice (Shields, 2016). Such creative engagements include conceptualising critical self-reflexivity as a fundamental dimension of restoring trust in our own capacities to advance nonviolence in our classrooms and communities.

INTRODUCTION

In a book chapter titled ‘Teaching Peace, Being Peace’ (2015), Karen Ridd recounts episodes in her journey to becoming a teacher and a peacebuilder. Early on in the chapter, she asks: ‘Who is it that I am meant to be as a teacher, as a peacebuilder?’ (Ridd, 2015: 304). An essential aspect of answering this question, she goes on to argue, is to answer the question for ourselves (Ridd, 2015: 305). In other words, Ridd suggests that part of teaching and building peace is to reflect on the stories and guides that brought individuals to this work. She notes: ‘If we accept that teaching peacebuilding requires being a peacebuilder, then questions need to be asked, including the questions, What does that mean? And Who is a teacher of peace?’ (p.304). In discussing these questions, Ridd echoes a growing recognition of the place of self-reflection in understanding and sustaining advocacy for nonviolent social change and teaching peace in higher education (Cremin, 2018; Wang, 2018).

This article is in dialogue with these ideas, most specifically with the recognition of self-reflection as a foundation for advocacy and education in the areas of peace and nonviolence. Ridd, for example, acknowledges that her embracing of nonviolence was not immediate (Ridd, 2015: 307-309). She describes herself as a ‘fledgling follower of non-violence’, addressing the ways in which she feels that as an individual, she does ‘too much violence to the natural world and to myself’ (pp.307-308). In defining nonviolence in relation to the self, Ridd states: ‘Non-violent is what I am called to be if I am to be living in fullest connection to my deepest self’ (p.309). Choosing perhaps an unconventional take on Ridd’s questions and statements, I am interested in the ways in which singing can open spaces for self-reflection on the emotional and social costs of perceived ‘failures’ in our roles as advocates and teachers. By emotional and social costs, I mean the constriction of possibility and hope that failure can produce with regard to nonviolent social change (Zournazi, 2003; Baker, Martin & Zournazi, 2008).

Scholar-practitioner John Paul Lederach argues that conflict is, in fact, a ‘natural part of human experience’ and can be understood as a catalyst for change (Lederach, 2003: 18-19). These arguments are rooted in the idea of conflict as relational, or the notion that conflicts are spaces in which transformation of the self and one’s relationship with others occurs (p.16). He writes: ‘Conflicts in relationships at all levels are the way life helps us to stop, assess, and take notice’ (p.18). Such understandings are balanced, however, by acknowledgment of the human costs of conflict and violence—including a loss of agency and hope—when these experiences are left unaddressed and/or have become deeply embedded in the narratives and structures that shape individual and communal lives (Lederach & Lederach, 2010: 203-205). In their co-authored book, When Blood and Bones Cry Out, Lederach and his daughter, Angela Jill, note that, ‘Protracted conflict and violence destroy human life, divide relationships and create irreplaceable loss’ (p.202).

In the face of these losses, Lederach (2016) suggests that music and sound can help individuals and communities reacquaint themselves with what it means to be human. In particular, he maintains that music and sound create spaces for individuals and communities to engage ‘holistically’, meaning both at the level of the inner life and the social world around them (Lederach, 2016: 198). He states: ‘When violence makes us numb and vibrationless, sound and music often help us reconnect with the essence of our being as vibration, enabling individuals to enter a process of re-humanization essential to rebuild flourishing communities’ (p.198). With these ideas in mind, and inspired by scholars who use song and songwriting as autoethnographic research (Burkhart, 2016), I ask: Can singing create spaces to re-imagine ‘failure’ as a catalyst for renewed thinking on nonviolent social change in times of social conflict?

In the context of the present article, I understand ‘social conflict’ loosely as having to do with addressing the dynamics of power and structures of inequity that impact on the lives of individuals and communities in particular contexts (Shields, 2016). As such, I see my engagement with singing and failure as a creative reformulation of Ridd’s question: ‘Who is it that I am meant to be as a teacher, as a peacebuilder?’. Such reformulation acknowledges my positionality as a ‘failed singer’¹ and as a professor in the field of Transformative Leadership and Spirituality.² In the sections that follow, I elaborate on this positionality in connection with the principle of critical self-reflexivity, nonviolence and failure as educational concepts and with reference to singing as a reflective practice.

