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The New Peace Report, #5
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 a global shift toward Deep Peace. I define Deep Peace as a living experience of the interconnectedness of all being. 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.)
 Memorial Day Revisited
We need a new story about Memorial Day. I believe in honoring our fallen soldiers. Being of the 60’s generation, I have visited the Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC many times to weep and honor the men and women who fought and died in that, and all wars. I especially appreciate the straightforwardness of that memorial – it simply lists the names, by year of death – for by naming the dead we claim them.
Claiming the dead is critically important for our humanity, because otherwise war can easily become an abstraction. Already, as a physical means of achieving political aims, it contains a built-in contradiction: we kill others and destroy their infrastructure so they (or we) can have a better life. Equally contradictory is the fact that it makes sense for the U.S. to have a standing army in today’s world, yet the very act of using that army creates inhuman and inhumane situations – especially when war is pursued for inappropriate purposes, as is true today in Iraq.
Our leaders want us to focus on the political element of the war in Iraq (and the possible upcoming war in Iran), though the underlying political rationale and goalposts keep shifting. They particularly want us to forget the physical part – hence the ban on photographs of returning body bags, which in itself is an abstraction, for if we saw with our own eyes what was truly in those bags we’d be in the streets by the millions, demanding an end to the madness.
We must never forget that war, for all the attempts at political justification, is ultimately about human suffering. For every name on that Vietnam wall, for every soldier who comes home from Iraq or Afghanistan dead or severely wounded in body and/or mind, and for every Iraqi or Afghani soldier and civilian killed, maimed, or displaced (and we’re talking millions and millions of people here), war is an immense human tragedy that affects not only the individual but their entire family and community, every single day of their lives. There is no such thing as ‘collateral damage.’ There is only human damage.
Since the Civil War, most Americans have not had to experience this in our own land, and so we can keep its horrors at a distance. (I say most of us, but not all of us, for many in our inner cities experience the daily violence of street life that is similar in kind if not in scale to wars overseas.) In fact, we keep it so much at a distance that we don’t even realize how we are being conditioned or trained to accept war as natural.
For instance, have you seen the Narnia movies, or the Lord of the Ring trilogy, or the Golden Compass? These are movies that socialize our children into believing that war is necessary and right. Even our language – ‘the battle between good and evil,’ ‘the fight for justice,’ – suggests that violence is the route to all good things. Where is the national uproar that Hollywood is producing war movies for our children? Instead we talk about the special effects… And then there are those video games…
So, we need a new story about Memorial Day, because it’s not enough to honor our fallen soldiers once a year. We need a story that keeps the human and spiritual costs of war in the forefront of our consciousness as a goad to action. For without the action of millions of us the culture of war and violence that permeates our society will not change.
The storyline I like is the familiar one of a victim of some tragedy or their surviving family members (drunk driver, drug overdose, gang shooting, horrible disease, etc.) deciding to turn their grief into something positive and meaningful by campaigning for the cause related to their loss. I like this story because it is about letting our emotions galvanize us to action in order to prevent further suffering.
That’s what Memorial Day should be. Let us fully grieve our dead, and honor their sacrifice. And then let us feel the grief strongly enough that we choose to do whatever we can to stop the war in Iraq, prevent a war in Iran, provide the full measure of care needed by our veterans, and change the culture of violence in our society that makes us complacent and often unconscious co-conspirators in using war as a tool for ideological or economic gain rather than to truly defend our country against real danger.
Many feel this urge, but stop themselves from action by saying, ‘Yes, but I’m no activist, and anyway, what can one person do in the face of the vast power of the war machine?’ Yet every small action, with ourselves or our family, in our community or on the national scene, can make a difference. We must know that.
To this end, I wrote The Peace Book: 108 Simple Ways to Make a More Peaceful World. It’s full of practical suggestions for what each person can do in their daily lives to lessen the glamour of violence and war and strengthen the path of peace in our world. You won’t find this book in the bookstores; it’s available at www.thepeacecompany.com. I recommend that in honor of Memorial Day you buy a boxful of these books and give them away to friends and family, so that next year at this time the commemoration of our war dead is also a celebration of an emerging wave of human evolution to diminish the pull of war and make peace the way we live.
Our First Deep Peace President?
I have been reading Barack Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope, and I am mightily impressed. Finally, we have a national and global leader who understands the basic principle of Deep Peace, which is that in our increasingly interdependent world, we need to see our ‘own self interest as inextricably linked to the interests of others.’ (page 40)
He speaks of exactly that wisdom needed to carry us beyond the divisiveness and separation consciousness of our world today: about the need to find common ground and shared values as a way to transcend the polarization in our political process; about the importance of deliberative democracy and the danger of absolutism; about the universality of values and the narrowness of ideology; about the need to avoid isolationism and embrace multilateralism, even while keeping open our options for true self-defense; about the importance of culture in shaping our actions, and the proper role of government in helping shape that culture for the better; and about the need for empathy, to understand how our actions make others feel.
Throughout I was impressed with how he didn’t just talk about these ideas but demonstrated them in his own writing. He often presented both conservative and liberal views on a subject, lifting up the merit in both, and then describing his own stance, which was frequently a synthesis of the two. He showed us how he arrived at his political and foreign policy views with a walk through history, to give context to his ‘take’ on current situations. And throughout he wove personal stories about his family and his own learning curve, with great humility and presence.
