Written by Frank T. Scruggs
Lately, amidst the Presidential election in the U.S., the two candidates, Senator John McCain (Republican-Arizona) and Senator Barack Obama (Democrat-Illinois) are debating how to handle the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Maybe both should consider establishing peace over decreased troop withdrawal, staying the course and other considerations of decreased force. Perhaps those answers for the transformation of both Afghanistan and Iraq lie elsewhere.
I believe that the United States while involved in bringing peace to the world consider that we should know how to bring peace to our own society in order to truly be effective in world affairs and foreign policy. The spiritual and the moral side of humanity seem to have become divorced from the political and economic when conducting foreign policy.
The U.S. country is still a divided society that has always operated in a mode of interdependency. One peace-builder and author, John Paul Lederach, wrote about the divided society and the legacy of the Cold War between the U.S. and USSR which ended when the Soviet Union collapsed however a Cold War between the races still exists in the United States. Although in America, a veneer of civility bring about the illusion of harmony but many unresolved issues remain between the Native American Indians, African Americans, Hispanic people and Caucasian Americans. First, we need address the wounds and issues that have arisen from the various traumas which have become generational only then can we begin to build the peace infrastructure that Lederach recommended. I think that a critical factor in peace building is to offer an infrastructure and institution much like the military dedicated to and designed for peace. While peace offers truth, mercy, and justice which in turn leads to stability and harmony these actions are counterbalanced in the present by war, oppression, unresolved issues of discrimination and a concept of the military.
The military concept offers a sense of greatness through history, love of people and or country demonstrated to sacrifice (willingness to lay down one’s life for the cause), an appeal to the protective instincts as defenders and warriors which also promote a sense of duty and honor. We also find that war and military behavior is empowering by promoting the greatest virtues of masculinity, male bonding which stems from the sense of Esprit d’ Corp, camaraderie and unity.
War and state-sanctioned violence lead the warrior class (in most societies, police and soldiers are the warriors most recognizable as belonging to this group) to have a belonging need met as they feel a part of something separate, an elite group. The feeling of the armed group as a strong, highly respected, close knit family is lost when peace is at hand. Peace-building must recognize that building a peace institution to achieve its goals must also develop in people a sense of belonging, connectivity and history.
A peace institution and infrastructure should match an opportunity for strength and greatness in much the same way as the military. Lederach discusses reconciliation but is not naive. The realization that reconciliation comes at a cost is paramount to this issue. More than political compromise is necessary to promote reconciliation.
I think that in terms of reconciliation in divided societies, spiritual and psychological healing is an absolute necessity. Lederach points out that the paradoxes arising from reconciliation must be dealt with and embraced which ar In the overall sense reconciliation promotes an encounter between the open expression of the painful past… and the search for articulation of a long-term interdependent future.
Reconciliation provides a place for truth and mercy to meet, where concerns for exposing what has happened and for letting go in favor of renewed relationship are validated and embraced.
Reconciliation recognizes the need to give time and place to both justice and peace where redressing the wrong is held together with the envisioning of a common connected future.
Once we can reconcile our Cold War in America, I think that our foreign policy world-wide would be much more effective, moral and sustainable. Keep this dialogue going you can contact me at fscruggs@yahoo.com.
