Actively Pursuing Positive Peace

since ancient times, diverse peoples worldwide have longed for and actively pursued positive peace, understood in related, but somewhat differing ways in their culture-specific languages and the conceptual frameworks these reflect.1 For example: Shalom (Hebrew) expresses a vision of “right relationships or unity and prosperity in alignment with the will of Jehovah.”al-Islam (Arabic) calls Muslims to “to be at peace in alignment with the will of Allah.”Ubuntu (Zulu) expresses “humanity toward others.”Ahimsa (Hindu) expresses the imperative “to kill no living creature.”Shanti (Hindu) expresses the related imperative “to maintain a tranquil mindset even in suffering or conflict.”Heiwa (Japanese) guides “aligning oneself to the common good and social order.”Eirene (Greek) envisions ideal conditions of “prosperity and order.”Justapaz (Spanish), a more recent concept, suggests that “peace requires justice in order to be sustainable.” (Risler and Shields 63–64)Each of these culture-specific conceptions of positive peace has played and will continue to play an important role in efforts to make a just and sustainable peace at particular levels and in particular contexts of conflict—yet positive peace continues to be an elusive ideal goal worldwide. My thesis here is that effectively pursuing a multi-level, intercultural ideal of positive peace requires a holistic approach to remedying the root causes of violence within and between persons, families, communities, cultures, and nations, while creating more just, responsive, and deeply democratic cultural norms, personal habits, institutional systems, and public policies. To effectively advance the realization of this great, long-cherished goal, we must combine the active, ongoing efforts of individuals, communities, institutions, and social movements, with guidance from theorists and practitioners in many scholarly disciplines, from “horizontal” leaders within many movements, cultures, and socioeconomic institutions, and from visionary thinkers and “doers” at all levels of human living.Just war theory understands peace as the end of violence—a “ceasefire” accompanied by imposed or agreed-upon terms of relationship extending indefinitely into the future—and justice as a set of detailed moral, political, and practical criteria for guiding decisions about whether to go to war (jus ad bellum), how to conduct a war (jus in bello), and postwar reconstruction (jus post bellum).2 Philosophers have been developing just war theory so understood since Aristotle, Cicero, and Augustine first laid out its basic elements. International treaties have added greater detail to its practical requirements, and modern international organizations, especially the United Nations, have outlawed “first use” of violence, as well as going to war to war to gain land, resources, revenge, various kinds of power, or any aim other than a just peace.However, these highly detailed guidelines for limiting the frequency and devastation of wars by requiring that they aim for “peace” and are “just” in their processes of initiation, conduct, and reconstruction seem to be failing us in all respects. Wars—including those initiated and fought by non-state actors—are frequent, devasting in their chaotic impacts, and ineffective in advancing a wider justice and a lasting peace within and between nations. In America, even as we honor the sacrifice of war veterans, many of whom return home damaged in mind, body, and spirit, we “prepare for the next one” by the way we teach the history of our wars in classrooms and imaginatively participate in glamorized violence through “contact sports,” movies, television shows, video games, and internet chat rooms. Moreover, even if just war theory becomes more widely taught, its guidelines offer no practical counter-cultural resources to help us resolve violence-linked conflicts within our families, our communities, and our diverse nations, where “No justice, no peace” is our shared reality, not just a slogan for protest marchesThese consistent failures and limitations of just war theory—combined with evidence that it makes matters worse by ratifying a violent cultural and political status quo—are leading many contemporary theorists in diverse disciplines to abandon just war theory entirely in favor of positive peace theory, which has an equally long history of development. Positive peace theory and praxis combine a complex, multi-level conception of justice, with a more fully developed, multiculturally responsive conception of peace, with practical guidelines and examples of how many kinds of active participants can advance these inseparably linked ideal goals of justice and peace together. My plan for the remainder of this Founders Lecture is to highlight some key American contributions to the long, multicultural history of actively pursuing positive peace, concluding with some suggestions from contemporary thinkers about how interdisciplinary theorists, nations, international organizations, and ideal-guided activists at all levels can effectively pursue positive peace in theory and transformative praxis within diverse ways of life.The key Haudenosaunee insight that some of America's “Founding Fathers” learned is that ending cultural and personal practices of life-destroying violence within and between peoples requires new ways of continuously cultivating positive peace with