Peacemaking is practical conflict transformation focused upon establishing equitable power relationships robust enough to forestall future conflict, often including the establishment of means of agreeing on

ethical decision An ethical decision is one that engenders trust, and thus indicates responsibility, fairness and caring to an individual. To be ethical, one has to demonstrate respect, and responsibility. Ethical decision-making requires a review of different opt ...

s within a community, or among parties, that had previously engaged in inappropriate (i.e. violent) responses to conflict. Peacemaking seeks to achieve full reconciliation among adversaries and new mutual understanding among parties and stakeholders. When applied in

criminal justice Criminal justice is the delivery of justice to those who have been accused of committing crimes. The criminal justice system is a series of government agencies and institutions. Goals include the rehabilitation of offenders, preventing other ...

matters, peacemaking is usually called restorative justice, but sometimes also

transformative justice Transformative justice is a series of practices and philosophies designed to create change in social systems. Mostly, they are alternatives to criminal justice in cases of interpersonal violence, or are used for dealing with socioeconomic issues in ...

, a term coined by the late Canadian justice theorist and activist Ruth Morris. One popular example of peacemaking is the several types of

mediation Mediation is a structured, interactive process where an impartial third party neutral assists disputing parties in resolving conflict through the use of specialized communication and negotiation techniques. All participants in mediation are ...

, usually between two parties and involving a third, a

facilitator A facilitator is a person who helps a group of people to work together better, understand their common objectives, and plan how to achieve these objectives, during meetings or discussions. In doing so, the facilitator remains "neutral", meaning ...

or mediator.

Methods

Some geopolitical entities, such as nation-states and international organizations, attempt to relegate the term peacemaking to large, systemic, often factional conflicts in which no member of the community can avoid involvement, and in which no faction or segment can claim to be completely innocent of the problems, citing as instances post-

genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the ...

situations, or extreme situations of oppression such as

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

. However peacemaking is a universal and age-old approach to conflict at all levels and among any and all parties, and its principles may be generalized and used in many different kinds of conflicts. In contemporary international affairs, especially after the end of the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...

, the concept of peacemaking has often been associated to the imposition upon warring parties of a peace settlement, usually under the auspices of an international organization. Peacemaking in smaller, traditional societies has often involved rituals. For example, Alula Pankhurst has produced films about peacemaking among Ethiopian communities. The process of peacemaking is distinct from the rationale of

pacifism Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace camp ...

or the use of

non-violent protest Nonviolent resistance (NVR), or nonviolent action, sometimes called civil resistance, is the practice of achieving goals such as social change through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, satyagraha, cons ...

civil disobedience Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders or commands of a government (or any other authority). By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be called "civil". H ...

techniques, though they are often practiced by the same people. Indeed, those who master using nonviolent techniques under extreme violent pressure, and those who lead others in such resistance, have usually demonstrated the capacity not to react to violent provocation in kind, and thus may be more highly skilled at working with groups of people that may have suffered through violence and oppression, keeping them coordinated and in good order through the necessary, often difficult phases of

rapprochement In international relations, a rapprochement, which comes from the French word ''rapprocher'' ("to bring together"), is a re-establishment of cordial relations between two countries. This may be done due to a mutual enemy, as was the case with Germ ...

. Given that, and a track record of not advocating violent responses, it is these leaders who are usually most qualified for peacemaking when future conflict breaks out between the previously warring sides.

Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...

is widely recognized as an important theorist of peacemaking strategies. He noted in particular that leaders who had been successful at violent strategies were counter-productive in peacetime, simply because these strategies now had to be abandoned. But if a movement had adulated and emulated these people, it was unlikely ever to be able to make permanent peace even with those factions it had conquered or dominated, simply because the leaders lacked the skills and had become leaders in part for their suppression of the other side. Accordingly, even if a movement were to benefit from violent action, and even if such action was extremely effective in ending some other oppression, no movement that sought long-term peace could safely hold up these acts or persons as
moral example
or advise emulating either. Gandhi's views have influenced modern

ethicist An ethicist is one whose judgment on ethics and ethical codes has come to be trusted by a specific community, and (importantly) is expressed in some way that makes it possible for others to mimic or approximate that judgment. Following the advice of ...

s in forming a critique of

terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

, in which even those who support the goals must decry the methods and avoid making, for instance, a

suicide bomber A suicide attack is any violent attack, usually entailing the attacker detonating an explosive, where the attacker has accepted their own death as a direct result of the attacking method used. Suicide attacks have occurred throughout histor ...

into a hero.

Christianity

The Catholic Church has changed its view on peacemaking over the centuries. Some early Christians refused to join Rome's Imperial army. A doctrine of a

Just War theory The just war theory ( la, bellum iustum) is a doctrine, also referred to as a tradition, of military ethics which is studied by military leaders, theologians, ethicists and policy makers. The purpose of the doctrine is to ensure that a war i ...

originated with St. Augustine of Hippo in the 5th century. Versions of Just War doctrines have claimed that countries and people should keep peace at all cost. The right of a ruler to go to war must meet the criteria of just cause, comparative justice, competent authority, right intention, probability of success, last resort, and proportionality. The

Colombian conflict The Colombian conflict ( es, link=no, Conflicto armado interno de Colombia) began on May 27, 1964, and is a low-intensity asymmetric war between the government of Colombia, far-right paramilitary groups, crime syndicates, and far-left guerr ...

is the present day, prime Catholic example. The tradition of Christianity continues to be taken up by those who seek peace. Jesus taught, " ..all who take the sword will perish by the sword." (Matthew 26:52, NAB) Twenty years after the cessation of the

Reichskonkordat The ''Reichskonkordat'' ("Concordat between the Holy See and the German Reich") is a treaty negotiated between the Vatican and the emergent Nazi Germany. It was signed on 20 July 1933 by Cardinal Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli, who later be ...

'','' Pope Paul VI proclaimed “No more war, war

never again "Never again" is a phrase or slogan which is associated with the lessons of the Holocaust and other genocides. The phrase may originate from a 1927 poem by Yitzhak Lamdan which stated "Never again shall Masada fall!" In the context of genoci ...

!” (Address to United Nations General Assembly, October 4, 1965 retweeted by Pope Francis September 2, 2013)Heft, J. (2010, 09). RELIGION, WORLD ORDER, AND PEACE: Christianity, war, and peacemaking. Cross Currents, 60, 328-331,476-477

References

{{Reflist * Pankhurst, Alula and Ivo Strecker. 2003. ''Bury the Spear.'' Mainz University project on Cultural Contact, Respect and Self-Esteem. Special mention at the Bilan du Film Ethnographique, Paris, March 2004. * Pankhurst, Alula. 2002. ''Calling Peace and Cursing War.'' Video film in co-production with Lubo Film. bout a peace ceremony in southern Ethiopia bringing together 12 groups seeking to resolve conflict

External links

UN Peacemaker, United NationsCenter for Peacemaking Practice-GMUMarquette University Center for PeacemakingSharing risks applied through game-theory: The presentation of the Eurocorps-Foreign Legion concept at the European Parliament in June 2003

National Conflict Resolution Center (NCRC)
Dispute resolution Peacebuilding

Methods

Gandhi

Christianity

See also

References

External links