Political Violence as Moral Exclusion: Linking Peace Psychology to Feminist Critical Theory

by Mira Alexis P. Ofreneo
Tesa C. de Vela

Abstract

Coming from peace psychology, this paper attempts to understand political violence by looking at its moral dimension as expressed through the social, psychological and cultural spheres. The result is a model that highlights moral exclusion as the social psychological basis for violence. By defining our scope of justice, violence towards excluded others is justified. Moral exclusion is supported by cultural norms that legitimise the use of violence and structural hierarchies that perpetuate violence. In search of an alternative, we turn to feminist critical theory. Our proposed peace agenda centers on Nancy Fraser’s theory of recognition and redistribution, with questions directed to activists and social movements. The paper is discussed in the context of U.S. hegemony in today’s world.

The Nature of Global Violence in Contemporary Societies

Violence has been studied across disciplines, each focusing on a specific system or unit of analysis: individual, group, institution/organisation, nationstates and politico-economic structures, and the transnational system (Joxe, 1981). At each level, disciplines have evolved a unique theory of causality, control, and intervention. There is no general theory that can explain violence in totality or that integrates the various disciplines of the social sciences. Instead, violence often is associated with social conflicts, social dysfunctions, or crises (Wieviorka, 2003).

The classical approach to examining violence is through levels. Pierre Hassner’s three-way classification for instance includes (1) international systems; (2) the states; and (3) the societies within states (as cited in Wieviorka). Our own perspective is rooted in social psychology focusing on both individual and group violence. We maintain in this paper that the analysis of political violence, as depicted in Hassner’s model, will benefit from a social psychological lens that sees the psychological and cultural dimensions of violence as linked to feminist critical theory.

If we define violence as actions that are detrimental to human life, health or wellbeing, then we must note that the contemporary growth of violence takes both structural and direct forms (Schiller & Fouron, 2003). The conceptual distinction between direct and structural violence is among peace research’s major contributions to the study of violence (Galtung, 1981).

According to Galtung, the classical conception of violence is that of direct bodily destruction inflicted by an actor. Peace psychology defines direct violence as physical violence “that harms or kills people quickly, producing somatic trauma or total incapacitation” (Christie, Wagner, & Winter, 2001, p. 8). Though the discourse on global violence has long focused on interstate violence and the threat of nuclear war, direct violence varies in scale and complexity, from violence in personal relationships to large-scale violence such as genocide. Direct violence is often dramatic, personal, and episodic. The people who commit direct violent acts and the people who are victimised by these acts are identifiable (Opotow, 2001). Because direct violence is directly observable and the person/s responsible for it identifiable, it is often judged in terms of intentionality and morality. Religion, the law, and other ethical systems have often been used to judge episodes of direct violence and to determine sanctions if applicable (Christie, Wagner, & Winter).

Galtung points to another type of violence that is relatively permanent and is somehow built into the social structure –structural violence. Poverty, (the deprivation of basic material needs), repression (the deprivation of human rights), and alienation (the deprivation of higher needs) are the manifestations of structural violence (Galtung). This more subtle form of violence occurs globally and is almost invisible as it is normalised (Opotow). In structural violence, the persons responsible may not be clearly identifiable and the violence often commonplace, impersonal, continuous and thus, unnoticeable (Christie, Wagner, & Winter).

Structural violence occurs whenever societal structures and institutions produce political oppression, economic exploitation, and social dominance. It is “endemic to economic systems that produce a concentration of wealth for some while exploiting others, political systems that give access to some and oppress others, and hierarchical social systems that are suffused with ethnocentrism and intolerance. These conditions are static, stable, normalised, serve the interests of those who hold power and wealth, and are not self-correcting” (Christie,Wagner, & Winter, pp. 8-9).

Structural violence is seldom viewed as immoral, but more often perceived as morally justified and therefore not necessitating punishment. But even if direct and structural violence are conceptually distinct, they often operate together to form a system of violence.

Political Violence as Moral Exclusion

This paper attempts to understand political violence by looking at its moral dimension as expressed through the socio-psychological and cultural spheres. We look at the socio-psychological processes that allow violence to occur, the cultural norms that legitimise the use of violence, and the structural hierarchies that perpetuate violence. Though we recognise these three as interacting and simultaneously experienced levels of violence, i.e., the psychological, the cultural, and the structural, we focus on the first two. With the discourse on political violence dominated by structural analyses, we stress how violence involves the socio-psychological and cultural dimensions as well.

There are many ways to frame our understanding of political violence and ours will only be one of many. Our objective is simply to facilitate an appreciation of the socio-psychological and cultural processes that create and perpetuate political violence, an appreciation that shall be embedded in feminist critical theory.

A socio-psychological frame highlights the importance of subjective culture visà- vis material culture, of individual and collective consciousness vis-à-vis economic and political arrangements. Subjective culture refers to the social categories, norms, roles, and values in the human environment (Triandis, 1994). Triandis likens culture to a set of unstated assumptions on how things are done which are internalised and rarely questioned. To understand political violence, we need to look at the shared meanings of violence in a particular community, society, state, or interstate system. Similarly, though violence is explicable through a socio-psychological process possibly common to all peoples, it is always situated in a socio-cultural context.

Direct and structural violence occur only because it is legitimised or rationalised in the collective consciousness. How does violence become morally acceptable? This paper points to moral exclusion as the key social psychological process that justifies violence. Thus, we need to examine how social/political entities view themselves in relation to others in terms of the psychological processes of inclusion and exclusion. This then is supported by norms that justify violence in the larger sociocultural realm. A socio-psychological framework does not discount the power of social structure to influence violence but includes the power of psychological and cultural processes in the analysis of violence.

A Multidimensional Model: Towards Understanding Political Violence

Our framework for understanding political violence situates it as co-created by the social psychological process of moral exclusion, by cultural norms that justify violence, and by economic and political hierarchies of power that maintain it (see Figure 1). The psychological, cultural, and structural may be conceptually analysed independent of one another. However, we assert that these dimensions are in essence interrelated.

Moral Exclusion: The Social Psychological Basis for Violence

At the peak of the post-September 11 attacks, U.S. President Bush declared that he would “make no distinction between the terrorists and those who harbour them.” Bush’s “you are either with us or against us” rhetoric was his resounding slogan upon the declaration of the U.S. war against Iraq, promoted as the “war against terrorism” (Chossudovsky, 2002).

Openly, U.S. President Bush made use of moral exclusion and continues to do so on a global level. We saw how the Bush administration, with the U.S. Media as its mouthpiece, prepared the world for the ruthless and uncompromising killings and destruction in Afghanistan and elsewhere (Chossudovsky).

The concept of moral exclusion allows us to understand both the rationale and social acceptance of such acts of political violence. Moral exclusion is described as “the process whereby individuals or groups are perceived to be outside the boundary in which moral values, rules, and considerations of fairness apply” (Opotow, 1990, as cited in Tyler & Smith, 1998, p. 615). According to Susan Opotow, moral exclusion serves as the moral justification and rationalisation for both structural and direct violence. This means that inflicting violence upon “others” outside one’s scope of justice is justified.

The U.S. war against Iraq is an example of how a state found it morally justified to engage in open war with another state, despite international sentiments against such a war. On the other hand, the September 11 attacks also exemplify how a “terrorist” group found it morally justifiable to kill hundreds of innocent civilians in pursuit of its own political objective.

“Gender, ethnicity, religious identity, age, mental capacity, sexual orientation, and political affiliation are some criteria used to define moral exclusion” (Opotow, p. 103). That the African-Americans have historically been excluded from equality in the distribution of social resources (Cook, 1990) is an example.

Moral exclusion is characterised by viewing the excluded “others” as psychologically distant and as non-entities undeserving of fairness or resources.

People, be it the state or social movements, define their scope of justice. We set the boundaries between the individuals and groups whose wellbeing we take care of and those we do not. In terms of social or political groups, we define the collective to whom we feel morally obligated. Whose needs, views, and welfare are valued and whose are not, depends on a particular political entity’s scope of justice. Why does one state find it just to declare open war upon another state? Why are prisoners of war tortured or abused? Our morals apply to those inside our “moral community” or scope of justice (Deutsch, 1974, 1985, and Opotow, 1990, and Staub, 1989, as cited in Opotow). Morals as used in this sense are the “norms, rights, entitlements, obligations, responsibilities, and duties that shape our sense of justice and guide our behavior with others” (Deutsch, 1985, as cited in Opotow, p. 103).

Moral exclusion is characterised by viewing the excluded ‘others’ as psychologically distant and as nonentities undeserving of fairness or resources. Hence, there is a lack of moral obligation or responsibility toward them (Opotow). Excluded ‘others’ can be viewed as non-persons on whom oppression, exploitation, and dominance become normal and acceptable. As such, moral exclusion fosters direct and structural violence.

Cultural Meanings of Violence: Morality and Normality

Moral exclusion and “us-them” thinking are the psychological processes that rationalise violence in the collective mind. The psyche, however, is always contingent upon culture (Fiske, Kitayama, Markus, & Nisbett, 1998). Culture can be conceptualised as public, shared meanings—a worldview which includes cognitive and affective beliefs about social reality (Ross, 2000). As Triandis asserts, “culture imposes a set of lens for seeing the world” (p. 13). The dynamic mutual constitution of culture and psyche is a fundamental assumption of our framework. People incorporate cultural models, meanings and practices into their psychological processes. hese psychological processes, in turn, effect change or maintain the cultural system (Fiske, et al.).

Morality. In relation to our concept of morality and our scope of justice, all cultural systems incorporate meanings of what is good and moral (Fiske, et al.). Kitayama and Markus (1994) outline the core ideas in every culture as that (1) which is good, (2) which is moral, and (3) which is self (as cited in Fiske, et al.). From their model, these core cultural ideas, together with ecological, economic, and political factors comprise collective reality. Core cultural ideas are then reflected in the different elements of culture: customs, norms, practices, and institutions. For instance, we learn about our society’s shared meaning of what is good through the state, the legal system, the educational system, and socialisation practices.

“Within a society, much if not most social behaviour is constructed, fostered, and sanctioned with reference to the community’s conception of the good” (Fiske, et al.). When is a particular type of violence allowed? Which forms of violence are socially constructed as good? In what specific situations or contexts is a particular type of violence interpreted as moral? As we conceptualise morality in the larger context, do states and the transnational system see globalisation and war as just? Do we find ourselves in the midst of a global hegemonic culture of violence?