As I think about this election, I am also struck by what it would mean to have a man of color as President of the United States. Not in any way to diminish the equal power of having a woman as President, to have a black man as the head of state, given the history of this nation in relation to people of color in our own land and abroad, is revolutionary.
On a practical level, the constant flow of white men in the top decision-making positions of our government (with the occasional ‘other’ here and there) means that the experience of people of color in our society is basically invisible, for we know that those in any dominant culture rarely understand the daily realities of those from non-dominant cultures. To have someone with a first-hand knowledge of those realities at the top of the decision-making structure is a profound opportunity – not only for healing the persistent racial divide in our country (and in the world) but also for insuring that, in a true democracy, indeed all the voices of the people can be heard.
I have not yet read Dreams from my Father, his earlier book about his life journey, but plan to shortly. I am deeply encouraged by Obama’s candidacy, and find myself drawn to assist his election however I can. What he may lack in experience he more than makes up for in consciousness, and in the world we face today, with so many of our structures and systems in crisis or turmoil, the experience can be provided by those around him, but the consciousness will ultimately determine the direction.
Engaging the Other
The big debate in the political arena now is whether or not we should talk with those regimes we find distasteful. I find this to be one of the more ridiculous conversations on the airwaves. If we do not talk with those we disagree with, how will we ever find points of agreement? How will we ever make peace with those who threaten us or who feel threatened by us (often both are true at once) if we don’t explore avenues for resolution of our differences?
When our ‘conversation’ consists of hurling charges at each other via the media, we only hear the positions or demands each side makes of the other, which often appear mutually contradictory. Basic negotiation theory, however, tells us that behind all positions are interests, needs, and values, and that we can often find common ground there. Without talking with each other, we will never discover what lies in that area of potentially shared interests.
A particular trick currently popular with this administration is to agree to talk, but only with pre-conditions, usually meaning we demand the results for which we would be negotiating to be agreed to up-front. And then we blame ‘them’ for not being serious partners for peace. This is an exercise in dominance, not real diplomacy, and is guaranteed to prevent any meaningful dialogue and improved relationship.
This split into ‘us’ (the good guys) versus ‘them’ (the bad guys) is a symptom of a serious misfire in human thinking. It represents the ultimate in separation consciousness. In today’s interdependent world we can no longer afford or give credence to this kind of divisiveness. We’re all in this together on this one planet, and if we can’t learn to live together harmoniously, we’ll all go down together. Energizing the notion of the external ‘enemy’ may appear to serve passing political causes, but if we are to survive as a global family we must give all our energy to finding ways to get along.
Engaging ‘the Other,’ however, is not always easy. Our culture, gender, language, religion, worldview, and other areas of diversity often get in the way of understanding those who are different from us. Our assumptions and beliefs about ‘the Other’ are frequently shaped by propaganda, incomplete information, or lack of contact. We are sometimes taught, deliberately, to de-humanize and even demonize ‘the Other,’ as a way of making ourselves feel more powerful, more entitled, more worthy, or morally or intellectually superior.
 These dynamics in the world we face today are beyond inappropriate; they are dangerous. That’s why I encourage you all to attend a conference called Engaging the Other in San Francisco on September 4-7, 2008. For three days we will explore the dynamics of dialogue and compassion for relating to those who are ‘not us’ in five key areas: Peace and Social Justice, Environmental Sustainability, Economic Equity, Religious and Cultural Harmony, and Good Governance. These areas were selected because they are where our greatest challenges as well as our greatest opportunities as a human family lie in these times.
You can find out more about the presenters and the program on the conference website: www.cbiworld.org. I will be there, and hope to see you there as well, for this subject is critical to our well-being in every realm.
Transformative Leadership
If you have been reading these Peace Reports you will know that I am teaching a year-long course called How to Change the World. We have completed the first three-month session on Systems, the Way of the One, and are half-way through the second term on Power, the Way of Right Relationship. In mid-July we start our third session, on Transformation, the Way of Exponential Change.
Leaders in every field are called upon in these days to manage a rapid change process that is exponential in scale. No longer can incremental, step-by-step processes satisfy the needs engendered by the crises or near-crises we face in all that is essential to our well-being as a web of life on and with this planet – water, food, housing, climate, money, jobs, education, and safety. The structures and institutions of society at every level are called upon to change not just their ways of addressing these issues, but the very assumptions and beliefs on which their approaches are based.
To be successful in this, leaders need to understand the process of transformation as distinct from other types of change, and to be able to guide others through that process. Personal transformation, institutional transformation, and global transformation are our business now, and each feeds the others. If you care about social change, and are positioned as a leader in any setting, please consider taking this course.
You can find out more on the course website, www.louisediamond.com/training.html, or call me at 802-453-7194. The course begins July 11 with a four-day intensive followed by three months of distance learning through readings, online discussion, audio selections, and teleconferences. For those unable to attend the intensive, a home-study option is available. To make a world of Deep Peace we need a new cadre of transformative leaders. If you are or would be one, please come join us.
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