The goal of engaging in these discussions is to explore how connections between self-reflection and singing help to re-imagine failure as a means of restoring trust in one’s ability to advance nonviolence in classroom and community settings. If one reimagines failure along these lines and with reference to singing, one leverages the understanding of arts as sources of insight and experimentation in the context of higher education. For example, in a short article titled ‘Embracing Failure through Performative Pedagogy’, Jocelyn McKinnon and Sean Lowry (2012) describe their practice of ‘embracing failure’ as a means to ‘playfully question expectations that a university education should constitute a vocationally realized commodity’ (McKinnon & Lowry, 2012: 47). Echoing Lederach’s claim that music and sound create spaces to engage holistically, McKinnon and Lowry suggest that encouraging students to experiment, risk and fail is part of what they call a ‘holistic educational experience’ (p.47). This experience involves students engaging with their own notions of what their varied futures can be, whether social, political, spiritual, or otherwise (p.47). Failure, in this holistic pedagogical understanding, is therefore devised as both a self-reflexive practice and a learning process (pp.48-50).

SELF-REFLEXIVITY: BALANCING CRITIQUE WITH PROMISE

In her multiple works on the subject, Carolyn M Shields defines ‘transformative leadership’ as more than a leadership theory (2010; 2014; 2018). She writes: ‘Transformative leadership is as much a way of life and a way of (re)thinking...

Kaleidoscope

No perpetual war

The United States House of Representatives, in a voting on 19 June 2019, repealed the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). It was passed after 9/11 authorising President George W Bush to declare war against al-Qaeda and related organisations. Since then, both Republican and Democrat Presidents have used this authorisation to justify American involvement in wars in the Middle East. But this vote restrained President Donald Trump from going to war with Iran claiming it has relations with al-Qaeda, without fresh sanction from the Congress.

Detailed report: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/6/19/18691936/house-democrats-vote-repeal-9-11-aumf-war-iran

UN fixes royal responsibility for journalist’s murder

The United Nations, in a 100-page forensic report, has said that there is credible evidence to start an inquiry into the involvement of the crown prince of Saudi Arabia in the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey in October 2018. Releasing the report, UN special rapporteur Agnes Callamard described the killing as ‘an international crime’.

The report further says that ‘Mr Khashoggi’s execution is emblematic of a global pattern of targeted killing of, and threats against, journalists and media workers that is regularly denounced by states, UN agencies, special procedures, and by numerous international and national human rights organisations’.

Detailed report: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/19/jamal-khashoggi-killing-saudi-crown-prince-mohammed-bin-salman-evidence-un-report

Call to isolate Myanmar military

The UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar (FFM) has urged the international community to halt all financial and other support to Myanmar’s military, so that its commanders can be isolated and brought to trial before a credible court on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against the Rohingya minority ethnic population.

Link to the report: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/Pages/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=24608&LangID=E

Fewer nukes, but fiercer

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), in its recently published SIPRI Yearbook 2019, has indicated although there has been an overall decrease in the number of nuclear warheads in 2018, all states possessing these weapons have been ‘modernising’ their nuclear arsenals.

Of the total of 13,865 nuclear weapons held by the USA, Russia, the UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea, 3,750 are deployed with operational forces and about 2,000 are kept in a state of high operational alert. There is also a dearth of reliable information on the nuclear arsenals of the states concerned.

World Nuclear Forces, January 2019

Source: SIPRI Yearbook 2019

* ‘Deployed warheads’ refers to warheads placed on missiles or located on bases with operational forces.

** ‘Other warheads’ refers to stored or reserve warheads and retired warheads awaiting dismantlement. Total figures include the highest estimate when a range is given. Figures for North Korea are uncertain and are not included in the total figures. All estimates are approximate.

Read more in: https://sipri.org/media/press-release/2019/modernization-world-nuclear-forces-continues-despite-overall-decrease-number-warheads-new-sipri

Internal displacement intensifies

The number of people displaced internally by conflict and violence around the world has been the highest ever in 2018, says a new report released by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), an initiative of the Norwegian Refugee Council.

There were 28 million new displacements caused by conflict and disasters in 148 countries and territories in 2018. Of these, conflicts accounted for 10.8 million, half of it occurring in Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Syria.

About 17.2 million people were displaced by disasters, mostly natural calamities. Almost 60% of them lived in the Philippines, China and India.

Link to the report: http://www.internal-displacement.org/global-report/grid2019/

Carbon ‘boot-print’

The US military is polluting the environment in an unprecedented manner, says a paper published in the Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers by four researchers—Oliver Belcher, Patrick Bigger, Ben Neimark and Cara Kennelly. Meticulously analysing the data obtained from the Defense Logistics Agency —Energy (DLA-E) through requests made under the Freedom of Information Act, the researchers have been able to paint ‘a partial yet robust picture of the geopolitical ecology of American imperialism’. They have found that ‘the US military consumes more liquid fuels and emits more CO2e (carbon-dioxide equivalent) than many medium-sized countries’. It ‘remains the largest single institutional consumer of hydrocarbons in the world’ and, ‘In the near future, this dependence on fossil fuels is unlikely to change as the USA continues to pursue open-ended operations around the globe’.