power, rooted in justice, health, and law. Long before Columbus arrived in the Americas, this “Iroquois Confederacy” of once-warring nations had learned that ways of living, personal identities, and life plans that are rooted in violence and desire for dominance over others lead to profound grief and insecurity for all. Therefore, they had committed themselves to redirecting their lifeways and restructuring their national and inter-national institutions to enact a prophetic vision of positive peace. Haudenosaunee leaders now tell their shared, multi-national origin story, “The Roots of Peace,” on important occasions, including those on which they plant a white pine tree as a Tree of Peace on other nations’ special sites, as Jake Swamp, a Sub-Chief of the Mohawks, did on Earth Day at Fordham University in New York City more than twenty years ago.3Many aspects of “The Roots of Peace” story signal the super-normal importance of the transformative vision of positive peace that the virgin-born prophetic thinker, Deganawidah, brought with him from the Master of Life, as he traveled from the West across the Great Lakes in a fast-moving white stone boat. Meeting hunters near the shore, Deganawidah, who became known as “the Peace Maker,” sent messages to their chiefs that he planned to meet with them. When he received hospitality from a woman who lived near the lakeshore, she became the first to hear his message of justice, health, and law within and between peoples, enacted within a shared “longhouse” at a council of nations. Because she accepted his message immediately, Deganawidah named her “Mother of Nations.” Then the Peace Maker walked to a warrior's house, climbed up on the roof, and peered down from its smoke hole into the kettle of human flesh boiling on the fire below. The “man-eater” who lived there saw in his kettle the reflection of Deganawida's face—like his own face, but wiser and better. He immediately thought, “This is not the face of a man who eats human flesh,” and decided that he no longer would do so. He then emptied out his kettle and invited in Deganawida, who told him the message of peace with power. When the former man-eater embraced this message, he received a new name, Hiawatha, meaning “he who combs.” In the future, humans would eat deer meat, not one another, the Peace Maker taught him, and wearing deer antlers would signify authority among them.As the Peace Maker traveled on to the council fires of four of the other warring nations to share his message of positive peace,4 he sent Hiawatha to the council fire of the Onondagas, whose universally feared magician-chief, Atatarho, had seven twists in his body and snakes writhing in his hair. Instead of welcoming Hiawatha and his message, Atatarho mocked him and cast evil spells that killed his wife and three daughters. Filled with grief, Hiawatha traveled south and seated himself on the shore of a lake, making strings of wampum shells and longing for someone to turn these into sources of consolation. (Jake Swamp has said that 80% of the world's people today cannot breathe or speak well because their throats are constricted by grief.5) Eventually, the Peace Maker came to the lakeshore and sat with Hiawatha, listening to him and making wampum strings with him while speaking words of consolation, until Hiawatha was healed.When he returned to the Onondagas’ council fire with the Peace Maker, having converted all the other nations’ chiefs (and even some of the Onondagas), Hiawatha promised Atatarho that he could be the future leader of all the nations’ chiefs, who would meet at his council fire. Atatarho wanted to agree to these terms of peace, but he asked Hiawatha where the power would come from. The Peace Maker summoned all the nations’ chiefs, who stood together as one, and he said, “Here is power.” Immediately, the twists went out of Atatarho's body, and he allowed Hiawatha to comb the snakes out of his hair. The Peace Maker placed the antlers on Atatarho's head and on the heads of the other chiefs, taught them the words of the Law, and planted a Tree of Peace with roots spreading out in all four directions—but then he immediately uprooted the tree and directed the chiefs to bury their weapons beneath it. When they did so, he replanted the tree and placed an eagle in its highest branches to serve as a sentinel for them all.To interpret this story in ways that allow us to use it as a guide to actively pursuing positive peace, we must notice that life-taking, grief-causing violence had been traditional among these nations, and central to the identity of their warriors, until the Peace Maker came from outside their cultural worlds and embodied a very different, deeply attractive way of being, as well as a message of how to create positive peace within and among them. A cultural insider, Hiawatha, “reflected” on Deganawida's peaceful, wise, and courageous visage as a better version of his own, and he immediately changed his unreflectively violent personal identity to become more like him—even before he had heard his message of peace with power rooted in justice, health, and law. The costs of Hiawatha's choice to share the Peace Maker's mission to “become the change” included Atatarho's murder of his four beloved female relatives, which caused a deeper grief than he had ever known.Yet even in his grief, Hiawatha “kept the faith,” seeking consolation rather than revenge. The Peace Maker