Peace and Conflict – Occur naturally or artificially?
As humans, we are built with the urge to achieve our needs. We
would do so through any means possible, if necessary. When translated into
nation-states, it applies in a similar manner. But when these national
interests clash, conflict arises. So, in a simplistic manner, conflict occurs naturally, with or without provocation.
Moreover, when nations fight, there's no need for a norm to
dictate how they should fight - instinct calls for the best battalion and arms
to counter the enemy.
On the other hand, peace follows a different rule-book. There
are norms for a peaceful world - to dictate what makes it peaceful and
instructs nations to act in a certain manner. In this context, peace occurs artificially. It might be an instinct to think of
peace in times of conflict, but more often we have skirmishes first, and peace
talks later. Even to defend peace, we have conflicts. The perpetual India-China
border skirmishes are reflective of this.
In international relations (IR) therefore, Peace and Conflict
are not binary opposites. They are very closely linked due to circumstances of
war and dialogues of peace. But, in the 21st century, the two words
cannot be crudely attributed as opposites.
While we do imply at times: that peace happens at one time, and
conflict at another. They, however, cannot be understood in an absolute or
binary sense. They do not exist in a vacuum: devoid of historical, political,
cultural, societal, and most importantly, religious, contexts. Rather these contexts
all contribute to antagonism, not consensus.
Taking the example of the United States’ Global War on Terror.
The US in 2001, post the 9/11 Al-Qaeda attacks, that shattered the misnomer: “US
homeland was untouchable”, launched an all-out war on the terrorist
organisation. They went into Afghanistan with hopes of removing the threat of
terrorism to the US and the world, at large. The rationale behind the war was
to establish a peaceful world, as deemed by the Americans. We see that proposition
of war was to achieve peace - contradicting the notion that peace is only the end
of conflict and not the means.
The repercussions of the US withdrawal in 2021, especially in
the month of August, and the re-entry of Taliban into political power in
Afghanistan, is also reflective of how the ‘absence of violence’ did not in
fact lead to peace but created more chaos. This situation cannot be taken as a one-off
instance. Humanitarian chaos, political instability and the power play of
different entities is a common result of such withdrawals.
India’s partition is an all too common and painful reminder for
Indians and Pakistanis alike. As the Britishers ‘withdrew’, the humanitarian
catastrophe was not the absence of violence, but its very presence. The state
of Jammu and Kashmir was never a simple solution and competing ideas based on
majoritarian-religious views, in India and Pakistan alike, continue to plague
the region. While the conflict did not erupt in 1947, it certainly gave an
impetus for more political imbroglios.
The study of these closely linked yet antithetical concepts is credited to Johan Galtung. He propelled the study of peace and conflict into mainstream political dialogue, by including the concept of Positive and Negative Peace.
Starting with Negative
peace, it means the
absence of violence or the absence of war. It adopts a limited and exclusive
approach towards attaining peace, obtained only through one way- no violence.
Negative peace is not sustainable in an ever-conflicting world, where nations
contradict constantly and aggressions are most often resolved without peaceful
dialogues.
Positive
peace has a
broader and more sustainable lookout to attaining peace, beyond the absence of
violence. This includes aspects of quality of life to peace, like justice,
equality, political rights, literacy, economic prosperity etc, that determine
whether a situation is peaceful or not. It has a more holistic approach to
peace. By having an inclusive approach and bringing abstract notions into its
fold, obtaining peace becomes more realistic. This is strongly propounded by
Galtung himself. He believes that positive peace helps to understand and
address the root of the conflict, instead of only facing the conflict head-on.
Cutting a branch would not stop the tree from growing. Only when
you axe the stump and uproot the base, will there be no sign of a tree.
Galtung goes on to explain the concept of peace in tandem with
violence. He describes 3 kinds of violence in IR.
Secondly, Structural violence. It is the infliction of violence through the orders of a system,
organisation or state. Most commonly this is seen by majoritarian ethnic,
political, religious or social groups which aim to detach, suppress and
annihilate the minority group/s in society. Ethnic violence often goes beyond
inflicting direct violence, but also aims to ‘cleanse’ society of them. Ethnic
cleansing or genocides of Armenians, Jews, Tutsis and Albanians are some
prominent instances in history.
Lastly, Cultural Violence delves into the deep-seeded roots of structural factors like ethnicity,
religion, race, societal norms, sex, caste etc, which often coincides with
structural violence. Propaganda and distrust are common tools to merge the
two.
As depicted in the diagram, the tip of the iceberg in direct violence but the
underlying structural and cultural violence keeps growing below the surface; manifesting itself through direct violence. Political
agendas, speeches and structural changes as was systematically done during
Nazism in Germany, is an example of how violence was inherently festered in
society with the aim to obliterate an entire race.
Galtung uses these three types of violence to highlight that the
solution of such conflicts is not the absence of violence (Negative Peace),
since these cultural factors will remain as long as humans exist. Rather
Positive Peace aims to eradicate the root cause through developmental goals of
justice, equality, education, liberty, economic freedom and opportunities,
religious freedom etc.
Civil society is often the agent of change in bringing about these developmental goals and Positive Peace
in the world.
One instance to highlight civil society’s role is when a
prominent leader in America initiated change in societal behaviour.
In the 1950s-60s, while America was in the thick of racial segregation and Martin Luther King Jr was growing as a popular light for the Black community, Billy Graham, was another leader, an American evangelist who conducted nation-wide crusades, publicly denouncing race and talking about the love of Jesus Christ as the only solution. He was among the first to hold a meeting in 1950s with no segregated ropes to divide the Black Americans from the White. His action, though receiving raging dissent in the media, brought about physical and emotional change in the Southern states like Arkansas, Alabama etc that witnessed the most aggressive racism in the entire country.
He, a white evangelist and King, a black reformer, forming an
unlikely friendship in trying times, were influential in using the power of
peace and faith to unite races, on grounds of love. Thus, transforming the very
notion of the racial structure in society.
Another stalwart in social change is Mahatma Gandhi. His role in South Africa against the
rampant racial undertones of the Britishers against the Indian diaspora turned his loyalties back to his motherland. His
learnings in the country paved the way for large scale non-violent satyagrahas
in India. This time around, non-violence achieved positive peace, by
congregating Hindus, Muslims, and people of other faiths and different classes,
to attain their common goal: freedom.
IR is often restricted to theories of Realism, Liberalism,
Feminist school of thought, Marxism and so on. These disciplines regularly focus
or have an outlook of situations in the world through the lens of conflict or
the aftermath of them.
Yet, we can find space for the discipline of Peace and Conflict
studies in this myriad of theories, to embolden our understanding of the world
through peace and conflict, together.
Arlene Noronha*
*Arlene N. is final year graduation student of AIIS, Amity University, Noida.
Sources: All images: Google
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