For access to the paper click on: https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/tran.12319

Aid alert in Syria

The Syrian government is diverting humanitarian aid and reconstruction assistance to suit its own purpose and in some places even using it to reinforce repressive policies, according to a report released by Human Rights Watch on 28 June 2019. It called upon donors and investors to take immediate measures for preventing such misuse.

The report points out that often humanitarian organisations and agencies operating in Syria have themselves bowed down to the regime’s demands, fearing that otherwise they may lose access altogether or have to stop operations. In doing so, they are ‘compromising their ability to serve populations in a rights-respecting manner’, the report observes.

For details: https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/06/28/rigging-system/government-policies-co-opt-aid-and-reconstruction-funding-syria

Must watch

Al Jazeera documentary Shadow World: The Global Arms Trade Network— ‘Investigating the billion-dollar global arms industry that counts its profits in billions and its losses in human lives.’

A transcript is available at: https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/specialseries/2018/12/shadow-world-global-arms-trade-network-181222094047143.html

Honour for JTPP adviser

Prof Amii Omara-Otunnu, who is a member of the Advisory Board, Journal of Transdisciplinary Peace Praxis (JTPP) from Uganda, has been bestowed on 25 April 2019 with the ‘Order of the Companions of OR Tambo’, a prestigious South African civil honour conferred on foreign nationals.

SABC News feed of the awards ceremony: https://www.facebook.com/SABCNewsOnline/posts/602562840256847/

Curated by Nilanjan Dutta

Book Review

Conflict is not Abuse:

Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair

By SARAH SCHULMAN

288 pp, Vancouver, Canada: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2016, CAD $19.95 (PB)

Reviewed by
NOOR GHAZI

Sarah Schulman is a novelist, documentarian, non-fiction writer, lesbian activist and social critic. In her book, Conflict is not Abuse, she introduces what seems to be a simple idea: to illuminate the difference between conflict and abuse. In part one of the book, entitled ‘The Conflicted Self and the Abusive State’, Schulman lays out a significant and challenging approach of questioning ourselves as to how we are dealing with conflict when it arises at any level. The answer for most cases is that our community treats conflict as an abuse, whereas we should treat it as an uncomfortable situation that could be de-escalated by communication and conversation. As she says: ‘simply wanting to exclude, silence, or dehumanize someone through forced absence is not an inherent right’ (p.67). Challenging our inclination towards victimhood, Schulman discusses perpetrators’ perspective instead of victims’ as she introduces how offenders are also the victims in our societies. When they are trying to enter the public commons and have their voices heard, Schulman argues that conflict parties are usually faced with being neither sole victim nor perpetrator. She probes to examine where things might go wrong in conflict processes, especially with people who have been in an abusive relationship that may possibly escalate any conflict based on particular ‘trigger warnings’ (p.93). As example, a childhood abuse could be triggered by an act of a person who would later be labelled as ‘perpetrator’ (p.74). Schulman’s work emphasises that conflict parties often reach an unreturned point in a conflict when they refuse to admit their past problems. Ultimately, the sequence of conflict, abuse and escalation will continue due to the shunning, avoiding and scapegoating which become an inseparable parts of Western community’s response to conflict. Conflict dynamics, in Schulman’s opinion, can be understood by grasping the conflict perpetrator’s perspective. I believe that Schulman’s approach to conflict can help mitigate and resolve conflict.

In an informative transition, Schulman moved to explain the root of the problem which occurs when we tend to emphasise the definition of what is abusive, and ignore the definition of what is not abusive. Shifting the way we perceive conflict can adversely impact the way we resolve it. As Schulman mentions, ‘When a [domestic violence] provider is trained, they are told what domestic violence is, but I was never told what it is not. And based on what I was taught, I could have looked at every relationship I know and called it abusive’ (p.61). Therefore, as per the author’s request, it is imperative for us to understand the difference between ‘power over’ and ‘power struggle’ (p.58), since the first represents abuse while the second describes the dynamics of power in conflict. Schulman is not the first who discusses the complex relationship between power and conflict. Despite the fact that the concept of power is hard to measure, we see in the work of Kenneth Boulding (1989), three categories of powers: Threat (destructive), Productive (economic) and Integrative. As Boulding (1989) considers all types of powers constantly changing and extremely complex which we also see in the case of Schulman’s arguments in understanding the dynamics of power.

