No Peace without Social Justice
In this blog, student Anna Pilgrim discusses some of the items she has added to The Visualising Peace Library and the learning journey she has been on from understanding peace primarily as the absence of war to a more holistic and inclusive understanding.
When I joined this project in January 2024, I had a limited definition of peace that defined it by negation, i.e. that peace was the absence of war. Peace activism looked, to me, like anti-war protests, such as mass counterculture sit-ins and nominating a pig for President to protest the Vietnam War.[1] Considering recent student protests for Gaza,[2] this type of demonstration remains central to my conception of peace. However, if we think of peace as merely an ‘absence or war’, then peace as a concept becomes something elusive and intangible, which acts as the first psychological barrier in working towards it: peace is denoted as something that neither fully exists, nor is attainable. Peace, on the contrary, is something we can create and strive for in our everyday lives, establishing personal peace for ourselves, our community, and our world. Peace reaches beyond post-war recovery. It requires long-term sustaining, equal application to different social groups, and most importantly, intention. Peace is not just the removal of conflict, but social justice.
As such, I have contributed three resources to the library that aim to lift our understanding of peace beyond a relationship to war, highlighting the importance of social justice for different genders, different races, and the environment. By example, I aim to demonstrate how this project has de- and re-constructed what I had taken peace to be. Dianne Otto puts it best: “we need to go beyond the worlds we know, beyond the confines of law and the inevitability of quotidian hierarchies of gender, sexuality and race, to invent new methods of peace-making, outside the ‘frames of war’”.[3]
The first resource by Dianne Otto articulately challenges the mentalities of top-down peace, especially the United Nations, highlighting the connection between modern peace, colonialism and security. She foregrounds grassroots movements for peace against a backdrop of a limited United Nations, poignantly arguing that “permanent membership of the Council is enjoyed by those five states that were considered Great Powers at the end of World War II, and who are today among the world’s largest arms producers […] a fact that would, under the rules of the Colombian Peace Community, have immediately disqualified them from participation”,[4]which I find to be a clever critique of how international bodies often fall short of achieving true peace. Most importantly, Otto’s paper, by example, leaves me hopeful for a future of peace activism and the power of grassroots movements. As Otto notes: “We all need to wake, to dislodge peace from the shackles of war and hierarchy, to recognise and hold on to the everyday practices of peace all around us and build on the small seeds of resistance that have been left as traces in international law and politics”.[5]
The second resource, a talk by Daryl Davis, share’s the speaker’s insights into fear as a barrier to social peace in the case of American racism. While Davis reminds us, “I am a musician, not a psychologist or sociologist. If I can do that, anybody […] can do that” [18:19-18:26], there is a link between Davis’ practice and the psychology of peace. During a talk with the Visualising Peace 2024 cohort, Dr Ken Mavor shared his view that the biggest barrier to peace is hard boundaries that prevent opposing groups from engaging with one another. For Mavor, this is a “defining feature of extremism”.[6] Our session noted that when hard boundaries were drawn up between different social groups, then each social group became practically unreachable. On the other hand, as Davis’ experience shows, respect and listening can be a gateway to peace. He tells us, “[r]espect is the key. Sitting down and talking – not necessarily agreeing – but respecting each other to air their points of view” [18:02-18:09]. This is something I have personally always found very hard. Peace comes with the sacrifice of listening to others with opposing views. As such, I have included Davis’ resource to not only spotlight voices of colour but to also offer a perspective on peace through the power of listening. With this in mind, however, it is important to note that the burden of conciliation between oppressor and oppressed should not fall to the responsibility of the oppressed, especially in life-threatening situations like those Davis engaged in. Davis’ speech merely expresses his viewpoint on achieving societal cohesion, teaching us a valuable lesson about the importance of listening and respect on the road to peace, especially when we have the privilege to do so.
My final resource aims to spotlight the relationship between peace, war, colonialism, capitalism and the environment. Understanding ecocide is essential to understanding intersectional grassroots environmental movements, and explains the support of figures such as Greta Thunberg at Palestine marches.[7] Weizman et al., have recently identified a “systematic targeting of orchards and greenhouses by Israeli forces since October 2023” concluding that “this destruction is a widespread and deliberate act of ecocide”.[8] Moving beyond the context of war, ecocide is also a capitalist harm against environmental peace. Scholars and lawyers have cited oil spills and industry-caused flooding as other acts of ecocide that are more violations of social/environmental justice than they are acts of aggression or war crimes. Since the publication of this paper, there have been repeated calls from legal experts and state leaders to adopt ecocide as a Crime Against Peace. In recent months this campaign has gained traction in the UN and EU Parliament. In May 2024, the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called for the “need to establish a crime of ecocide at the international level”,[9] while the European Parliament voted to criminalise “cases comparable to ecocide” in February 2024.[10] I have thus included this paper to demonstrate the beginning of a movement within international law, calling for ecocide to be recognised as a barrier to peace. While a less hopeful paper, it realistically draws attention to the challenges of the international system of governance and helps extend an understanding of peace from beyond human beings to the environment.
