By: Victor Kwawukume
“If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies”.
This remarkable statement was made by no lesser a person than a former Israeli military powerhouse and later, a Foreign Affairs Minister of Israel, Moshe Dayan (1915-1981).
This was after so many decades or perhaps, centuries of war and antagonism between them and the Palestinians over land ownership and settlement, which had led to so many deaths and destruction, albeit unnecessary on both sides, which he, as a military officer, had been actively involved in.
Moshe Dayan became one of
But finally, he came to the painful realisation that it was useless and perhaps needless to want to address the issue of peace through the use of force and violence.
How I would have wished that all who had taken leadership roles to champion the cause of the two peoples of Israel and Palestine would have come to this realisation and that the common people of the two areas, would have also seen the bare truth that they could not attain the desired peace through daily attacks and counter-attacks.
This lesson may not have been grasped by the corporate peoples of Israel and Palestinian who have been embroiled in this seemingly unending conflict that has raged on for several years and anyone who seeks to learn a true path to peace and unity after years of war and antagonism, may never get any meaningful example from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
However, there is another conflict that has raged on for close to a century; a conflict which had led to so many deaths, destruction of property, fear and generational hatred and antagonism but which may provide useful lessons for the cause of the attainment of peace after decades of fighting.
This is the Alavanyo-Nkonya conflict which has raged on for over 80 years.
The good news is that after these many years of experiencing the negativities of conflict which has left the two places impoverished and lacking any meaningful development, the good peoples of the two areas have made an unflinching commitment to ending hostilities and finding lasting peace.
They have probably learnt wisdom from Moshe Dayan that if you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends but your enemies and for that matter, they have resorted to dialogue as a means of ironing out their differences and charting the course towards peace.
Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) a renowned preacher and Doctor once said that “in the hearts of people today, there is a deep longing for peace. When the true spirit of peace is thoroughly dominant, it becomes an inner experience with unlimited possibilities. Only when this really happens - when the spirit of peace awakens and takes possession of men's hearts, can humanity be saved from perishing”.
The Alavanyo-Nkonya peace process which began in 2004 within an atmosphere of suspicion, fear and the ingrained pessimism on the part of sceptics that it would not work, had gradually gathered steam and moving stealthily towards an enviable goal.
Even though the ultimate goal is yet to be achieved, it goes without saying that the people of the two places have demonstrated maturity and ample good faith that beacons the hope that ultimate peace is within their possible reach.
Martin Luther King Jr., once said that “one day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means”.
And so has it been that the people of the two places have come to pursue peace through dialogue, fighting and killing having denied them any victory or progress.
While commending the people of the areas on the successes chalked, it is worthy of drawing lessons from what had been achieved so far, so as to form a pool of knowledge and example for others who may want to emulate the shining example of the people of Alavanyo and Nkonya.
The Alavanyo – Nkonya conflict has shown that war leaves no victors, only victims and that the most disadvantageous peace is better than the most just war.
That is to say, they have come to the realisation that war, hatred, destruction, fear and suspicion rather than furthering their cause had only succeeded in robbing them of the glory that is associated with peace, progress and development.
Today, the two areas are crying for development. Most facilities that should have been due them are absent. Schools in the area were closed down due to the conflict. Workers who were posted there refused to take up posts and a rather vibrant social structure that existed before had given way to stagnation and decay.
One lesson that must be learnt from this example is the insistent demand from the youths of the two areas for peace.
They had come to the conclusion that after many decades of war and antagonism, their forbears had failed in attaining what was more important—development and rather, their future had become bleak and uncertain due to the absence of peace which had robbed them of any positive development.
It has always been said that the future belongs to the youth therefore they must not sit idle while the elderly, most of who may have nothing to lose, incense them to take up arms and fight.
They must rather learn to use the medium of dialogue in thrashing out differences rather resorting to violence and destruction.
Perhaps the philosophy of the youths of the two areas could best be captured in the words of Robert Maynard Hutchins (1899-1977) that “the goal toward which all history tends is peace, not peace through the medium of war, not peace through a process of universal intimidation, not peace through a program of mutual impoverishment, not peace by any means that leaves the world too weak or too frightened to go on fighting, but peace pure and simple based on that will to peace which has animated the overwhelming majority of mankind through countless ages. This will to peace does not arise out of a cowardly desire to preserve one's life and property, but out of conviction that the fullest development of the highest powers of men can be achieved only in a world of peace”.
The Alavanyo-Nkonya story had tangibly demonstrated how information could be used in demystification and paving the way for dialogue which is crucial to the attainment of peace.
This is because, during the process, one of the revelations that came up was the fact that a good number of the people had been committed to fighting a relentless war borne out of misinformation.
More so, it had become apparent that some mischievous few were exploiting the situation to enrich themselves through the sale of arms for the purposes of fighting.
And it is these miscreants who would not love to see any peace being achieved and would therefore do anything to ensure that the relation between the two people was always volatile.
But above all, the willingness to embrace peace by the collective people of Alavanyo and Nkonya had been the strongest pillar in the drive to ensure peaceful co-existence between them.
The desire for peace had become as pronounced as the desire for water to quench thirst on a scorching sunny day in the
Many years of court actions and rulings had not helped in the resolution of the matter, thereby giving credence to the famous quotation by John F. Kennedy, former
The lessons from the Alavanyo-Nkonya process have also shown that government cannot be relied on to bring peace between feuding communities.
The best government could do may be to keep peace when conflicts break out but the means to the attainment of peace is incumbent upon the feuding parties whose responsibility it is to see that nothing can be achieved by fighting and that if peace is not attainable then it may well mean that they may have forgotten that they belonged to each other.
Such was it that if government had been relied upon in this peace process, I don’t believe that much would have been achieved now since government assistance to the process had been woefully inadequate.
What rather boggles the mind is that in the event of a conflict situation, government is prepared to spend any much in deploying the Police and Military to the area to keep the peace. The least said about the huge sums of money spent on these peace-keepers, the better.
More annoying probably, is the fact that these peace keepers became a drain on national resources and succeeded effectively in impregnating the daughters of the people of the two areas to the extent that children have been born today whose fathers cannot be traced.
But more importantly, the peace deal which has reached a very crucial stage, is stalling due to lack of adequate funds to manage the next stage.
Government must not only be interested in pumping endless tranches of money into peace-keeping when conflicts break out but it must also be interested and committed to ensuring that peace processes, once started are given the needed support in all forms to come to a successful end.
The Alavanyo-Nkonya peace deal promises to be model for even nations that have been at each other’s throats for centuries. For
Government must be proactive in ensuring that the clock of progress regarding the Alavanyo-Nkonya peace deal is not turn backwards and that the flame of peace that is burning in the hearts and minds of the people of the area is not allowed to smoulder.
The people have amply exhibited their resolve to achieve peace. This will and determination should be matched by government’s resolve to bringing peace to all trouble spots of the country.
Finally, let us take a cue from the advice given by Martin Luther King Jnr. that “if we have a will - and determination - to mount such a peace offensive, we will unlock hitherto tightly sealed doors of hope and transform our imminent cosmic elegy into a psalm of creative fulfilment”.
1 comment:
And what do you think of Obadiah Shoher's arguments against the peace process ( samsonblinded.org/blog/we-need-a-respite-from-peace.htm )?
Post a Comment