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Posts Tagged ‘War’

A World Where Conflicts Are Solved Peacefully

Oct 20th, 2009
by ianpeatey.
16 comments

Something suddenly became crystal clear to me yesterday. What had been fuzzy and out-of-focus, in a flash became sharp and well defined. It wasn’t of Newtonian ‘apple-falling-from-tree-equals-gravity ‘ proportions – yet important for me nonetheless.

605543_stone_sculpture

Dreaming Of World Peace

I’d just returned from an International NVC Mediation Conference and was chatting to a friend over a coffee, sharing our impressions of the Conference. I get quite animated when talking about my dream for the future of the world – the one I state as clearly as I can in the Welcome message over there on the right:

“… a world where conflicts are solved peacefully …”

Despite my passion for this vision, I found myself apologising for it as naïve, idealistic and impossible to achieve. I could even say I was whining a bit!

Why was I apologising, I asked myself? Do I really have my head in the clouds, I wondered? It was more confusing as I’d just spent the last 5 days together with 60 people from all over the world, learning how to mediate between two conflicting sides.

Then the apple fell.

I, like the majority of people, haven’t believed that universal peace is possible:

“World Peace? Wonderful idea .. but no chance of happening! At least not in my lifetime”

But why not?

Are we doomed to a future of turmoil, hurting and killing each other? Are we really unable, as a species, to rise above that and choose love and peace instead of hatred and fighting?

Believing In The Possible

If I don’t believe something is possible then how can I expect it to happen? If I’m trying to achieve a goal without the conviction that it can happen, my energy is getting diverted. It’s half-hearted.

This last week I found the belief I was missing. I started to believe that not only is peace possible, it’s actually not that difficult!

I learned a few skills and a simple process designed to help solve conflicts peacefully. They’re not hard to learn and we all have the foundations already – for example, empathy, interrupting, asking questions, making requests, keeping track of a conversation. There’s a little more to it than that – but not much.

I became clear that anyone can learn how to solve conflict peacefully.

World peace is possible.

All it needs is enough people to learn and apply these skills. We’ll have world peace when most of us learn a little – just enough to solve day to day conflicts, and a few learn deeper to deal with the more intense conflicts.

Peace In My Lifetime

Conflict is not going away – it is an important part of life. It’s stimulating and in the tension where interests meet there’s a creative possibility greater than what the individual sides bring. Conflict – inner or outer – drives us to innovate, create and is part of being alive. I love conflict!

Peace is not the absence of conflict but the resolution of conflict with love and respect.

919567_innerpeace_1I strongly believe the majority of the world’s population want this – they just don’t believe it’s possible. Many people get a superficial kick from violent conflict – but deep in their hearts are wishing to get their kicks in ways that are peaceful.

We all want peace in our lives but we don’t yet believe it’s possible. We’ve built a world where we are constantly receiving messages designed to keep hope away and keep us believing in violence.

  • War has been glamorised to get us to support killing in the name of the nation, religion or other cause
  • Violence has been pushed down our throats as entertainment by the mass media
  • Our culture values aggression as a sign of strength.

We’ve lost our collective hope that it can be different.

Yesterday I had also lost hope.

Today I write boldly and clearly:

Help me build a world where conflicts are solved peacefully – it is not only possible, it’s easy.

How we die

Sep 2nd, 2009
by ianpeatey.
6 comments

It’s very much a cliché, but … we all die.

What we can be sure of is that our physical bodies age and die. Beyond that, no matter how certain I might think I am, nobody truly knows what happens. Many people have very full lives and die at ripe old ages, and, while it can be painful to say ‘goodbye’, we know it’s the right time for them to leave.

There is a line of thought that says whenever we die is the right time because of fate, karma, the will of God, or whatever. But many of us have known people we consider have died ‘before their time’ – from preventable diseases, accidents or intentionally.

For most of us these are premature deaths and hard to accept or understand.

Though death itself is inevitable, many of the causes of death are not.

The death test

Perhaps it’s not in the best possible taste, but I offer you a short test to start with.

Below is a list of 6 possible causes of premature death:

  • Falling
  • War
  • Suicide
  • Road Traffic Accidents
  • Drowning
  • Non war acts of violence

Your task (should you accept it) is to rank them in order from most fatalities to least.

For example, if you think ‘Drowning‘ kills more people than any of the other items, that goes at the top of your list. The answers are revealed a little further down, so you might want to stop reading until you’ve done the test.

And for those who really enjoy a challenge – guess how many people die annually worldwide from each cause.

The World Health Report – some figures

Before I reveal the answers I should just say a few words about where my figures come from as you may have access to more recent statistics.

I took the figures from the World Health Organisation (WHO) ‘World Health Report – 2004.’ The figures are the combined worldwide figures from 2002 and are from Annex 2 of the report.