The moral systems of justice and caring are examples of how cultural conceptions of morality can promote or contest structural or direct violence. The Western moral tradition of justice is founded on the concept of personal freedom and individual rights (Fiske, et al.). Its assumption is that society serves individual needs and desires which may compete with that of others. Thus, individuals enter into a social contract, agreeing to abide by a set of abstract principles to maintain the social order. In this tradition, behavior is judged on whether it violates individual “rights.” Because of this individualistic focus, advancing the “rights” of others or helping others is not a moral requirement (Eisenberg, et al., 1986, and Nunner- Winkler, 1984, as cited in Fiske, et al.).

In contrast, a morality of caring sees the community or group as central. An example here is Carol Gilligan’s (1982) “care” perspective which views morality in terms of understanding human relationships and maintaining one’s individual freedom without neglecting one’s responsibility to others (as cited in Fiske, et al.). Miller and Bersoff (1992, 1994) look at interdependent cultural contexts where a concern with one’s own needs and rights are secondary to interpersonal obligation (as cited in Fiske, et al.). Caring, in this sense, becomes a moral imperative.

Normality. As we have argued previously, our subjective conceptions of which and when specific forms of violence are morally justified, even valued as morally good, are codetermined by culture. We further theorize that violence through subjective interpretations, not only becomes moral but also normal. Violence, in this case, becomes normative—accepted as just the way things are. Norms are “ideas about what is correct behavior for members of a particular group” (Triandis, p. 98). Norms prescribe what is accepted, expected, and “proper” for people to do (Myers, 2002). They may be reflected in a cultural group or society’s traditions or established in the laws of the state (Triandis).

The power of a cultural norm is derived from its acceptance by members of a specific culture (Berger & Luckmann, 1966, and Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 1991, as cited in Cialdini & Trost, 1998). Norms are internalised by group members through direct or vicarious reinforcement, and laws are then developed to support social norms. Norms may be transmitted deliberately through active teaching or instruction, demonstrations, and other rituals. Or they may be learned through observation and imitation (Allison, 1992, and Lumsden, 1988, as cited in Cialdini & Trost). Norms persist both because of their value to group members and their adaptive function—primarily the need for social control and collective survival (Campbell, 1975, and Triandis, 1994, as cited in Cialdini & Trost).

As peace psychologists recognise, cultural norms provide the necessary backdrop for the occurrence of violence (Wagner, 2001). A specific example is how nations that engage in intensely violent activity send a message to their people regarding the instrumental value of violence, i.e., legitimising war (Geen, 1998). As Archer and Gartner (1984) found, countries that participated in World Wars I and II experienced an increase in postwar violence (as cited in Geen). When violence becomes accepted as a moral and normal part of a people’s way of life, it ceases to be a social concern. Violence then is not only tolerated, it can even be honoured as a cultural virtue.

Violence may therefore become embedded in social norms that prescribe the conditions under which aggression is an acceptable and even socially desirable behavior (Geen). Thus, we speak of cultures and subcultures of violence. This does not mean that a culture openly promotes violence or aggression but it defines the conditions wherein such behaviour becomes acceptable. When violence has become a norm, its practice is left unquestioned. As such, the cultural acceptance of violence supports the social psychological process of moral exclusion.

Structural Hierarchies and Power Relations: Perpetuating Cultures of Violence

This paper will not dwell on political violence in the dimension of structural hierarchies given that this is the dimension that dominates much of the existing discourse on violence. We nevertheless provide a brief discussion and highlight aspects of structural hierarchies for a comprehensive understanding of the multidimensional model of moral exclusion.

Paradoxically, it is this culture of violence, through moral exclusion, that is fostered to maintain the so-called world order.

Both the socio-psychological and the cultural dimensions interact with economic and political arrangements to complete our picture of political violence. Like Montiel (2003), we take the position that economics, politics, and culture are equally important and interact with one another in a bidirectional manner. Social structure refers to patterns of relatively permanent hierarchical relations among groups in a social system (Parsons, 1961, as cited in Montiel, 2001). To examine social structures means to look at social power differentials between groups wherein certain groups have more wealth and power than others (Galtung, 1978, as cited in Montiel, 2001).

The world order is embedded with power imbalances borne by societies that privilege those with more wealth over those with less. But perhaps the more fundamental point is that power imbalances, including the existing and largely unquestioned structural hierarchies of societies today, are embedded in violence, both in means and outcomes. Paradoxically, it is this culture of violence, through moral exclusion, that is fostered to maintain the so-called world order.

Towards a Morality of Recognition:
Countering Cultures of Violence

Moral exclusion limits our scope of justice to a select few and allows us to accept violence, both in its direct and structural forms. The challenge is how to promote moral inclusion or the process of transcending our natural tendency to categorise, to identify ourselves exclusively with our ingroups, and to include only our ingroups within this scope of justice.

This paper draws on the critical theory of recognition in its attempt to reenvision an alternative to the existing world order. In search for a remedy to moral exclusion, we adopt Nancy Fraser’s concept of recognition originally developed in reference to struggles for “recognition of difference” of identity-based social movements, e.g., by nationality, ethnicity, race, gender, and sexuality (Fraser, 1997, 2002). Other approaches such as the ethic of care (Gilligan), and moral inclusion (Opotow) can be associated with recognition through the same spirit of according respect to all groups, societies, and peoples. However, we choose to emphasise Fraser’s theory of recognition for it offers concrete and real alternatives. We find her conceptualisation of recognition most appropriate in building the agenda for a new moral order, firstly because Fraser’s formulation was originally developed to curb “cultural injustice” or “misrecognition” (i.e., cultural domination), and secondly because of its integration of the socio-economic structural realm to the realm of the symbolic and the cultural. Fraser terms the former as the politics of redistribution and the latter as the politics of recognition. She further asserts that it is necessary to address both realms if a truly transformative vision of social justice is to be achieved. Thus a fair and just distribution of material wealth cannot be the sole gauge of the moral quality of social relations. Of equal importance is our recognition of one another.

Conceptually, recognition is referred to as a remedy to culturally ingrained sources of injustices, or what Fraser terms as “some sort of cultural or symbolic change...upwardly revaluing disrespected identities and the cultural products of maligned groups.” (Fraser, 1997, p. 15). Cultural domination is cited as an example of where the social patterns of representation, interpretation and communication of one culture is imposed on another. Such imposition can alienate, antagonise and generally disrespect the subordinated culture (Fraser, 1997, 2002).

Thus recognition as a remedy entails affirming cultural diversity. It can entail a total transformation of the social patterns of representation, interpretation and communication towards a total transformation of one’s sense of other and self. Generally it refers to an undoing of the cultural practices of domination, disrespect and non-recognition that remains pervasive in contemporary societies. Such cultural practices have resulted in both direct and structural forms of violence. Ironically the justifications for such violence surface in the realm of morality. For instance, the declaration of war, perhaps the ultimate form of domination, is often packaged as a moral duty and obligation to one’s country or belief. Nevertheless, we maintain that the relation between morality and recognition is most explicit in the moral injury caused by misrecognition and/or denied recognition. Whether this moral injury manifests in terrorists’ attacks or in the all out and ongoing war against terrorism, such a moral order reflects the total disregard and disrespect for the other and the narrowing, rather than broadening of one’s scope of justice. What Fraser proposes therefore is a conceptual expansion of our paradigm of justice translated in construing “recognition as a matter of justice” (Fraser, 2002, p. 38).

In the larger context of war and globalisation, the challenge is how to broaden the range of people whose well-being we will care for.

Fraser further proposes the treatment of recognition as an issue of social status rather than social identity. Nonrecognition is more than the refusal to acknowledge identities. Rather it refers to the social subordination that prevents participation as a peer or parity of participation. Thus the goal is to replace cultural values and practices that hinder parity of participation with values and practices that cultivate equal social status or equality in participation.

In the larger context of war and globalisation, the challenge is how to broaden the range of people whose wellbeing we will care for. This framework is particularly geared towards challenging the way in which the social world order, where the U.S. is the prime player, has practised and promoted “marketability” rather than “caring” (Pilisuk, 2001); or comparative advantage rather than parity of participation and as such provides the breeding ground for a culture of violence. We need to recognise that globalisation thrives on exclusion, inequality and violence, be it in the level of the economic and political, cultural or psychological.

We propose that the broadening of one’s scope of justice begins with creating a morality of recognition based on social status. If moral exclusion is to be addressed at the level of individual psychology, in essence the agenda is for a re-engineering of individual consciousness. Though more complex, such re-engineering of consciousness can also be constructed at the level of social movements.

It is in fact the level of social movements that this framework paper primarily addresses. To begin the reengineering of social movement consciousness we propose that the following questions be asked:

§ How do you perceive your group’s representation of ideas vis-à-vis the other groups? For instance, do you view your group as being the more legitimate, the more radical and uncompromising? Or do you view your group as different but of equal moral position as the other groups?

§ How can you transform categories of other groups that create hierarchies, inequalities and domination? For instance, can you create new categories of other groups based on neutral descriptions rather than based on judgments of their positions and actions?

§ How can you transform your group’s strategies that may be undermining, obliterating, and/or demonising other groups adversarial to your representation of ideas? For instance, can you promote strategies designed to respect different and differing representations of ideas by other groups and explore points of convergences?

§ How can your group sustain a position of being respectful and open to differences of ideas and avoid falling into the trap of moral exclusion? For instance, can you develop principles, philosophies, frameworks and policies that promote inclusiveness in view, approach and practice?

§ How do you perceive the use of violent methods for pursuing political struggles? For instance, can you cite specific incidents when violent methods are morally acceptable for you or do you unwaveringly see violent methods as ineffective in promoting peace and therefore immoral?

Returning to our case in point, U.S. hegemony, terrorism and counter-terrorism are concrete examples of how moral exclusion is exemplified. Both terrorist and counter-terrorist positions claim to be the more righteous and legitimate in their use of violent methods. Both terrorist and counter-terrorist positions have excluded the other from their scope of justice. What remains essential in ending the global culture of violence and promoting a global culture of peace are not further demarcations of U.S. versus Iraq, George Bush versus Bin Laden, nor democracy versus fundamentalism.

Rather, it is the openness to genuinely understand the positions and actions of both terrorist and counter-terrorist groups, directed at upwardly revaluing and respecting their different political, religious, and cultural contexts and rationalisations. This would include a total transformation of the way in which global media, for instance, have and continue to represent, interpret and communicate to the public at large the terrorist and counter-terrorist stance. Rather than engineer the public’s consciousness into finding justification for the acts of political violence, media should instead serve to educate and positively endorse cultural diversity and not cultural hegemony.

