peace talks

[sophiaserpentia]

I woke up the other day thinking about peace talks. I've written before about how i think "peace talks" are crap: peace is more than the cessation of violence, but it's warmongers who have these talks. The one thing that earns you a place at the table for "peace talks" is demonstrating you have the capacity to kill lots of people. So the emphasis is on (a) proving you are a big alpha male and (b) finding ways to placate and co-exist with a few other alpha males.

There's a serious crisis of leadership in the world today. By which i mean, there isn't much real "leadership" going on. There's bullies who claim to be leaders, but they consistently fail the populations they are supposed to serve.

So, here was the thought i woke with the other day. Take 500 civilians from each "side" of the conflict. Put them in a room together and let them talk. They can be, should be, people of any socioeconomic class, but none of them can be governmental officeholders. The first rule is, no hitting anyone else. The second rule is, unless someone makes an accusation against you personally, no defensiveness -- you are to listen when someone from the other "side" is talking, and they have to listen to you when you're talking. Once you're able to listen to the other person's anger you can hear their hurt and loss and you can match up what they're saying against your own anger, hurt, loss.

The groups pair up, one from each "side" in every pair, and they go to see where the other half lives and works. They go to visit the graves of friends and family who died in the conflict. They eat at each other's table.

And then they all come back, and, having conceded that they have to find a way to live together somehow, they work out what kind of world they could all live in... and whatever they come up with is what the leaders have to implement.

Yeah, i know, it has flaws. I think it's better than letting people who have a vested interest in war negotiate the "peace." I figure a process like this would work for a few generations, until all the loopholes have been found and the war profiteers and bullies figure out how to game the system to their benefit. But at that point it will be up to someone else to figure out what to do next.

Comments

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

The one thing that earns you a place at the table for "peace talks" is demonstrating you have the capacity to kill lots of people.

Ouch. Yes. I'd never quite thought about it like that before.

[lassiter.livejournal.com]

That all sounds eminently wise and logical to me. Which is why.... :(

[stacymckenna.livejournal.com]

That process requires an INCREDIBLE amount of emotional maturity... I wish I had confidence that the average human (including myself) would be capable of that when faced with someone I had culturally been taught to hate or consider inferior.

[perlmonger.livejournal.com]

It can work - there have been meetings like that between Israelis and Palestinians, between Republicans and Unionists in Northern Ireland, and no doubt between other conflicted communities I haven't read about, that have resulted in at least some mutual understanding. That last, of course, is precisely what the powers that maintain such conflicts don't want: their power within communities is legitimised by the enemies they create.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Speaking from my own experience, it's incredibly difficult not to get defensive when someone else is in any way making a complaint against something one identifies with.

Yeah. It's hard. I wonder if anything like this could feasibly happen without facilitators to keep it from devolving into a fruitless shouting match.

The shouting matches are going to happen anyway. Suppose half, or two thirds, or three fourths, of the pairs never get past the shouting match stage. That still leaves a number of people who get to the heart of the common humanity they share with everyone in that room.

In one way or another, "peace" is what happens when human beings decide to make the best of co-existing. They begin to trade and labor together. Their children meet and fall in love, and suddenly they are in-laws.