Getting through chaotic moments

Everyone experiences the confusion, frustration and chaos which conflict can bring. Everyone can learn how to move through those moments of chaos with calm resolve as well. There are a number of components to chaos that you need to be aware of in order to move through such situations. As you read these you will most likely know them. The difficult part is applying your knowledge. You must apply it as often as you in order to excel at getting through those chaotic moments.

Emotions and communication are the two factors that are often the most poorly managed. Case in point is the situation in Syria. At first the people protested against the government. During these protest emotions of panic set in, non-violent communication was lost and bullets were fired. This same situation continues to this day. That is a very simple breakdown but in reality that is exactly what transpired.

To get through the chaos you need to be able to keep things as simple as possible. The complications will work themselves out. Breaking the situation in small goals is the best plan. For example in Syria the small goal was a ceasefire agreement. Neither side adhered to that which brings the entire situation back to chaos and even further distrust. However the ceasefire agreement is crucial and must be implemented. What we are faced with is how a ceasefire agreement is to be implemented.

The average person in Syria most likely wants an end to the violence. As usual the ones that seek to destabilize a society are in the minority. The question now becomes, how do you reach a peaceful resolution when both sides are locked on destroying each other? This question is a very difficult situation.

The common element in poor conflict resolution rest with the people involved. With the case of Syria there has to be a different set of voices now. The current voices are distrusted and have too much history attached. In order for a peaceful environment to take root there needs to be new leadership. The issue will always be the same but the people need to change.

Whether or not the people can transcend the history is the main obstacle. For example we can look at the Palestine/Israel wars. These people have carried the history, violence, revenge, hatred and distrust for generations. The face of the war has become ambiguous, inhumane and demonized. There have been small breakthroughs with the Israel/Palestine war, 1994 was one. Since then there has been stalemates and regression. The people are in dire need of new visions, leadership and voice.

To transcend conflict, an open mind is crucial. New perspectives and a willingness to focus on the future is vital as well. All too often relationships get mired in what I call “stacking bodies”. This is when people bring up past wrongs as they race to stack up the most injustices incurred. This tactic is very common yet rarely works to resolve a conflict, (I have never experienced this tactic working).

Getting past stacking bodies is a challenge that must be overcome. If history is not let go of, the conflict will only spiral into further frustration.  The emotional attachment to those past injustices will gain more moments to fuel the anger. To get past this tactic takes a certain amount of resolve and hard work. Focusing on the immediate situation will help. The moment you start to talk about the context or situations that began the chaos you have started stacking bodies.  This is where the hard work is most needed.

Emotions and attachments need to be managed so that a peaceful solution can be found. Doing so is made more difficult when the other side will not or is not able to do the same. However someone has to have the intelligence and the willingness to let go of old tactics.

Afghanistan, what a mess.

Sadly the future of Afghanistan is looking to be as peaceful as it was in 2001. Already there are those that point to past wrongs that need to be answered. Now of course those wrongs need to be healed but the greater need is for the violence, war and general chaos to stop. To do this there needs to be a great effort from the regional leadership. Such a strategy has never been used to its fullest potential.

For the past ten years the use of weapons to bring peace in Afghanistan has failed. I wish it were not a failure but the reality is very evident that peace is far, far away.  Anyone that says the Afghanistan war has been a success is blind, stupid, ignorant or just lying. The reason for the failure is due to poor leadership.

At the outset of the war, the Taliban made it known that they were willing to fight for decades, not just one, many. The International Security Forces (ISAF), were fractured in both the ideology of military strategy and the ideology for going to war. These fractures lead to serious issues of commitment within the coalition forces. All these combined set the stage for a failed war. Today we are seeing greater attacks from the Taliban within Kabul and throughout Afghanistan.

What can be done now? We need to come to the realization that Afghanistan is back to square one. The regional peace may actually be worse than it was in 2001. Also we have to grasp the fact that Pakistan is itself embroiled in many battles. Next we have to ask where are the other countries that border Afghanistan?  They need to be at the table for peace as well. These are China, Iran, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

These countries all have a vested interest in peace. Some may feel they are less so but that is for each of them to decide. The reality is the region is in chaos. A path forward needs to be mapped out because at present there is no idea or plan for regional peace.

There is one common element and that is no one wants the return of the Taliban. Much like the Nazi party, few of us see little reason for their existence. Most of us see the Taliban as a cancerous organization yet we have no medicine for its cure.  For peace talks to happen there has to be common ground. We know the Taliban has one condition to peace and that is the complete dismissal of the RUSA forces. The Afghanistan government has asked the RUSA to leave. They have stated that their date of exit 2014. That leaves the peace talks with the Taliban stagnant. Sadly a military effort will still be needed for an unknown time, perhaps for ever.