Yet, even social movements and those seeking social justice need to recognise that changing violent structures requires recognising those “perpetuating” or “committing” injustice as part of their scope of justice. That to exclude them is to continue perpetuating a culture of violence.

As our sense of morality can expand to include everyone, the boundaries between “we” and “they,” between “us” and “them,” can disappear. The hope for a just and fair world can lie in promoting a morality of recognition in the future generations. In Figure 2, we diagram a possible peace agenda that seeks change in the psychological, cultural, and structural levels. From the pockets of resistance to the global hegemonic culture of violence, we can begin strategising on how to encourage moral recognition, how to change cultural values and norms to promote peace, and how to transform structures towards nonhierarchical and equitable relations. This may be unrealistic—like dreaming of utopia—but in a strange and surreal way, we have to teach the world to care.

We must keep in mind that morals are not givens. Conceptions of morality are not fixed. They may seem permanent as traditions, values, beliefs, and norms endure for many generations. But they are nevertheless constructions of social groups. We believe in the capacity of human agency to instill social change, whether at the level of the psychological, the cultural, or the structural.

 

Mira Elexis P. Ofreneo teaches at the Ateneo de Manila University where she also earned her Ph.D. in Social  Psychology. She is the current female representative for Asia to the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) and head of Can't Live in the Closet (CLIC) Philippines.

Tesa C. de Vela has a Master of Arts degree in Women and Development from the University of the Philippines in Diliman, and is currently the Associate Director of Isis International-Manila. She teaches Gender and Society at the International Studies Department at Miriam College, Philippines.

This paper originally appeared in the journal Quilted Sightings: A Women and Gender Studies Reader, vol .3, 2006 published by the Women and Gender Institute of Miriam College, Philippines

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 ‘May God Give Us Chaos, So That We May Plunder’: A critique of ‘resource curse’ and conflict theories

by Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt

Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt scrutinises the increasingly popular theories of the natural resources curse, natural resource conflicts, and natural resource wars. She argues that we need to rethink the issues around resource ownership rights as well as the legal frameworks governing and controlling ownership of the mineral-rich tracts of developing countries. Based on her activist research with mining communities, she shows that mineral resource management is characterised by multiple actors with their multiple voices, and it is important for us to recognise these actors and listen to their voices.

 Contesting the ground

Some theories concerning natural resources—‘resource security,’ ‘resource conflicts,’ ‘resource wars’ and ‘resource curse’—have entered the popular domain in discussions on resources. Their simplistic and generalising appeal instigates widespread and uncritical acceptance. Therefore, the hidden discourses within them threaten to undermine possible alternative explanations of mineral use by communities in the third world. In this article, I expose informal mining practices in order to critique the dominant perceptions of conflicts over natural resources and to show how they delegitimise the livelihoods of many communities. For example, the images of ‘paradox of plenty’ and resource conflicts suggest deviant and unruly behaviour of the third world poor. The micro-reality is much more complex, involving every day struggles of survival for millions of people in the mineral-rich tracts of these countries.

Being of Indian origin, I recognize the emerging mainstream development thinking on resource boons and curses as right in line with the fatalism and deterministic approach of South Asian philosophy. However, after years of working in local communities, I cannot help but feel disturbed by the uncritical use of terminologies and concepts that take for granted a positivist and causal framework in explaining the relationships between communities and mineral resources. My focus is not on curses and boons but on: ‘How do communities pursue livelihoods in mineral-rich tracts in developing countries?’ Much of my knowledge comes from community practices in the mineral-rich tracts of South Asia, primarily the collieries of eastern India, but also small mines and quarries producing a range of other commodities.

The title derives from a Bengali folk proverb, ‘elomelo kore de Ma lootepute khai.’ This poetic banditry perfectly explains what these theories around natural resources indirectly perpetrate; a picture of complete lack of control and disorder in the third world, whose inhabitants—by some irrational logic of nature—have found themselves endowed with resources that they cannot or do not know how to deal with, in an orderly fashion. They envisage a paranoid fear about the unruly third world, a landscape of apprehension, risk and insecurity where conflicts could only be resolved for one and all if either state-owned or multinational corporations take over the control and ownership of mineral resources, and manage them in a systematic manner— in the process putting their profits first and taking over the control of what should rightfully belong to the communities.

The grim scenarios of resource curse, conflicts and wars

The question, whether mineral wealth is a blessing or a curse, more or less began with Richard Auty’s assertion that: ‘Since the 1960s, the resourcepoor countries have outperformed the resource-rich countries compared by a considerable margin’ (Auty, 2001: 840). Auty has been considering economic growth indicators and benefits from mineral revenues, mainly exports, but he soon developed a following amongst resource economists who busied themselves in applying the thesis to empirical studies on a regional and subnational basis, and to form a grand theory of all natural resources (see Sachs and Warner 2001). For them, this curse becomes an impediment to development by causing ‘Dutch disease’ —the slump in other sectors of the economy that accompanies the influx of revenues from natural resource exports. The dependence on natural resource revenues makes the national economy vulnerable to resource price volatility and, as governments borrow excessive amounts in the hope of repayments from natural resource earnings, the fall in the real exchange rate or prices combine to destabilise the economy, and making the debt burden impossible to repay. Associated factors that help spread the curse leading to ‘failed states’ are corruption of the officials running the government and low income and education levels of people. Common examples of cursed countries include Sierra Leone, Liberia, Angola and Nigeria in Africa, Ecuador, and Venezuela in Latin America, Afghanistan, Burma, and Cambodia in Asia.

Such theorizing involves also involves diagnostic prescriptions on how to manage natural resources so as to ‘escape’ the resource curse. These silver bullets include ‘Publish What You Pay’ (PWYP) and ‘Publish What You Lend’ (PWYL) demands to introduce corporate or national social responsibility. These measures, operating within the overall corporate framework, imagine an impracticable self-regulation to improve the existing social mess. They do not question the legitimacy of the system of resource governance to raise uneasy issues such as community rights over the local resources. Further measures used by multilateral agencies involve financial pressures, such as, a reduction in loans to ‘illegitimate regimes,’ actually involve the yet unresolved issue of legitimacy of states themselves. Overall, they fail to question the movement of and exploitation by global or national capital but rather attempt to give it a humane face. Above all, the theories, based upon multiple regression techniques using macro-level data on a global or national scale, tend to be used in unqualified ways to the local context.

Political scientists have indeed tried to escape this economic determinism by emphasising that the resource curse theory needs to take into consideration the close relationship between economic factors and political institutions, as economic and political outcomes of natural resource abundance may differ between countries. For them, the quality of institutions determines whether or not resource rents are channelled into the productive economy. Basedau (2005) also stresses the ‘context’ or the local in understanding why resources may act either as curse or a blessing. Watts (2004) blames ‘commodity determinism’ that pays inadequate attention to specific resource characteristics, in combination with rule, politics and conflict. Another critique has come from examining specific minerals; Wright and Czelusta (2003: 1) note: ‘these studies equate the export of mineral products with “resource abundance,” seen as a simple reflection of an exogenously-given geological “endowment.” When the revenues from this activity are described, terms such as “windfalls” and “booms” are generally not far behind.

There is also the argument that there is a causal relation between natural resource abundance and civil conflicts, based on the theory that rebel groups finance their unlawful activities by revenues from natural resources as an easy source of funds that sustain conflicts (Collier and Hoeffler, 2004).

How does the closure of the commons lead to the exclusion of poor people from their livelihoods and turn them into thieves?

There is vicious ‘natural resource trap’— dependence on natural resources lead to all sorts of strife and unrest. Here the scenarios drawn are full of images of insecurity, fearful and bleak lives (see Bannon and Collier 2003). This genre of analysis of natural resource conflicts also provides ‘models of conflict’ according to their length/duration and intensity. ‘Lootability’ of resources also becomes then a discourse of conflict, African diamonds being well-known examples. Lujala, Gleditsch and Gilmore, (2004: 2) conclude that secure mining rights tend to make ethnic conflict less likely. However, in emphasising how local groups end up killing each other for their ‘greed and grievance’ (Collier and Hoeffler, 2004), none of these approaches explore what would seem to be basic questions such as ‘who owns the mineral resources,’ ‘who controls their use,’ and ‘who is looting and under what circumstances.’ How does the closure of the commons lead to the exclusion of poor people from their livelihoods and turn them into thieves? What legal and institutional structures established by states turn a common property resource into openly accessible and lootable resource? In making mineral-based conflicts fit a pattern, a model, the theories then turn the matter over to managers and experts—conflict resolution specialists and external mediators flying in from abroad to give their valuable advice to warring groups.

The scale of conflicts ranges from internal civil strife to international interventions such as in Afghanistan and Iraq (Klare, 2002; Heinberg 2004). This is a distinct move away from wars—both hot and cold—being seen as fought over ideology, and probably indicates that an intense search is ongoing for another demon ever since the so-called ‘end’ dawned on history. Another depoliticised argument within this genre describes Iraq as a war of national versus private ownership of the oil companies (Renner, 2002). While these theories demonise the consumption needs of the west and multinational capital, they however fail to challenge them.

Another view of resource wars has been offered by anthropologists reflecting on the complexity of agents and their relationships in a mining site, such as Ballard and Banks (2003: 289): ‘Relationships between different actors within the broader mining community have often been characterized by conflict, ranging from ideological opposition and dispute, to armed conflict and the extensive loss of lives, livelihoods, and environments.’ They note that conflicts such as Bougainville rebellion (described by Filer, 1990) are essentially ‘resource wars,’ the common elements being the multinational mining company or corporation.

These theories give the impressions that large-scale mining by companies is the only legitimate form of mineral resource exploitation, that the use of mineral resources by local people in the third world is inherently illicit, and requires regulation through formalised processes, such as certification of minerals. However, we know that even so-called legitimate large-scale mining operations lead to social and political conflicts. Many of these capital-intensive mining operations are now expanding into regions with complex ethnic, social, cultural, and ecological characteristics in developing countries. This mining industry—usually owned by shareholders in the US and Europe, or by a small national elite, or by national governments—is literally breaking ‘new ground’ in developing countries. In the process, mining has been responsible not only for environmental changes but for the displacement of local communities that have not had any previous contact with the industry. As the large scale, globalised, extractive industry endangers the loss of its ‘social licence to operate,’ many civil society groups have responded with severe criticisms of their associated ills (see www.minesandcommunities.org), and innumerable protests of different forms against socially insensitive practices, exclusion from benefits, and human rights violations. On the one hand, we now have resistance against large mining operations, On the other, a series of processes initiated by the international agencies. These processes, such as the Mining, Minerals and Sustainable Development (MMSD, 2002), or Extractive Industries Review (EIR, 2003), or the ongoing Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI)—that have had little impact on the operation style or corporate culture of individual mining companies (Ballard and Banks, 2006). Most importantly, we also have the ground reality of mining practices that are best described as ‘informal mining’ flourishing throughout third world countries providing livelihoods to a very large number of people.

