1 00:00:00,440 --> 00:00:14,960 You know, it's it's really after such wonderful presentations and, you know, in front of like John Paul and John, I feel quite humble actually. 2 00:00:14,960 --> 00:00:20,360 And but I what I try, I'm trying to say today is my own experience. 3 00:00:20,360 --> 00:00:24,440 And again, this is not on behalf of the organisation I work for, 4 00:00:24,440 --> 00:00:36,710 but my own personal experience as as a peace builder and and in and my experience with community peace builders. 5 00:00:36,710 --> 00:00:43,820 You know, this is a wall that in from in the citadel of Babylon, 6 00:00:43,820 --> 00:00:57,230 where the hand that's said in the book of Daniel a divine hand is supposed to have, you know, come and a prophecy on a wall. 7 00:00:57,230 --> 00:01:03,500 And this is supposed to be the legend, has it. This is that wall. So and that's where we get the phrase. 8 00:01:03,500 --> 00:01:10,040 The writing on the wall. So I wonder, sometimes you know, if conflict in some communities, you know, is it really inevitable? 9 00:01:10,040 --> 00:01:18,740 Is it the writing on the wall? Now we tend to believe that peace is the natural state and conflict is the aberration. 10 00:01:18,740 --> 00:01:26,950 But what if it's the other way around? What if? Conflict is a natural state and peace is the anomaly. 11 00:01:26,950 --> 00:01:33,010 And all that we're experiencing now when we talk of peace are peace bells. 12 00:01:33,010 --> 00:01:41,590 Sometimes they're wrong. In fact, the era since World War Two in Europe definitely has been called the peace bell. 13 00:01:41,590 --> 00:01:52,330 The long peace, actually. And we often wonder if, therefore, you know, peace is not necessarily a guaranteed finish line, 14 00:01:52,330 --> 00:01:58,650 but it's actually a much needed pitstop for us so that we recover as a society. 15 00:01:58,650 --> 00:02:06,880 I say this because of the way we imagine the levels of peacebuilding, local, regional, national. 16 00:02:06,880 --> 00:02:12,000 We sometimes, you know, it's easy to think of it the way we look at governance, right? 17 00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:22,720 Local government, regional government. So like a like a matsusaka. But what if it's actually more of an ambiguous? 18 00:02:22,720 --> 00:02:27,940 Where each of them has a place, has a place value. 19 00:02:27,940 --> 00:02:33,250 Local, regional and they don't always coincide. 20 00:02:33,250 --> 00:02:37,270 You can have peace at the national level, but not so at the grassroots. 21 00:02:37,270 --> 00:02:44,770 You could have a piece of the grassroots, but you could have, you know, mobs going at each other's throats in parliament. 22 00:02:44,770 --> 00:02:49,330 So you could. And this is the forum. 23 00:02:49,330 --> 00:02:53,320 It's it's moving, but each of them has a place where you and you will never get the complete picture, 24 00:02:53,320 --> 00:02:59,500 especially when you look at peace as a process of multiplication of, you know, benefits for the parties involved. 25 00:02:59,500 --> 00:03:01,570 And you definitely each place value. 26 00:03:01,570 --> 00:03:10,510 And and we often talk about peace and stability, but I believe that again, the two of them don't always have to go together. 27 00:03:10,510 --> 00:03:20,890 And then justice is something that's very critical. And so we should probably be looking at peace, stability and justice at all levels. 28 00:03:20,890 --> 00:03:29,350 With that, I want to talk about Afghanistan and Iraq before I spent almost six years in these countries. 29 00:03:29,350 --> 00:03:35,530 And I have found that the two of them are very different, extremely heterogeneous. 30 00:03:35,530 --> 00:03:50,950 I've had a turbulent history over more or less for at least 40 years plus and on the whereas in Afghanistan, 31 00:03:50,950 --> 00:03:56,140 perhaps the dividing line of in terms of identity is ethnicity. 32 00:03:56,140 --> 00:04:03,610 In Iraq, it is partly partly ethnicity out of good and partly sectarian. 33 00:04:03,610 --> 00:04:09,610 Now what we. What I found, though, was that. 34 00:04:09,610 --> 00:04:19,300 No matter how everyone you speak to tell you a story of what they have gone through and I will not bore you with the history of these countries. 35 00:04:19,300 --> 00:04:29,320 But when you go through these stories, you come to realise that every community in the country has been a victim at some point or another. 36 00:04:29,320 --> 00:04:38,980 And that, I think is a very important thing to say whenever possible as we approach someone that you know and and it's important to listen to them, 37 00:04:38,980 --> 00:04:46,800 but also say that actually, yes, the other side may be the perpetrator, but they've also been the victims and perhaps victim. 