【宏觀視野】Liu Cheng（劉成）, "Mechanisms and Perspective of Regional Cooperation under the Perspective of Peace Studies"

【宏觀視野】

Mechanisms and Perspective of Regional Cooperation under the Perspective of Peace Studies

Liu Cheng

Professor of History and Peace Studies, Nanjing Univeristy, China

1.The Cultural Reasons of conflicts

There are four different constellations for understanding the relationship of cultures (religions) and nations. At the first level, the lowest level, you can see the constellation of Ego. This describes the persuasion that your culture, religion or nation is the best and highest one. In this egocentric view all other cultures, religions and nations are not comparable with your own. However, this archaic opinion is found increasingly seldom, especially among the young. The next constellation – under the term Multi – illustrates the ability for cultures and nations to live together side by side, a kind of coexistence that we find much more of nowadays. More often we find constellations which are determined by various forms of Inter. For example, our cultural and national lives are defined by inter-actions which involve communication and cooperation. Unfortunately, in relation to religions, the development from Ego across Multi to Inter still happens comparatively rarely. On the level of Trans – the highest level in our model – we feel we are all sitting in the same boat, living in One World, having the same experiences, sharing the same wishes and also having the same troubles (for example, our ecological problems). From this perspective we are all connected and unified in a single global network.

Academic discussions have been characterized by a focus on diversity. This is good because it has been necessary. We need to have an awareness of people’s different specialities as this can bring acceptance of these and the understanding necessary to value them. But now that the process has been started by this awareness, we need to focus much more on unity, on universals and on universality, or on transversality. Because, if our discussions remain permanently concerned with diversity, they will engender the wrong impression: that the reality of our differences that such discussions highlight is the main reality. However, although it is no less important, these differences are peripheral to our main reality. In particular, the dense network of digital communication and economic relations (including their shadow: the ecological problems that we’re now discovering) signifies that we now exist and live interdependently in a world we are characterizing as transcultural,transreligious,and transnational.These interdependencies demonstrate a unique drawing together of people that has not previously been experienced. Under these conditions, We needs to discuss the possibilities of peace building in a new way, especially its potential within the framework of social networking. Please note: in a world unified by common lifestyles, close economic ties, and digital connectivity we can expect that the basic phenomena of culture, religion, and nationhood may continue to exist and function.

Our existence is much more transculturally oriented than we usually believe. In fact, as the Olympic ideal shows, we have been transculturally oriented for a long time. In arts, sports, and music we have a long tradition of exchange and meetings. Currently the East is much more influenced by developments in the West (for example in music). Basketball and football/soccer are increasingly becoming favourite sports around the world. Aerobics and Tai Chi, inline skating and breakdancing, disco fox and waltz, graffiti and punk - you can find all these in every corner of the world. The worldwide spread of common taste in fashion and food is largely rooted in the West and you can buy pizza as well as french-fried potatoes and hamburgers in all countries. On the other hand, for a long time now you could find Chinese restaurants all over the world. Similarly, there has been a tremendous global spread of Asian culture and a fascination for Asian traditions and customs. And of course there is the distribution of products that are “made in China“. You can now get nearly every product all over the world. Amazon delivers books everywhere. A worldwide postal and parcel service ensures you get all you want wherever you are living or staying. Science, technology and travel have created a dense network of exchange and cooperation. One of the central visions of fairy tales is to go all over the world using seven-league boots, first here and then there. Similarly, the Little Prince in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s famous story can move his chair all over the globe 42 times a day. This is living in TRANS. It is today’s reality.

Very often violence is culturally based. Many wars have been, and still are, fought for cultural reasons (not least religious ones). These are exacerbated because a lot of people are looking for an identity by having or finding a sense of cultural belonging. Clearly, they are afraid of the dissolution of culture through cultural unification and relativism. From a psychological perspective some people argue that the reason for this may lie in an ego weakness, expressed as: “I need some form of cultural affiliation to offset my own feeling of ego weakness”. But a further, important question could be: “Is the culture I’d like to belong to truly a culture and does it really provide a cultural reason for making war?” From one perspective similarities between the rural people of one culture, A, and the rural people of another culture, B, are much stronger than those between the rural people and urban people of the same culture. In the same vein, the commonalities of the urban people of culture A and the urban people of culture B are much stronger than between the urban people of culture A and their rural counterparts, or between the urban and rural people of culture B. True culture is not a territorial, vertical phenomenon but a horizontal phenomenon relating to similar living places and their common typical conventions and structures. So, in reality, one cultural “layer” tends to be in opposition to the other, thus, the elites of each so called culture are fighting against the people in the common layer of that culture. … let fight the people against the people of the common culture of the common layer.

