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The New Peace Report, #2
By Louise Diamond, Ph.D.
Welcome to The New Peace Report, an occasional set of reflections on world and national affairs in these times of change and challenge, as seen through the lens of deep peace.
 Deep Peace and the U.S. Elections
In the previous edition of this newsletter I defined Deep Peace as a living experience of the interconnectedness of all being. I said that it brings Spirit and consciousness into the conversation, as well as speaks to the relationship of peace to all the critical issues of today (injustice, poverty, environment, health, economy, etc.)
Here in the United States we are engaged in a profound conversation with three people who would like to be our next president. We see from our current president how much power the person holding that office has to change the world – for better or worse. The next president will be faced with challenges that could well determine the fate of life as we know it on this planet. I believe a president with a Deep Peace perspective could be a profound influence for the good.
Imagining I were a journalist from the (mythical) Deep Peace Herald, interviewing Senators Clinton, McCain, and Obama, here are a dozen questions I would ask, for starters:
- Tell us of a time in your life when you experienced the interconnectedness of all that is, not just intellectually but with your whole being. How would you bring that awareness into the White House?
- Mother Earth is in great pain due to our ignorance and greed. How will you mobilize us to help her?
- Some decades ago, Clergy and Laity Concerned declared they were here ‘to redeem the soul of America.’ What needs redeeming, what have you done about it in your lifetime, and what will you do about it as president?
- As Commander-in-Chief, the president is, by definition, the war leader of the country. How will you also be the peace leader? Where do you stand on the creation of a cabinet-level Department of Peace and other infrastructure for growing a culture of peace at home and around the world?
- Tell us one thing you’ve done in public life to benefit the people that was totally transformational, or ‘out of the box’. What could you do about Darfur or Israel-Palestine that is ‘out of the box?’
- Explain how it is possible that the price of gasoline goes up at the pump while oil companies and speculators make billions in profits, and how an understanding of Deep Peace informs what you could do about this and other energy issues.
- Explain how the hallowed ‘market’ is anything more than a massive gambling venture; just what are derivatives, commodities, and futures trading anyway? How can we break our addiction to borrowing that has created our enormous national debt and individual credit card debt? How can Deep Peace help put our economy on a healthier basis?
- The war machine has run amok. Our defense budget is larger than that of all other countries combined, and growing, with large portions unaccounted for. We have weapons in space, and sonar in the oceans. We’ve privatized the military to mercenaries, and increased the production of nuclear weapons. Meanwhile the needs of the people in education, housing, jobs, health care, and other areas go unmet or are sacrificed on the altar of ‘national security.’ How will you re-balance this situation?
- How will you hold members of government, the current one or yours, accountable for moral and legal wrong-doing?
- The relationship between Christianity, Islam, and Judaism is a rent in the fabric of humanity, currently and historically. What will you do to heal this, so that these three religions can co-exist peacefully in this world?
- Poverty and disease threaten the well-being of more people than terrorism – at home and abroad. How can an understanding of Deep Peace help you address these issues?
- Can you articulate a compelling new vision of national and global security and of America’s place in the world, taking into account that there is only one family of life on and with this planet?
Finally, I would like to say to Barak Obama: “Please stick up for your middle name, Hussein, and wear it proudly. Do not collude in any way, subtle or overt, with the currently-accepted negative association with anything remotely ‘Islamic.’ Challenge the ‘us/them,’ bigoted, and ethno-centric mentality that insidiously infers that Islam is the ‘other,’ the enemy.” And to Senators McCain and Clinton, “Please support him 100% in this. A united front by our putative leaders can do much to transform the separative worldview that so damages and demeans our country and our world.”
For instance, I would love to see a news conference called by all three candidates together, to put to rest the rumors about Obama being Muslim, to reaffirm at the highest levels of moral leadership that Muslims are not ‘the enemy,’ and to remind the nation that painting all people of one identity group with a single negative brush is neither correct nor morally acceptable.
