Peacebuilding research

The future of humanity depends, in part, on the visions of how societies respond to instability, violence, and the struggle for political and social order. To that end, during the past year I have been researching peacebuilding methods for areas that encompass the borders of wars. I have compared the play book used by the terrorist group known as ISIS - The Management of Savagery and my own theoretical framework which I call Ownership of Peace. The Management of Savagery represents an extremist strategic vision in which disorder is exploited to advance coercive political authority. Ownership of Peace Theory proposes a fundamentally different vision. The Management of Savagery is a jihadist strategic text attributed to Abu Bakr Naji. It presents a strategic vision in which periods of disorder and weakened authority can be exploited to advance extremist political objectives. Here is an example: An operator using the Management of Savagery would move into any neighbourhood. They spend the first few months learning how the neighbourhood functions and where the weakeness of the social fabric in that neighbourhood exist. Slowly they provide assistance in those areas and begin to spread doubts toward society. As time goes by (could be decades or a few years) people are going to the operator for support, assistance, answers, guidance. Soon there exist a large group agreeing with the ideology that society is not working and a point of distrust has swelled. Protests and demonstrations lead to violence. From there the Management of Savagery calls for a large influx of supporters to destroy what remains while establishing their own government. This is what had happened in Syria and Yemen. My Ownership of Peace Theory, proposes that sustainable peace develops when individuals and communities internalize responsibility for peaceful relationships, collective decision-making, and intergenerational stewardship. The Ownership of Peace Theory proposes an alternative orientation: rather than exploiting instability, societies should develop the psychological, relational, cultural, and institutional capacities needed to prevent violence, restore relationships, and sustain peace. The Management of Savagery asks how disorder can be exploited. Ownership of Peace asks how humanity can develop the capacity to overcome disorder and sustain peace. The difference is not merely strategic. It is a difference in the vision of human society and the future that successive generations will inherit. In each, there are the elements of trust and individual choice combined with community management. The Management of Savagery works by focusing on destroying what already exists. It leans on individuals who repeatedly experience humiliation, exclusion, fear, discrimination, and violence. Such situations may develop expectations that influence how a person interprets future interactions. This is often seen in racist ideology. Ownership of Peace works by building within what already exists. It asks how individuals, families, communities, institutions, and future generations can develop the capacity and responsibility to sustain peace. Its central argument is that peace cannot be secured exclusively through political agreements, military protection, or institutional arrangements. It must also be learned, practised, strengthened through relationships, supported by legitimate governance, and transmitted across generations. The future of peace therefore depends not only on the institutions that protect societies but also on the people who develop the capacity to sustain them. The ultimate ambition of Ownership of Peace is to help create communities in which violence is not accepted as the normal means of resolving disagreement, where young people inherit the skills and opportunities to build peaceful relationships, and where each generation accepts responsibility for passing peace forward. In the Ownership of Peace, there is a focus on raising children that have peacebuilding as a school subject to learn skills of emotional intelligence, community psychology, leadership, trust and other components of peacebuilding. Now some will say that children are not able to learn such things. Well, infact, children are more open to such learning than adults, or so my experience with assisting child soldiers reintegrating into a peaceful society has taught me. The Ownership of Peace is part of my 200 year peacebuilding framework. There are many working parts, this is just a glimps of what has already happened, planned and written about.