Basically we are left with the fact that the regional powers need to formulate a plan. They all need to engage in a common element of regional co-operation. The most important element is the need for action that is going to bring peace. The rhetoric and lies have to end.

Now we have to ask, Are the people in power now the right people? Who else is there that can be trusted to bring peace? Lastly, how do we fight a ghost which is the Taliban terrorizing an entire region?

Choice, freedom and governance

Choice and being able to make choices are fundamental for freedom. By no means does that freedom have to be wrapped in a democratic style of governance. However we have come to link the two as if one can not live without the other. With all the revolutions in the Middle East we are living through a time where freedom of choice is being expressed by the people. Often these people live in Autocratic societies.

Now, as an outsider, I know that I should have no say in how these people choose to be governed, that is up to them. When I hear leaders (as has Canada’s leader) call for regime change, I feel the bullet of oppression rip through the right to self-determination. I am all for ending the violence in these revolutionized countries but I do not want to support war mongering or anything else that will cause more bloodshed. Furthermore I do not want to force a system of government on anyone.

In Syria we have many countries flapping their mouths off about regime change. These same countries are providing support as well in the form of weapons and training. What is really surprising is that the support is given to opposition forces that have very little support amongst the people within Syria. By supporting these opposition forces we are supporting a group that represents a minority seeking power and using force to get that power. This is the very thing the revolution sought to end in the first place.

Over the course of events in Syria I have sided with the plan in which Russia and China have always stated. That being a coalition of leaders meeting with the Syrian government to hammer out a peace plan. Doing this will ensure sovereignty, legitimacy and hopefully a quicker agreement to a ceasefire agreement. At the outset the other three permanent members of the United Nations Security Council have fought those plans, which in the meantime more people of been killed. Somehow the popular perception has it that Russian and China are the ones that have been blocking peace efforts. The fact is opposite.

The people of Syria need to be given the chance to exercise their will to run their own country. That is their right and their freedom. If they want to be ruled by a monarchy or dictator so be it. What ever format they choose to make that choice we must support. Now of course the international community has to abide by international law and human rights. So we can not support a system that selects a leader by shooting each other.

Now to throw even more mud into the mix. The international community may be ethically bound to stop  violent conflicts, legally there are no grounds to do so unless such violence spills into neighbouring countries. This has not happened in Syria. However there are forces outside of Syria going in.

In Syria, the path to peace is to support the people of Syria. That path is through the existing government and a ceasefire agreement with all opposition forces. This is the support in which the international community has always been asked to provide: The support of the current government to uphold the current laws and constitution of the sovereign state.  With that the international community has limited that support if a government is actively killing its own people such as genocides. In such a case regime change is deemed necessary.

In conclusion, the international community must support the people in its right to choose the system and the leadership of their own country. Those rights must be protected up to the point where the system used threatens regional peace or threatens an unequal section of the population (what ever that is).

Peace and conflict

Often I find it quite amusing that I focus on areas of violent conflict and yet I work in the area of peace. Sometimes I wonder if there is any improvement. Now there are times when I say that there has been great improvement. Plus the academic results suggest that we live in a more peaceful world.

We do have to recognize that we are coming out of the most deadly century known to us. Two world wars, El Salvador, Zaire/Congo, Cold war, Korea, Cambodia, Vietnam, Afghanistan twice, Rwanda, Columbia, Indonesia, Kashmir, Yugoslavia and the list goes on.  Being a more peaceful time was not all that difficult considering the non-stop fighting we have just come out of.

One of the elements that sparks many of these wars is the desire for change in leadership.  I know that is a simple cause to state but it is a reality. The buzz phrase is “regime change”, which has a certain identity of corruption, brutality and violence attached to it. Of course the reality is that even in the most peaceful country an election can bring regime change.

In the grand idea of unity, we are all striving to live in a country where regime change is done peacefully. It is difficult to think of anyone that would want to live in a country where you are oppressed, fearful and living with violence every day.  However for many that is exactly what life is like the entire time they are alive.

It is odd that the average person is a very peaceful being yet we have the governments they elect being very violent. For example the RUSA, most people in this country are very peaceful so you wonder how can their government be so violent? Where is the disconnect? We can see the same thing in Israel and Palestine, the average person is against the use of violence, yet it has been a constant part of life since 1948.

At some point there is a major disconnect between the people and the leadership of this world. We spend more energy on killing each other than we do on helping it seems. Many governments are willing to engage in violent wars with no thought of an end strategy other than kill as many as possible. When it comes to peace efforts most leaders bark about the cost, it takes too long, it is messy, it is not done right and/or it is too complex. Such thinking just leaves me in a spiral of futility.

As I sit back and relax I realize that there is no need to worry about when our tasks will be finished. That day will come for each of us when we die, but the task will still need to be worked upon. It is the legacy of peace that is left for others. We are all human and we all deserve an equal opportunity to live a peaceful life. So with that I sense that being closed minded means you just found the edge of understanding, the frustration you feel is telling you to expand your understanding of life and others.