Swords to Ploughshares
Opportunities and resources for peace appear in little-known and unexpected places. Let us celebrate them whenever we can. For instance, did you know:
In Uganda: A permanent ceasefire agreement has finally been signed between Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) after two decades of war. This conflict has been particularly brutal, with the LRA practicing horrendous acts of mutilation, kidnapping of children for combat and sexual slavery, and other inhuman and inhumane tactics to terrorize the people and gain power. Bravo to the mediators – their patience, skill, and endurance – in securing this outcome!
In Cyprus: A new president has been elected, defeating a hardliner and re-activating hopes for the possibility of a peace agreement/re-unification plan in that divided island. Like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Cyprus has defied the best efforts of formal and informal attempts to reach a settlement for decades. Demetris Christofias, the new Greek-Cypriot president, has long-standing ties with colleagues on the Turkish-Cypriot side, and has pledged to make a settlement of ‘the Cyprus problem’ the first priority of his administration. The Turkish-Cypriot community had already, in a 2004 referendum, declared its acceptance of a UN-negotiated agreement (which the Greek-Cypriots refused).
Meanwhile, a large, bi-communal, citizen peacebuilding movement has evolved over the years and stands ready to assist. Let us pray this opening leads to a successful conclusion. (In the interest of fair disclosure, I worked for many years to assist the peace process in Cyprus, and took an oath in 1994 that I would not drink another class of wine until we could dance in the streets to celebrate the signing of a mutually-acceptable peace accord there. For the benefit of our shared and growing thirst, friends on the island have been saving bottles from their best vineyards for that glorious day….)
In the worldwide movement for a Culture of Peace: There is a huge global network of organizations and individuals engaged in actively fostering a culture of peace in their communities and in the world. Sparked by the UN Decade for a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence for the Children of the World (2001-2010), this network of engaged peacebuilders has grown and flourished everywhere, albeit mostly invisible to the rest of us. You can read regular reports of their truly inspiring activities at www.cpnn-world.org. What we cannot see, we cannot feed. Let us inform ourselves, support these activities in every way we can, and join in!
In the world of poverty reduction: An exciting program called Step Up Savannah (Georgia) runs a day-long simulation that lets community leaders experience the trials of the community’s poor as they try to navigate the economic and bureaucratic maze of getting through each day. This is proving successful in changing attitudes and awakening greater commitment and collaboration for solving the problems of persistent poverty in the community. Go to www.stepupsavannah.org for more information.
How to Change the World Update
What we have come to call ‘the new sciences’ have come up with some very interesting and provocative understandings of the nature of reality. With this has emerged a new vocabulary: as we study complex adaptive systems we learn about fractals, weirdness, entanglements, butterfly effects, the field, and strange attractors. Part of what we’re doing in this class is demystifying these concepts to see how they can help us in our social change activities.
Let’s take, for example, the notion of strange attractors. I’ve read nearly a dozen articles on this phenomenon, and am still not sure I totally understand what the scientists mean by this term. But here’s my (over)simplified non-scientific best:
In complex systems (let’s say human systems) there are many agents (or parts) acting on their own and interacting with other parts to make for a seemingly random and chaotic whole, and yet, there are clear patterns that emerge over time and keep the system functioning. What allows one pattern to emerge and not another? Those are attractors – in human systems, the beliefs, feelings, thoughts, or rules around which energy coalesces.
Now, if a belief is strong enough or repeated often enough to draw many people to it, we call that a ‘meme,’ or organizing principle of a whole culture. One definition of a meme is:
A cultural unit (an idea or value or pattern of behavior) that is passed from one person to another by non-genetic means (as by imitation); "memes are the cultural counterpart of genes" WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University.
Memes are indeed passed by imitation, but also by communication (overt and subtle), repetition, and viral networking. We see this in action, for instance, in the campaign of Oback Obama, where the simple yet undefined message of ‘hope’ and ‘change’ has caught the imagination of millions of people (especially young people, who realize they are inheriting a world that must change if there is to be hope for humanity’s survival) and they are self-organizing in a way that appears, on the surface, to be nothing short of phenomenal. Certainly it was unpredictable. His message is acting as a strange attractor to pull people into a new movement, yet within the bounds of the normal political process.