brought this consolation, sitting with him, listening to him, and helping him to heal by adding wise words to the wampum-stringing ritual Hiawatha had already begun. When Hiawatha was healed, the Peace Maker went with him when he again courageously challenged the “twisted” chief Atatarho to use his for peace. they brought other nations’ chiefs with them to not in but embodied in diverse cultural together in Atatarho was so by this that the immediately went out of his body, and he allowed Hiawatha to the in his head that had him to his to hear the Peace Maker's that the Peace Maker added a to create a new of through a among these nations’ among whom the Atatarho, the of would be the and their ideal to positive peace, they requires creating a new way of life through in their and institutions to justice within and between the nations, to for the and of and to by through a of wise, that their within a shared of the common leading contemporary Haudenosaunee a contemporary and a contemporary cultural contemporary in how and this prophetic Haudenosaunee story of positive peace and how it guides democratic institutions and deeply democratic ways of living that can justice, health, and for all in their shared future through a democratic In the Roots of American that many who lived near the Haudenosaunee people and with of these nations in various ways by them to and cultural that would allow to as active, in their and the world's future toward justice that and who had been from pursuing their of because of their a at New in at which they a of on of of the who heard its to their of this but the and former to allow them to In their and for in and that American to to their own to as within to pursue outside the to their and to in democratic at all levels to leaders who can a more just of the one who and and all the widely played a key role in the in America, including white and who together for peace with justice a violent and war but a positive peace with justice for in his The A of in that the costs of America's in and peace brought a of for to the of American that had in “The American his at a that would the of living in this that could offer guidance in the ways of that had brought with them from of these and a that ways of like as its complex, message became widely and worldwide through their and In the of these ways of to and lifeways that learned from American peoples, including four that and in differing and Moreover, his by these as the “Founding Fathers” of American while a he have learned from and the which in his like the woman “the of brought the power by creating a of for continuously and developing that within transformative while of and from which to better ways of just ways of living, and positive they as with others as with differing America's deeply of and power. A relationship between of these leaders from which contemporary for justice, and positive must is that between a woman with who and is now for her contributions to the theory and of democratic and positive and a woman whose home but who on her own to gain an and to make and practical contributions toward and justice, which must be of positive and through her especially and and who her lead on democratic including to but her toward she of Peace and the Peace which into the International for Peace and for which she received the Peace and through her especially A from the by a of the and through her and at international at which became the first American woman to a at the where her in history how the for and that had America's “Founding Fathers” in from the Haudenosaunee people in their to and in to them by its name, of these failures caused by within like the snakes in Atatarho's hair. for the and of an for to a in for who violence and in the and then to lead on and other matters to meet the her as was in did all this while making her living as an and making key contributions as a of transformative justice with which is invited to speak on a of leading American at the she was helping to to from this relationship between and not their institutional and but they can teach us about how to on our positive message, even when the of the that we face and the we from our (and our are to as was Atatarho's on Hiawatha's was by the of and as was by use of her in his of and again in his of and the of these guides us in on in the of positive peace with power. guides us with the to justice, and with our that the on in and which she at and in her for peace and is as is her wise across the of A from the by a of the that ways of that out of and continuously her own living in and up is like to from to the of in into the over and contributions we must that war cannot end positive peace and peace can be if we our basic institutions, our and our toward justice, and deeply democratic ways of of with those who this prophetic ideal then become the to her his vision in of of advancing toward peace with justice by efforts on and is wise, as is his reflection in that an to even his from of as well as from is in some of his important including and and Peace,” and “The for a New in and of of these as well as those of and to the vision of and to him to the to active in the of positive peace with justice within more deeply democratic ways of living, in and worldwide. in peace is not the of some or it is the of some positive good will and and prophetic for socioeconomic justice and democratic a lasting on American