Keeping the Peace: Conflict Resolution and Peaceful Societies Around the World PDF
Preview Keeping the Peace: Conflict Resolution and Peaceful Societies Around the World
Keeping the Peace WAR AND SOCIETY A series edited by S.P.Reyna and R.E.Downs VOLUME 1 Feuding and Warfare: Selected Works of Keith F.Otterbein VOLUME 2 Studying War: Anthropological Perspectives Edited by S.P.Reyna and R.E.Downs VOLUME 3 Troubled Times: Violence and Warfare in the Past Edited by Debra L.Martin and David W.Frayer VOLUME 4 Roots of Violence: A History of War in Chad Mario J.Azevedo VOLUME 5 Deadly Developments: Capitalism, States, and War Edited by S.P.Reyna and R.E.Downs VOLUME 6 Language and Peace Edited by Christina Schaffner and Anita L.Wenden VOLUME 7 The State, Identity, and Violence: Political Disintegration in the Post-Cold War World Edited by R.Brian Ferguson VOLUME 8 Keeping the Peace: Conflict Resolution and Peaceful Societies Around the World Edited by Graham Kemp and Douglas P.Fry Keeping the Peace Conflict Resolution and Peaceful Societies Around the World Edited by Graham Kemp and Douglas P.Fry ROUTLEDGE NEW YORK AND LONDON Published in 2004 by Routledge 29 West 35th Street New York, NY 10001 http://www.routledge-ny.com/ Published in Great Britain by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane London EC4P 4EE http://www.routledge.co.uk/ Copyright © 2004 by Routledge Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group. This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to http://www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk/.” All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Keeping the peace: conflict resolution and peaceful societies around the world/edited by Graham Kemp and Douglas P.Fry. p. cm.—(War and society; v. 8) ISBN 0-415-94761-8 (hardback: alk. paper)—ISBN 0-415-94762-6 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Peace-Social aspects. 2. Conflict management-Social aspects. I. Kemp, Graham, 1954– II. Fry, Douglas P., 1953– III. Series: War and society (Routledge (Firm)); v. 8. JZ5538.K438 2003 327.1′72–dc21 2003008813 ISBN 0-203-02103-7 (Print Edition) To Leslie and Dorothy Kemp and Sirpa Fry Contents Foreword vii Elise Boulding Preface ix Introductory Note xii 1. The Concept of Peaceful Societies 1 Graham Kemp 2. A Positive Concept of Peace 9 Ximena Davies-Vengoechea 3. Contentious But Not Violent: The Hopi of Northern Arizona 16 Alice Schlegel 4. Restraint and Ritual Apology: The Rotumans of the South Pacific 29 Alan Howard 5. Respect for All: The Paliyans of South India 43 Peter M.Gardner 6. Multiple Paths to Peace: The “La Paz” Zapotec of Mexico 59 Douglas P.Fry 7. Resolving Conflict Within the Law: The Mardu Aborigines of Australia 73 Robert Tonkinson 8. Putting a Stone in the Middle: The Nubians of Northern Africa 87 Robert Fernea 9. Keeping the Peace in an Island World: The Sama Dilaut of Southeast Asia 101 Clifford Sather 10. A Model of Peacefulness: Rethinking Peace and Conflict in Norway 121 Kristin Dobinson 11. Cautious, Alert, Polite, and Elusive: The Semai of Central Peninsular 136 Malaysia Robert Knox Dentan 12. Conclusion: Learning from Peaceful Societies 152 Douglas P.Fry References 169 Glossary 185 Contributors 190 Index 191 Foreword ELISE BOULDING This is a much-needed book at a time of acute discomfort about a century of failed efforts to outlaw war. It can not be done, say the so-called realists—humans are basically aggressive and will inevitably turn to war. But humans are basically peaceful, say the utopians—look at the forest peoples, the people of preurban times. It’s the old nature- nurture debate. But human diversity did not arise with civilization. As the studies in this book show, no two humans are alike, and even the smallest society has to deal with conflicts arising from that diversity. Every society has to cope with its hotheads. The most important point made by bringing together a collection of studies of societies known as generally peaceful, from different parts of the globe, is that peaceful societies have many differences to deal with and have found many ways to deal with those differences that effectively hold violence in check. Some, like the Norwegians, were in fact formerly warrior societies that developed cultural technologies for dealing with violence. The United Nations General Assembly’s declaration of the years 2001 to 2010 as a Decade for Education for a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence suggests the possibility that the ingredients of a peace culture exist in every society, ingredients which need to be identified and intentionally nurtured. The concept of identifying cultural technologies for dealing with difference peacefully so they can be more widely developed and practiced is a very thought-provoking one and receives strong support in this book. The large number of ongoing violent conflicts between ethnic and cultural groups on every continent during the opening years of the twenty-first century, including rising levels of violence in Western countries, is compelling evidence of the need to identify such technologies. And yes, every society has such technologies (see Boulding 2000), but they are often hidden away out of the public eye, forgotten, and in need of rediscovery. This book needs a companion volume, Hidden Technologies for Peaceful Conflict Resolution in Violent Societies. Along these lines, the movement to discover traditional ways of peacemaking in troubled societies has recently generated some interesting publications (for example, Malan 1998; Ross 1996; also see European Platform for Conflict Prevention and Transformation 1999). In the present volume, the contributors describe social practices that recur in all the societies considered: (1) mediation, the practice of a community gathering to hear all sides, usually with