Let’s look at some of the memes (ideas, values, or patterns of behavior) active in the world today:
Religious exclusivity – the belief that one’s own religion is the only ‘correct’ religion, and believers in other religions must be converted or killed, or, if left alone, will suffer for their wrong views in the afterlife.
America as Superpower – the belief that America is the biggest, richest, strongest, nation in the world and is therefore entitled to hold dominant power in global institutions and actions around the world.
Environmental Sustainability – this idea is still emerging as a meme, or strange attractor. As more and more people wake up to the dangers of global warming, for instance, the ‘culture’ of environmentalism is growing.
- Why and when some memes acting as strange attractors succeed in creating a new culture or following and some do not is a question best addressed elsewhere. Some questions this raises for me are:
- Can we make ‘peace’ a strange attractor to change the culture of our society?
Can we identify the strange attractors that keep our society hooked on things like debt, addiction to junk food, violence as both entertainment and response to differences, militarism, empire-building, etc?
- If we can identify them, how do we lessen the attraction of some memes and strengthen the attraction of others?
I recently read somewhere something that struck me powerfully: What if I selected one value by which I choose to live my life, and simply applied that in every single event, interaction, and moment of my day? Would that value not then become an attractor or organizing principle for my life, amassing a fortune, not necessarily in terms of money but in terms of circumstances, relationships, and opportunities aligned with that value? And wouldn’t that work at the national and global level as well? Hmmm…
The next term of the How to Change the World course begins in mid-April. Having started the course by studying the nature of reality, we now address the true nature of power. We will focus on Power, the Way of Right Relationship, looking at how to shift from power over to power with, or, in the words of Riane Eisler, from dominance to partnership (including the re-balancing partnership of masculine and feminine energies). We’ll also be considering other core elements of right relationship, given that there is only one family of life on the planet: trust, respect for differences, compassion, forgiveness and reconciliation, and community building. There are currently seven places open for new registrants for the Intensive (April 11-14 in Santa Fe, New Mexico), and approximately 20 places open in the Home Study section.
You can go to www.louisediamond.com/training.html to learn more about this course and to register for the April term, or call me at 505-795-7075 or 802-453-7194.
Hummingbird Recommends…
There are four exciting events coming up soon that I heartily recommend, as they directly relate to what we’re exploring in How to Change the World:
- Thinking Like a System: How to Intervene in a System for Social Change, April 3-6, 2008, Santa Fe, New Mexico. With Merle Lefkoff and John Goekler. Blends complexity science and Buddhist principles to guide interventions for positive social change. For more information, go to www.upaya.org or email upaya@upaya.org, or call 505-986-8518.
- Journey from Conflict to Peace, April 21-23, 2008; Wayzata, Minnesota. With Glenda Eoyang and team. Takes a human systems approach to conflict and its resolution. Contact De Krengel for more information. (dkrengel@hsdinstitute.org; 866-HSD-INST)
- International Conference on Chaos, Complexity, and Conflict, June 5-8, 2008, Omaha, Nebraska. With Bernie Mayer, Glenda Eoyang, and many others. Brings together academics and practitioners to look at the marriage of complexity and conflict. Includes a visit to the zoo to discover ‘simple rules!’ Go to http//law.creighton.edu/wernerinstitute/complexityconference/ or contact Bryan Hanson for more information (brianhanson@creighton.edu; 402-280-3365)
- Engaging the Other: The Power of Compassionate Dialogue, September 4-7, 2008, Mateo, California. With a host of excellent presenters. Explores how compassionate dialogue can profoundly change relationships and whole systems in five key areas: Peace and Social Justice, Environmental Sustainability, Inter-faith Harmony, Good Governance, and Economic Equity. For more information, go to www.cbiworld.org or call Steve Olweean at 269-665-9393 or me, Louise Diamond, at 505-795-7075.
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