Different mining practices: Small mines and quarrying

This focus, on large, formally owned and operated, corporate capital mineral extraction processes, ignores how poor people actually live on mineral-rich tracts in the world. Peasant or informal mining and quarrying—digging, washing, sieving, panning and amalgamating— provide livelihood for at least 13 million people in the global south (ILO, 1999). Extracting low volumes of minerals from small and scattered deposits using little capital/technology, and with low labour cost, productivity and returns, is a worldwide phenomenon with a long history and a complicated present (Lahiri-Dutt, 2004). This is often an unrecorded or little-known area of peasant life and livelihood; the transient nature means little or no official data is available. Informal mines may be more important numerically; for example in Tanzania less than 3,000 people are employed in formal mining operations compared to more than 500,000 in informal and artisanal mining. It has been estimated that in 1982 about 16% of the total value of non-fuel minerals production came from mines with less than 100,000 tonnes per annum capacity (Carmen, 1985). Noestaller (1987) concluded that 31% of global mine production of industrial minerals, 20% of coal, and 12% of metals came from small capacity mines. The global mineral resource extraction scenario has changed drastically since the 1980s, with the last few years experiencing an extraordinary increase in mineral prices and production. Consequently, the contemporary picture would be much larger than these assessments. The diversity within this sector makes it an ungovernable space; an astonishing range of minerals is produced in a range of ways by a range of communities. The gravels from the riverbeds in Sylhet area of Bangladesh support at least 200,000 people. The gemstones in Sri Lanka for example are produced in an artisanal way whereas the cutting and polishing factories selling the products through a gem exchange in Colombo are highly sophisticated. Similarly, manually cut stone slabs or marble from Rajasthan, India, find their way in a landscaped European garden through an intricate market network. Not all, but some informal mines are unauthorized and unlicensed; a significant amount can also come from scavenging on leasehold land of formal mines. Usually these mines and quarries employ little technology, and can be a repository of extremely poor people and even bonded labour. Informal mining generated up to 64% of Peru’s gold production in 1991-97. In one area of south Kalimantan, 145 unauthorized coal-mining locations produced probably the equivalent of official coal production of the region. In Pongkor in west Java, 26,000 people make a living from gold mining. As this aspect of mineral resource extraction is often unclear in official definition, mostly unrecorded, sometimes carried on over hundreds of years through an artisanal tradition, sometimes  exacerbated by recent developmental projects including the large mining projects, no specific data are available, although, the total aggregate production from these mines is impressive. Some informal mines have traditionally been operated by local artisans (such as the gold mines in the Cordilleras in the Philippines), whereas, some are driven by local causes, such as, displacement by big mines or dams, or in a gold rush fashion operated by migrants (the ‘galampseys’ of Ghana, ‘garimpeiros’ or wildcat gold miners of the Brazilian Amazon, and ‘gurandils’ of Indonesia, literally meaning ‘people who leap from cliff to cliff ’ or ‘people who dig holes like rats’). International agencies recognise that grinding poverty has ‘led to the development of … small-scale mining, which is the largest activity despite low profits and high risks’ offering a means of subsistence to people of local communities (Alfa, 1999). Yet, the use of ‘scale’ in defining these mines indicates a false understanding that the ‘small’ ones are just a scaled down version of the larger ones. Martinez-Castilla (1999: 31) described such ‘traditional’ and ‘informal’ mining to root their cause in ‘the economic crisis, urban unemployment in the cities, poverty in the agricultural areas and the violence that prevailed in the 1980s gave rise to a growing social phenomena—individual, family or collective migration to zones other than the place of origin, searching for safety and economic survival’. The relations between formal mining expansion and spread of unauthorised mining are also complex; environmental degradation and consequent lack of subsistence bases often act as the drivers of unauthorised informal mining.

The regulatory system itself attributes the characteristic of illegality to these informal mining enterprises

Legitimacy of informal mines and quarries depends on how a country’s licensing and policing systems work and how responsive the political infrastructure is to the physical, social, and economic issues arising in mining regions. The regulatory system itself attributes the characteristic of illegality to these informal mining enterprises. Low profits and high costs of formality—complex, time-consuming and expensive regulations that tend to favour large companies—as well as lack of formal property rights are major impetus towards illegitimate mining in developing countries. Thus, some informal mineral extraction may take place outside the formal norms of economic transactions established by the state and formal business practices. The legitimacy spectrum is spectacular: at one end are, legal and licensed but small and scattered quarries of a range of minerals such as sand, stones, gravels, fuel, gems and many other ores, on the other end, are the unauthorised mines which can again be operated by local people, migrants, or mafia warlords. 

The unintended collieries of India

It is not my intention to match rhetoric with rhetoric, but to make the point that mineral resource use by communities— often seen by statist philosophies as unlawful and conflictual—is a significant way of life for many in mineral-rich tracts. To give an example, I recall a roadside on the way to Hazaribagh town in Jharkhand, India, on a hazy winter morning when I stopped to take a good look at the ant-like processions of ragtag men pushing bicycles—the cycle wallahs—laden with sacks of coal. In the area, large, mechanised, open cut projects have aggressively come up in the last two decades often with foreign loans and assistance. On its east lies Raniganj-Jharia, a much older coal tract with mostly underground mines and associated ills as land dereliction, subsidence and coal fires. Hazaribagh used to be covered in tropical dry deciduous jungles interspersed with valleys, and the home of a number of indigenous groups. One of them was Birhors—literally meaning ‘forest peoples’—skilful hunters-gatherers with an intimate knowledge of the forest resources. I had met Nirjal Birhor back in the early 1980s when he was still able to forage food out of the dwindling forests. On the roadside, he was almost unrecognisable amongst the group of cyclewallahs who had stopped briefly to catch breath after a rather steep rise. Nirjal is one of the 2,000 cyclewallahs in eastern Indian coal tracts, covering up to 20-22 kilometres in a day, pushing up to 250 kilograms of coal on a cycle, taking the coal to sell from door to door, to domestic consumers, to small industries such as brick kilns, and to local tea or food stalls. The coal he carries is either scavenged from existing open cut or underground mines, or old abandoned mines which were not filled up by sand the state-owned coal mining company as instructed by environmental regulations. Nirjal also works in small village-dug mines on individually owned land, or in rat holes sunk in the mining company’s leasehold land. All these are illegal, as per various state rules, but for him, there were not many opportunities but to leave his ancestral occupation as the forests diminished, and to take up what he describes as ‘coal collection.’ This subsistence ‘collection’ earns Nirjal and his family ~USD1 a day, but incrementally forms a tiny part of an underground coal mining economy that might well amount to 10% or more of India’s annual coal production of 330 million tonnes from the state-owned coal mines (Lahiri-Dutt and Williams, 2005). Nirjal’s micro-world of survival is, of course, entirely illegal to a country which puts coal mining as one of the main planks of its nation-building agenda, and is a potential source of conflict to the macro resource experts looking for a global theory.

Let us see a bit more closely at the laws that turn Nirjal Birhor into an illegal coal miner. In India, all mineral resources belong to the state and coal is a ‘major’ mineral—for mining only by the state or its chosen agents. Although lands owned by adivasis or indigenous communities are legally ‘nontransferable’, special legal instruments (such as the Coal Bearing Areas Act) can supersede and has indeed forcibly displaced—physically and from livelihoods—millions since India became independent. Coal is equivalent to nationalism and nation-building; it is central to the image of an ‘emerging power’ that the Indian state prefers to see itself as. The ‘power-hungry’ state— 75% of Indian coal is used for power generation—has continued to take advantage of colonial and exploitative legal frameworks to support large scale mining projects in the name of ‘the greater common good’. For example, indigenous commons or customarily de facto owned lands such as gair majurwa are officially ‘deedless’ lands, and displaced communities are not entitled for compensation for losing these lands to large coal mining projects. As we know, this oversight is not uncommon in many third world countries where colonial laws still rule mineral extraction; in Indonesia for example, indigenous community-based property rights and systems of governance have been obscured by broad claims of state authority to control natural resources for the national interest, leading to environmental injustice (Lynch and Harwell, 2002).

Rethinking mineral resources management

Alternatives exist, and alternative explanations and approaches are possible. The area of mineral resource management is characterised by multiple actors with their multiple voices, and it is important for us to recognise these actors and listen to their voices. I am not saying that disputes over resources do not exist; they do, often because of the legal situation created by the colonial legacy. But the predominant framework used to explain these conflicts over natural resources by-pass community mineral economies. They propose further prescriptive measures that consolidate the unequal and unjust control of mineral resources by corporations and state. These measures fail to adjust the existing inequalities in the current ‘governance’ of resources. They do not change the transfer of wealth away from the communities and do not ameliorate the policy frameworks or reallocate decision-making power. They invite specialists from outside to hand out conflict resolution policies, and propose Corporate Social Responsibilities that are rarely heeded to. A rethinking of natural resource management would not only involve unmasking the inherent poverty of empathy in popular macro-economic theories, such as, resource curse/conflicts/wars and challenging their validity. We must begin this rethinking by asking the simplest questions first: who benefits from a mineral resource development and who pays what cost? The enormous and continuous wealth drain from the local communities from their subsistence can be altered, and indeed many communities are protesting against this vast loss in various ways. Instead of criminalising it, it is possible to see the illegal mining economy as a popular resistance to the official mining economy (Lahiri-Dutt, 2003). We need to change the lens through which we view mineral resource management and understand how ordinary people are trying to make a living throughout the mineral-rich tracts.

The physical reality of minerals—their physicality as external resources that can be seen, traced in a map, touched and felt—makes it easy for mining engineers and technicians, planners and development practitioners to describe and measure them objectively, prescribe technical solutions, and construct the minerals scientifically and quantitatively. This physical image of the resource often introduces a certain construction of minerals’ history, society, and economy. The more natural the object appears, the less obvious the discursive construction is apparent. Though minerals occur as natural phenomena, we must remember that they are also constructed by the political economic discourses that describe them.

