positive peace – Engaging Peace

What brand will you settle for? Maybe not the “Made in the USA” variety. Part I.

Posted on March 14, 2019March 18, 2019 by kathiemm

by Kathie MM

Most people (not the war profiteers, but most people) say they want peace. Most people can see the benefits of peace, and wouldn’t mind sharing them with others.
But beware: Peace comes in many sizes and shapes, and what some people call “peace” may not be what you’ve been hoping for.

The major classification for types of peace differentiates between negative peace and positive peace. Negative peace, as discussed previously on this blog, refers to the absence of war, or armed conflict, or other forms of violence—especially structural violence (i.e., the kinds of violence built into the economic and political structures that keep some groups at a disadvantage). Negative peace is what prevailed in Europe after World War 1—and look where that led us (World War 2).

Negative in this context does not mean something bad—it’s not like negative vibes. It simply means absent, such as a negative medical test result showing that you don’t have the flu, or pneumonia, or cancer, or some other wretched and potentially deadly
disease. However, while it’s good to be free of bad symptoms (especially if you’ve been misusing your body), that’s not the same as having positive health. Seekers of positive health often need to get more exercise, give up smoking, eat better, etc.

Negative peace is one of those multi-layered phenomena. Within and between families, within and between communities, and within and between nations, negative peace benefits more people and saves more lives than violence. Violence today is probably more deadly than the most dangerous diseases, and negative peace doesn’t protect people (or the environment) from renewed attack.

We can have truces at every level. We can have agreements not to harm or kill each other, at every level, and those truces and agreements can help save lives and improve the quality of living. But none of those truces, none of those agreements, none of those live-and-live pacts is the same as positive peace. They’re not the same as cooperation, collaboration, and harmony, and not the same as the social justice and respect for human rights that are essential for a healthy society and a healthy planet. {More on that coming.)

P.S. The father of peace studies and the theory of positive and negative peace is Johan Galtung; see, for example, this recent article.

You can’t have one without the other

Posted on December 5, 2018 by kathiemm

By Kathie MM

Regarding love and marriage, Dad was told by mother, you can’t have one without the other.

In the sophisticated 21st century, we know that what the song was really about was sex and marriage, but one could argue that the essential link between the two is love.

Well, similar things can be said about peace and social justice. You can’t have peace without social justice, and the essential link is love for humanity and the earth, expressed through activism.

Think about the huge profits the military industrial complex reaps from warfare, arms sales, military bases, and “defense” budgets. How does one shake their dedication to promoting targets for rage on the home front in order to serve their desire to keep the country in perpetual armed conflict against designated enemies within and outside national borders? It is pretty obvious that the MIC will not give up their billions easily; active protest is essential.

To reintroduce our new series emphasizing the intimate connection between peace and social justice, today’s offering is a reincarnation of one of engaging peace’s first posts back in 2011.

Negative versus positive definitions of peace

Posted on May 16, 2011 by kathiemm

*Negative peace refers to definitions that identify peace with the absence of war or armed conflict.

*Positive peace refers to definitions that focus on the prerequisites and criteria for a sustainable peace, including respect for universal human rights (which are not synonymous with the legal rights granted by any particular legal authority).

The major public media in this country certainly do little to promote the idea of peace per se, let alone positive peace.

A report released by the Institute for Economics and Peace in October 2010 described a study regarding violence and peace in television programs. Included in the research were 37 news and current affairs programs from 23 networks in 15 countries, including the United States.

Overall, only 1.6% of the stories examined in the study considered issues of positive peace. However, there was some variation across the countries in amount of media time devoted to issues of violence. According to the report, “Of the 10 TV programs with the highest level of violence coverage, 8 are from the United States or the United Kingdom.”

Do you think there have been any changes in our culture of violence since 2011? Do you see any signs of resistance to the business as usual of hatred and violence? What actions, what protests, are you aware of in our society today that might contribute to resistance to endless war and social injustice at every level of society? Please share your ideas.

The Post Glory Exuberance Disorder-PGED

Posted on June 9, 2017 by kathiemm

by Kathie MM

World War I Victory Parade – 700 Block Hamilton Street – Allentown PA. 1919.
In the public domain

Just google “perpetual war,” and you will find many articles on US involvement in what appear to be endless military actions around the world. Google “PTSD” and you will find many more articles on the pernicious effects of war on those who are sent to wage it.

Given the huge costs of war–financial and humanitarian–why do so many Americans continue to support their government’s military undertakings?

These excerpts from an article in Transcend Network by Johan Galtung provide one thought-provoking answer.

“Very well known is post trauma stress disorder, PTSD; no doubt a very painful disorder experienced by many, most, maybe by all of us. Something went very wrong: a shock, violence, physical, verbal, by and to individuals, groups in society, societies, groups of societies….

What would be the opposite of trauma? Evidently something positive…. [One] type of trauma is defeat in a war and the opposite is victory. Basking in the glory, not suffering the gloom of trauma. And then, if trauma could lead to a state of stress,…maybe deep and repeated glory could lead to a state of, let us call it exuberance?….