A (poor) member of the lower class of one culture is likely to live, think and act in a much more similar way to another (poor) person in another culture than to a (rich) member of the higher middle or upper class of his own culture (and vice versa with middle and upper class people). The same oppositions function between educated people and uneducated people or – in terms of gender – between women and men. In Johan Galtung’s theory of imperialism, the similarities between the economic elites in the countries of the northern hemisphere and those of the southern hemisphere and the invisible bridge between them are the basis of the exploitation of the people at the periphery of these. In fact, the so called ‘clash of civilization’ simply hides the tension between the rich centres of the world and the poor periphery; as well as the patriarchal oppression of the women all over the world. In reality, a culture of powerful people exists on one side and one of powerless people on the other.

One of the main problems with comparing cultures, religions or nations is our concentration on so called “differences“ and their excessive emphasis. However, if we take the whole statistical illustration into account, we will get a very different perspective. In fact, the opposite impression: the alleged data are relatively similar. That is to say: when so called differences are emphasized (especially as arguments supporting war) the commonalities, although far bigger, are actually obscured. Peace Studies needs to show how disproportionate this is and the consequences of this. It also needs to reveal how the interests of some groups or individuals can create an imbalance in perspective like that described above. Such people, who attach utmost importance to differences that may in fact be quite minor , are really pursuing their own interests (whether ideological, economic or personal). The consequences for the recipients are immense as they become unwittingly fixated on a way of looking at a specific situation or constellation that doesn’t reflect reality. They are therefore ready to act in the interests of the difference-makers under conditions that don’t exist.

2.Concepts and Mechanisms of Regional Cooperation

At the beginning of the 20th century, when the first Israelis went to Palestine to settle there, claiming legitimacy because of their Palestinian Jewish roots, Martin Buber, the famous philosopher of dialog, insisted that they intersperse themselves among the Arab people already living there by choosing a federal system of living together. Later Joseph Abileah, argued the same from a geo-political viewpoint; namely, that in a non-federal system the Palestinians would always be denied access to the sea and therefore to the trade they depended on. However, both Abileah and Buber argued without success. Since then, there have been many wars in Palestine, and future developments will also prove both men right: May be the only solution to the Palestinian conflict is federalism. Through this structure the different groups of people can rule the country together and remain autonomous at the same time. Federalism is the political ideal - not only as a possibility to structure a country of autonomous parts, but also as an underlying principle. Federalism is a way of thinking and a moral understanding. You cannot realize it by only being concerned with the relationships between provinces and maintaining a common political structure if the principle of organizing political unity at all levels is not fully respected. Federalism only functions as a bottom-up system, realized from the smallest societal unity up to the largest one. It‘s inner principles are participation, tolerance and a great ability for compromise. An amusing illustration of this is to compare federalism with a jigsaw puzzle, as both need to have all the individual parts in place for the whole picture to be complete.

We actually have only two possible ways of managing how we live together politically: confederation or separation. We can find both in the context of contemporary globalization. On the one side, there is a tendency to join national structures together (an example of this is Europe). On the other, contrary to this, there are attempts at political secession backed by military activities (an example of this is the Russian minority in Ukraine). Unfortunately, in the case of the Russian people in Ukraine, there are two influences for integration: one is that of the Ukraine government, which wants to keep the minority as part of Ukraine (but has not done enough to support its existence in a federal sense), and the other is the Russian interest in integrating the minority into the Russian Federation. The nonviolent, sustainable solution would be for the Russian minority to develop its intra-Ukrainian federal existence with a link to a federally structured Russia (and, at the same time, to a federally structured Europe). On the border of Ukraine and Russia, the Russian minority could exist politically in a form of bilateral confederation or a ‘double confederation’. This could also become a model for dealing with national political interests in the Baltic States. Moreover, confederation is the only sustainable solution for the Palestine area. Inevitably, the future of the world will be (con-)federal. Against this, separatist processes lead to eternal conflicts and to attempts to solve them using military violence. The policy of separation is not appropriate to globalization and its challenges; however, it does highlight the need for a federalism that is defined by respect for minorities.