The history of mining has been marked by the struggle for the monopolistic power of the large, multi-national, or state-owned formal mining companies to claim their own legality over the control of natural resources. Given the current framework of legitimacy and rights over natural resources, communities are forced to work around the tyranny of legal requirements and establish their own claims over local natural resources. This process of reclaiming or resistance to the state and foreign corporations is escalating with the increasing demands on natural resources, shifts in population, and continuing exclusions of communities. Mining engineers treat the surrounding environment of ores as overburden—literally a burden that is to be rid of at a cost. We must ensure that communities living on the minerals are also not treated as overburdens, and in so doing transform the globalised conflict and doom scenario on natural resources.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Dr. David Williams of Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and Dr. Colin Filer of Resource Management in Asia Pacific Program for their suggestions and comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

 

Since 1990, Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt has been involved in local community initiatives struggling over environmental matters especially on water and livelihoods. She is currently a Community Specialist in Natural Resource Management of the Resource Management in the Asia Pacific Program at the Australian National University. She will be the guest editor the special issue planned on Water for volume 51 of Development the quarterly journal of Society for International Development, out in 2008.

This paper was originally published in the journal Development, vol ume 49, issue 3, 2006: Conflicts Over Natural Resources, published by the Society for International Development.

 

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Women as Mediators in Pacific Conflict Zones

 by Sharon Bhagwan Rolls

The pacific Islands that have undergone a period of armed conflict include Fiji , Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands . Women were very much involved in peacebuilding in these countries by engaging in talks with the armed and warring groups specially in their own communities, but were eventually ignored once the peace negotiations reach state level. However, sustainable peacebuilding in these countries would require further involvement of women, and the building of peace networks at the regional level.

The stability of the Pacific countries has been seriously weakened with the armed conflict in Bougainville, the first coup in the Pacific Islands in Fiji in 1987, the ethnic conflict in the Solomon Islands, and the coup and mutiny in Fiji in 2000.

However, in times of conflict, women mobilise for peace.

Fiji Islands: The Peace Vigil, the Bose Levu Vakaturaga and the Military Council

Throughout Fiji’s history, women and civil society groups have repeatedly mobilised to call for the release of political hostages, a return to parliamentary democracy, and upholding the principles of good governance, democracy and the rule of law.

The history of the women’s peace movement in the Fiji Islands dates back to the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA). The YWCA played a leading role in the anti-nuclear movement during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Young women activists and the student Christian movement were formed at the University of the South Pacific. They became the agents for peace activism.1

The politics of race in Fiji has impacted on women and influenced women’s responses to national crises. Each political conflict has had an impact on our multiracial society, as well as the multiracial networks of women’s groups. Women have participated on all sides of the conflict in Fiji, even as supporters of the coup perpetrators. But women have been particularly more visible as supporters of peace, although invisible from formal peace processes.

Despite these obstacles, women have continued to work towards peace, equality, and a voice in the future of Fiji. Although women have traditionally been perceived as the peacemakers in the home and family without a voice in community or public affairs, women have been able to use the news-media to mainstream their opinions and to speak the language of peace and justice, especially during the height of the crises in Fiji, through such initiatives as the Peace Vigil. Even though women remain outside of the mainstream decisionmaking processes, the Peace Vigil and other initiatives enabled women to collectively address issues and concerns using traditional networks:

In 2000, for instance, women were instrumental in maintaining a degree of calm and infusing hope during the crisis. On May 20, 2000, the day after the Government’s overthrow, the National Council of Women Fiji, an umbrella organisation and coordinating body for a range of women’s organisations and clubs, issued its first media statement denouncing the coup and then mobilised a network of women’s groups in Suva to gather for a peace and prayer vigil the following day.

Between May 21 and July 24, 2000, a multi-ethnic group of women held daily vigils. What emerged from the vigil were actions of peaceful solidarity and a denunciation of the illegal overthrow of the government. “The Blue Ribbon Peace Vigil” as it became known, played an important role in bringing different communities and groups together to pray for peace and unity. It also provided considerable solace to family members of the hostages, and became a meeting point for the hostages when they were released from captivity. The “Mothers in White” representatives of the Catholic Women’s League, a core group of the Blue Ribbon Peace Vigil who gathered at parliamentary complex, the site of the hostage detention, to pray for the hostages and the women who wrote letters of support—all these provided a sense of hope.

How Did We Mediate?

Following discussions at the Peace Vigil, a delegation of indigenous women met with (the late) Ro Adi Lady Lala Mara (then the wife of the President and a paramount chief in her own right). Adi Lady Lala was also a mother of one of the political detainees during the hostage crisis. With her traditional endorsement, a message on behalf of the women of the Peace Vigil was conveyed to the Bose Levu Vakaturaga/The Great Council of Chiefs by Taufa Vakatale.2

Because of the role of the military in both conflicts, and its recurring role in addressing instability in Fiji, women learned to negotiate and communicate with the security forces.

The message highlighted the ongoing peace vigil action and the collective call by all women, regardless of ethnicity, for the release of the detained political hostages and a call especially from the indigenous women, for the peaceful resolution of the conflict.3 Having the statement delivered during the formal meeting was critical to ensure that this esteemed body of traditional leaders heard formally from indigenous women.

Because of the role of the military in both conflicts, and its recurring role in addressing instability in Fiji, women learned to negotiate and communicate with the security forces. In 2000, as a result of discussions at the Peace Vigil, the National Council of Women Fiji made contact with the military, and as a result, the Commander of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces, Ratu Voreqe Bainimarama, brought together military council members and other senior officers to meet with the Peace Vigil.

The delegation presented what has become known as “The Women’s Letter.” It outlined various suggestions, particularly the need for Fiji to return to parliamentary democracy, and for the military to uphold the 1997 Constitution as the supreme law of the country. The women also requested that the military respect human rights.4 From this initial meeting, women learned the importance of using the language of the military/security sector for future dialogues and peace initiatives.

The letter was received respectfully and favourably, and a critical lesson learnt from this process was to ensure that future communication should be more in line with the style of communication the army was familiar with.

But where have these initiatives led us?

As we are all aware, a conflict does not end just because overt violence has ended, or because national elections are held. Certainly, at one level it can be said that Fiji has returned to parliamentary democracy, but while the country awaits the outcome of the legal process including inquiries into the events of May 2000, one critical challenge currently facing the country is clearly how to implement a national reconciliation programme which will not merely “band aid” the hurt and suffering caused by both these political upheavals.

Who is going to invest in the women of Fiji to assist them to re-group, review their peace initiatives and find a path forward? How can Fiji Islanders continue their mediation efforts—at the political or legislative level, while continuing to work at the community level?

The rise in Christian fundamentalism from certain church groups, which further alienates non-Christian groups, is further cause for concern, especially as people continue to experience the outright disrespect towards other faiths by the desecration, in particular, of Hindu temples.

How do we ensure respect for the rule of law and how do we account for the possibility of the resurgence of violence, as many of the deep seated ethnic concerns, especially by the indigenous community, the corruption and other underlying causes of the coups, remain invisible at the national level, although deeply rooted in the country’s history?

In the face of these challenges, women remain sidelined from the decision making processes both within the national development framework and more importantly within traditional decision making structures—whether it is the Great Council of Chiefs, at provincial level or at district and community level.

This shortcoming was highlighted in December 2003 during the opening of the Women Peace and Security Coordinating Committee (Fiji) on Conflict Prevention and Early Warning by the (then) Chairman of the Great Council of Chiefs Fiji (Bose Levu Vakaturaga) Ratu Epeli Ganilau who admitted that issues concerning women have not been a priority for those in position of influence, not only in institutions of the state, but more importantly, in traditional and faith based institutions.

Where then is the space for us to engage as mediators?
Solomon Islands:

The ethnic violence in Solomon Islands has had significant effects on women and children. Women have experienced displacement, rape, harassment, and economic hardships, but have nevertheless played a vital role in creating and maintaining peace at the community level.

The roles of women in the present conflict can be traced back to their hands-on skills and traditional knowledge, to Biblical doctrines, and to their love for their nation. Women have used their traditional go-between role as an accepted form of conflict resolution.

Women have used their traditional go-between role as an accepted form of conflict resolution.

During the conflict, the National Council of Women (NCW), which is comprised of many women from church-based women’s groups, led women’s call for peace and democracy. The NCW made appeals for peace directly to the militants and offered food assistance to them. The Council mobilised women inside Honiara to organise formal exchanges of food and supplies with women of the rival ethnic group. The exchanges occurred at checkpoints set up by warring factions.

In Honiara, women’s groups of the Solomon Islands Christian Association had to deal with untrained armed elements in the course of their daily lives. When husbands and sons took up arms, women even enforced disarmament.5 Women bravely moved between the “bunkers” of different combatant groups, persuading men to lay down arms.

The events of June 2000 constituted the biggest hostage-taking conflict in the history of Solomon Islands. It challenged the current methods and mechanisms designed by and for Solomon Islanders, and in response, the Women for Peace (WFP) was formed. Working as a network of women, independent of any political, religious or ethnic movement, the group consists of women of all ages, religions, walks of life, and provinces, who reside in Honiara, and includes the sisters of the Catholic Church and Church of Melanesia. It is committed to working on a voluntary basis for peace. The group also recognises the difficulties of Guadalcanal and Malaita women, and encourages them to take an active and leading role in its activities. The group is independent of any political, religious or ethnic movement. It worked in collaboration with the Malaita Eagle Force (MEF), Isatabu Freedom Movement (FM), churches, non-government organizations, community leaders, chiefs, government and the international community.6

WFP members have been involved in various activities, including: meeting with militants, government and police representatives; representation at ceasefire talks; weekly prayer meetings, including the women’s plea for peace which was broadcast live throughout the nation; forums and conferences; and visits to displaced families, the hospital and provincial communities, particularly to encourage the reintegration of young militants. During the crisis, WFP members remained in Honiara and worked with women from other provinces. They mobilised to provide assistance for those in need, regardless of ethnicity. At great personal risk, members of “Women for Peace” also helped to distribute basic essential items to displaced families.

Afu Billy, a leading and respected women’s human rights activist and peace advocate of the Solomon Islands observed:

I think for our women, whatever sort of violence happens, be it in the home or outside, women are very much affected by it and I think women are more responsible not for the violence but for making sure that things are okay, because women look more after the family and when it comes to things like that, they are worried about how the children are feeling and how the violence is affecting the children. Whilst men have those concerns, they are not at the concern level that women have, because the latter still have to feed the family, they still have to make sure the kids are comfortable, they still have to comfort the children affected by, or if they are affected they have to settle them down and they are the ones who are responsible for finding safe places for their children when things happen. So with those kinds of responsibility, women must have a say in the peace process and the peace building of a country.7

Without access to formal structures for preventive intervention, women’s peace building ultimately begins in the home. Initial interventions are often as a wife, mother or daughter of an armed combatant, on either side of the conflict.

