WOMEN AS PEACEMAKERS

SOME SKILLS FOR NON-VIOLENT CONFLICT RESOLUTION

Introduction
Women in general have been commonly thought to being “pro-peace” and “natural pacifists”.  Women’s struggle for peace is connected to the concern for human life, for children, for themselves and for other women.  Their “nuturing and motherhood” instincts make women peacemakers and peacebuilders.     Women usually assume roles of peacemakers in families, in communities and in societies. Women have every reason to reject violence, war and conflict.  Because it destroys the life they have given, and nurtured and also becauswe war and conflict feel male aggression of which women become the worst victims.  It is well known that in history it was men who invented war and the weapons of war, while it was women who invented agriculture and peace.

Gandhi viewed women as the incarnation of ‘ahimsa’ and added that due to a different socialization process, women tend to grow up more peaceful than men and more capable of solving conflicts in a non-violent manner.  “Peace”, he said, “often starts in the minds of women”.  In 1947, in a message to the Chinese women, Gandhi said: “If only the women of the world would come together, they could display such heroic non-violence as to kick away the atom bomb like a mere ball…If women would wake up, they will dazzle the world”. Women of today dare to dream of a world where militarism and violence no longer dominate.

Because women have a “different voice” we need to have more women at the peace table and at all peace summits.  We women need to learn, practice and master the skills needed to become effective peacemakers. We can call ourselves by any name: peacemakers, peacebrokers, peacebuilders, animators, facilitators, mediators, negotiators or satyagrahis.  Peacemaking is understood to mean the attempt to tackle some concrete problem in a process that generally begins with a difference of interests, proceeds in the form of negotiations and in the end – if successfully dealt with -  leads to an agreement concernisng the conduct of both sides.  Peacebuilding, iomn the other hand covers a wider area and in most cases, a longer time scale. Its aims is a change in the social structures underlying the conflict and a change in the attitudes of the parties to the conflict.

Here below are some suggested skills that we can use:

Conflict Theory
Following Hindu thought, Conflict is both creator and destroyer.  Conflict is a source of violence and conflict is a source of development.  The peacemaker has the third role as preserver, transforming the conflict by avoiding violence.

The first step in any conflict transformatiuon process is to map the conflict formation, identifying the parties that have a stake in the outcome, identifying their goals, identifying the issues, meaning the clashes of goals.

Indiciduals and groups (families, communities, societies, nations and states) have goals.  Conflicts arises when:

Goals may be incompatible

Unrealised goals may cause frustrations; especially goals like basic needs

Frustrations may lead to aggression inwards or outwards

Hatred and violence may be directed towards the party seen standing in the way and conflicts are born

Conflicts has many actors, may goals and many issues.  It may be complex and hence mapping is essential.  The life-cycle of a conflict may be divided into three phases, before violence, during violence and after violence.

A peacemaker has the  following work to be done in all three stages.

Before violence: violence prevention; removing/reducing causes of violence

During vio0lence: violence reduction, intercession, intervention

After violence: reconstruction, reconciliation and resolution

Conflict processes

1. One party prevails
2. Withrawal
3. Compromise
4. Transcendence

According to Deepak Chopra, “conflicts even have a necessary place in the journey of the soul.  It serves as the meeting point between two choices, and as long as we are on the path, choice is a constant”. 

Skills for Women Peacemakers

Peacemakers Self analysis

Peace Psychoology

In lessons learnt from the lives of great peace activists there are six stages of consciousness development

1. Acquisition of values and Purpose v/s Alienation
2. Anger v/s Fear and Pessissism
3. Action v/s Armchair Theorising
4. Affiliation v/s Anarchism and individualism
5. Perksonal Integratikons v/s Burnout
6. World Historic Consciousness v/s Sectarianis

The worlds religions have inspired the following peacemaking skills:

1. Map the conflict formation: all parties, all goals, all issues
2. Bring in forgotten parties
3. Have highly empathic dialogues
4. Identify acceptable goals in all parties
5. Bring in forgotten goals that may open new perspectives
6. Arrive at short, irrevocative goal formulations
7. Help p;arties meet “at the table”
8. Finally withdraw from the conflict, go on to the next, being on all

Do and don’ts for peaceworkers offered by Johan Galtung;

Ten dos

1. Identify positive elements in any party
2. Identiy positive elements in the conflict
3. Be creative
4. Look for an easily remembered outcome formula like “common security” sustainable development
5. Behonest to yourself and to others
6. Permit your feeling to show
7. Permit you8r premises to be challenged
8. Always suggest alternative course of action
9. Idealism of the heart and realism of the brain
10. conflict work is the art of the impossible

Ten donts

1. Do not manipulate
2. Do not distribute blame and guilt
3. Do not start playing priest or judge
4. Do not worry too much about consensus
5. Do not demant commitment from parties
6. Do not demant that parties shall cooperate
7. Do not break any promise of confidentiality
8. Do not seek publicity
9. Do not seek expressions of gratitude
10. Do not try to programme people, your task is to empower them and enable them to proceed on their own.

Deepak Chopra suggests peaceful resolutions for negotiating conflict

Show respect for your opponent

Recognise perceived injustice

Believe in forgiveness

Bond at the emotional level

Desist in belligerent actions

Recognise values that are opposed to yours

Don’t pass judgment and make your opponent wrong

Don’t talk in terms of ideology

Confront the underlying factor of fear

Conclusion:
Bring peace one person at a time until the world reaches a critical mass of peacemakers instead of warmakers

Take a humanitarian approach; bringing relief to victims  is an act of kindness and compassion

Personal transformation for which Deepak Chopra suggests seven practices every day each one centered on the theme of peace:

Sunday: Being for Peace

Monday: Thinking of Peace

Tuesday: Feeling for Peace

Wednesday: Speaking for Peace

Thursday: Acting for peace

Friday: Creating for Peace

Saturday: Sharing for peace

Chopra ends his book with the statement: Right now there are 21.3 million soldiers serving in armies around the world.  Can’t we recruit a peace brigade ten times larger? A hundred times larger?  The effort begins now, with you”.