In conclusion, these three resources demonstrate a transition of my understanding of peace as an elusive concept defined only in war’s absence, to one of peace as social justice for all. In accordance with Otto’s paper, I have ‘queered’ my understanding of peace. We are reminded that peace has stakes that are closer to home, and that personal and community peace is often the key to achieving wider global peace. We must consider barriers to peace in our own societies, and how we as individuals can help one another to achieve it.
[1] Alex Remnick, ‘The Pig Who Would Be President’, Retro Report, (1st September 2020), https://medium.com/retro-report/the-pig-who-would-be-president-fe6d2342ae6f [accessed 26.5.24].
[2] Raimond Gaita, ‘Friday essay: crimes against humankind – Rai Gaita on Israel’s war on Gaza and the student protests’, (23rdMay 2024), https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-crimes-against-humankind-rai-gaita-on-israels-war-on-gaza-and-the-student-protests-230014 [accessed 26.4.24].
[3] Dianne Otto, ‘Rethinking ‘Peace’ in International Law and Politics From a Queer Feminist Perspective’, Feminist Review, Vol. 126, No. 1, (2020), p.19.
[4] Ibid, p.26.
[5] Ibid, p.34.
[6] Ken Mavor, private correspondence with the Visualising Peace class, (1st February 2024).
[7] Ellie Muir, ‘Greta Thunberg removed from pro-Palestine protests by Swedish police outside Eurovision arena’, The Independent, (11th May 2024), https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/eurovision/greta-thunberg-eurovision-protest-palestine-sweden-police-b2543510.html [accessed 25.4.24].
[8] Eyal Weizman, Shourideh C. Molavi, Lucia Rebolino, Samaneh Moafi, Robert Trafford, Isabella Parlamis and Elizabeth Breiner, ‘No Traces of Life: Israel’s Ecocide in Gaza 2023-2024’, Forensic Architecture, (29th March 2024) https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/ecocide-in-gaza#:~:text=The%20destruction%20of%20agricultural%20land,under%20a%20decades%2Dlong%20siege. [accessed 23.5.24].
[9] United Nations Security Council, ‘Protection of civilians in armed conflict, Report of the Secretary-General’, (14th May 2024), p.11.
[10] Jojo Mehta, ‘EU PARLIAMENT VOTES TO CRIMINALISE CASES “COMPARABLE TO ECOCIDE’, Stop Ecocide International, (2024), https://www.stopecocide.earth/2024/eu-parliament-votes-to-criminalise-cases-comparable-to-ecocide [accessed 24.5.24].
REFERENCES
Dianne Otto, ‘Rethinking ‘Peace’ in International Law and Politics From a Queer Feminist Perspective’, Feminist Review (2020)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0141778920948081
Category/Tags: International peace, legal studies, queer studies, gender, law, United Nations,
In her intersectional paper on peace, Dianne Otto draws from her experience as a fellow in international human rights law to challenge conventional thinking about peace. ‘Rethinking ‘Peace’’ is thus an excellent starter resource on post-1945 thinking about peace, the UN and peacebuilding, both grassroots and top-down. By means of three case studies, (1) the stained-glass windows at the Peace Palace (The Hague, Netherlands), (2) demilitarised zones and (3) a peace community in Columbia, Otto demonstrates different approaches to peace and advocates for a demilitarised and decolonial approach.
In this work, Otto introduces us to a feminist theory of peace, that moves beyond wartime to the gendered experiences after war and discriminations in ‘peaceful’ society, to argue that peace is not just the absence of war, but also social justice. As such, she questions the “dualism of war and peace”.[1] She also invokes queer theory, which seeks to deconstruct the societal binary constructs, to call for a new way of thinking about peace outside of a hierarchical existence that privileges masculinity, militarisation, and colonial dominance. Such a theory highlights the “harms” that human bodies experience in times of so-called ‘peace’.
Otto makes some very compelling points in this work, isolating and naming different types of peace. She argues, using the windows of the Peace Palace, that many twentieth and twenty-first century ideas about peace are entrenched in the rhetoric of progress and civilisation, in what she calls “evolutionary peace”.[2] She argues that such an approach implicates “the cause of peace in Europe’s colonialisms of the past and the neo-imperialism of the present”.[3] Using demilitarised zones, she identifies an “enforced or militarised peace” which secures peace by repressing aggression and the threat of military force,[4] and questions whether we can “really call such zones, zones of peace?”.[5] Invoking the San José de Apartadó Peace Community (Columbia), Otto assesses the effectiveness of grassroots, community-constructed demilitarised zones. Unlike the earlier examples, she highlights how this peaceful zone is enforced not through weapons, but signs and pacifist encouragements. She also highlights how this area is made sustainable and environmental using traditional, indigenous methods, securing peace not only for human beings but also local flora and fauna. She then interrogates the effectiveness of the United Nations, whose primary objective is peace, and the flaws of the UN charter and Security Council, which condones violence and military force in securing peace. Then moving to American political history, she uses 9/11 and the rhetoric of Donald Trump to highlight a tension between national and international peace, arguing that in the name of ‘security’, “peace will come from patriotism and putting your own country first”.[6] She concludes by calling for a change to how we think about peace away from militaristic definitions and methods, to taking inspiration from grassroots and alternative (‘queer’) ways of thinking.