Throughout the book, Schulman ponders the idea of calling the police when we can’t handle our own problems. Why do we want someone else to step in and resolve our conflicts? What I do see as a brave stand here is how the author used the example of calling the police in order to separate ‘to protect from harm’ from ‘to inflict harm’ (p.97). She gives us two examples to consider: calling the police because you were stabbed or calling the police because your cell-phone was stolen. In the first case, you need help whereas in the second you will harm the person who stole your phone considering, in Schulman’s opinion, ‘police are the source of violence, especially in the lives of women, people of colour, trans women, sex workers and the poor’ (p.84). Schulman’s resentment with the system that encourages violence is manifested in her discussion of hot-button issues like HIV discrimination in Canada. People will face stigma, sexual exclusion and discrimination if they are tested positive for HIV. Such a context starts an endless series of violence and conflict by preventing the open conversation and communication between intimate partners that results in what the author describes as a ‘supremacy ideology’ (p.140). Hence, calling the police in a domestic violence case instead of facing our own anxiety is deemed to be the only solution. Such an approach often prevents us from precluding future conflicts. This important argument seems to be the starting point for the endless cycle of violence that the author is trying to encourage us to avoid.

In the second half of the book, Schulman focuses more on how to acknowledge conflicts before they erupt. Aside from criticising the danger of ‘driving while black’, Schulman discusses the duty of our community to repair past harm, which will prevent generating more conflicts. However, before fully examining the suggestion to repair, we see ourselves discussing the Israeli war on Gaza. This shift in context presents a complex comparison. Such an international conflict appears distinct from the interpersonal ones the author has previously been focusing on. As a reader, I felt I was totally reading another book discussing international policy instead of reading another chapter of Conflict is not Abuse. In my opinion, the Israeli and Palestinian conflict did not effectively flow into the final part of the book and seemed to unnecessarily complicate the central argument of the book. However, the connection the author made was tied back to her earlier point of using the idea of ‘over harm’ and ‘victimhood’ (p.71) to justify actions. This is the case with the state of Israel which has ‘suppressed and killed thousands of Palestinians’ (p.209). By means of Israeli justifications, false accusation started to take over the truth, and, as she stated, ‘one of the most glaring and lethal applications of this false accusation of harm as a justification for cruelty in turn is the way Palestinian resistance to occupation has been pathologized instead of supported’ (p.209). In approaching their conflict as victims, both Israel and Palestine fall into the ever present trap of conflict as abuse.

Generally, Schulman’s sharing of her personal stories is intriguing and courageous. Concluding her appealing piece by clarifying the idea of ‘getting better’ from ‘feeling better’ was remarkable and important for those studying conflict to reflect upon. In her opinion, ‘feeling better’ tends to entail ‘superior feelings’ that come exclusively by creating or joining a group identity (religious, racial, and/or national cliques, communities, and/or families). ‘Feeling better’ will, precisely, hinder us from breaking the cycle of violence and bring us back to her first point early in the book about ‘shunning, avoiding and scapegoating’ (p.27). Conversely, ‘getting better’ is expressed by communicating and accepting others’ feelings without labelling or avoiding, which is the central theme of her book Conflict is not Abuse. What I did not see here is the full expression, analysis, and discussion of how hard it is to live and be part of a community that lacks a basic understanding of, or resource for, conflict resolution. Further articulation of these complex emotions could have strengthened the argument.

Conflict is not Abuse is a book worth reading as it sheds light on the often hidden human costs of conflict and the psychology of victimhood. Schulman introduced a fresh, new and audacious perspective which can be a first step towards understanding the larger canvas of how to live a life free of violence by simply starting an honest conversation about conflict. On a personal level, I see myself using and recommending the book for others to consider in their own conflict practice.

Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness: Practices for Safe and Transformative Healing

By DAVID A TRELEAVEN

272 pp, New York: W W Nortan Company, 2018, $27.50 (HB)

Reviewed by
NILANJAN DUTTA

Buddhism recommends following an eight-fold path in order to win over pain and suffering. The eight components of the path are divided into three groups: prajna or wisdom, shila or moderation and Samadhi or meditation. In the first group are samma ditthi or right vision and samma sankalpa or right determination (to shun anger, violence, vengeance, etc., in particular). In the second group are samma bacha or right speech (speaking what is true and the pleasing, avoiding lies, abuses and verbiage; samma kammanta or right actions (not indulging in violence, theft, etc.) and samma ajiva or right livelihood (avoiding trading in arms, animals and intoxicants, in particular).

