Here’s how we might achieve a peaceful future

By Professor Stuart Rees*
April 2004

This is an edited extract of an address to the Australian Institute of International Affairs, entitled "Peace in 2004: local, national and international prospects", March 18, 2004

Two assumptions affect my interpretation of the means of achieving peace this year and beyond.
If "peace" means only a cessation of hostilities, the controversies that provoked conflict will recur. Only the goal of peace with justice would address underlying human rights issues and thus increase the likelihood of peace agreements being permanent.

The struggle to achieve peace with justice refers to creative, non-destructive ways of exercising power: whether in personal relationships; in the design of social policies; or in the conduct of international affairs. I assume a direct link between power exercised in private, personal relationships and that which is practised within bureaucracies or in negotiations which affect the direction of international relations.

Influenced by these assumptions, the task of promoting peace with justice – what Denise Levertov calls "Peace, not only the absence of war" – requires an understanding of the consequences of exercising power in different ways plus a familiarity with the philosophy and language of non-violence. Such understanding needs to be coupled to an awareness as to how undue respect for age-old notions of sovereignty has become an obstacle to peace with justice. These form three interdependent topics: the creative exercise of power; non-violence translated into policy and practice; sovereignty redefined so that the goal of attaining universal human rights can be realised.

Exercising power democratically

In the conduct of government and in the management of institutions, a familiar way of exercising power is top-down, controlling, one-dimensional, almost certainly dogmatic and frequently authoritarian. Such practice values obedience and does not tolerate challenge. It is Machiavellian in its culture. It blindly gives to politicians the prescription that the only way to security lies in the possession of overwhelming power. Hence the massive increases in defence budgets, in the apparatus for spying, for organising military intervention and for conducting wars on terrorism.

An apparently more democratic way of exercising power is to find a place for the voices of opposition by insisting that in the agenda for peace with justice, unofficial as well as official perspectives will be included. This inclusion of official and unofficial points of view is two dimensional, even pluralistic. Within this political culture the voices of the powerless – such as those of religious and ethnic minorities, of women and children, of people living in poverty and even of prisoners – may be heard.

Such two-dimensionality is more open than the one-dimensionality already discussed, but may flatter to deceive. Questions about the means of peace with justice may be asked but only within the guidelines of official policies and always constrained by a media which is either unaware of non-violent uses of power or is disinterested in such practice. The status quo bias of such a dominant media – some performers on Sydney commercial radio come to mind - would not entertain the possibility that the armed forces of a State may also be dubbed terrorists.

The means and ends of peace with justice demand a creative exercise of power in every country and culture, in every context of life. Such multi-dimensional ways of thinking and acting require that discipline boundaries be crossed, that the constraints of official policies and media practices be challenged and that the beautiful alternatives to destructive uses of power be removed from the periphery of life to centre stage. This would involve policies to address poverty, to promote disarmament, challenge militarism and cut back on defence forces.

It would generate a culture which pays due respect to Indigenous peoples' right to development and would ensure that the human rights of vulnerable groups such as asylum seekers be recognised. In Jacques Derrida's terms, it would be a culture of cosmopolitanism and forgiveness. In the words of the Canadian poet Robert W Service, it would challenge us to live at peace with the environment and to recognise that such peace-enhancing interdependence would affect individuals' health and self respect. Service uses the word "wild" as a metaphor to invite people to cross boundaries. Applied to contemporary events he might have been inviting anyone to learn more about Islam and to engage in dialogue with leaders of Islam. Better to do that than to demonise their societies as extremist or as uncivilized.

Prioritising non-violence

In an age of wars, terrorism and the assumption by governments that violence is a way to seek redress or to provide for security, the encouragement of non-violence has never been more needed. Fascination with violence needs to be replaced with literacy about non-violence. How might this be achieved?
At the interpersonal level the opportunity exists to engage in dialogue with opponents as well as friends, with enemies as well as allies. Dialogue presupposes a willingness to comprehend perspectives that derive from different cultural and religious experiences. It requires a certain humility about one's own position, however convinced we are about our point of view. We cannot afford the righteousness of Bush, Blair or Howard. Polarisation of views hinders the chances of even beginning a dialogue. Care needs to be taken to overcome that tendency to rush to judgement about opponents, to discourage that need to always look for the opportunity to justify one's own position.

Bertolt Brecht wrote powerfully on the non-violence inherent in dialogue which involves a willingness to hear and consider another's views, saying in "Listen While You Speak":

Don't say you are right too often teacher.
Let the students realise it.
Don't push the truth:
It's not good for it.
Listen while you speak.

