Progress for Peace?

Looking back at the first month of 2009, I’m feeling pretty good about the progress that has been made on several fronts towards peace. Sure, all of a sudden it’s en vogue to be hopeful thanks to Obama, but I’ve long considered myself an optimist. However as a practical peacenik, its also my job to look at the situation on the ground and the real prospects for peace, not just to hope it will be so.

2009 started off pretty rough with the escalation of conflict in the West Bank. And things are still very tenuous in the region. But despite the lack of a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, I believe the engagement of the Obama administration from day one through their envoy George Mitchell is incredibly important. I don’t think that the US can fix the situation, nor that its our place to do so. The situation is far too complex for the US to believe it can swoop in and broker peace in the Mideast. But even Obama’s rhetoric is an important sign that the US is committed to being engaged in the peace process in pragmatic way. According to yesterday’s editorial in the Washington Post, “Obama has already recognized that closing an Israeli-Palestinian deal on a two-state settlement is not a realistic aim for now; instead, he has spoken of providing "a space where trust can be built." Even the ability to understand and speak about the nuances of the situation is an important sea change.

In the Great Lakes region of Africa, Rwanda finally arrested General Laurent Nkunda, Tutsi soldier who has been central to the atrocities in Eastern DRC. This weekend at a pre-African Union Summit conference, national leaders from the Great Lakes region hailed the arrest of General Nkunda. And described his arrest as a positive contribution to regional peace. Leaders also indicated that Lord's Resistance Army chief Joseph Kony is the next target. The improvement of relations between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo is critical to bringing peace to Eastern DRC and addressing the devastating impact of the conflict on people in that region.

Provincial elections were held in Iraq on Saturday and, according to the New York Times, “something has changed and that whatever happens next, Iraq will not return to the way it was.” The hope is that these elections will provide “a more peaceful approach to settling disagreements among factions about the shape of the country.” While I am skeptical about elections in a country still at war, the fact that these elections seem to have caused insurgents on both sides to quell the violence and participate in the elections is a very good sign. At a time when President Obama is looking to draw down US troops, a move that I agree with, peaceful and legitimate elections were critical.

What else has happened this month that has promoted or postponed peace?... We’d love your input

Nobel Peace Prize Announced

This past week, the Nobel committee has been busy doling out its annual prizes in chemistry, literature, physics, medicine, economics and, of course, peace. I can’t help but feel like this prize perhaps more than any other, lends legitimacy to peace as a serious and respected discipline. Unlike the other prizes, however, the peace prize is generally awarded to individuals or organizations for their ongoing work or overall contributions to peace rather than a single past achievement.

In recent years, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to former President Jimmy Carter, Kofi Annan, Mohammed Yunus, and former Vice President Al Gore, among others.

This year’s prize went to former President of Finland, Martti Ahtisaari, for his work as a widely respected international mediator in places such as Namibia, Kosovo, Indonesia and Northern Ireland, among others. Some of his most important accomplishments include helping to bring independence to Namibia and a peaceful resolution to the conflict in the Aceh province of Indonesia. See the New York Times article on his nomination for more.

According to Time, by awarding this year’s prize to President Ahtisaari, “the Norwegian prize committee is returning to its original mandate of honoring those who help in the resolution of conventional armed conflicts.”

While I agree that it is important to recognize the largely “behind the scenes” peacemaking through mediation, I also believe that awarding the prize to figures like Al Gore and Mohammed Yunus was an important step in broadening our understanding of peacemaking. By awarding the prize to environmental and economic peacemakers, the committee recognized the less traditional components of peace. Building peace is not just about addressing ongoing conflicts and bringing them to an end, it is also about recognizing the root causes of conflict and attempting to draw attention to them and prevent them before they cause more widespread conflict.

By drawing attention to global climate change, Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were contributing to peace through enhanced understanding of a significant threat to environmental stability. Through this prize, the committee recognized that significant environmental change has enormous potential to cause widespread conflict though massive population movements, depletion of resources, and competition for remaining scarce resources.

Similarly, by awarding the prize to Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank, the Nobel committee recognized that providing microcredit loans to the world’s poor is an enormously important way to address global poverty and reduce the economic causes of conflict.

So, while I applaud the Nobel committee for this years choice because it draws attention to the highly important role of conflict mediation, I disagree that the committee should stick to these “traditional” forms of peacemaking in future prizes. As a practical peacenik, I think it is invaluable to draw attention to less traditional forms of peacemaking and, perhaps even more importantly, to advancements that have the potential to prevent future conflict rather than focusing just on conflict resolution.