Peacemaking is a 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 In business ethics, Ethical decision-making is the study of the process of making decisions that engender trust, and thus indicate responsibility, fairness and caring to an individual. To be ethical, one has to demonstrate respect, and responsibil ...

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 Restorative justice is a community-based approach to justice that aims to repair the harm done to victims, offenders and communities. In doing so, restorative justice practitioners work to ensure that offenders take responsibility for their ac ...

, but sometimes also

transformative justice Transformative justice is a spectrum of social, economic, legal, and political practices and philosophies that aim to focus on the structures and underlying conditions that perpetuate harm and injustice. Taking up and expanding on the goals of rest ...

, 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, voluntary process for resolving disputes, facilitated by a neutral third party known as the mediator. It is a structured, interactive process where an independent third party, the mediator, assists disputing parties ...

, usually between two parties and involving a third, a

facilitator A facilitator is a person who helps a Social group, 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 "neut ...

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, instances of post-

genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...

situations, or extreme situations of oppression such as

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

, 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. 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 was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

, the concept of peacemaking has often been associated with 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 to war or violence. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaigner Émile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress in Glasgow in 1901. A related term is ...

or the use of

non-violent protest Nonviolent resistance, 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, construct ...

civil disobedience Civil disobedience is the active and professed refusal of a citizenship, 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 cal ...

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 antagonist, as the German Empire ...

. 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 (2October 186930January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British ru ...

is widely recognized as an important theorist of peacemaking strategies. He noted in particular that leaders who had been successful at violent strategies were counterproductive 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 a moral example or advise emulating either. Gandhi's views have influenced modern

ethicist Ethics is the philosophical study of moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches include normative ethics, applied ethics ...

s in forming a critique of

terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war aga ...

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

suicide bomber A suicide attack (also known by a wide variety of other names, see below) is a deliberate attack in which the perpetrators knowingly sacrifice their own lives as part of the attack. These attacks are a form of murder–suicide that is ofte ...

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. The

Just War theory The just war theory () is a doctrine, also referred to as a tradition, of military ethics that aims to ensure that a war is morally justifiable through a series of #Criteria, criteria, all of which must be met for a war to be considered just. 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 costs. 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 () 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 guerrilla groups fighting each other to increase their i ...

is the prime present-day 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 ... between the Holy See"> ... between the Holy See and the German Reich") is a treaty negotiated between the Vatican and the emergent Nazi Germany">Holy See and the German Reich">Holy See"> .. ...

'','' 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 slogan was used by liberated prisoners at Buchenwald concentration camp to denounce fascism. It was used by Jewish Defense Le ...

!” (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

* 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 Bout can mean: People *Viktor Bout, suspected arms dealer *Jan Everts Bout, early settler to New Netherland *Marcel Bout Musical instruments * The outward-facing round parts of the body shape of violins, guitars, and other stringed instrumen ...

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)
{{Peace Dispute resolution Peacebuilding

Methods

Gandhi

Christianity

See also

References

External links