This paper pairs nicely with, ‘Gender identity: Is femininity inherently peaceful?’ (Skjelsbaek, 1998). Otto espouses a queer theory of peace for its ability to open “the possibility of ‘disruptive’ gender identities able to challenge the male/female dualism that sustains militarism and hierarchies of gender by associating peace with femininity and ‘weakness’, and conflict with manliness and ‘strength’”,[7] providing an activist response to the gendered rhetorics of war and peace that Skjelsbaek identifies.
Anja Gauger, Mai Pouye Rabatel-Fernel, Louise Kulbicki, Damien Short and Polly Higgins, ‘Ecocide is the missing 5th Crime Against Peace’, a report for The Ecocide Project, (2012/3)
https://sas-space.sas.ac.uk/4830/1/Ecocide_research_report_19_July_13.pdf
Category/tags: environmental peace, international peace, human rights, legal studies, United Nations, European Parliament
This report helps ground an understanding of ecocide as a peace-obscuring technique used by colonial and military powers, most recently by Israel in Gaza,[8] and the United States in the Vietnam War.[9] As such, this resource helps foster an understanding of environmental peace, and its interlinkages with international and community peace.
In detailing a history of how the term ‘ecocide’ came to be in global politics and international law, Gauger et al. identify a top-down condemnation of this activity, starting with heads of state and war crime scholars, and culminating in the creation of the United Nations’ Environment Programme (UNEP). Following a 1930s legal definition of ‘genocide’ by Raphael Lemkin, and the 1948 precedent of the UN Convention on Genocide, the authors argue that ecocide qualifies as both physical and cultural genocide, for “[e]cocide is the direct physical destruction of a territory which can in some instances lead to the death of humans and other beings. Ecocide can and often does lead to cultural damage and destruction; and the direct destruction of a territory can lead to cultural genocide”.[10] They highlight that 121[11] countries are legally bound to the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) 1998 Rome Statute, which condemns “long-term and severe damage to the natural environment”.[12] Much like Otto’s paper, campaigners against ecocide call for an acknowledgement of it in both wartime and peacetime, blurring the distinct boundaries of war and peace when it comes to environmental harm.
Daryl Davis, ‘Why I, as a black man, attend KKK rallies’, TEDx Talks, (2017)
Category/tags: community peace, international peace, social justice, racism, psychology
Considering how peace extends beyond just the context of war by requiring social justice, this resource shares Daryl Davis’ view on how to go about a more peaceful community in the case of racist extremism and white supremacy. Davis, an African American jazz musician, talks of his ‘friendship’ with Roger Kelly, the then Imperial Wizard [national leader] of the Ku Klux Klan. He first begins by explaining how he as a child has learned of racism, and how it caused him to ask why people, who did not know him, would hate him on account of his skin colour. His curiosity led him to getting into contact with Kelly, who, unaware of Davis’ race, agrees to meet with him. After their first meeting, Davis repeatedly invited him to his home, “just to engage in conversation” [12:26-12:29]. Their acquaintance developed, and Kelly began inviting Davis to his home, and then to KKK rallies. Davis concludes by showing a clip of Kelly making a speech, talking of the respect he has for Davis and how he would follow him ‘to hell and back’, before revealing that, because of their conversations, Kelly ended up leaving the KKK. Davis shares his view on peace: “When two enemies are talking they’re not fighting – they’re talking. It’s when the talking ceases that the ground becomes fertile for violence.” [18:32-18:39]
[1] Otto, ‘Rethinking Peace’, p.19.
[2] Ibid, p.22-23.
[3] Ibid, p.23.
[4] Ibid, p.24.
[5] Ibid, p.25.
[6] Ibid, p.29.
[7] Ibid, p.21.
[8] Eyal Weizman, Shourideh C. Molavi, Lucia Rebolino, Samaneh Moafi, Robert Trafford, Isabella Parlamis and Elizabeth Breiner, ‘No Traces of Life: Israel’s Ecocide in Gaza 2023-2024’, Forensic Architecture, (29th March 2024) https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/ecocide-in-gaza#:~:text=The%20destruction%20of%20agricultural%20land,under%20a%20decades%2Dlong%20siege. [accessed 23.5.24].
[9]Anja Gauger, et al., ‘Ecocide is the missing 5th Crime Against Peace’, p.5.
[10] Ibid, p.6.
[11] As of 2012. There are now 124 countries that have signed the statute.
[12] International Criminal Court, ‘Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court’, (2021), p.6.