Conflict transformation depends both on structural measures and on actional ones. The so called Round Table (RT) stands for both. Bringing people together, that is coming together instead of trying to solve a problem by a constellation, which is determined by the separation of the conflicting parties, is a first structural measure. We may solve a lot of problems by structural decisions. For instance, if your very young child is irritating you by insisting on playing with a sharp object on your damageable glass table, you could use an actional solution and continuously criticize the child and so make it permanently stressed. Alternatively, you could take the glass table out of the living room, probably only for a while, and replace it with a cheap less damageable table. In this case a structural decision dispensed with the need for actional measures. So the establishment of a RT is already half the solution, in itself. A Round Table is both a structure and a method. RT discussions and decision-making are defined by the participation of all persons concerned, or their representatives. They are also realizable for all levels of peace building. In particular, RT is an efficient way to transform conflicts as an alternative to attempts by institutions and movements that are normally determined by exclusion and confrontation. We can imagine a kind of RT that is used alongside or within the UN, where principled and only nonviolent solutions are worked out by persons affected by the conflict, for example in a situation when civil war seems imminent. As it is, the UN is too quick to believe that only violent solutions are viable.

Currently, life on our planet is dominated by (international) political conflicts. A lot depends on how these conflicts can be resolved. Indeed, politics is essentially “conflict politics“. As such, politics will always be indispensable, now and in the future. Because we will always have conflicts we need to have a balance of the political forces through political struggle. But, in future, the fate of the globe may not depend on the free play of political or economic forces but on an unstressed, efficient worldwide administration. This one small planet needs, firstly, a highly professional, well-functioning administration to solve the economic and ecological problems of life and, supporting this, a sub-administrative ethics constituting a culture and practice of political struggle. Thus, the priority is administration not politics. Politics is oriented to a common, globally and federally organized administration that is only thinkable in terms of domestic world policy. The global atmosphere, in which politics acts and administration handles the challenges of daily life, is mainly determined by common cultures of interpersonal dealings, such as nonviolent conflict transformations, working and consuming, education and learning, music and sports. The youth of the world is not only connected by same fashion and taste but also by the same distance from politics and the same orientation to culture.

3.Non-violence and peace

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi formulated one of the most important laws of nonviolent action: the causal connection between means and goals. He illustrated this by using the following metaphor: If you’d like to get a rose you must not sow a weed. And: The tree lies in the seed. Martin Luther King makes a similar point. If you want to create a nonviolent society and world, you must not act violently. If you don’t accept this principle, you will not achieve your goal. Violence leads to violence, nonviolence to nonviolence. Therefore it makes no sense to mix nonviolent means with violent ones. Whenever violence is included in the spectra of nonviolent means – even as a very minor part of the means – the goal and the power of nonviolence are corrupted to their opposite. Nonviolence only makes sense in its pure form. Obviously, this doesn’t mean that people who act violently aren’t allowed to use nonviolent means. In order to explain it positively: the realization of nonviolence as a future goal depends on the realization of nonviolence today. Therefore nonviolence is a question of one’s whole lifestyle. In our form of living and actualizing the idea and practice of nonviolence we anticipate nonviolence as a goal. Nonviolence is the result of our present doing. We have no influence on the outcome, but we do on the input. If we concentrate on a nonviolent input we may expect nonviolence as the natural consequence. As Dom Helder Camara, asserted, the most important question is not how to achieve success but how to act nonviolently day by day, every hour and minute of our lives.

At the beginning of the new millennium, the United Nations started a decade with the precedent-setting title of Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World. The decade lasted from 2001 to 2010. Following on from this, the task is to continue and make deeper the progress achieved during these years, especially by developing Peace Science in the form of Peace Research, Peace Education, and Peace Activism. This involves motivating and initiating nongovernmental peace movements, pressurising governments to support peace activities and to act on accordance with the principles of peace building. To do this we need to offer Peace Studies and to study peace in all the complexity of a discipline linked with many other academic disciplines. Through all of these, the initiatives have to be internalized and to follow the understanding of peace in the meaning set out by the United Nations - and to develop it further. Peace, in the opinion of the UN is only thinkable as nonviolence. Indeed, it makes no sense to add nonviolence after postulating peace. Nonviolence is a tautological expression of peace. Obviously, in wording the aims of the decade, the UN saw a necessity to make sure that, in its perspective, peace can be understand only as nonviolence. Therefore, the UN describes peace as nonviolence and all activities working towards the global “culture of peace” have to recognize this. This postulate is a very high ethical standard, but based in our willingness and abilities, and – especially – in our daily experience, it is in fact very realistic.