Ancestral land dispute

If you read these postings you must be interested in peace and how it is managed?  When we manage things we must categorize how we are doing. As we look around the world we see countries with a great many more nations of people. Sometimes these nations of people span the existing borders of present countries.  Kurdistan people of Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria are an example.  Here in Canada the Mohawk and Iroquois are nations of people that cross international borders.

In the realm of peace and conflict we can gauge how peaceful a society is in relation to how these nations of people and co-exist.  Being bound by three differing governing bodies; their own and each country they exist in is not an easy task.  For some nations such as the Kurdistan they struggle to achieve their own country.  In a perfect world such a reality would not be too difficult a task.  Take a poll of the people and adhere to that poll.  If unification is desired you begin the process of unification, easy.

Well not in the world we live in.  You see we have a deep attachment to area called territorial boundaries.  No country wants to give up any land what so ever.  Due to that there is often a great deal of killing to protect territory, even if the land being fought for is ancestral land and the people have a right to that land.  Palestine and Israel engage in one of the greatest injuries this world incurs on a daily basis involving the right to live on ancestral land.

Minority rights are also brought into this type of conflict.  Often the people that seek independence are minorities.  As we often live in the reality that might makes right, minorities are crushed.  Here in Canada there are hundreds of nations that hold ancestral rights.  We call this collective First Nations People.  What the world is seldom aware of is that many of these First Nations people live in conditions that are comparable to refugee camps.  Canada and the First Nations people must work together to solve these problems, so far both of us have failed to do so.

For some areas in the world the territory holds a great amount of wealth in the resources of minerals and petroleum.  For these resources countries will kill for.  We will kill for money.  Rights, morals, peace and the rule of law are not held in high esteem in some cases.  A person life is not worth a thing when economic development is in the equation.  The Occupy movement tried to send that message across the world, it was stopped.

The issues of ancestral land and minority rights are not easy areas for the public discussion to focus on.  Yet a peaceful society understands that unease and allows for the tensions to be addressed.  There needs to be a focus of working on such issues together, not as opponents.  All too often we see each other as opponents. 

When thinking about such issues, look at them with a unifying mind.  Use a mind that sees an improvement to what currently exists.  Think of the lives not killed, the hatred not spread, and the tension eased.  I say eased because it will never be gone.  Even a relationship with your best friend has and will go through fights.

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. 

Egypt, peace was taken away

Complete breakdown in peaceful transformation.  At some point there had to be an equal group of citizens and government forces that caused enough damage for the situation to deteriorate into the use violence.  At the moment we are in the status of blame.  Who did what to cause the other to use violence?

We all have a desire to find the people or person responsible for the chaos that cripples relationships.  When the relationship involves a people and those that lead, the chaos is deadly.  At some point there was a breakdown in the vision that linked the hopes of the people and the hopes of the leaders.  The massive rallies this past summer were truly inspirational.  The people had peacefully taken the leader out.  The military stood down and would not fire upon them because they knew as individuals that peace is much easier when physical violence is not a threat.  However that understanding of peace broke down.

There are a number of elements that breakdown.  The Egyptian riots have broken down due to the death of trust, the desire for power, the loss of dignity and too many visions of how Egypt should progress.   

We know that someone in a position of great responsibility/power gave orders to shoot.  Someone that provided enough push to the right people so that the military would fire upon the people.  It is odd that the military did obey the orders this time when they had stood down before.  This is the exact leadership that Egypt will have for the coming months or perhaps years. 

Wisdom tells us that all decisions ultimately come down to one person.  Someone has to make the decision to act.  Now that is the birth of conspiracy and truth finding.  In reality it may have played out that the one person was a foot soldier who panicked and fired a shot.  That first shot can quickly get lost in cacophony of the ripple effect.   I am not saying that is what happened in Egypt but it has happened.

Looking back to Yugoslavia just after Tito died; we have a map to how a country that was ruled by a dictator slowly breaks down.  In 1984 the world was invited to Sarajevo for the Winter Olympics.  Within a few short years those same stadiums were used as shelters from war.  At the time no one could tell who was working behind the stage.  Right now we know who is in charge in Egypt, but are there others working underneath as well to ensure chaos reigns for the time being?

When such a game is played the end is only a prediction.  Death brings new twists of fate.  In chaos fate swirls around picking at random.  Right now Egypt is within the grasp of chaos, much like Syria.  The beginning provided so much hope for peace.  Now we are living on the edge of complete failure for Egypt.  Why is it so difficult to not shoot, kill, destroy each other?  Why do people so easily give up on peaceful relations?  Egypt had peace within its sights and now we are further away than we were one year ago. 

Well, all we can do is work even more than we have in the past to ensure that the threat of violence is not part of the children’s day.