In the Solomon Islands, women peace builders went into the camps to talk to the militants, taking with them food and a few basic necessities. Women in the rural communities, such as the Guadalcanal women, went to the bunkers, talked to their sons and prayed with them.8

Despite all these initiatives, women’s actions were not incorporated into the formal peace process. Although women played a pivotal role in persuading parties to open up dialogue, women’s organisations and other civil society groups were excluded from the official negotiations that eventually led to the Townsville Peace Agreement. As one peace activist told us: “I don’t think we were heard, and because of this conflict, men thought that women should not be involved in anything to bring them back from what they wanted to do. And even in the peace agreement meeting we were not involved.”

Bougainville:

During the Bougainville crisis, women were peace makers and bridge builders, maintaining their customary role of peace building across the combat lines. Church structures, which had their own women’s groups in place, became the means for the establishment of women and peaceinitiatives and cooperation among groups. For example, the Bougainville Inter-Church Women’s Forum (BICWF) working through churches, developed a critical link between communities that had been torn apart by the destruction of infrastructure and communications.9

The Port Moresby Bougainville Inter Church Women, in a series of petitions to the national government in March 1997, emphasised the importance of dialogue, stating that “the national government must sit down with Bougainvilleans to work out a long term political settlement. Using force is not an answer to resolving Bougainville Crisis.”

In August 1996, the Bougainville Inter-Church Women’s Forum (BICWF) led by Sister Lorraine Garasu and women from United Church, Catholic, Seventh Day Adventist and Pentecostal churches, staged a Women’s Peace Forum with the theme, “In Search of Genuine Peace and Reconciliation.” More than 700 women made their way to Arawa from across Bougainville. They walked across mountains, and negotiated their way across rapid rivers and rocky roads. Women were motivated by their collective commitment for a renewed women’s movement as part of the new Bougainville.

The Peace Forum emphasised the need for women to take part in decision-making bodies at the village, district, and provincial levels.

What motivated me was seeing that not many women take part in decision making bodies at the district level and upward to the provincial level and I thought my women from the villages needed someone to voice our issues at upper levels.
- Monica Samu, Chairperson for Bougainville InterChurch Women’s Forum

After the meeting, the district representatives formed women’s groups to begin negotiating with the combatants. These groups began mediating with the young male combatants in the jungle. In each district, women negotiated with BRA troops. “Mothers were going in the bush to get the boys. The informal negotiation process was started by the women. I was frightened because we did not know what to expect,” related Monica Samu.

Some of them were from our village . . . some of them were more aggressive than the others. We told them to come home. It wasn’t easy.

The process began with formal consultations with the chiefs in each village to decide when the mediation visits would occur. “The chiefs had to say ‘yes’ in order to ensure our safety,” said Samu. Permission also had to be sought from both the Papua New Guinea Defence Force (PNGDF) and the BRA.

Many of the women had to deal with very aggressive behaviour from the young armed combatants. Monica Samu related:

[When] we went they asked us not to go further to their camps but to meet them half way. They had all their guns pointing to us. Some of them were from our village... some of them were more aggressive than the others. We told them to come home. It wasn’t easy. They were saying we were trying to get them to be afraid of the PNGDF. That was my first trip and only trip to the bush. The second trip comprised of women leaders from districts, church leaders, government leaders...They continued to go regularly, going in to talk to them.

Women had to learn to negotiate and communicate not only with local armed combatants but also with the PNGDF. In the Siwai District, in the South of Bougainville, women and peace groups offered the PNGDF strategies for negotiations with their sons, with the combatants:

We started women’s groups within their peace group. And every Sunday after church we come together, talk, and make plans. So the first time the security force landed, that was our chance to go and hear those people, and we said, if you are here to see us make peace then you have to support ourplan.10

Traditional governance structures were also an important forum for women’s peace intervention. For example, Terese Jaintong capitalised on her traditional role as a landowner and worked with the chiefs in the bush during the conflict. She assisted in establishing the Council of Elders (COE), a local level government body to negotiate with Francis Ona. She was a member of the Evaluation Committee, and was one of the first women who negotiated with the Bougainville Revolutionary Army.11

According to Jaintong, traditional structures also gave rise to peace building at the community level. Women were among the first to intervene as peace builders, as traditional landowners meeting with the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) combatants, and as mothers who sought out their sons in the bush and encouraged them to lay down their weapons. At the same time, women’s peace efforts were also being promoted by women within the combatant groups. The Bougainville Women for Peace and Freedom (BWPF), for example, was born out of the women’s network within the BRA.

The existence of parallel peace and reconciliation structures within the BRA enabled peace efforts to prosper at the community level, especially as combatant leaders recognised the need to end the war and to prevent a new generation from growing up in an environment of armed conflict.

According to James Tanis, former member of the BRA and now a peace advocate, even the BRA had a Ministry of Political Education and Reconciliation, while the Bougainville Transitional Government had peace committees. The Bougainville Interim Provincial Government established the Bougainville Women for Peace and Freedom (BWPF), a parallel structure to Bougainville Provincial Women’s Council (BPWC).

The Bougainville Women for Peace and Freedom network was an initiative for women who were living in the jungle in BRA-controlled areas. Women met in the jungle, organised prayer vigils, and distributed relief assistance to widows and displaced families.

Throughout the war, women did not stay silent out of fear but continued to advocate for peace. Women struggled to manage the scarce resources available, and despite the severe restrictions on freedom of movement, which limited their access to market gardens, they continued to provide for their children and their family networks.

The effectiveness of women’s actions was reinforced by the fact that Bougainville/Papua New Guinea is a matrilineal society where women carry respect and authority. The peace initiatives by women on both sides gave birth to reconciliation and opened up mediation and negotiation processes between the BRA, the people and the PNG Government.12 Unfortunately, this authority did not extend to national level decision-making. In 1998, despite women’s success at implementing a permanent ceasefire (which has held to date), women were left out of national level negotiations and post conflict programmes.

In 1998, a Women’s Statement was delivered to the Leaders’ Meeting at the Bougainville/Papua New Guinea Peace talks, demanding a tangible role in the long-term peace process:

We are continuing to work with the communities, in getting the communities to deal, and work out strategies for themselves that will… really attain peace, because we believe that the absence of war is not the end to the violence. We believe and we see that there is still a lot of violence in the community. Women have built bridges between their own families, clans and displaced fellow Bougainvilleans by working for mutual survival, whether it be in the bush, in care centres, or wherever they have hosted strangers in their own communities. Without remuneration, they have laboured beside their men to create basic services using whatever talent or means they had at hand. Our menfolk have rediscovered the value of women sharing in the decision-making process and we attest…to the liberating effect this has had upon our fellow women delegates. As mothers of the land, we take seriously our responsibility to rebuild peace in our hearts and create a peaceful environment that will improve the quality of all our lives.13

Despite women’s prominence in the peace process, women received only 6 out of 106 seats in the appointed Bougainville/Papua New Guinea People’s Congress in May 1999.14

Women were absent from the Peace Process Consultative Committee (PPCC). This committee is chaired by the UN, and oversees the peace process, in particular the weapons disposal programme of the Bougainville Peace Agreement. Apparently, one of the reasons women have not been appointed to the Peace Process Consultative Committee (PPCC) was that the representatives of the ex-combatants were not comfortable with the inclusion of women.15

The new constitution for Bougainville was formulated by the Bougainville Constituent Assembly (BCA). The Assembly included the following women: Elizabeth Burain, Monica Samu, Lucy Madoi, Agnes Nara, Genevieve Pisi, Therese Jaintong, Martha Turatis and Dorcas Awaso.

In 2005, three women—Magadelene Toroansi, Fancesca Semoso and Laura Ampa were elected to the three regional seats (North, South and Central) reserved for women in the new Autonomous Bougainville Government (provincial government). It should be noted however, that women did not contest other seats in their own constituencies. So there is an urgent need to invest in the leadership capacity of Bougainville women to assist them to be more involved in formal decision-making in the new Bougainville. It is only thus that they can ensure a more holistic approach to peace, security and development.

Investing in Rebuilding the Women’s Movement

Indeed, a key requirement in all post conflict situations is the need to provide substantive and long term investment in the rebuilding capacity of women leaders, of new women leaders who emerge during times of crises to not only enable them to take on new leadership roles in post conflict reconstruction but to also be in a position to consult with one another—women among themselves, to ensure consensus for a women’s platform for reconstruction— within a women’s human rights framework.

At the same time, while there exist underlying causes of division among groups in Bougainville, Fiji and the Solomon Islands, these divisions will continue to affect women and will impact reconciliation efforts within and among communities.

 

Future peace building initiatives must give much credence and assistance to the need for reconciliation among women leaders and women within their communities. Otherwise, untreated wounds have the potential of festering and developing into renewed conflicts.

Women must have the space and support to develop a women’s agenda for peace at the local, national, and regional levels. Future peace building initiatives must give much credence and assistance to the need for reconciliation among women leaders and women within their communities. Otherwise, untreated wounds have the potential of festering and developing into renewed conflicts.

UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION 1325

Women have suffered the brunt of violence, often from both sides, during the conflicts in Fiji, Solomon Islands, and Bougainville. Because undocumented, many of these violations remain invisible from the mainstream peace process.

Yet, despite many obstacles, women in Bougainville and the Solomon Islands, as well as in Fiji, were instrumental in brokering peace during the crises and continue to play a vital role in building and sustaining peace.

However, women remain greatly marginalised from formal decision making structures as a result of the predominantly patriarchal governance structures from the time of colonial administrations and continuing after independence.

On October 31, 2000 the United Nations Security Council passed a Resolution on Women, Peace and Security, a historical document, which is the first formal and legal document from the Security Council that requires parties to a conflict and the international community to respect women’s rights and to support their participation at all stages in peace negotiations, conflict prevention and post conflict.

The Resolution calls for the following:16

• participation of women in peace processes;
• gender training in peacekeeping operations;
• protection of women and girls and respect for their rights;
• gender mainstreaming in the reporting and implementation systems of the United Nations relating to conflict, peace and security.