38 00:04:46,800 --> 00:04:53,260 The victim would in fact perhaps present a very strong meeting ground. 39 00:04:53,260 --> 00:05:00,010 I wanted to share in a first the case and the lessons that I learnt from it. 40 00:05:00,010 --> 00:05:04,990 But before that, what in Afghanistan and Iraq, 41 00:05:04,990 --> 00:05:15,430 the way we approached peacebuilding was that we wanted to do community level peacebuilding was to ensure that, 42 00:05:15,430 --> 00:05:26,800 you know, we had liaison officers or at least a. Provincial offices in almost every province at one point. 43 00:05:26,800 --> 00:05:33,310 The mission in Afghanistan, we had 23 offices and then we went down to eight. 44 00:05:33,310 --> 00:05:39,640 But in all these cases, looking at, I just go back to this, 45 00:05:39,640 --> 00:05:47,560 looking at the diversity of the country and the fact that there are certain cultural regions in the country. 46 00:05:47,560 --> 00:05:53,290 Lawyer, Kandahar, lawyer, the Kunduz, Jalalabad. 47 00:05:53,290 --> 00:06:04,540 This is how people in the country talk about that. Forget the provinces and the boundaries that are drawn up, which are frankly, political acts. 48 00:06:04,540 --> 00:06:14,420 So. Based on this, we had regions, regional offices, in fact, isof also, as you know, had regional commands. 49 00:06:14,420 --> 00:06:24,800 And then inside these, we had offices in each province who were drawn from the local community, you know, reporting in. 50 00:06:24,800 --> 00:06:33,640 Now what we found was we hired local staff. They were most of them were knowledgeable in a former civil servants and. 51 00:06:33,640 --> 00:06:39,700 They, you know, worked with us at the international staff who were mostly sitting in regional offices, 52 00:06:39,700 --> 00:06:46,920 but the local staff were influential people, but they were and they were connected. 53 00:06:46,920 --> 00:06:51,190 So they were good people, but not necessarily influential people. That was actually. 54 00:06:51,190 --> 00:07:00,490 And then they reported on the conflicts to us at the regional level. And what I tried at some point was to get them involved as peace builders. 55 00:07:00,490 --> 00:07:03,130 This was in Afghanistan, and I found that it was very difficult. 56 00:07:03,130 --> 00:07:11,710 Most of them did not want to take the risk of becoming facilitators because every facility faced a certain type of risk, 57 00:07:11,710 --> 00:07:14,320 you know, whether it was physical or reputational. 58 00:07:14,320 --> 00:07:21,400 So in the end, it was one of the things I also tried was to get them to learn from each other, to talk to each other. 59 00:07:21,400 --> 00:07:29,450 And I found it at best it would work inside of Egypt, but it could not work across regions. 60 00:07:29,450 --> 00:07:36,170 With this, I went to, you know, with this context in mind, 61 00:07:36,170 --> 00:07:45,890 I found that I went to Iraq and that was in the two thousand fifteen that was right not long, 62 00:07:45,890 --> 00:07:56,150 long after ISIS took over Mosul, and in fact, 40 percent of the country's territory was under ISIS at that time. 63 00:07:56,150 --> 00:08:01,010 And it was a very, very difficult situation. 64 00:08:01,010 --> 00:08:07,910 And the sectarian tensions were at an all time high. 65 00:08:07,910 --> 00:08:21,020 And what again, I found was first to look at the country as not by the by provinces, but to look at how people in the country describe, you know it. 66 00:08:21,020 --> 00:08:26,870 So you had a region of Basra, so you help us, Ravi, you know, thinking you had, you know, Najaf and Karbala. 67 00:08:26,870 --> 00:08:30,770 That's one way of thinking that Kirkuk and other way of thinking. 68 00:08:30,770 --> 00:08:38,210 And then we deployed, we had this liaison officers deployed in various provinces and who were from the local communities. 69 00:08:38,210 --> 00:08:47,420 You could have someone who had perhaps born and grew up in a neighbouring province, but they had to be within that cultural block. 70 00:08:47,420 --> 00:09:00,800 They needed to, you know, fall within that block. And in this case, we found that. 71 00:09:00,800 --> 00:09:05,850 Unlike not. We are in Afghanistan. 72 00:09:05,850 --> 00:09:12,300 One issue we found was that a lot of the conflict was Kabul centric. 73 00:09:12,300 --> 00:09:17,910 It didn't mean that it only happened in Kabul, but it was done to get attention from Kabul. 