elders providing leadership; (2) avoidance, the practice of giving others their needed space (don’t crowd me!); (3) self-restraint, no self-promotion (don’t be a show-off!). The positive value put on peaceableness itself, on the absence of violence, and on social control reflects a strong common recognition of interdependence. The people in these societies know they need each other. (There is also widespread awareness of the danger of alcohol as a factor leading to the loss of control.) But there is great cultural diversity from society to society in how these values are expressed, ranging from the talkative, rather disputatious Rotumans in the South Pacific to the gentle, child- loving Zapotec in Mexico, with the cautious Semai of Malaysia in between. The emphasis on diversity in styles of peaceableness from society to society is very valuable in countering both the realist and the utopian views of “what humans are really like.” Practices in child rearing are a key factor in the development of adult behavior patterns, and different approaches to training children in self-control are well described in some, but not all the chapters. It would be good to know more. For insight into dealing with the growing violence in Western societies, the chapter on Norway is of particular interest. The focus here is on the Norse people, the warrior Vikings who became the peaceable Norwegians and who gained their independence from Sweden in 1905 without military action. (The Sami people, formerly called Lapps, of the far north of Norway are also a peaceful people but with a very different culture.) Norwegians have difficulty in dealing with diversity—they value “sameness.” But they also have a two-hundred-year-old practice of compulsory mediation of interpersonal conflict outside the court system, which continues to this day and is much emphasized in local communities and schools. All children are taught the skills of mediation. The growing number of international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that are currently trying to facilitate conflict resolution and reconciliation processes in bitterly violent conflict settings would do well to study this book carefully. It will encourage them to look for hidden or abandoned traditional peacemaking technologies of the peoples they are working with, technologies that can be built upon in a new-old process of social learning. The more these peacemaking technologies are discovered, rediscovered, and further developed, the better humankind’s prospects are for a more peaceful twenty-first century. Preface The collaborative spark of creativity resulting in this book occurred in Valencia, Spain, during the meeting of the International Society for Research on Aggression in July 2000. For some years, Graham, as a peace scholar, had realized that peaceful societies might hold important lessons regarding the creation and maintenance of peace. Doug, as an anthropologist, had recently become interested in the diversity of conflict management techniques used in different societies, including those with very low levels of violence. Riding in a taxi through the busy streets of Valencia, we developed the plan to invite anthropologists with first-hand fieldwork experience in peaceful societies—those with nonviolent values and very low levels of aggression—to write directly on conflict management. A few details changed along the way, but the heart of the book has remained the same. In essence, then, the book seeks to understand the means through which some societies, more peaceful than our own, maintain their peacefulness. The key word is maintain—as an ongoing, active process—because these societies are not peaceful simply due to the absence of conflict. Alan Howard, writing about Rotuma, explains that disputes are endemic, but “what is remarkable is that they so rarely escalate to violent encounters.” And Alice Schlegel refers to the Hopi as “contentious but not violent.” The same could be said of many of the societies discussed in this work. Some of the societies—for example, the Mardu, Paliyan, and Semai—have no known history of warfare or feuding. Others—such as the, Hopi, Zapotec, and Norwegians— have engaged in intergroup violence in the past. The distant ancestors of the La Paz and other Zapotec people, for instance, established an empire—with the military organization that implies—before the time of Christ. But today the La Paz Zapotec value and in large part enact a nonviolent social life. Some peaceful peoples have faced and continue to face threats of violence and other forms of encroachment from the outside world. In a few cases, as among the Semai, nonviolence seems to have been an effective survival strategy in responding to such threats as slave raiding. Peaceful societies are not utopias. They consist of real people facing the same kinds of problems that confront people everywhere: domestic disagreements and other interpersonal disputes; internal political, economic, and social conflicts; and threats of violence and exploitation from outside the society. Yet they have created peaceful cultures, identifying means by which humans can manage their conflicts without resorting to violent behavior. They have identified forms of socialization that promote peaceful interaction, developed beliefs that favor nonviolence over aggression, and fostered attitudes and perceptions about violence that prevent its establishment as a social norm. A study of peaceful societies and how they manage conflict nonviolently, as represented in this collection, offers ideas from which we all could learn. Naturally, each society has its own particular history, belief system, institutions, and form of social organization, as well as its own physical, economic, and social environment. Not all ideas
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