Think and act logically for peace!

Five fields of work in civil society

by Hanne-Margret Birckenbach

[This article posted in 2023 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://wissenschaft-und-frieden.de/artikel/dennoch-friedenslogisch-denken-und-handeln/.]

On March 11, 2023, Hanne-Margret Birckenbach was awarded the Göttingen Peace Prize for her life's work. Her latest book “Friedenslogik verstehen ‘1(Understanding the Logic of Peace), which can be seen as a desideratum of many years of sharpening the approach, was published shortly beforehand. Here, W&F documents the prizewinner's speech on the occasion of the award ceremony, in which she outlines five areas of responsibility for peace-logical thinking and action - and encourages readers to pursue the task of shaping peace with determination and the necessary complexity.

Peace research and peace practice - how do they fit together? The field of peace research is narrow. The field of practice, on the other hand, is broad. The list of previous winners of the Göttingen Prize bears witness to this. They come from the fields of politics, journalism, citizens' initiatives, peace education and trauma and reconciliation work. Musicians and sea rescuers also carry out peace work. Peace researchers are often in exchange with these and other fields of practice, especially if they work experientially.

My work on peace logic was also developed in exchange with practitioners who have joined forces in the peace policy network “Plattform Zivile Konfliktbearbeitung”. One result is the peace logic principles of action. They provide information on what, according to current knowledge, should be taken into account if peace is to be the result of conscious action in politics and society.

Social science research distinguishes between peace as an ideal and peace as a way of approaching this ideal. When things are going well, direct and indirect violence decreases and cooperation increases despite conflict in the interest of maintaining existence. Peace efforts are most likely to be successful when actors from politics, diplomacy and civil society are in contact. They can then use their own approaches to break the cycles of violence and counter-violence, decipher and change conflict formations. This happens when communication between conflicting parties is successful and conflicting interests are steered in a way that is compatible with peace.

In the best-case scenario, such work does not achieve the ideal of peace; rather, it “only” leads to more peace within discord. The work on peace is therefore never complete. It is an ongoing task. Because dissatisfaction is to be expected even in a favorable case. Care must therefore be taken to ensure that the peace achieved does not break down due to dissatisfaction and that more satisfaction is achieved in the long term. This cannot succeed without the participation of civil society under today's conditions of diverse transnational interdependencies.

These findings abstract from concrete cases. But they are not unrealistic. Germany promotes them primarily in the context of development cooperation. To this end, it sends experts to many places in the global South. They are also active in Colombia. However, when politicians such as the Colombian Vice President express the expectation on the fringes of the Munich Security Conference that this pool of knowledge will also be used in the case of the war against Ukraine, and when they then offer their help, it does cause irritation.

There are fascinating success stories, but we will not be talking about them here today. Because a seemingly unsolvable constellation is holding Europe's and my thoughts, feelings and actions captive today. The peace that was achieved in the early 1990s has collapsed. Russia has now crossed the threshold into war against Ukraine. The prospects of a peace process are diminishing with every day of war - no different to other wars. The situation is aggravated by the fact that, in addition to the aggressor Russia, those states that have so far made a name for themselves as “peace-makers” in the United Nations are also involved in the emergence and escalation of the conflict situation and in the ongoing fighting. These states now see it as their responsibility to defend Ukraine militarily and politically against Russia.

They are certainly concerned with the defense of high values, the defense of international law and the defense of Ukrainian statehood. However, it is questionable whether the means are suitable for this. They are certainly not conducive to peace. At the same time, the Western states are also pursuing hegemonic interests. Their legitimacy is no longer accepted in many parts of the world.

Even peace researchers today find it difficult to make solid statements about how the war against Ukraine can be ended in a way that promotes peace. There is a large gap between the conflict analyses on the one hand and the practical steps that can be derived from them on the other. Nevertheless, peace researchers are also expected to explore what can be done to promote peace and to share their ideas with those who ask about them.

One civil conflict transformation expert wrote to me: "The current escalation into a third world war leaves us all feeling horrified and powerless. Never before have we experienced such a strong power imbalance. Where do you see starting points for us as a civil society group to put a spoke in the wheel? All the “petitions” don't seem to have any effect, and we're a small, pitiful bunch at demonstrations."

