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The
illustration above has been used throughout this basic course as background information on the scientific approach to peace
education. This illustration attempts to show the relationship between the core terms of war and
peace, and violence and conflict. The continuum between war and peace encompasses all the "aggregate states" that can exist in international
politics. For its part, war represents one of the extremities and is characterized
by a high degree of violence. Peace forms the other extremity and is characterized
by the (completely) non-violent resolution of conflict. Between these two extremes, a distinction can be made between a large number of aggregate
states, depending on the degree of violence that is evident.
One of the most important
aspects, however, is to understand that conflicts will always exist both in war,
obviously, and also in times of peace. Conflicts are an inherent part of social life and shouldn't be viewed as a
problem. It is best to think about conflicts as the invisible background of the continuum
above. To this end, then, the purpose of peace politics and peace education is not to prevent
conflict. This would be a senseless activity. No, the real aim is to achieve a situation in which conflicts are being resolved in a non-violent way.
Or, to put it differently, it's about civilizing conflict, which forms the turning point in our
illustration.
The following extract addresses the core term of "conflict" from a scientific
perspective:
"Conflict in a narrow
"objective" sense is understood in peace and conflict research as meaning (...) an incompatibly different position about a particular issue or over a particular
thing, that is, the object of the conflict. This can be a real object - like an apple being fought over by two children who both want to have it for
themselves. But it can also be an abstract issue such as the legislation surrounding the subject of
abortion. Looking at it like this, conflict is part and parcel of social life and something that is completely
"natural". In actual fact, it is neither positive nor negative. Social conflicts become manifest
(obvious) because of the conflict behavior
of at least one of the parties involved in the conflict. And it is from the conflict
behavior of all parties involved that the way
in which the conflict
is resolved is determined, whereby a distinction has to be made between peaceful and violent
means. Behavior is used to mark the second corner or the conceptual triangle, which was proposed by the peace and conflict
researcher, Johan Galtung (1978) as a way of conceptualizing "conflict" (...).
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The third
"corner" is represented by "attitude", that
is, the attitude of those involved about the object of the
conflict, about the other party in the conflict and about their own conflict
behavior. The domestic arguments surrounding the issue of abortion provide a good example of an emotional attitude to the object of the
conflict, while at an international level, the dispute over Jerusalem, which has great symbolic value for both sides of the
conflict, is another example. The violent discharge of conflict in which the enemy is seen as being inhuman or even sub-human and its actions as
barbarian, despite the fact that there might not be any distinction from an objective point of
view between the actions of the enemy and one's own actions, are good examples of
the impact that attitude can have on escalating a conflict and the behavior of the opposing
side."
[Taken from: Martin List u.a.: Internationale Politik. Probleme und Grundbegriffe, Opladen 1995, S. 111]
We have also provided another text that deals with the issue of "conflict
civilization" ...
[Author: Ragnar Müller]
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