law and even there are among as well as a evil like Atatarho who power and by to and his with like this in but like Hiawatha the Peace Maker's message, learned to heal from the to lead with listening and and to courageously face evil leaders and their by them the power of many just, and which they could to become can message and for advancing positive peace with justice by three of his and then his across many including his Peace In from which he in but near to of other to and with them to the that he and other leaders of the the peace, that is a to justice while on other leaders to that there is no to for is then a that he and other leaders of the had for institutions and to that is with leaders to a just and if this to protest while a violent and then in and suffering the of violence, and until their are to return to toward a just the goals in at a to the including and fire that caused lasting on them and on the in the where a a “The of a with the more end of deeply democratic among diverse and in up just and years in his or the to a which deeply have on the that they in it together. the of the modern the and has to out of that others are the of and will lead to the world's deeply peoples a of to shared from to our political as social and from violence to actively pursuing positive message of positive peace with justice as an ideal and the of this way of living is the causes in and the peace justice is its as well as its and this is institutional and to our and of these must all these and for and of is but creating peace between is through a of to and for the leading to and new ways of this requires institutional and in of and these new and institutions through active efforts requires for oneself and own for others with whom peace is to be for and for future the creating the conditions for at all levels requires and political power are power, the kinds of that would end in a that living with for for including and for for an a just and institutional toward cannot be ending international and wars America's national and the of war are and that could have been in ending American our and and in new and ways of living that would our future the war causes to the families, the the and the of the and the out the and of war is to end we must and actively the causes of war in contemporary and for of and cultural that makes people and that revenge, and of and for developing of basic human and practical to meet human in and to to be as to and to as meaning in living, in the of more and now requires democratic visionary cultural in of the of from as well as and for to help and to practical to end and democratic years when justice was the of his transformative important by contemporary theorists and practitioners of positive peace, including and have already and on from and be by the Haudenosaunee origin story of the Peace Maker, Hiawatha, and the of by and the that and from and by from contemporary and In and for and they that the and of positive peace theory and praxis must their of and a conception of positive peace as a goal, and practical four key for guiding the we in their Positive peace is in and seeking to and to resolve the root causes of which requires peace a between justice and order in institutional public and of living that must be in particular contexts through or among while for those who are about or not to peace that human are and peace is that peace has many that from its long history of and within differing cultures, which conception and in while requiring and Shields and Shields the of these that participants and theorists to from and with as envisions this how the culture-specific conceptions of positive peace with which this can be and of these cultural conceptions of positive peace already has played an important role in processes from which others can to them in contexts that in important For on and in and and and the it in order to an peace between that had been by violence, through by those who had and listening by those who had them. can how together and help in the violent in and how these and other diverse conceptions of peace, justice, and help to resolve American over violence in and public as well as over how to make positive peace with justice and Shields make important in their of the or that public to if they are to be leaders within positive The or they active and as well as and cultural “to their own and and for these as they with and Shields for positive at all levels will help future public (and others like to these and In concluding their and Shields that a conception of positive peace must become to guide and processes of and political at all levels that effectively to of conceptions of and the they now concluding Founders that the efforts of and and those of other contemporary theorists and activists to advance the ancient of positive peace with justice that so many of the world's have long and can become even more and by on the and deeply democratic practices have A of these thinkers offer their is we do not can we a vision of positive peace in but we can our own within this through reflection and active and we can these as sources of by the of peace with justice, of over When we do this we the power to of violence and to bury the weapons of and to a Tree of Peace that will we and it. American must continue to play an active role in this developing and practical by the resources, and visionary role that the us to