Peace involves bringing two sides together, often with different agendas, diverse worldviews, and incommensurate goals. It is a difficult process. A false peace is when, having given up negotiations, one side inflicts its will on the other side. When that willful force involves violence, we call it war. War is never the means to peace.
In the Iran nuclear talks the temptation was ever present for either the United States or Iran to dig in their heals, to refuse to compromise, to give nothing. Should that happen, then the stronger side is tempted to use violence to enforce its will on the other side. In human history we have have been plagued by the hubris of those who think they are more powerful going to war with those they seek to control. It invariably backfires. War is always, an unpredictable, wayward, out of control, and destructive endeavor. So I am glad that good sense has prevailed, and that at least for the time being sabers, having been rattled, are now returned to their scabbards.
If we dig to the roots of the human condition most of us want a life of well-being where we enjoy life's basic benefits and freedoms—to eat reasonably, to live in decent homes, to be free from fear of attack, abuse, or theft, to find life partners, to care for our families, to engage in meaningful work, to pursue our religion or not, to create ... Iranians and Americans and Israelis and Saudis and everyone else share the same root. Carelessness and pride lead to war and destruction, and everyone suffers.
While all this has been going on, I have been working this last week on a forthcoming book provisionally titled: To Talk to Terrorists: Lessons for Gaza from Northern Ireland. This week I have been immersed in the Northern Ireland Troubles in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Though, as a teenager, I lived in that period, my memories of the Troubles are of the diet of news fed to us through the British media—with hindsight, not an altogether unbiased viewpoint. Still, as I read accounts of the Troubles, place names I have never visited, but that were indelibly marked on my consciousness, came back with vividness—the Shankill Road, the Bogside, Free Derry, the Falls Road, Ballymurphy, the Crumlin Road, New Lodge, Armagh. Such were the names associated with the Troubles and reported on a daily basis. Anyone who lived in the British Isles at that time will hear the resonance. During the troubles over 3,500 people lost their lives. David McKittrick et al compiled an extensive document with short biographies of those who died: Lost Lives: the Stories of the men Women and Children Who Died as a Result of the Northern Ireland Troubles. In 1,700 pages, the stories of those who died, on all sides of the conflict, makes for harrowing reading.
Yet, in the end peace came to Northern Ireland. It was not an easy peace to reach. Feelings ran high on all sides. Principles were deeply held and only relaxed with reluctance. Real peace is difficult. It involves compromise, and letting go some of your hard held principles, grudges and hurts. Real peace involves forgiveness and a high level of forgetfulness. Real peace means moving from the self to the Other, seeing things from the perspective of the Other.
St. Paul, in the New Testament said that Jesus proclaimed peace to those who are far off and peace to those who are near. He suggested that Jesus made one people of those who were separated. It's hard to see than truth in this given the last two thousand years of human conflict.
My best attempt to make sense of St. Paul's hopeful assertion is that the life Jesus lived, so far as we can tell, and the kinds of things he said are the very things that make for peace. In this way, Jesus' proclamation of peace was something to do with a life of compassion for the Other, laying down of selfish ideas, motives and goals, walking a second mile if asked, giving the Other your coat when she needs it, forgiving your enemy, turning the other cheek, welcoming children and the most vulnerable in society, accepting the Other—whatever gender, race, or religion—as equal to yourself, repaying good for evil. Life characterized in that way is the way of peace.
To translate that to the world of politics is not easy—but not impossible. In political terms it will mean negotiating first and last, talking to those with whom you have fundamental disagreements, going the extra mile, helping rather than hurting, moving on from the wrongs of the past on all sides, accepting the Other. So far as I can see, with the Iran nuclear deal the nations of the world have made a reasonable attempt. Peace to those who are far off, peace to those who are near.
+Ab. Andy