Those who work towards a nonviolent space, and expect processes that deliver results all participants can accept to develop in this space, believe in a power that is acting in the vacuum in the interests of both parties: a third, independent power, who both the nonviolent agent and the conflict opponent or partner are subject to. If nonviolence is to be more than merely a tactic or method to achieve an end, its agents have to believe in a power that is acting in the vacuum of nonviolence which the agent prepares through special nonviolent actions. Thus, Gandhi’s nonviolent agents trusted in the power of truth (satyagraha): that there is a dynamic, a constructive potential (see Carl Rogers) that brings people together - a form of Third Power. In the biblical tradition this is represented by the four letters, JHWH (which means that there is something that exists in the interests of the people). In a South African theology the name for this is MODIMO, which means that there is a God who collects friends and enemies within the same fence. There are many ways of naming it: Lao Tse called it the Being beyond the whole being, Christians would say God, Muslims Allah, others believe in Biophily (E. Fromm) as the center of living together, or the Absolute Horizon of Being (V. Havel). In a very original way, the Anglican theologian, Carter Heyward, signifies dealings that relate to the existence of such a Third Power, however it is named, by the verb: “to god”. From this perspective, every nonviolent behaviour or dealing demonstrates an absolute trust in an inaccessible, in the between of all parties existing and acting Third. This spirituality is the core of a nonviolence that is much more than only a method.

In the 1970s, Peace Studies developed non-military alternatives for military deterrence and defence. Military concepts are constructed as in wrestling, nonviolent defence concepts are more like those in judo. In wrestling, one combatant makes a stand against the other; in judo, one gets the better of the other by letting him grasp at nothing. In the military system, a war starts whenever one party enters a foreign country with hostile intentions. The rulers of the country then react with a counterstrike at least as aggressive as the attack: if the country is bombed, the reaction will be bombs for the aggressor. So the aggressor has to pay a high price for entrance when invading a country. In the concept of non-violent, social defence and deterrence the aggressor also has to expect a reaction. But not one of counterforce. Rather it would be by massive nonviolent actions all over the occupied country (A), in the country of the aggressor (B) and in the world public (C). Thus, the aggression becomes undermined by consequent nonviolent activities and the aggressor has to pay a high price for staying. These activities include many possibilities: making the injustices perpetrated (“dramatizing”) by occupying forces publically known; “fractionizing” the people of B (enlarging the critical group which knows that its own country is doing anything wrong); and bringing the global public (C) on its side. Therefore, this concept is based on an approach that lets the enemy fall in his own strike, in the emptiness of nonviolence. This is very different to a fatalistic acceptance of aggression and passivity; rather it is an endless abundance of efficient nonviolent actions throughout the occupied country (A), including nonviolent resistance (especially non-cooperation) and the establishment of alternate structures beside the structures the aggressor is trying to enforce.

4.Making war a taboo

This is not the place to discuss how the humankind has dealt with the phenomenon of murder throughout history. But we may be sure that murder has always been a serious issue and has been punished everywhere and at all times. Murder is a worldwide taboo. Civilization without this taboo is unimaginable. But if we could taboo murder, shouldn‘t we be able to do the same with war? By asking this, it‘s not our intention to claim that soldiers are murderers. What we are pointing out is only that, in both cases, killing other people seems the only or best way to solve a specific conflict (in their own interests). Nobody would argue publicly that under special conditions murder is allowed, at least not publically (although clearly sometimes people do allow it to happen). Obviously there are other possible means to solve problems than murder and moreover there must be a general acceptance of this. A theoretical parallel for political conflicts is obvious. And the time is ripe to make all violence a taboo. The Viennese theologian, Kaspar Mayr, asserted this more than half a century ago, right after the Second World War. He was right at the time. He is even more right today. And the conditions are on his side. Already at that time Mayr postulates the need to substitute war-orientated policies and military defence strategies with policies of conflict resolution using nonviolent means and methods. Providing a wealth of information and special research, Peace Studies is working out how this substitution will work.

Very often the public opinion-forming process proceeds between two extremes: between the two positions of extremely pro and extremely contra an issue. In the case of war and preparing for war, this means the plea for deterrence and defence on one side, and plea for nonviolent conflict transformation on the other. All decision-making processes usually come to a point of no return when the question is decided. The process that leads to this point is described in the first, left hand part of the graph above. From a certain point on, the discussion carries on, but it is never allowed to run into the zone that was created by the previous discussion. The debate may touch the border of this zone, but is not allowed to overstep the borderline of the taboo-zone. Of course the temptation of this exists for some people, but in public discussion this must be continuously resisted. Whether the once-achieved taboo zone cracks or remains resilient, and the possible impacts of this, depends on the discussion. The graphs in our model are created randomly. The curve of the line symbolizes only the possibilities of movement between the two extremes of pro and contra, and later between the one extreme and the tabooed zone. The most significant point of this model is the beginning of the tabooed zone.