Balance

Rarely do we see war as an act of civic engagement in a political argument. However, war is the utmost physical engagement a person can delve into when it comes to politics. Such engagement is the brutal reality of war. As politicians talk about civic engagement we must understand the balance of such goals. Each war we experience begins with people protesting, shouting and asking for change. This civic engagement then boils over from words to fists, to bullets, to barricades, to grenades, to tanks, to bombs and then airplanes and finally a city is destroyed. Egypt did not fall into complete ruin or as much ruin as did Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, ort others. Ukraine has also seemed to dodge the complete destruction of war. In each situation, the civic engagement went out of control and into a realm of chaos. Why? How do we balance such civic engagement from spiraling out of control?

Libyas' Future

With each conflict the world deals with, the plan to bring peace and stability often fails with the initial setup. There are a great many reasons why peace is a very difficult thing to bring about. First of all is the concerted effort needed to sustain trust in the people that peace is being held. For example we can look at Libya. I wrote a number of articles and posted them to this site. In these articles the path to peace was spelled out. I am only a small player within the global context but if I had seen what was going on why was no one else looking? Tribal warfare has been the largest source of violence and for the most part, what I wrote has taken place. The tribal wars have taken root and the central government is on very weak ground. Even with the election of Ahmed Maetig, peace is far off. Within President Maetig’s speeches, he rests on the need for the legitimate force. Legitimate force is a United Nations sovereignty factor which allows a government to use all means to control violent groups or situations. The issue within Libya is that the country was without any centrally credible force to call upon except the already existing tribal forces. This created a power vacuum and leads us to what we are dealing with today. There is an unease of trust within the government forces as well with the politicians. What is to be done? President Maetig has talked about the singular vision of Libya, this is a very needed step. His biggest challenge outside of the violence is to get the leaders to agree on the singualr vision of Libya. The world needs to support these talks and assist with providing a peaceful environment for such talks to grow. For me the hardest task is to ensure the communities where schools, markets and hospitals are kept safe for children to grow and learn. Without this certainty, children will experience the violence which will plant seeds of hate towards those that may or may not have destroyed the child’s world. All that child will know is that no one is to be trusted and government is the first to be untrusted. At the heart of all peace is visions and hope of the future. That is why the children are such an important part of the focus. With that focus, each leader should be mindful of all the children that have already built up a distrust and the ones that are on the cusp. These children are the future peace. The next challenge for peace will be to have people act with a community mind and not a selfish mind. This is the point where community peacebuilding efforts are most needed. Also the need for a Libyan singular vision will rest upon the community mindset. How much of the community vision can be seen in the singular Libyan vision? These two visions must have a great deal in common. For President Maetig and the world, this term in office will be an interesting time for Libya. I pray that peace will be the outcome.