Non-violence can also be expressed in social policies that protect the vulnerable and that provide for people's security without resort to militarism or to militaristic ways of thinking. By "militarism" I mean the assumption that forms of armed control exerted by police forces, armies or even by security guards are the way to protect a nation's citizens and institutions. Such militarism often results in expensive forms of state violence and makes few contributions to peace with justice. To say this is not to deny people's need for safety and protection, or to ignore the responsibility of police forces to ensure the rule of law. But it does mean that we should never be fooled into thinking that bigger police forces, more prisons and larger defence budgets will produce peace with justice. On the contrary, in contemporary Australia I am convinced that people's security would be best enhanced by radical changes in social policies: generous maternity leave, a bolstering of resources for universal healthcare and a re-commitment to achieve full employment.

At the level of international relations, every effort needs to be made to discourage any resort to violence, from stricter gun controls to the outlawing of any private citizen's entitlement to bear arms, from cutbacks in military expenditure to a sustained programme of nuclear disarmament. There is a widely supported international programme called Global Action to Prevent War (GAPW). Consistent with the UN Secretary General's goal of preventing conflicts, the architects of GAPW have been concerned to enhance the United Nations' resources for intervening in trouble spots in order to extinguish any smouldering controversy before violence and anarchy occurs. GAPW proposes steps to freeze the size of armed forces plus a 25 per cent cut in military spending and arms production. Phase II calls for worldwide cuts in military spending, arms production and trade. Phase III addresses the need to immobilise and store all nuclear weapons. By Phase IV it is envisaged that forces maintained by the UN and regional security organisations will guard against rearmament and trans-national violence.

Disarmament, however, does not refer only to steps to prevent war. It also refers to the process of institutions and individuals disarming themselves of any arrogant certainty that their way of living is the way, that their culture or religion has a monopoly of wisdom or righteousness. Whatever the strategies for disarmament, we shall always need to return to the philosophy and language of non-violence. The properties and the skills of dialogue are at the hub of such a philosophy.

Redefining sovereignty

The third issue that has a direct bearing on efforts to achieve peace with justice concerns assumption's about a nation's sovereignty. More recently this has been referred to as border protection and has even arisen in the Gilbertian task of excising islands and pockets of land so that for immigration purposes they cease to be part of a sovereign state. For the purpose of achieving justice for the world's vulnerable peoples, a key assumption about sovereignty is that it enables the representatives of a state to exclude people who are deemed not to be citizens or who are considered to have only fragile claims to be judged refugees. By contrast, the sovereignty that would contribute to principles of humanity and thereby to peace with justice would be concerned with policies of generosity and tolerance, of hospitality and inclusion.

In the conventional interpretations of sovereignty, degrees of intolerance are coupled to national pride and assumptions about various violent means to maintain such sovereignty. Yet in several respects sovereignty ceases to have meaning. If free trade was designed to reflect the free-market principles that influence the conception of such policies, national boundaries become irrelevant. The power of the corporate free traders takes over. When fears are raised about epidemics such as AIDS, SARS or Chicken Flu, the intervention of international organisations such as the WHO become imperative and override any considerations of national boundaries. The threat of disease becomes analogous to the dangers of international terrorism for which the best defence is international cooperation.

Peace with justice is a global goal that would be the best antidote to terrorism and an effective way to provide for security. To promote that goal we have to de mystify old-fashioned notions of sovereignty that are maintained by a self-justifying logic as in familiar claims: "Our way of life is the best"; "Terrorists threaten what we stand for"; "Our democracy is at stake." Beneath these claims lies another reality, which says that there are several ways of living and diverse interpretations of democracy. In addition, we need to be reminded that state terrorism is perceived in some parts of the world as being as dangerous as the behaviour of those who take the law into their own hands.

Current versions of sovereignty have also been sustained by reluctance to uphold the rule of international law or to support the United Nations, except when it suits. The United States' refusal to recognise the International Criminal Court and its pleading with the UN to re-assume responsibilities in Iraq – after it had initially snubbed the international body – are examples of this inconsistency about international institutions and the principles they are empowered to uphold. Only the sovereignty of international law, the sovereignty of the United Nations and a world-wide respect for non-violence would recognise people's interdependence and produce a version of sovereignty that transcends national differences.

Reference to the sovereignty of non-violence is an appropriate way to end this discussion. Such a view presupposes an emphasis on sharing resources, on the significance of altruism and on the wisdom associated with humility.

»«