Peacebuilding is about the heart. There is never a technique that provides all the answers, but there can be systematic approaches that improve the chances of the people involved in a dispute finding a way forward towards a better outcome. There are also innumerable side-tracks, red herrings and blind alleys that can bring things to a halt.
This Part II is not a method, it is a pattern of working at any level of dispute. It is not exhaustive. It has been helpful. I first came across this pattern when working with Canon Andrew White in Coventry between 2002 and 2005. Later, Canon Paul Oestreicher, Andrew’s predecessor in leading the work at Coventry described earlier, confirmed that, although he had not put all of this into words, it was the way he worked.
In the world of peacebuilding and reconciliation there are many very good approaches, often with scientific names and much system. I am not pretending to that. The question is always, ‘While lovingly respecting the dignity and autonomy of those in the conflict, what helps them most to find a way to transform destructive conflict into healthy disagreement with diversity and unity held together?’
The Coventry model is based around six words beginning with R. They are not sequential, you don’t do one and then the other, but like a juggler you start with one and end with all going at once. That is essential to any peacebuilding. Each R deals with an aspect of being human and struggling with conflict. To drop or forget one is to become mechanistic, which always leads to failure.
The underlying principles of the Six Rs are those of Part I. They are designed to encourage the development of a holistic approach that draws in partners in the work of peacebuilding and enables the parties to a dispute to reimagine the possibility of the ‘Mystery of Peace’ when they are accustomed to destructive conflict.
This Part involves the figure of the facilitator, peacemaker or peacebuilder. I use these words interchangeably to mean the person – more usually the group of people and organizations – who seek to enable the parties to find a way forward in disagreeing well and in rebuilding resilient and sustainable relationships amid deeply held differences.
In Christian understanding the foundational breakdown in relationship is that between the creator God and the human beings who were created and exist to relish and enjoy relationship with God, each other and the creation, in a world in which love, righteousness and justice reign. God’s answer is out of love to reconcile human beings who seek to go their own way, to live independently, to be autonomous from God. That was done by God becoming fully human, living a fully human life, dying a fully human death, in the person of Jesus Christ. He was fully God who makes all things well, fully human in being tested and tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.1 The core of Christian belief is that God in Jesus Christ lived with human suffering, died and rose again to new life, and calls all people to know God in joy and liberation. In so doing they find that same new life and the power of God’s Spirit at work in them as the Spirit is already at work in the world.
For Christians not only is the history of Jesus Christ an example and a pattern to follow, but he also opened the way to peace with God and to the calling to live as those who make peace, to be reconciled reconcilers. He is alive and known, dwelling in us by the Spirit of God given to us.
It was Jesus who said to his disciples, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called children of God.’2
All very well, but what does a peacemaker look like? This part looks at what a peacemaker does, but it also makes assumptions about character.
At any level of conflict peacemakers are those who stand in the middle and extend their arms to all, in the way that Jesus Christ extended his arms on the cross. They become bridges for people to cross over to embrace those from whom they have been separated, even hated and in many cases sought to kill.
Builders of peace are seldom favoured by those with whom they engage. They are often the lightning conductor for the rage, fear and despair present in every conflict. Therefore what are the qualities required?
As this part begins, I will offer two from within Christian teaching and the pattern of Jesus.
The first is transparency. Peacebuilders are called to be known. The beautiful passages of the call of the disciples (John’s Gospel, chapter 1) have several questions and descriptions.
The first is that Jesus is light and in him is no darkness at all. A characteristic of light is seeing. The great Christian renewal that began in the 1930s in East Africa had as one of its rules ‘walk in the light’ – especially with those around us. To walk in the light is to be seen and to see truly. In John 1 the first disciples ask questions of Jesus, such as ‘Where are you staying?’ Jesus replies: ‘Come and see.’ Nothing is hidden. The implicit and underlying question addressed to Jesus that runs through the whole chapter and indeed the whole Gospel is equally simple: ‘Who are you?’
Any facilitator of peacebuilding must be knowable and transparent in who they are. Without knowing the facilitator in depth, the participants in a conflict will not be able to trust them. The suspicions of manipulation are almost always so great that the facilitator is assumed to have a hidden agenda in favour of the other parties. Peacebuilders must walk in the light with regards to their own history, their funding and their motivation.
Second, peacebuilders must work in the background. They come to serve; glory is for others. One of the very oldest hymns of the Christian faith is found in the letter to the Philippians, chapter 2. It speaks of Jesus, who did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but humbled himself, taking the form of a servant.
The reality is that the people who take the biggest risks in peacebuilding are those who are in conflict. They risk credibility, loss of honour with their followers, being seen as naïve by those siding with them, and so much more. In armed conflicts they risk death at the hands of the more radical. Facilitators do take great risks. For example, the Anglican Communion commemorates every year the Melanesian Martyrs, a group of Melanesian Anglican monks who went to the camp of a warlord in 2003 after a peace agreement ending much of the fighting in the Solomon Islands around the year 2000. They went to plead for peace but were tortured and murdered. In that death for peace is seen the true image of Jesus Christ. They went to serve and were willing to give all.
The temptation to be the hero who makes peace, the centre of the story, is common to many of us. Peacebuilding and facilitating discussions seek something else: the transformation of conflict.