The last group, Samadhi, is not easy to define. Although it loosely translates as meditation, it may actually mean closing of all sensory perceptions. The same word is, in fact, used to denote the grave in several languages of the subcontinent including Sanskrit and Pali. As far as the eight-fold path is concerned, however, it cannot mean anything associated with death but is very much a part of life. Now, how can one attain Samadhi in life? Three ways are prescribed. One: samma vayama or right effort. The word vayama, especially in common parlance, means exercise. Here, it is used in the sense of effort—not only physical but mental effort as well by trying to bad thoughts away and our sense organs under our control. Doing these would also be quite an exercise no doubt. Related to this is samma mati or right mind-set, i.e., keeping our minds fresh and unblemished. The last component in the third group does not have any separate name but is given a generic nomenclature: samma Samadhi or right meditation. And how does one do that? By being mindful.

The Buddha had seen every person being affected by pain and suffering. The character of these might have changed over the millennia, but they still remain a fact of life. We sometimes feel that our existence in the modern world has itself become a traumatic experience. After going through an episode of trauma, one does not always come out of the pain but is submerged in a different kind of soreness that may last even longer. Psychologists call this phase ‘post-traumatic stress disorder’. The abbreviated form of the term, PTSD, has entered common parlance. Mental health specialists have recognised it as a syndrome and are continuously researching to develop newer ways of treating it. No one can say when and how trauma—and subsequently PTSD—will strike: the wounds of war and love are equally capable of triggering it.

Buddhism’s ancient wisdom may take us out of this quandary.

The popularity of mindfulness meditation is increasing—particularly in the Western societies—since it is touted as a very easy exercise which one can do just by taking out ten (some gurus say 20) minutes from one’s normal daily routine.

Trauma- Sensitive Mindfulness: Practices for Safe and Transformative Healing by David A Treleaven takes us through a guided tour of mindfulness meditation. But, it is not a made-easy or a do-it-yourself book. The author rightly terms mindfulness as ‘an invaluable resource for trauma survivors’ and points out in the ‘Introduction’ that ‘It’s being offered in a wide variety of settings—including Buddhist communities, secular programs, and psychotherapy—and is often promoted as a benign stress-reduction practice.’

At the same time, Treleaven warns that the relationship between mindfulness and trauma is not at all simple but a complex one.

Placed beside one another, mindfulness and trauma can seem like natural, even inevitable, allies. Both are concerned with the nature of suffering. Both are grounded in sensory experience. And while trauma creates stress, mindfulness has been shown to reduce it.

Treleaven narrates the experience of a friend who had survived an accident and began doing this form of meditation to shake off the harrowing memories that often engulfed him whenever he closed his eyes. Surprisingly, it did just the opposite for him—amplified his panicky thoughts in his meditative state. Treleaven concludes that ‘mindfulness meditation can exacerbate symptoms of traumatic stress’. What happens actually is, while one tries to free one’s mind of the influence of the present, the past may find it easy to fill the void. For a trauma survivor or one who is under PTSD, the trauma as an event is a thing of the past. If one who has left it behind physically begins to relive the experience in a state of apparent mental tranquillity, it can be shocking indeed.

Therefore, it is essential that those who intend to lead a trauma survivor to the path of mindfulness, including meditation teachers, social workers and educators, must be sensitive to the nature of trauma, responsive to the particular emotions and feelings or the survivor and alert enough to prevent the recurrence of trauma. And first of all, they must be aware of the full risks of practising mindfulness meditation in a post-traumatic state of mind.

Here, one should remember that Buddhism talks about not just mindfulness, but right mindfulness. It is not digging a tunnel for escape but building a bunker for resistance. The Buddha did not want people to forget that this world is a minefield of death, disease and depression. On the contrary, he encouraged them to be aware of these dangers and consolidate their inner strength to withstand and overcome their onslaughts. Right mindfulness teaches us to be so intensely aware of the present moment that there will be no entry point open for the traumatic moments of the past.

Meditation is one means of achieving this condition. There are certainly others, such as music or art. One may also look at this from the other end. Those who can devote themselves very intensely to the practice of art or music (for example) can perform mindfulness meditation without actually meditating. For them, their art is meditation—dhyan, or Zen, if you like. As the great sculptor Ramkinkar Beiz—who adorned Rabindranath Tagore’s dreamland Santiniketan, India with his masterpieces—said, ‘When my work will end . . . my dhyan will end . . . After that . . . shunya (void) . . . like the sky . . . The sky . . . the retreat . . . ’

Which, in other words, is Samadhi.

Unlike many other healing handbooks, Treleaven’s tome never lets us forget that the path of healing is itself fraught with hazards and hence it promises to be more reliable.