I would like to ask the question in a slightly different way: what role can civil society actors foreseeably play in the development of peace in this European war? I would like to point out five areas of work. All of them involve diverse approaches to dialogical conflict management.

1. keeping the discourse going and expanding it

There is widespread agreement in Germany: The way out of war is through negotiations. What is controversial is how and when fruitful negotiations can take place. If public statements are to be believed, Russia and Ukraine, as well as their Western supporters, believe that they can control the war and that they can improve their respective negotiating positions through the use of military force. Even after a year of war, warnings about the destructive effects of this all-round strategy are difficult to accept on all sides. They disrupt the strategy.

The result is propaganda as well as polarizing and unproductive debates among friends, in the newspapers and on talk shows. The space for thought, dialog and cooperation is shrinking on all sides. These restrictions are most clearly felt by peace-oriented people in Ukraine and Russia who doubt the narrative of their governments. It is also felt by prominent figures in Germany and members of the Bundestag. And all peace initiatives are feeling it. Nevertheless, their appeals, statements and actions do not seem ineffective to me. Because they keep peace-oriented thinking, speaking and acting in public. They also often succeed in providing a forum for critical voices from Ukraine, Russia and the USA. Despite all the differences, the peace policy initiatives agree on at least three points. They criticize Russian aggression and warfare without ifs and buts. They call for de-escalation and an end to the fighting. And they advocate an immediate start to negotiations.

These demands are fully in line with the UN Charter and the resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly on the war against Ukraine since February last year. Germany was also involved in their creation and has agreed to them.

Sanctions or military support are not ruled out. However, they are not recommended either. There is no political majority for them. As long as the calls for peace formulate expectations that correspond to this UN framework, they support international efforts to develop peace, which are also taking place behind the scenes. The initiatives cannot specify how the core demands are to be met. It is also necessarily unclear to them. This is because they have neither the information required for a response nor the political access to obtain such information. Political opacity increases during war. The German government is in charge of implementing what it has campaigned for in the United Nations. It can, of course, also consult with experts from civil society on what is possible under the difficult conditions.

2. expanding oases of peace

The most recent resolution of the UN General Assembly (A/RES/ES-11/6) calls for increased support for diplomatic efforts to end the war. There are now objections to the possibility of successful negotiations: It is not possible to negotiate with Russia for the time being. It also rejects negotiations. Ukraine does not want to negotiate either.

These objections are controversial among diplomats. There are several narratives about who and what has caused previous efforts to fail. It seems impossible for me to decide at present what actually happened. However, it seems correct to me that geopolitical points of conflict cannot and should not be successfully negotiated at present. These include the eastward expansion of the West and Russia's imperial territorial claims. The sovereignty of Ukraine is also non-negotiable.

However, this assessment does not mean that negotiations on other issues will inevitably fail. Even in the UN Security Council, cooperation with Russia on global political issues continues to be successful. In recent months, most resolutions in the Security Council have been adopted unanimously or by a majority. Only a few were blocked by one of the veto powers. Internationally moderated negotiations between Ukraine and Russia have also already led to concrete results. These have a direct impact on reducing violence. Humanitarian corridors have been set up. Prisoners have been exchanged. The International Atomic Energy Agency is negotiating further protection zones around nuclear power plants. The agreements on grain deliveries, in which NATO member Turkey is also involved and which meet the UN General Assembly's demand for food security, have also been successful.

All of these agreements also show what international diplomats need to be successful: firstly, a mandate, secondly, humanitarian expectations and thirdly, a political environment that requires the parties to negotiate viable outcomes. Diplomats from within the OSCE have now proposed expanding such oases of successful negotiation and, for example, also protecting schools, social institutions, sowing and harvesting.2 Logically, this raises the question of how the formation of further oases can be initiated and supported. An agreement on territorial borders or the return of annexed territories does not appear to be necessary for this.

Experience from other violent conflicts now shows that civil society actors are needed to ensure that such oases are created, that they are protected from sabotage by early warnings and that they are secured using civilian peacekeeping methods. In Ukraine, for example, some groups have joined forces in the “Platform for Non Violent Activism” and the “Foundation for Community Development”. These groups can now be asked by their partner organizations in Germany whether and how they want to participate in such oases, which ones they want to initiate themselves and what external support would be helpful.