Death in a war is a major trauma for the bereaved and all, victory a major glory for many and all. The loser is traumatized, the winner glorified. The loser may suffer deep disorder, like nations traumatized by Western colonialism. Or they may say “Never Again” and launch a peace movement. The winner will do his best to keep war as an institution. Till his time comes to lose….

Because to any PTSD it makes sense to postulate a PGED [Post Glory Exuberance Disorder] as a strong cause having that PTSD as effect. If we want to reduce the PTSD, it is obviously insufficient to work on the victim side only, with therapies and remedies, when PGED reproduces PTSD. A whole system has to be changed….

Take the war system, … as alive as ever with threats of major wars in many places in the “Middle East” (West Asia), the USA-EU-Ukraine-Russia complex, and in the “Far East” (East Asia). The relatively peaceful continents are in the “Third World”, Latin America-Caribbean and Africa; the enormity of violence against them being structural more than direct war.

In this there is a message to those who naively believe that “development leads to peace”; right now it looks more like the other way around. Why, given all the suffering, the PTSD, caused by wars?

Because of PGED enjoyed by the winners. Not only basking in the glory of ticker tape parades and similar orgies, but in billions to the winners, incidentally also to some of the losers…. Wars make money flow.

The world’s major war machine is the United States of America. No US president winning a war has ever been blamed for human suffering caused…. The war in Vietnam was lost, a terrible trauma for US leaders, population, and the bereaved of 58,000 killed. But not of 3 million Vietnamese? Grotesque insensitivity. Questions raised were not about the political use of war but how to win future wars to overcome the “Vietnam syndrome”.

To win means collective glory and exuberance, individual profits in the billions high up, and some heroism, glory, and medals lower down. Of the millions killed and tens of millions bereaved: no word.

Try one minute, or an hour rather, to contemplate the total PTSD perpetrated by US warfare on the peoples of Afghanistan from 2001, and Iraq from 1991, and 2003. True, there has been no US PGED but even some US PTSD from the “unfinished wars” as CNN calls it. Also true, lots of US psychotherapy for PTSD has been made available both places.

But most in need of counseling are Americans hit by wanting PGED, demanding winnable wars as therapy; disasters to the victims all over, even counting in the millions, with enormities of PTSD in their wake.

We are victims of a negative psychology of individual therapy. And short on a positive psychology to provide work for negative and positive peace, for security and good relations to higher ups who want PGED. And to remove causes of war: unsolved conflicts and unreconciled traumas.”

______________________________________

Johan Galtung, a professor of peace studies, is founder of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment and rector of the TRANSCEND Peace University-TPU. Prof. Galtung has published 1670 articles and book chapters, over 470 Editorials for TRANSCEND Media Service, and 167 books on peace and related issues, of which 41 have been translated into 35 languages, for a total of 135 book translations, including ‘50 Years-100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives,’ published by the TRANSCEND University Press-TUP.

This is a shortened version of an article originally published on TMS: The Post Glory Exuberance Disorder-PGED.

Truth & Reconciliation, Part II, by Ross Caputi

Posted on June 19, 2014June 20, 2014 by kathiemm

Our philosophy at Islah is that the goal of a reconciliation project must not be merely to end violence and mend feelings and attitudes between an oppressor and an oppressed group. The absence of violence with the persistence of injustice is not positive peace, but the Pax Romana. This is the peace that empires seek, the stillness of the cemeteries, where all forms of resistance against oppression have been quelled and the status quo has been preserved in totality.

Reconciliation is not realistic or desirable until all injustices have been addressed. The first step of this process lies in reparations efforts.

We see truth-telling and reparations as essential steps towards any possible reconciliation. Through voluntary reparations, individuals who feel complicit in war, occupation, or displacement can begin to directly rebuild relationships with victimized people. Reparations do not just address the responsibility of one party for harming the other, but also help to abolish structures and systems of injustice, which are often lubricated by either outright misinformation or collective aphasia.

Truth-telling is essential for accountability. Trust cannot be restored between people while wrongs committed remain a secret known only to the perpetrator and the victim. Through reparations and truth-telling, a process of restorative justice can begin, and reconciliation may be possible.

Truth and Reconciliation in Iraq
Our goal is to work towards a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Iraq by first addressing the suffering that Iraqis experience as a direct result of the US-led invasion and occupation. Our goal is to create an enduring, restorative relationship between Iraqis and participants in the occupation of Iraq (soldiers and citizens of the occupying countries).

Ross is currently on the Board of Directors of ISLAH. He is also a graduate student and a writer. In 2004, he was a US Marine in the US-led occupation of Iraq. His experience there, in particular his experience during the 2nd siege of Fallujah, compelled him to leave the US military and join the anti-war movement. His activism has focused on our society’s moral obligation to our victims in Iraq, and to the responsibility of veterans to renounce their hero status in America. Photo by Dahr Jamail of Iraqi women using the only water available to them .