Apparently a total of just over 57 million people died in 2002 and the huge majority of those died from an illness or some kind of health failure. You could argue that all death is a health failure, but I hope you know what I mean! The research is a wonderland for any hypochondriac – so if you fall into that category, I invite you to study the tables in detail ;-)

The study shows number of deaths from pretty much any disease or health failure you can imagine. Looking at those figures it’s clear (to me at any rate) that many millions of people die of health related reasons because of poverty and lack of access to decent health care.

These are preventable and, while I in no way want to imply they are unimportant, they are not what I want to look at here.

I’m focusing on deaths as a result of direct violence of some kind – either intentional or unintentional. So as you read on, please bear in mind that I’m talking about a relatively small proportion of fatalities – around 9% of the total.

So … how do we die?

1.   Road Traffic Accidents

1,192,000
2.   Suicide

873,000
3.   Non war acts of violence

559,000
4.   Falling

392,000
5.   Drowning

382,000
6.   War

172,000

How did you do on the test?

There are other causes listed in the report, with a total of 3,551,000 unintentionally and 1,618,000 intentionally violent deaths – around 9% of the total.

Some reactions

Rather than an in-depth analysis, I offer a few personal reactions – and I’d love to hear your own in the comments section.

1   Cars are deadly

For all the talk about gun control, the motor vehicle is the most lethal weapon we possess (though if you shoot a gun at someone you are clearly more likely to cause death or injury than if you get in a car!).

  • How many more millions are injured?
  • How come we got so careless with our driving?
  • When did we start to build and buy such dangerous cars (I guess speed is the big factor here)?

2  Life is lonely and painful for many

I wasn’t surprised that traffic accidents were at the top of the list. I was horrified that suicide is number two. And given that suicide is something of a taboo subject, I’m wondering if the true figures might be even higher. The report doesn’t actually mention ’suicide’ but describes it as ‘Self inflicted’ in the category of ‘Intentional deaths’. Is this a symptom of the taboo nature of suicide?

  • How did we allow life to become so painful and meaningless to so many hundreds of thousands of people?
  • Have our communities broken down so far that so many people feel isolated and alone?
  • Why is this not talked about more in the mainstream?

3   War is not only about death

Clearly the number of deaths in war can change dramatically depending on the conflicts in any given year. 2002 was not, as I recall an especially war-rich year, but I’m still surprised by the small number. My impression (from the media space it receives) was that war is a much greater cause of death – clearly this impression is wrong.

Also just looking at the figures is misleading as the consequences of war are far wider and deeper than the direct casualties.

  • How many die because of illness, poverty, relocation as a result of war?
  • How do you measure the long term consequences – emotional, physical, economic?

4    Careless in the extreme

We are pretty careless, judging by the number of accidents we have. We die from falling, drowning, getting poisoned (350,000) and in fires (312,000).

  • How do we balance being careful with living life to the full?
  • Are we really aware of basic safety precautions around the home and on the street?

What do you think of these numbers? Have you been affected by any of these among your family, friends or colleagues?

They did, we did … I did

Jul 1st, 2009
by ianpeatey.
9 comments

Conspiracy theories seem to be quite popular these days – ranging across the spectrum from religion, politics through to historical events. If this interests you (and you have 2 hours to spare!) then the film ‘Zeitgeist’ might appeal (see the end of this article for the embedded video).

crosswalk

Personally I don’t need conspiracy theories or elite underworlds to explain the state of the world. I also don’t need alien or divine intervention to explain it.

We did it ourselves!

Obviously we didn’t create the world itself but we did create the state much of it’s in now. It took many generations to build our societies, our nations, our cities, mines, armies and populations but it is our current generations who are responsible for maintaining and improving them. Humankind created many truly wonderful things we can be rightly proud of but we also created poverty, crime, war, violence and much of the suffering around us.

I know the causes of the suffering are neither simple nor easy to fix. I guess many of us have our pet projects, our own opinions about what to do and differing levels of motivation for action.

The first, and I believe the most important, step is to take responsibility.

They did it

They created poverty, crime, war, violence and much of the suffering around us

It may be comforting to take the position of righteous indignation and blame others for the things I don’t like, but that approach doesn’t much change anything. Even if it’s true, this way of tackling the issues often puts them on the defensive. There’s also a risk of putting myself into a ‘victim’ position if I’m passing responsibility onto them.

It’s also rarely clear who they are anyway!

Clearly there are some people who are doing things we’d all be better off without (apart from them, presumably, or they wouldn’t be doing it) and, while it might be tempting to use guilt or even violence to change things, I don’t believe it’s effective in the long run.