3. integrating global norms and civilian approaches

In the first year of the war, a number of topics were proposed for a negotiating agenda.3 For example, the demilitarization of combat zones, territorial borders, arms control, neutrality, security guarantees, European security, a reconstruction programme and even a second Helsinki process.

For those involved in civil conflict transformation, it is worth taking a closer look. Two gaps are obvious. These were also pointed out on the fringes of the Munich Security Conference.

• Firstly, all the proposals are Europe-centered. However, ending the war is also a global issue. This war is a burden on international law and international cooperation. It has immense consequences for food, energy supply, finance and protection against nuclear devastation. It damages the environment and impairs human rights development everywhere. The UN members want this war to end, and not at some point, but quickly. It is now challenging for representatives of Western states to accept how much they need the consent of the Global South to pacify European lines of conflict. Western states are now feeling their credibility gap. Political decisions to counter Russian aggression will gain worldwide approval and legitimacy if they are compatible with global obligations. This applies not least to the obligation to disarm, limit the arms trade, conserve resources and implement the 17 goals of the 2030 Agenda. These global political commitments set limits to Europe-centered proposals. This applies in particular to intentions to ensure security in Europe through further armament.
  

This raises the question of how a transnational movement can emerge that is not suspected of pursuing authoritarian or dictatorial interests and is strong enough to insist on the credible implementation of international agreements. Numerous contacts from the peace and development cooperation of non-governmental organizations as well as broad campaigning experience are available. Can these contacts and experiences be used in a similar way to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons? In any case, civil society actors in the global North now need a lot of support from their partner organizations in the global South. This also needs to be communicated openly and with humility.

• The second gap in the list of topics concerns socio-political issues. The list of topics is state-centered. It also makes no reference to civil conflict management. However, its actors are not available on call. They need a long lead time to be able to take action. It is therefore important to formulate possible roles in advance and to coordinate them transnationally. After all, this will determine what the results of the negotiations actually entail - whether they are geared towards sealing off the border with barbed wire and mines, for example, or whether needs-based solutions for easy border traffic are found. How effectively the results of negotiations are implemented also depends on civil society actors.
  

Demilitarization of the combat zones and control of the 2,000 km border between Ukraine and Russia or even the 4,000 km border between the EU and Russia are hardly conceivable without civilian forces. And how else can we imagine a new Helsinki process, for example? It must, for example, also deal with environmentally friendly economic activity, constructive ways of dealing with historical and current experiences of violence and injustice and the dissolution of hatred and enmity. There are many concepts and experiences from other contexts that have been scientifically evaluated. These experiences and results must now be translated for a different context.

4. anchoring peace discourse in real life

Even in democratic societies, peace policy discourses do not meet with the desired and necessary interest among the population. Social-psychological studies conducted between 1980 and 2000 have shown how demands in the world of work and life lead to citizens feeling at the mercy of or overwhelmed by them.4 They therefore adopt attitudes that block their emotional and intellectual access to the topic of political peacebuilding. These relationships are probably even more pronounced today. This is because the planetary crises are also being felt more strongly in everyday life in welfare-oriented countries. The rapid pressure for change is tiring. It is understandable when citizens avoid political debates about issues beyond their world of experience.

Colleagues in school and extracurricular peace education have drawn the conclusion from such findings to pay attention to the links between personal experiences in micro-conflicts and interpretations of global political events. They therefore design peace education in an experiential way and in such a way that participants can experience themselves as self-effective. Mediative approaches to local conflict resolution in Germany and abroad take a similar approach. The civilian experts work together with people and groups who are rooted in the local communities, who are trusted there and who are aware of the reality of the people's lives and their traditions.

Even now, during the war in Ukraine, real-life peace work is taking place. It is often initiated by women. Only a few are able to appear in public under the conditions of war. Nevertheless, despite the enormously difficult conditions, transnational cooperation continues to succeed through civil peace services and other organizations. As an example, I would like to mention the “Women's Initiatives for Peace in Donbas(s)”. This initiative brings together practitioners, mediators and academics from Ukraine, Russia, Switzerland and Germany. It is a particularly successful form of action research.

