civilian peacekeeping

Schirch – Civilian Peacekeeping

Civilian peacekeeping is a crucial part of non-violence in the world today. With constant conflict and injustice over the globe, a certain amount of responsibility falls on the civilians to create peace worldwide. According to Schirch, there are four ways to go about peacekeeping, and I will discuss each in sequence.

1.Waging Conflict Nonviolently – This approach involves making the conditions correct for certain groups to fight on a certain issue non-violently. This could include raising awareness or helping to increase a group's power to wage non-violent conflict.
2.Reducing Direct Violence – This is very common and involves a more grassroots approach to conflict resolution. Although this often does not attack the source of a particular conflict, it eases the suffering of individuals involved and often clears the way for others to be able to attack the conflict directly.
3.Transforming Relationships – This is more of a psychological approach, and involves programs that help deal with the trauma of individuals and helping their relationship and thought approach to issues.
4.Capacity Building – This is a prevention for future violence and often involves training and education. The idea is that this will help to make peace last.

Each of these approaches is very important to peacekeeping. In some ways it appears to be a four step process ; first, one might wage conflict non-violently in order to raise awareness about a particular issue. Then, when violence over the issue erupts, one could reduce direct violence and begin to try and transform the relationships of the people affected. Finally, once peace is reached, capacity building would allow for the peace to be sustained.

A good example of civilian peacekeeping includes work done by the Christian Peacemaking Team in Palestine. They routinely walk children to school to protect them from militant settler attacks, try and prevent checkpoint harrassment, and protect civilians in general from settler hostility. This may not do very much for the conflict as a whole, but it changes the lives of the people affected by the conflict.
Transforming relationships reminds me of the work done by Seeds of Peace. At Seeds of Peace International Camp, Israeli, Palestinian, Jordanian, Egyptian, Indian, and Pakistani teens come together in Maine to try and live together for a three week session. It is difficult, but the campers are forced to discuss, live, and perform activities together in order to transform their views of one another. In the end, many of the teens have radically changed views on the conflict.
Capacity building is the most difficult of the four approaches to describe. It could be handled in a variety of ways, but it also seems like the most difficult to successfully perform. Many countries in conflict have gone back to conflict after months or years of peace. It is very difficult to undo racial tensions, but it is a crucial step in the process.
Overall these four approaches are very interesting when paralleling them to the real world. Many conflicts exist and it is our job as global citizens to take a stand.