control the weapons or the mind?

Elections are an important part of a free society. When the people have trust in the system to choose who is going to be the leader, that feeling expands into everyday life of the people. Right now we have an election process taking place in Burma. This process is taking place after years of harsh political censorship and control.

The ability of a government to control the people in such a manner (as has happened in Burma), usually employs violence. As a country begins to come out of that situation of violence and fear there is still the threat of violence. Mainly the threat continues because the old power structure is still fighting. To decrease the violence there needs to be a concerted effort to eliminate the flow of weapons.

We are witnessing this flow of weapons in Libya, Syria, Yemen, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and many other countries as well. The flow of weapons keeps the society destabilized and in fear. To combat the destabilization of society, disrupt the flow of weapons and bring peace is a multi-level task.

The problem is international in scope.  During July 2012, UN member states will meet to negotiate a legally binding international instrument governing the transfer of conventional arms: the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). The problem is, will this stop the weapons trade?

The war in Sierra Leone and Liberia was fuelled by diamonds and timber. As the war became as savage as a war has ever been, the world took measures to end the trade in “blood diamonds”. The measure taken is known as the Kimberely Process. This process did stem the flow of diamonds for a time. What we have to realize is that the people engaged in trading diamonds for weapons are criminals.  They will continue to work outside of treaties and laws.

The concern is that we must know the Arms Trade Treaty will not end the illegal trade of weapons. Of course having these laws is better than not. The largest demon in all of this is the desire to grab power/control through the use of fear, violence and oppression. The quick demise of peace in Cote D’ivoire is another example in the use of fear, weapons and oppression.

The battle of human relations is the largest demon we have to tackle. All the weapons in the world will have no bearing if the people who own them have no desire to use them. However, we live in a world where insanity is present, people will kill for power and build weapons to instil fear.

The positive element rests in the balance of peace. Most of us are peaceful. We wish to trust each other and enjoy the many differences of the world. We enjoy the process of debate, the camaraderie of sport and the challenge of opposition. Elections are filled with such elements. Furthermore, All of these elements in society are positives. It stops to be positive when fear, violence and oppression are used to gain power and control over another and that is where war begins to be fought ultimately  in the mind.

knowing who you are

Working with very messy situations, I often take a look at my own self. This very thing happened to me this weekend. As I was discussing the challenges and the causes of change, a friend of mine made a reference to a book.

The book title is “Being Human” and the author is Jean Vanier. Mr. Vanier has built an organization that focuses on people with all sorts of disabilities. Within this book on page 105 actually, he begins to talk about the separation of the self. This separation is also known as “the ego and the id”.

What this issue deals with is the difference between who you are and who you think you are. Along those lines we talked about Krishnamurti and his thoughts on “the observer and the observed”. Then our conversation moved into the duality of self, ego/id, observer/observed and who we are versus who we think we are. With that, we came to realize that we are being two people at once, thus the challenges and the causes of conflict. That is the primary challenge of every person alive and the goal is to ensure that the two become one.

There are a great many works produced concerning this topic. I recall reading psychology books on “the many masks of identity”. People talk about their work life, social life, family life, personal life and of course there is the love life. Mix in who you have been, who you are, who you will be and then add the reality versus the perception of all those.

All of these elements factor in when a person is building themselves. Can you be honest about who you are and how others understand you?

To be ironic here, my work in peace leads me to project the above onto countries. At this moment we can look at all the countries that are in transition. For example, Burma, the government there is taking a drastic course of change. Burma is going from a secluded, brutal situation to one where openness and peace are going to be ushered in.

There will be huge amounts of corruption as the transition takes place. Who ever takes the lead position will have to deal with scandals as the old guard will still fight for their “glory days”. This the reality and challenge of who you were versus who you are and who you want to be.

As I have written in the past, peace is very much a state of understanding, learning and knowing. As soon as you know a reality you have to let it go so that you can be free to expand your understanding. Then again I could just be insane.

Peaceful game theory

Last night I got into a discussion on what game theory is.  Now I have been a student of theories my entire life, as I see it.  All that information got snarled up before I could say a word, so it was not easy to define game theory in a flash. However I did realize that we were playing a card game so I used that as my analogy.

Game theory is the study of strategy used to get results.  It is a plan to win a chess game, to win a hockey game, an election, war or even to get a job.  The strategy you employ (whether you know your strategy or not) is the game theory you use to obtain your goal.   Everyone uses game theory.  One of the most popular theories is fight or flight.  That has been changed to fight, freeze or flight due to the fact that some people get so nervous that they can do nothing but collapse/freeze.

When we have events such as the Jasmine Revolution, we can look to see what the theory was and map it out.  Did Mohamed Bouazizi know that his actions would spark the Jasmine Revolution, would cause a number of other events in Libya, Egypt, Syria, Yemen and the Occupy movement all over the world?  You would have to believe that he did not.  However his own personal actions had been rooted in the theory that if he set himself on fire the government would take notice and make changes to the current system.  That was his game theory and he was right.

Now this is a very simple example of game theory.  There are much more complex psychological strategies which have been studied.  Yet the currents and streams of thought on the subject all deal with plans that a person or group uses to achieve a goal.

Game theory is often studied along with the art of decision making and information gathering.  These three elements are all part of strategy.  You need the right information to make the best decision so that the correct strategy is used.

For example we can ask why a government would rather shoot its people than allow protesting.  The initial reason is to gain control of the populous.  Governments feel threatened by large mobs of protesters so that mob has to be put down.  That is one level.  The other level is the personal one where the person in charge, Prime Minister, President or General also feels that their life is in danger or their job.  This personal level hinges on dignity, power and self-image.  The leader feels that the people should be grateful for the life provided and a large protest is a slap in the face.  Also the leader sees a possibility that they will be ousted from power so that has to be fought.  Next there is the image that no one else has the right to hold the position that the leader now holds, it is theirs and the mob is trying to steal it.

How leaders deal with these perceptions is where game theory comes in.  They must ask themselves, what is the best method to end the protest, to retain power and to regain the admiration of the people.  Shooting them is a popular choice because it does work, for a time.  Shooting and killing is the theory employed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Burma, Columbia, Libya, DRC and the list goes on.

For peaceful examples we have Poland Solidarity Movement 1980, Czechoslovakia Velvet Revolution 1989 which lead to the peaceful 1993 seperation of the Czech Rebublic and Slovakia, and the Ukraine Orange Revolution 2004.  Each has taken place in the last few decades.  We can go further back for examples of peaceful revolutions yet these are perfect enough.  As you can see the use of peace as a strategy is a successful game theory and it often results in a stronger country.  Of the peaceful examples Ukraine had a number of setbacks, yet the initial game theory of peaceful demonstration worked. 

That is a quick summation of game theory.  My theory in the game of understanding is that by using such broad examples it is easily understood. 

Just as I was writing this I have learned that Vaclav Havel has died this morning.  He was the person put up as the leader for the Velvet Revolution. Rest in peace my friend you did a great job, we need more like you.