The crisis and notions of peace building

Since 1989 Europe has grappled with the challenge of socially, politically and economically integrating new member states from Central Eastern Europe, as well as the Western Balkans accession in the EU. The global financial and European economic and political crisis brought to the front issues of European consolidation and governance, against a background of mounting human suffering. Migration from new member states to the EU15 has been significant, while migration from other continents poses challenges for perceptions of security, citizenship, minority, rights. In the current crisis, domestic resource mobilisation, as well as foreign aid and other external capital flows, became even more important. Monitoring crisis interventions, donor innovations in promoting reforms, aid effectiveness, and designing and promoting fresh approaches to deliver advice and aid, such as environmental taxation, currency taxation, trade policy and investments in natural resources are to be considered. Besides examining how more developed countries can best assist fragile states (and their citizens) in the long run providing stable and reliable funds, the aim is to understand the transition from immediate crisis, and post-conflict/crisis assistance to longer-term development assistance. What can we learn from peace building to stategise and act when confronted with racist violence? Furthermore, the study of new institutional forms of governance and especially of questions of democracy, social justice and accountability, as well as looking into particular forms of governance, i.e. regional integration, supervision of reforms) and the governance of particular sectors, i.e. social media, is called for.

Diversity challenges become obfuscated at a time of global financial and European economic and political crisis. Migrants and minorities are blamed for ‘stealing our jobs’ and ‘destroying our way of life’, as unemployment and insecurity rises. Conflict not only exacerbates existing divisions but also creates new ones. In many cases, the nature of the political, economic and socio-cultural breakdown, particularly of diverse communities, make it difficult to re-create a sense of identity and belonging after the conflict ended, particularly amongst the young who are even more vulnerable because of their limited access to power. Integration polices almost become a luxury. Creating an environment where youth can play a real role in rebuilding community networks capable of long-term internal peace-building is thus a pragmatic investment in a community’s long-term stability. The focus also becomes countering xenophobia and racism, particularly in countries in the grip of the crisis.

Most importantly, context always and invariably matters. An acute insight into complex socio-political processes and balances on the local level is required. Peace building as social politics is a long-term process which engages actors from different organizational and institutional backgrounds (including local government agencies and social service providers, civil initiatives and nongovernmental organizations with different ideologies, politicians, as well as international organizations active in the local contexts) in a set of joint efforts aimed at devising locally relevant social and economic development of their communities and relating the practices that promote social integration of the micro-level to their impact at the macro-level of social structuring and politics.

During recent years, apropos and in conjunction with the unfolding the crisis in Greece, there is growing securitisation of perceptions of migrants, a blind and deaf opposition viz. to the prospect of the community of Greek citizens opening to others – ‘aliens’, ‘foreigners’, ‘those of another religion’, or ‘those of another descent’ and a concomitant resistance to the view that such groups should have , i.e., to foreigners who will have a say in the political affairs of the place where they live. The rhetoric of fear is spreading and being propagated with impunity by those wary of change or wish to capitalise on insecurities. Substantive and declarative respect for human dignity is missing from both discussion and practice, in public and social discourses about belonging, given that the law and political authority automatically generate categories of individuals on the basis of descent or blood ties, often through administratively unchecked practices.