Peacemakers should be peaceful. When anger and hate take over the peacemaker’s quest, peacemakers succumb to the tools of the opposition, in effect, becoming their enemies.
What distinguishes the peacemaker from the non-peacemaker, is the peacemaker seeks to understand the opposition’s perspective. When we fail to do this, when we fail to look deeper into the motivations of perceived enemies, we fall victim to the simplistic notion that the world is divided between good and evil actors, rather than recognize that individuals and nations are each a combination of good and evil: a combination of conflicting values.
Unable to peer into the hearts of others, the task of the peacemaker is not to judge what we cannot know, but to move beyond anger, beyond violence, and move towards understanding. Not necessarily understanding to the extent where we would agree with the opposition, but to the point where an understanding of the counter view enables a negotiated middle ground.
There are peacemakers in all nations. The problem, as it currently stands, is that the peacemakers are not in power. Competitive types, trained in the art of manipulation and control, dominate positions of power. Seemingly, it is this way in most, if not all, nations. This is not stated in order to point a finger at those in power. Perhaps this is their destiny; and perhaps they are destined to rule. But the latter we do not know, and we cannot concede; the peacemakers have an equal right to pursue a dream: a world without war. The extent to which we bring forth this message: the message of peace through non-violence and negotiation, is likely the extent to which we will experience this world.
This brings us to the issue of peace movements. To which you might reply: “What peace movements?” The unfortunate thing is there is not currently much of a global peace movement. There have been anti-war demonstrations throughout Europe, and a few in the U.S., but it seems the movement barely registers in the public mind . Perhaps the movement is in its early stages; let’s hope this is the case. There have been plenty of cries to obtain peace through the total defeat of Russia–which is not a peace movement, but a war movement, in peace movement clothing.
It is difficult to remain calm, regardless of one’s position on the war in Ukraine: there is someone, some group, or some ideology, which we will point to as the source of the war, or the source of our anger. Anger, however, is not peace, it is violent; it ultimately manifests in physical violence, it perpetuates violence, and while battles might be won with violence, the cause of peace is not advanced; but rather, the cause of violent reaction is reinforced as sooner, or later, we repeat what we know, the pattern of more anger and more violence. Peacemakers should seek to counter the patterns of anger and violence through peaceful demeanors and through the attempt to understand both sides of the conflict.
In pragmatic terms, war, in the past, may have temporarily benefited the surviving victors; but it is difficult to see beneficiaries in the current war environment. The risk of nuclear destruction, the further risk of world revolution due to the harsh economic cost of war, in a world which already teeters on the brink of anarchy, can bring us to a place where there are very few beneficiaries of war. We risk falling into an increasingly violent world, both internationally and domestically. Surely there is middle ground, a compromise which takes into account the needs of all nations, a place which does not assume the moral superiority of one nation or another. But this requires understanding, and understanding has been difficult to achieve as we have not been fed the truth by the western political and press establishments.
Our minds have been stuffed with the narrative that the Russian-Ukrainian war is the result of the evil machinations of one man–Vladimir Putin, whose imperialist ambitions got the best of him. This simple explanation is easy to understand, quickly presented, does not require intellectual work, does not risk media advertising revenue, and I suspect, enables the West to more quickly heal the relationship with Russia once the “sole source”–Vladimir Putin, is removed from power. Things, however, at this point have gone so far, the Western and Eastern blocks are separating so rapidly, that even with the removal of Vladimir Putin, relations between the two blocks may never heal, which portends nuclear warfare at some point in the future.
The Putin-is-evil narrative ignores the forces which have brought us to this point: NATO’S thirty year expansion to the Russian borders, U.S. and NATO invasions and bombings of Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, all of which are either Russian allies, friends or in nearby territories. Additionally, the NATO and the West’s refusal to consider significant alternative European security arrangements which included Russia, after the Soviet dissolution in 1991; the U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002; the Color revolutions with western support in the former Soviet Republics of Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, two of which: Georgia and Ukraine, lie directly on the Russian border;
These things, when combined with the peculiar characteristics of Russia which views itself as a great power with a global destiny; its messianic tradition which promotes the idea that Russia is a bulwark against the “decadent” west; its resentment towards the West due to the humiliation Russia suffered during its1990s economic collapse under the advice of Western economists and politicians–a decade in which Russia lost 40% of its GDP and the life expectancy of Russian men declined by 10 years; the consequent strong nationalist movements within Russia–movements which forced Putin into more aggressive stances contrary to his early cooperation with the U.S.–all of this has brought us to our current state of affairs. None of this justifies Russia’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine, war is wrong; but it does lead us to understand the provocative nature of western activities which led to the Russian reaction. There is guilt on both sides of the equation.
Reasonable people, given these facts, would be able to understand the positions of both sides to the conflict which would enable a negotiated solution. But reasonable people have not been given the facts, they have been given the Putin-is-evil narrative, so we are unable to negotiate a peaceful, lasting, resolution, based on the perceptions of all parties to the dispute.
It seems we are so busy producing and consuming mindless items of consumption that we have little time for serious consideration of the serious problem which confronts us. Without a deeper understanding of the real conflicts between Russia and the West, there is no hope for a solution. There is just the shallow “understanding” the war is due to the evil machinations of one man which easily inspires anger, more violence, and ultimately, possible nuclear war.
Peacemakers are the one group which ought to be able to approach the war issue in a calm, investigatory, and peaceful manner. If there is hope for a tomorrow, it is the peacemakers who must speak-out, shape the narrative, and grow a peace movement. The growth of a peace movement in the U.S. would provide political space for larger peace movements in Russia, Ukraine, and elsewhere, as governments would be forced to adjust their reactions in order to win the battle of public opinion in the international arena. Only the peacemakers can alter the world’s current trajectory towards death and destruction; and it must be achieved in a peaceful manner.