War is like a dog chasing its tail. Once the dog gets a
solid grab, reality and shock takes hold. When a person starts or is lead down
a path of criminality, the sustainability of society slowly erodes. As that one
person begins to erode, there are victims and communities that will be
impacted. Both the individual and the society will need supports to repair,
improve, and sustain peace. That process towards a peaceful path will require a
great deal of effort from everyone.
The efforts made at the right time are the same efforts made
when everything is off the rails. The amount of work expands with the damage
done. These efforts are education, communication, conflict management,
mindfulness, stress management, and many other areas of concern. On that list
of concerns will be the individual.
At some point the reality that some individuals are going to
be left behind has to be understood. The choice is up to the individuals to
make. The impact of guilt/sorrow felt by others for not being able to help
those left behind will carry on for many years. This guilt is a pathway to
improving societies.
Taking the feelings of wanting to do more, the ability to do
more and the capacity to do more will take time to align. Mostly the time is
spent to ensure we have the capacity to actually succeed with the changes we make.
For example, there are programs for assisting homeless people called “Housing
First”.
The “Housing First” program assesses a homeless person to determine
what supports they need before they are given an apartment. Taking the
information from the assessment process, once the person is in an apartment, support
people come in to help with the day to day challenges. To engage in this
program every one will need to employ a great amount of patience.
There will be set backs, failures, extreme challenges and in
some cases physical violence. Taking the “Housing First” example we can apply
the mindset to other parts of society such as law, politics, education, etc…. We can even apply it to building peaceful communities.
The idea of building peaceful communities starts with local
ownership – those who live in any neighbourhood will have a strong say in what
will take place in that neighbourhood. At some level there will be political
representation of that neighbourhood that will have to be engaged and the
people that live in the community must be very active in the maintenance of the
peace. There will be moments of give and take as each community will have to work
with all other communities to build the larger society.
Such things have to be understood as where sewage treatment facilities
are placed, roads, hospitals, schools, parks and many other points that come
along with societies. Not all neighbourhoods will function as well as others
and some may not even function peacefully at all.
The point being is that when the dog finally catches its
tail, all hell can break loose or the whirlwind just stops for a while. You can
never really know what will happen until it does.