What I can do is put my energy into getting my message across in a way that’s most likely to be heard and understood. That means trying to avoid criticism, aggression or taking a moral high ground as that will only get the same response back. I can attempt dialogue, mutual understanding, gaining co-operation and working on problems together. And there may be times when I’m prepared to use force to protect life – but not as an instrument of fear or coercion.

I’m not claiming this is easy – especially when they don’t want to listen and when they are using aggression. But using those same tactics to effect change is to become them.

We did it

We created poverty, crime, war, violence and much of the suffering around us

I recognise that I am part of the problem – and so am also likely to be part of the solution. Included in this way of thinking is a strand of criticism – after all you are part of the we and so you created it too. That’s fine if we’re in agreement but not if you disagree.

There’s amazing value though in collective action as a group carries more weight than the individual and a sense of community can be a very powerful thing. They are more likely to listen (in fact they are part of the we) and we bring more ideas to the table.

What I can do is put my energy into building a common cause, persuading and mobilising others.

I did it

I created poverty, crime, war, violence and much of the suffering around me

Is it true?

It may not be the whole ‘truth’ but isn’t it at least as true as the previous versions of the quote? There’s a risk I take upon myself the burden of all the problems and collective guilt of the world. On the other hand I find an incredible power for getting off my backside and doing something when I take personal responsibility (= ability to respond?).

I created – or at least contribute to maintaining – the problems, so it’s up to me to fix them.

Here my focus is on changing myself and the things in my life I have direct control or influence over. I look for the areas of my life where I create or maintain poverty, crime, war, violence and suffering – and I do something about it.

***********************

ZEITGEIST

for those who enjoy a good conspiracy theory (btw I’m not endorsing any of the views in this movie!)

Heart of business

Jun 23rd, 2009
by ianpeatey.
20 comments

‘Business bashing’ seems to be a common pastime with corporations getting the blame for everything from pollution, climate change, destruction of the natural world through to waging and maintaining war. In short, just about all the ills of the world are apparently on the hands of big business.

Is business really that powerful and that destructive?

It’s driven many of the rapid advances in our standard of living over the last few hundred years. So yes, it is powerful! These advances (mainly enjoyed by the minority of the world’s population) have come with many, unpleasant side effects. So, yes, it is also destructive.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the power of business could be harnessed in a different way? A way that doesn’t extract such a high price from the majority of mankind and from our planet?

Behind every business …

Blaming business doesn’t really get to the core of the problem as it’s a convenient facade to hide behind.

Much of the complexity of the business world is nothing more than smoke and mirrors hiding a way of organising people (sometimes very large numbers) to do together, more than they can do on their own. It’s a way of bringing people together to create value, and, through the market economy, pass that value on – which was made a whole lot easier with the invention of money.

Isn’t that what it ultimately boils down to?

All the time we’re pointing the finger at ‘corporations’, we’re not talking to the people behind the face of the the corporation. Business is people – always was and always will be.

‘Business’ itself doesn’t do anything – people do. Many may have a legal identity of their own, but they have no life of their own – people do. Organisations don’t make decisions, that’s what people do. And businesses don’t wage war, rape the environment and pollute the planet. PEOPLE do!

I’m convinced that these are not bad people and they are not deliberately wreaking havoc and destruction on the world. In the many years I spent in large corporations, I don’t remember ever meeting someone who was hell bent on devastation or intent on causing pain and suffering.

What I did notice were three things that I believe contribute to some people apparently not caring about the world.

1   Leaving your heart at home

A few days ago I was sitting behind two businessmen on a train. I really wasn’t eavesdropping, they were talking loud enough for everyone to hear who chose to. I don’t know exactly what they did or what their responsibility was but they were talking about problems with one of their businesses caused by the economic squeeze.  They could have been venture capitalists, or something like that. Before anyone writes to tell me that they couldn’t have been venture capitalists because of x, y and z … I’ll just say that I have little idea what a venture capitalist does, it just sounded good.

“It’s not a problem. I’ll just tell the 4 of them they don’t have jobs any more,” said one.

What struck me most, was that he laughed as he said this. It could have been nervous laughter, but from the way the two of them were talking it didn’t seem like it. In any case, his tone was light and cheerful. Business as usual.

How can someone talk so lightly, even with amusement, about telling someone they no longer have a job?

There seems to be unwritten rule that when we walk into the workplace, we are expected to leave the majority of our emotional world at home – especially that part connected with compassion. Typically we’re employed for our bodies or minds, but rarely for our hearts.

The man on the train had clearly left his heart somewhere.

2    Fear

Despite all the talk about empowerment and employee ownership, most business remains firmly autocratic,  hierarchical and strangely resistant to democracy. In my experience few bosses deliberately use fear to get things done. There are some around, but they really don’t need to.

Fear is built into the structure of most organisations.