A Security Council resolution is a commitment made by the United Nations and Member states to take action on specific issues. States are expected to comply and work towards implementation. Resolution 1325, therefore, builds on a number of resolutions and frameworks that set out international commitments to women’s full involvement in decision-making, including numerous resolutions of the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)17, as well as the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action. Resolution 1325 recognizes that while entire communities suffer the consequences of armed conflict, there is a clear need to account for the impact of conflicts on women and girls (especially as the impact of violence against women and violation of the human rights of women in conflict situations is experienced by women of all ages). However, even though women also constitute the majority of the world’s refugees and internally displaced persons, they are not just victims of conflicts. Women continue to play an important role in conflict resolution, peacekeeping and peace-building.

Links to Other International and Regional Gender Commitments:18

To date, 11 Forum Island Countries (FICs) (being UN member states) are party to the UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The Solomon Islands is the only FIC that has ratified the Optional Protocol to CEDAW.19 All PIF members have endorsed the Millennium Development Goals which include MDG 3 on Gender Equality and the empowerment of women.

All FICs committed to the 1994 Pacific Platforms for Action for the Advancement for Women,20 and the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action, agreed to at the UN Fourth World Conference on Women. In addition, 11 FICs are members of the Commonwealth and have committed to the Commonwealth Plan of Action for Gender Equality.21 All these international commitments to gender equality, reaffirm the inextricable link between gender equality and peace, as well as highlighting the need to improve equal access and full participation of women in power structure, to enable their full involvement in all efforts for the prevention and resolution of conflicts.

The Pacific Islands Forum is mandated to respond to issues of security at the regional level. In 2000, Forum Leaders endorsed the Biketawa Declaration, which recognised the need for action to be taken on the basis of all members of the Forum being part of the Pacific Islands’ extended family. The Declaration highlights that the Forum must constructively address difficult and sensitive issues including underlying causes of tensions and conflicts (intolerance for ethnic differences, socio-economic disparities, and lack of good governance, land disputes and erosion of cultural values), while also reiterating belief in the liberty of the individual under the law, in equal rights for all citizens regardless of gender, race, colour, creed or political belief and in the individual’s inalienable right to participate by means of free anddemocratic political process in framing the society in which he or she lives.

Furthermore, in October 2005, Forum Leaders endorsed the Pacific Plan for Strengthening Regional Cooperation and Integration, of which security is one of the four key components. The Plan defines security as “stable and safe social (human) and political conditions necessary for, and reflective of, Good Governance and Sustainable Development for the achievement of Economic Growth.” The Pacific Plan has a specific strategic objective to improve gender equality which means that all Pacific Plan initiatives must give due consideration to gender issues and demonstrate a positive impact on gender equality, wherever possible. It is therefore critical that regional security initiatives are reconciled to ensure the inclusion of gender as a crosscutting issue.

Despite a multitude of regional commitments to gender, peace and security, implementation on the ground has been limited.

Conclusion

Women have demonstrated the ability to effectively work together at the local level, but there is a need to strengthen women’s and peace networks at the regional level. This requires investment in capacity building and institutional strengthening. Women peace advocates need to be able to exchange ideas and lessons learned from their own Pacific Island experiences.

A reconstruction plan for the Pacific’s arc of instability will not be complete without an equitable inclusion of women in the design, delivery and evaluation of all development programmes and plans. The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 therefore has the potential to provide the necessary impetus to help women make this change.

Sharon Bhagwan-Rolls helped organise, with the National Council of Women, a daily prayer vigil when Fiji’s government leaders were held hostage for 56 days during the 2000 coup. She is the Coordinator of FemLinkpacific, an organisation that advocates for community and independent Mediao using their suitcase radio for eliciting grassroots perspectives on peace and livelihood issues. She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005.

 

Endnotes

1 femLINKpacific YWCA Herstories Interviews with Ruth Lecthe, Susan Parkinson and Suliana Siwatibau.
2 femLINKpacific IV with Tupou Vere (Keeping Watch).
3 femLINKpacific IV with Susana Evening (Keeping Watch).
4 femLINKpacific Interview with Parul Deoki and Tupou Vere (Keeping Watch).
5 femLINKpacific interview with journalist Dorothy Wickham, June 2003.
6 Alice Pollard 2000: Resolving conflict in Solomon Islands: The Women for Peace approach.
7 femLINKpacific interview with Afu Billy, 2001.
8 femLINKpacific interview, Anne Saenemua, Solomon Islands Christian Association/Federation of Women, October 2001.
9 femLINKpacific Interview with Elizabeth Momis, October 2004.
10 femLINKpacific Interview with Helen Ikilai, October 2004.
11 femLINKpacific interview with Teresa Jaintong, October 2004.
12 Saovana-Spriggs, 2000 .
13 (Delegation included Agnes Titus (BTG Minister of Local Govt.), Josephine Sirivi (Leader of BIG Women’s Delegation, Central Bougainville), Therese Jaintong (President of Bougainville Council of Women), Ruth Saovana-Spriggs (Postgraduate student, ANU, Canberra), Sr. Lorraine Garasu (Bougainville Inter Church Women’s Forum), Sr. Ruby Mirinka (Co-ordinator of BOCBIHP, Honiara, Solomons), Balbina Kari (Health Officer, Arawa, BOCBIHP Staff, Honiara), Bernadette Ropa (Tarlena High School Principal,Inter Church NGO, Bougainville), Rita Pearson (AusAid consultant, Mosbi), Marilyn Havini (Bougainville Freedom Movement, Sydney BIG office and High School Teacher, Sydney, Australia), Daphne Zale (Bougainville Humanitarian Official, Gizo, Solomon Island), Scholastica Miriori (BIG Overseas Women’s Liaison Officer), Joycelyn Tunsio (Buka Trap Group & Women’s representative, Kieta), Lydia Pupui (Tinputz Women’s representative, Tinputz), Lilly Kuntamari Crofts (Student, Bougainville Freedom Movement, Melbourne), Patricia Tapakau (Arawa District Women’s Group), Lucy Madoi (Womens’ representative,Kieta-Arawa), Rosemary Dikaung (Literacy Teacher—VTPS), Margaret Barako (Womens’ representative, Kieta-Arawa), Lucy Morris (Bougainville Freedom Movement, Brisbane)
14 From UNIFEM Portal.
15 femLINKpacific interviews in Bougainville, October 2004.
16 Fact sheet produced by Gender and Peacebuilding Working group of the Canadian Peacebuilding Coordinating Committee.
17 What is CEDAW: The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the “women’s bill of rights,” has been ratified by 183 countries In its General Recommendation on violence against women, the CEDAW Committee recognizes that armed conflict situations lead to increased prostitution, trafficking in women and sexual assault of women. In the General Recommendation on women and health, the Committee recommends as well that States parties ensure adequate protection and health services, including trauma treatment and counselling for women trapped in situations of armed conflict and women refugees.

Hope for Peace Embedded in the Ordinary—Peacewomen’s Teaching without Teaching

Lau Kin Chi

Mahatma Gandhi says, “an eye for an eye,” and we all go blind. Hatred, greed, calculation and jealousy work like a plague, infecting more and more people with the curse of violent passions that reduce them to blindness and stupidity.

Jose Saramago, 1998 Nobel Literary Prize Laureate, tells in his novel Blindness of how blindness induces further and greater blindness: an unknown virus spreads in the city, the affected suddenly suffer blindness, “seeing” only a thick whiteness. People in contact with the affected quickly contract the virus, and doctor, thief, policeman, family…one after another get sent into the isolation camp. There, the “equality” and “empathy” brought by the onslaught of the disease can only be transient. Robberies, bullies, lies and cruelties rule and oppress this space with greater force. After a while, no one watches over or cares for the camp anymore, because everyone in the city has gone blind. Knowing that no one is watching, almost everyone loses discipline; robberies, bullies, lies and cruelties intolerable to the eye before now rule the hearts. Only, one single person does not go blind—the good wife of the doctor— and she sees how the violence of blind obsessions breeds more blind obsessions and violence, accumulating into a torrent flushing all sentiments of kindness, forgiveness and generosity down the drain.

To break the curse of violence, “peace” must be freed from the violence-constructed system so that the perspectives and experiences repressed can come into play and bring hope to humanity.

Violence is a messenger from the kingdom of death. Driven by an obsession dominated by unknown fear and fathomless greed, violence gnaws at the freedom of the heart, at the wisdom and courage that make possible kindness, forgiving and giving. In a world dominated by violence, “peace” becomes an axis for the system constructed by violence, enabling the game of destruction to be played until its underlying logic of ultimate self-destruction is caught in the showdown of self-confrontation. To break the curse of violence, “peace” must be freed from the violence-constructed system so that the perspectives and experiences repressed can come into play and bring hope to humanity.

The twentieth century ended in violence and blindness.

The First World War used air-bombers invented only a decade before. The mushroom clouds over Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War proclaimed the victory of military science and technology. Wolfgang Sachs, ecologist, talks about the United Nations Charter adopted on 4 May 1945: “The project to banish violence and war from the face of the earth was clearly linked to the vision of mankind marching forward and upward along the road of progress...The utopian intention aimed at a world of individuals who follow only the voice of reason…The utopia of mankind… was united… under the rule of science, market and the state… The traditional notion that peace would be the fruit of justice had lost ground. It gave way to the expectation that peace would be the result of mankind reunited under the achievements of civilization.” This means that the multiplicity of cultures in space is interpreted as a succession of stages in time, and the “savage” (or so-called backward, underdeveloped, or developing) is to grow up and enter the stage of civilisation and peace with the guidance of the West. “And indissolubly linking the hope for peace to this world-shaking endeavour leads to a tragic dilemma— the pursuit of peace implies the annihilation of diversity, while seeking diversity implies the outburst of violence. The dilemma is unlikely to be resolved without delinking peace from progress and progress from peace.”1

E. F. Schumacher, economist renowned for his profound idea of “small is beautiful”, says in an essay “The Root of Violence” that “The Bomb is the symbol of modern civilisation. Unfortunately, it is not merely a symbol but an ever-present threat to all life on our planet, yet it is also a symbol of a civilisation that has bred readiness for violence without any limit whatsoever… Detached, objective thought, always liable to error, opens the door to unlimited violence because it eliminates the countervailing power of the heart. A civilisation which deprecates the heart, which idolizes objectivity in the forms of scientism, positivism, and rationalism, which bases its entire education on the notion that decisions must be taken without interference from the emotions, inevitably exposes itself to the dangers of unlimited violence…The concepts of non-violence would be Reverence for Life; religious ‘Praise’; humility; measure, in the sense of knowing where to stop; and an irresistible need for justice… [They] derive from hearts that are strong enough to control the mind.”2

The twenty-first century ended in violence and blindness.

