Time for Peace: The Essential Role of Time in Conflict and Peace Processes

306 Pages·2015·1.683 MB·English

by  Luc Reychler

Dr Luc Reychler is Emeritus Professor of
International Relations at the Faculty of Social
Sciences at the University of Leuven. He obtained
his PhD from Harvard University in 1976, and he is
a former director of the Center for Peace Research
and Strategic Studies. He was also the secretary
general of the International Peace Research
Association from 2004 to 2008.
Over his 40-year career, Dr Reychler has published widely on
sustainable peacebuilding architecture, planning and evaluation of
violence prevention, and peacebuilding interventions and multilateral
negotiations.
Other titles in UQP’s New Approaches to Peace and Conflict series
Reporting Conflict: New directions in peace journalism
by Jake Lynch & Johan Galtung
When Blood and Bones Cry Out: Journeys through the soundscape of healing
and reconciliation
by John Paul Lederach & Angela Jill Lederach
Peace-making and the Imagination: Papua New Guinea perspectives
by Andrew Strathern and Pamela J Stewart
Peace and Security: Implications for women
by Elisabeth Porter and Anuradha Mundkur
Ending Holy Wars: Religion and conflict resolution in civil wars
by Isak Svensson
Breathing: Violence In, Peace Out
by Ivana Milojević
Also by Luc Reychler
Patterns of Diplomatic Thinking: A cross-national study of structural and
social-psychological determinants
European Security beyond the Year 2000 (co-edited with Robert Rudney)
The Art of Conflict Prevention (co-edited with Werner Bauwens)
Democratic Peacebuilding and Conflict Prevention: The devil is in the transition
Peacebuilding: A field guide (co-edited with Thania Paffenholz)
Aid for peace: A guide to planning and evaluation for conflict zones (co-au-
thored with Thania Paffenholz)
DR Congo: Positive prospects, building sustainable peace together
(co-authored with Jean Migabo Kalere)
NEW
APPROACHES
TO
PEACE
AND
CONFLICT
P

T
P
TIME FOR PEACE:
the essential role of
time in conflict and

peace processes
Luc Reychler
First published 2015 by University of Queensland Press
PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia
www.uqp.com.au
[email protected]
© Luc Reychler 2015
This book is copyright. Except for private study, research, criticism or reviews, as
permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written
permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.
Cover design by i2i design
Typeset in Minion Pro 11/15pt by Post Pre-press Group, Brisbane
Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
http://catalogue.nla.gov.au
ISBN 978 0 7022 5337 9 (pbk)
ISBN 978 0 7022 5458 1 (ePDF)
ISBN 978 0 7022 5459 8 (ePub)
ISBN 978 0 7022 5460 4 (Kindle)
University of Queensland Press uses papers that are natural, renewable and
recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The logging
and manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of
the country of origin.
I dedicate this book to D Elaine Exum, Lucas, my parents Albrecht and
Raphaella, my family, friends, teachers, students and friends, MaCSP,
IPRA, the UQP editing team, and all those working and struggling for
sustainable peace throughout the world.
Note from Series Editor
UQP’s New Approaches to Peace and Conflict series builds on the wisdom
of the first wave of peace researchers while addressing important 21st-
century challenges to peace, human rights and sustainable development.
The series publishes new theory, new research and new strategies for
effective peacebuilding and the transformation of violent conflict. It
challenges orthodox perspectives on development, conflict transformation
and peacebuilding within an ethical framework of doing no harm while
doing good.
Professor Kevin P Clements
Chair in Peace and Conflict Studies
Director of The National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies
University of Otago, New Zealand
Contents
Preface ix
ChaptEr 1 Time on the couch 1
ChaptEr 2 Less violence – far from peace 14
ChaptEr 3 Sustainable peacebuilding 33
ChaptEr 4 News time 49
ChaptEr 5 A vast temporal landscape 62
ChaptEr 6 Time in conflict and peace studies 105
ChaptEr 7 Dimensions of time 146
ChaptEr 8 The emotions of time 169
ChaptEr 9 The religion of time 191
ChaptEr 10 An adaptive temporament 216
Conclusion 245
Glossary 251
Notes 258
References 262
Index 282
preface
There are no good or bad wars. War is the cruel consequence of tempo-
ral misconduct and violence. Temporal politics, the way policy-makers
deal with time, is full of passion but also provides space for rational
deliberation. It can lead to progress or disaster. Think of the regime
change in Libya or the bloody repression of Gaza’s ghetto revolt in 2014.
Both events have drastically changed the global moral climate. Israel is
trapped in a double bind, an emotionally distressing dilemma that it is
not able or willing to resolve: it forces territorial expansion by means of
occupation, repression of the Palestinians and military dominance in
the region, while at the same time wishing to enjoy sustainable quiet or
security. This is, however, impossible, and maintaining such a double
bind can be its own kind of violence. To escape from these conflicting
aspirations, Tel Aviv has created a system based on a belief in military
supremacy and of occupying the moral high ground. This has led to too
much time being wasted and opportunities missed to build sustainable
peace and wellbeing for all in the region. As with other conflicts, part of
the solution is to place the problem in a broader temporal context and
show the impossibility of such a no-win scenario (Bateson 2000).
Time is the key in conflict and peace behaviour. It offers a more
sensitive measure of violence and makes the difference between
sustainable peace and chronic violence. To deal effectively with
global problems – climate change, marginalisation of the majority,
competition over resources, militarisation and racism – and to estab-
lish the necessary conditions for global sustainable peace, we will
x time for peace
have to change our ‘temporament’,1 or the way we deal with time,
drastically.
There is no lack of temporal attention. The news media and polit-
ical speeches are full of temporal issues. Floyd Norris (2014), for
example, noticed that amnesia was on full view when the US House
Financial Services Committee discussed the dangers of financial regu-
lation. David Brooks (2014) claims that politicians are campaigning
all the time and can scarcely think beyond the news cycle. Unrepre-
sentative lobbies now have disproportionate power in primary
elections. Recently, professors from a Christian college had to agree
with the statement that Adam and Eve are historical persons created
by God in a special formative act and not from previously existing
life forms (Blinder 2014). When he embraced President Vladimir
Putin, former German Chancellor Schröder reminded the critics of
the Second World War, in which Germany was responsible for the
deaths of 25 million people in the former USSR, that calling Putin, in
the context of the 2014 Ukraine dispute, a disguised Nazi is not right
(Smale 2014a).
When glancing at the temporal scene in conflict and peace behav-
iour, two problems come to the foreground. The first is the extreme
fragmentation of the temporal landscape. Different professions, such
as the military, financial, humanitarian or diplomatic sectors, have
distinct temporal cultures and compete for attention and priority.
Some people mourn the past; others mourn the future. Efforts of reac-
tive conflict prevention dominate proactive conflict prevention. Some
types of violence, such as ‘political terrorism’, are contained in temporal
bubbles. Looking for root causes is judged as inappropriate. When I
explained the Twin Towers disaster on 9/11 as a probable spillover
from Western policy in the Middle East, I was told not to say such
things on television. During several years, invitations to comment on
terrorism and Middle Eastern politics stopped coming. The fragmen-
tation of and political competition for the temporal landscape prevents
people from seeing the big picture and a more integrative approach
to time.