Peacebuilders working in unstable contexts are sometimes caught up in the immediacy of violence. A surge of adrenaline occasionally reminds us of the ‘fight or flight’ reflexes many of those we work with experience on a daily basis. More often we engage in activities several steps removed from this immediacy. We work to change the structures of society – and at the heart of this the balance of power between state and citizens and between different groups and identities. We use dialogue to bring parties together to talk, we create safe spaces for this dialogue, we use research to shine a light on misunderstood, or forgotten, but vital issues, we conduct training in mediation and other skills, and we persuade and push for policy change so that power can be used constructively rather than destructively. The overall aim is to improve ways of managing conflict without violence.
In this sense peacebuilding is an ambitious and broad undertaking involving many different people operating in many different institutions and spaces. Some of us are good at the training, some at the research, others at the persuading, and at the dialogue and mediation aspects of the work. Some of us are good at operating at a grassroots level with community leaders, others with politicians, and others with businesspeople and officials working in global institutions such as the World Bank and the United Nations. We are peacebuilders, but we are also community workers, youth workers, teachers, and parents. It all connects together somehow, in powerful, somewhat messy and often unexpected ways. The important thing is to recognise the nature of our interconnectedness and to make the most of it in order to build a more peaceful world.
We are arguably getting better at managing conflict. And although we do not fully understand all the causes of violence in our societies, we are very aware of the different forms violence takes – from, for example, war, to domestic violence, transnational crime, gang violence and suicide. On the one hand, in our increasingly interconnected world, the linkages between different forms of conflict and violence and the responses to them are becoming more obvious. On the other, however, we have not yet harnessed the alliances that will enable us to develop a sufficiently joined up response.
What is exciting about this upcoming Conflict Ideas Forum is it challenges us to reflect on the nature and extent of our connectedness with others. With growing awareness and increasing interconnectedness there are some significant gains we must capitalise on. We must find ways of creating more substantive linkages between those working on civil wars, on the drugs trade, on criminal violence, on the psycho-social aspects of violence, on gang violence. Why? Because these different forms of violence have roots which intertwine; because we have much to learn from how different agencies tackle different forms of violence and how they work to prevent and manage the conflicts that underpin this violence; because, although violence is arguably decreasing, we must remain hungry for new ideas; and because ultimately peacebuilding needs to evolve with the contexts it operates within.