Most people I talk to are not motivated to work solely for money or position (a rare few are) but they do value the sense of security they have from a ’steady job’. It takes a lot of courage to disobey, disagree with or even speak your mind to your boss when you don’t like how things are going. If that applies to the small things, then it’s even harder to speak up against the corporation you work for.

It’s easy to say, “If you don’t like what your company does, then leave” – but for many people, while clearly a choice, that’s a frightening step.

Fear steps in.

On a day to day basis, the boss influences and decides promotions, pay increases and many other things. The boss can punish and can reward and whenever those two appear, fear is not far away. Fear of getting punished, fear of not getting rewarded.

Fear is built into business as a tool to get things done.

Would fear be needed if everything we did in the name of business made the world a better place?

3   Distracted from purpose

I think business has simply got off track.

There are many reasons why it’s happened. The dominance of the financial systems lead to short term focus on what’s easily measurable (profit, share prices etc). Intense competition in many areas of business require hard, aggressive tactics to maintain market position – and hard, aggressive tactics are rarely high in the compassion stakes.

There are surely plenty of reasons why business has generally lost sight of its purpose. It is there, just hidden under surplus layers of commerce and an obsession with short term gain.

We’ve forgotten that behind all business is an intention to create value and serve life.

And we’re all part of it in some way. Whether you work in a business or just buy stuff from business you can make a difference.

Be clear on purpose, carry your heart with you always and act out of love, not fear.

Life: Powerful And Fragile

Jun 8th, 2009
by ianpeatey.
27 comments

My younger daughter lost her first tooth last week and the older turned 17 a couple of weeks ago. I woke up this morning with both of these things on my mind, a melancholy feeling and a sense that life is slipping me by.

Sometimes I believe I’ll live forever, and at other times I’m very connected to my own mortality.

Isn’t this one of the very many paradoxes we live with? The power of life itself and the fragility of life in us as individuals?

Fragility of life

I spoke to a friend today who’s living with the imminent death of her husband from disease. They don’t know how long he has left, but they do know it is much less than he might have if he were healthy.

Every time I turn on the TV or read the newspapers I’m faced with my own mortality through the deaths of others. More than 200 lost in a plane crash, 50 killed in a car bomb, an estimated  10,000 children dying daily from diseases connected to lack of clean drinking water.

Every living creature dies. The manner, time and place are unknown to most of us, but we do know it will happen.

There is no escaping this, there is only living it.

This has always been a powerful reason to me, for living this life of mine to the full. To experience as much as possible, learn what I can, give what I have and treat each moment of life as supremely precious.

My life, your life, everyone’s life.

It has long been a mystery to me how some people are capable of killing or inflicting suffering on others.

I can only conclude they are not connected to just how wonderful and transient life is.

My own life is fragile, delicate and unique. There is no other identical manifestation of life, there never was and never will be again. How could I even consider wasting it, abusing it or fulfilling it any less than to its maximum potential?

It is this fragility that makes me sensitive to both the joys and the suffering around me. That drives me to seek to protect and make this place a safer one for us all.

Power of life

If I raise my head a little I see my wife sitting on the sofa by the window, our 2 dogs sleeping on the floor, a couple of flies buzzing, several trees growing outside and a few birds flying around. All that beauty available to me with hardly moving a muscle.

No-one knows how long life has been around on this planet, how widespread it is through the universe or what life will look like in the distant future. Much of this can be fun to hypothesise and imagine and remains, for the most part, the stuff of science fiction.

I grew up during the Cold War and the topic we discussed most passionately in student bars was the likelihood of war and whether we (the ‘good’ guys) and they (the ‘bad’ guys) would destroy each other. Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) was the way we described it and it seemed a reality to our young minds that mankind had the power to destroy the planet. Or if not the planet, at the very least, all life on the planet.

Now, the Climate Change debate seems to have taken over the MAD concept and ‘destroying our planet’ has moved from Cold War rhetoric into Environmental rhetoric.

Let me be clear.

I abhor the wanton destruction of life and irresponsible use of the the world’s resources in the interests of profit.

But we do not have the power to destroy the planet.

I doubt we even have the power to destroy our own species, let alone life in all its forms. Life is deeply rooted into this planet of ours and is stronger than we are – and always will be.

Life itself is here to stay, it is enduring, adaptable and you and I are part of its intricate web. I also believe my life force, my soul if you like, is permanent and immortal.

This is not a reason to abuse our planet but even greater reason to treat life with respect. To be in awe of it, admire it and feel humble in its presence.

It is the strength of life that gives me a sense of purpose and  permanence. A conviction that it is worthwhile making an effort to make something out of this life of mine, no matter how small and insignificant it might be in the grand scheme of things.

It is the fragility of life that brings to me this almost overwhelming joy and sadness when my younger daughter loses her first tooth and my elder daughter turns 17 …

… and it’s the power of life that helps me withstand the fact that I was not around to witness either.

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