Since 2016, these women have managed to communicate across camps about their different perceptions of the situation in their specific location. They talk about their needs and those of their families. They talk about education, work and the possibilities of keeping in touch with relatives and friends on the other side of the border and in the other camp. And they think about what they can do for each other. They give each other the strength - beyond propaganda - to independently interpret what is happening in and to their countries. The work of this group is exemplary for those involved in culture, science and education. They can all now contribute a great deal to detoxifying communication between the camps.

However, since the breakdown of the Minsk negotiations, this women's initiative in the Donbas(s) also lacks a political framework into which they can thread their thoughts and which they can provide with fresh ideas. There are also no financial resources. As with all forms of dialog work, it is therefore necessary for a political negotiating framework to emerge quickly in which peace is desired. After all, the reach of true-to-life peace work depends on whether diplomatic channels open up for civil society participation. And it depends on which connections can be made to decision-making levels. Building trust between these levels requires its own efforts. Only through ombudspersons and in protected spaces can actors working for peace at different levels discuss how they can better complement each other.

5. daring to engage in multi-perspective peace dialogs

As a student, I learned from the peace researcher Klaus Horn that recognizing one's own powerlessness in complex processes is a prerequisite for effective peace action. When I now think about the fields of work I have mentioned, I get a fright myself. Keeping the political peace discourse going, participating in oases of peace development and the implementation of global commitments, consulting voices from the global South and broadening understanding of the diverse approaches to peace work: with these pointers, I have given a long answer to a short question from the field and formulated a comprehensive program for a great many participants.

It is a lot of work to work out such a program. Wherever something of it succeeds under the current conditions, a window opens for more peace in discord. Everywhere there is a lack of opportunities to bring people with different knowledge, positions and fears together to discuss issues of peace development. This is the only way for them to learn about the possibilities for reducing violence and transforming conflicts in dialogical processes and how they can participate in peace developments.

The starting conditions for such dialogs are not bad here in Göttingen. In 1957, the Göttingen 18 founded a tradition of warning against nuclear armament. Göttingen is a member of the worldwide network of Mayors for Peace and the Lord Mayor, Ms. Broistedt, is campaigning within this framework for other states to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Lower Saxony has a peace education coordination office at the State Institute for School Quality Development. There is a network of experts who have experience in civil conflict management in Germany and abroad. They are available to report on their methods and experiences at schools and other institutions. Göttingen schools are interested in peace education, although - unlike in Baden-Württemberg - this is not yet part of the curriculum. If I have understood correctly, the only thing missing is a political decision to allocate funds for this in the state budget or the city budget. Something could be done quickly about peace.

And finally, Göttingen has a theater full of stories about crime, lies, fear and love. And in Mr. Sidler, it has an artistic director who describes the theatre as a place of encounter and negotiation. In the parable “The Good Man of Szechwan”, Bertolt Brecht constructed a dilemma that seems as hopeless as the current debate about ever more weapons and atrocities in war. In the epilogue, the window opens for a change-oriented discourse that could lead to a good conclusion after all. Because there has to be a good one, “must, must, must”, the text says.

Perhaps the guiding concept of peace will help us to find a new beginning here in the theater too. Perhaps many of you want to start right now. [...]

Notes

1) See also the review of the book by Eva Senghaas-Knobloch on p. 64f. of this issue

2) See also Dienes, A. (2021): What are “islands of cooperation”. In: Dienes et al: Daring more “common security”. New impulses for détente in a highly armed world. W&F Dossier 92, pp. 10-12.

3) Ronnefeldt, C. (2023): Diplomatic solutions in the Ukraine war. PeaceForum 2/2023, p. 18f.

4) Volmerg, B. and U.; Leithäuser, Th. (1983): Kriegsängste und Sicherheitsbedürfnis: Zur Sozialpsychologie des Ost Westkonflikts im Alltag. Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer Verlag.

Hanne-Margret Birckenbach is a retired professor at the University of Giessen and lives in Hamburg. Homepage: hanne-margret-birckenbach-wellmann.de