Visible and invisible violence assaults us head-on with the violence at once remote and near, real and virtual. We are almost dumbstruck for any response.

Televised images of the 9-11 plane crash into the twin towers in New York City and people jumping from top floors seem no different from Hollywood disaster thrillers; the film Hotel Rwanda re-presents the horror of 800,000 deaths in three months of ethnic strife in Rwanda; USA bombers on missions to Iraq take on board journalists who transmit city-bombed-mission-completed images like virtual video games; on the internet one can witness “live broadcast” of Iraqi masked gunmen’s flick of the knife and the rolling head of a hostage. On the other hand, 30,000 children die daily from starvation and curable diseases but they are just statistics, a number devoid of shock or sorrow.

“Profound” experiences that evoke in us shock, fear, anxiety and trepidation are more and more founded on our ignorance about the evils shaping our lives. Our ignorance, however, is proportionate to the “knowing” constructed by the information era. The more we come to “know,” the more impoverished our experience is, and what is “profound” cannot be immediate to our experience.

An-eye-for-an-eye violence seems justified, yet unacceptable. The injustice of the powerful does not automatically endow the oppressed with greater justice. One does not embody justice simply because one’s opponent is evil. Violent revenge of the vulnerable more often than not offers the oppressor more pretexts for the abuse of violence, further tilting the balance of power against the vulnerable. Yet, does resisting violence mean resisting revolution and resisting change? Does this mean compelling the weak to muted tolerance and reluctant acceptance of the status quo? Does embracing violence mean promoting revolution and promoting change? Can one disarm the powerful and the strong? How can one come out of the vicious circle of violence, effectively promote social justice, deepen social revolution, and free the ordinary people from helplessness, hopelessness, cynicism and inferiority when confronted with apparently endless violence and catastrophe? How can words like “development” and “progress” no longer camouflage exploitation and plunder?

Beyond the information based on ignorance that the mainstream media transmit, beyond the logic of the powerful propagated by dazzling violence, we should hear and touch the beatings of life nurtured by sympathy, mutuality and reciprocity. With these, we can dissipate the loneliness and obsession of modern rational monologue, and can see that in daily life, which is not glamorous or momentous, and even in apparently fathomless suffering, distress, and misery, there is amazing wisdom.

Ruth Gaby Vermot-Mangold, member of Swiss parliament and European Council, initiator of the project 1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005, has visited war and conflict devastated areas such as Armenia, Bosnia and Kosovo and brought to these places humanitarian concerns. However, she finds that the Europeans living in ease and comfort, instead of being proud of their aid to the refugees, have a lot to learn from the women who have demonstrated their strong will to live amidst disaster situations. She feels that whether it is in the devastation before and after wars, or in the strenuous torture of unending poverty, what helps communities to survive is not state leaders, political elites or rich businessmen (who are more often than not the culprits depriving the ordinary people of minimal living conditions), but unknown, ordinary women who have persisted in apparently weak but actually amazingly determined efforts.

Gaby thought the best way to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the 1995 World Conference on Women is to present to the world the extraordinary work of tens of thousands of ordinary women, so that the world can see where hope lies and can pay tribute to the women and their work. Let 1000 women represent tens of thousands of women across the globe to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005!

Thus, starting in 2003 there have been activities across the globe to search for and illuminate the extraordinary work of ordinary women. In most places, this project has not caught the eye of the mainstream media, has not lifted the eyebrows of the elite, has not found grace with foundations, sponsors or governmental or non-governmental organisations. Why? Because in the “modern” society mainstreamed with the mind and practice of currying favour with the powerful, gratifying the rich, revering the successful, and calculating every move by projecting the returns, even if there is an interest in Cinderella, the interest is in one single person who has the right feet to put on the right pair of glass slippers and turn herself into a queen. There is no interest in the tens of thousands of ordinary women, clothed in grey, clad with straw sandals, working in remote areas, among marginalised groups, with AIDS patients, criminals, orphans, and victims of poverty and all sorts of violence, sweating and struggling, without calculating the results or returns. These women usually do not draw attention, but when they do, it is either ridicule for being remote from the affairs of the world that “matter” and for acting like a mantis trying to stop a chariot, or retaliation; their determined efforts are seen as stumbling blocks infringing on the big interests of the powerful.

...in all areas, we find radiant ordinary women whose deeds/p are so inspiring that they teach without effort, with an inexhaustible energy, with uncontained love... 

Nevertheless, the project has been taken on by practitioners on the ground as well as people in search of alternatives. Based on a simple dream and faith, the project has flowered despite a stringent budget and an immense difficulty in communication. After a process of nominations, cross checking of identity and information, screening and recommendation by local and regional advisory committees, and discussion and selection by an international committee, finally, a list of 1000 women symbolizing the efforts of tens of thousands of women was submitted to the Oslo Nobel Peace Prize Committee in January 2005. The 1000 come from over 150 countries, aged from twenties to eighties, working in areas that range from community harmony to ethnic reconciliation, from self-reliant livelihood to ecological conservation, from gender equity to empowerment of vulnerable groups, from culture and art to education, religion and beliefs… In all areas, we find radiant ordinary women whose deeds are so inspiring that they teach without effort, with an inexhaustible energy, with uncontained love, sustained by an unyielding commitment to the protection of lives around them. It is impossible not to be affected by them, for vibrating through space and time, there is the knowing smile of fighting for dignity and happiness.

One hundred eight women are from China. On August 27, at the conference room of the Joint Publishers in Beijing, 21 peacewomen gathered. They told their own stories, heard others. At one time they shed tears at the wounds of injustice, at another time they broke into laughter at ludicrous situations, idiocities and mediocrities. The vibrations of compassion at the gathering cannot be conveyed with words, yet I dare to make a few quotes:

Xie Lihua: “In various awards activities, I often appeal for appreciation of the contributions of rural women in China which is a country with the majority population still rural. Yet very few rural women ever get awards. This time, I am particularly delighted to see that 15 out of the 81 peacewomen from mainland China are rural women working on the ground. This shows the importance the project has given to the contributions of grassroots women.”

Xu Fengxiang: “I find this project remarkable. Globally, it is a conceptual breakthrough because in the past, the Nobel Peace Prize was limited to aspects against the war or in politics. We have however given a comprehensive and integrated interpretation to peace. What is peace? It is coexistence in genuine harmony between humans and nature, it is construction of harmony of various aspects of human society. I used to think that other people got the prize as an individual, but we have 1000 nominated as one, so are we just getting an advantage with the numbers? But on further thought, I feel that we are 1000, and we represent tens of thousands of women across the globe. We are not an individual, we are a collective, we are not one single mountain, we are a range of mountains. Hence, we must send in our nomination, we must get the award! We women defend peace across the globe, we are quiet and unknown but we are present everywhere. We must tell the stories of women from China, we must tell the stories of women in the whole world.”

Dong Xiuyu: “The significance of this project is not the outcome, but the process. The process enables us women to boost our self esteem and self empowerment. It also offers a good opportunity for women to learn from each other and to continue learning themselves. In the Joint Publishers, people say I am an idealist, and an incurable one. Today, I have heard many of you speak, you are much more incurable idealists as I. Let us idealists stand fast to our ideals, and fight together for a beautiful, just, and ideal society.”

Zhang Shuqin: “I run homes for the uncared-for children of criminals. The kids call me Grandma Zhang, some people call me Director Zhang, but more people call me Beggar Queen. When I first started the children’s home, some people called me up and reprimanded me: why don’t you help children in the remote mountains or children of martyrs? Why do you help children of criminals? I retorted, China is so big, I can help whoever I want to help, what has it to do with you? I am a simple ordinary citizen, what we are trying to do is to help change the fate of the most vulnerable among vulnerable groups, to help the kids go through the most difficult years when they do not have their parents by their side. We have encountered all sorts of sweet, sour, bitter, spicy times. We are not only idealists, we are pragmatists, we engage in real, actual work. Many people condemn corruption, condemn this and condemn that, but few really undertake to get something done. We have contracted 13 hectares of farmland, we have grown 30,000 date trees; every morning, I take the kids to weeding, for our own survival. At 5 o’clock in the early morning, all kids above eight years old go to the fields. The food sent to them in the field is plain buns and pickled vegetables. I say to the kids, you have an ill fate, we are poor, and poor children learn to become mature at an early age. We have an infant who was a few months old when his father, a fugitive, was re-captured. For one month, the police could not find a home for the infant, and they sent the infant on to me. At 4am on November 4 last year, at the Fuzhou train station, the infant was handed over to me. On the platform of the train station, holding the 10-month old infant, I gave in to a good cry. Our society has lost kindness and love; what we must recover is the kindness and love of the Chinese people.”

Apparently weak and solitary stories of individuals converge by hundreds and thousands, and from the real tears and laughters of the real struggles of real people living in the real world, there can be nurtured profound, immediate experiences that poke at the violence of the powerful, and illuminate the immense strength in the apparently insignificant deeds of ordinary people. With these, fear will be dispelled, the heart will be calmed, the sights will be lucid and discerning, and the curse of violence and blindness will be broken.

I do not have the lavish wish that the Nobel Peace Prize Committee would have the aura of the Nobel Peace Prize sprayed on to a thousand ordinary women, but I have a simple, humble wish: that everyone and anyone could learn, with a different mind, to look at the people around us who resist violence and build peace. They are not so exalted that we cannot look up to see them; on the contrary, they are so ordinary that they are just the people around us—our mothers, teachers, colleagues, neighbours, and ourselves, that we all have the capacity to undertake to do something, to add some warmth and hope to the world, and, like the good wife of the doctor in Blindness, to nurture the heart of kindness, forgiveness and generosity.

Dr. Lau Kin Chi teaches Cultural Studies in Lingnan University. She is the Coordinator for the China and Mongolia Region, 1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005. Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it... For the details of the peacewomen quoted above, please visit www.1000peacewomen.org or www.1000peacewomen-hk.org.

This essay originally appeared in Chinese in the Journal Dushu (Reading) based in Beijing. October 2005 issue.

Endnotes
 1 Wolfgang Sachs, “One World,” The Development Dictionary, London and New York: Zed, 1992, pp.103-105.
2 E. F. Schumacher, “The Roots of Violence,” This I Believe and Other Essays, New Delhi: Viveka, 2003, pp. 189-193.