74 00:09:17,910 --> 00:09:24,750 In fact, whenever people talk about local, national, you know, peacebuilding, I often wonder, 75 00:09:24,750 --> 00:09:30,990 you know, I do not like this word, but this a word game which you keep hearing all the time. 76 00:09:30,990 --> 00:09:37,380 I used to hear it all the time or this is how the game, you know, that's the game and this is how the game works. 77 00:09:37,380 --> 00:09:40,770 And it's really unfortunate because it's actually, you know, the lives of people at stake. 78 00:09:40,770 --> 00:09:44,130 But these are there are so many political games that are going on. 79 00:09:44,130 --> 00:09:48,840 And therefore, what you see as an act of violence at the local level is just the signalling. 80 00:09:48,840 --> 00:09:56,920 One or perhaps actor to another at a national level. What happens at the national level then translates into, you know, 81 00:09:56,920 --> 00:10:04,430 acts of violence at the local level as an act of, you know, as an exercise of power. 82 00:10:04,430 --> 00:10:12,710 So, so much of our effort at the community level did not bear fruit in Iraq again, context was very different. 83 00:10:12,710 --> 00:10:16,420 It was also because of the governance in Afghanistan was very Kabul centric. 84 00:10:16,420 --> 00:10:21,080 Governors were appointed by the president and, you know, not elected. 85 00:10:21,080 --> 00:10:28,160 So everything was oriented in Iraq. Although again, there was a Baghdad, 86 00:10:28,160 --> 00:10:36,350 there was an elite that worked in the capital and there were efforts at reconciliation between them, a grand bargain of sorts. 87 00:10:36,350 --> 00:10:48,620 But we found that in the provinces in the hinterland, far from the front lines with ISIS, there were a number of other conflicts. 88 00:10:48,620 --> 00:10:52,310 And this meant that instability could spread at any point. 89 00:10:52,310 --> 00:11:00,050 In fact, arms that were captured in the struggle in the front line sometimes made their way into the hinterland. 90 00:11:00,050 --> 00:11:04,160 And then that, in turn, you know, triggered new conflicts. 91 00:11:04,160 --> 00:11:18,100 So this was one case where after have we we had this liaison officers, we I tried something different here and where we. 92 00:11:18,100 --> 00:11:27,490 Basically, there were two provinces and in which our allies and officers were deployed and there was an oil field on the border. 93 00:11:27,490 --> 00:11:34,150 Now the oilfield fell in the inside one province, but the employees there were from another. 94 00:11:34,150 --> 00:11:39,130 So one when the workers were not paid. 95 00:11:39,130 --> 00:11:43,390 At one point, the workers went to their provincial government, who then someone, 96 00:11:43,390 --> 00:11:48,220 the company, but then the one which hosted the oil field said, Hey, wait, what? 97 00:11:48,220 --> 00:11:52,960 Who are you to talk to this company? You know, they're on our soil? They said, No, no, no, we treat this oilfield. 98 00:11:52,960 --> 00:11:57,370 Actually, it runs all the way under, ah, you know? So then it became a major. 99 00:11:57,370 --> 00:11:58,720 It was going to blow. 100 00:11:58,720 --> 00:12:07,660 And so it starts with something there and then, you know, it gets amplified in the media and then people who want to, you know it, it's normal. 101 00:12:07,660 --> 00:12:16,600 People want to make, you know, ambitious people are join politics and then it's part of, you know, you never miss an opportunity in politics. 102 00:12:16,600 --> 00:12:20,620 And then it goes on, you know, on the street. 103 00:12:20,620 --> 00:12:28,720 So these are just illustrative images. But what happens on the street is a symptom of larger political issue. 104 00:12:28,720 --> 00:12:39,760 So then what we did was we used the liaison officers in these two provinces to work as a team and then they went to each other's provinces. 105 00:12:39,760 --> 00:12:52,000 Together, we and we did a series of things as a result of which basically we had an outcome wherein the governor of one province visited the other, 106 00:12:52,000 --> 00:12:57,640 and then they mutually decided that they'll do a redrawing of the border and that they'll, you know, 107 00:12:57,640 --> 00:13:03,820 go to the capital and let the federal government, which basically the recession building. 108 00:13:03,820 --> 00:13:11,290 You know, I take a decision on the exact boundary, but but there'll be no room for violence. 109 00:13:11,290 --> 00:13:17,210 And you know, they will talk to the the company in question jointly. 110 00:13:17,210 --> 00:13:23,210 Fairly successful outcome and all this done by people from the community, these peace builders. 111 00:13:23,210 --> 00:13:27,710 This liaison officers from the community. So what worked for us in this case? 112 00:13:27,710 --> 00:13:34,520 What was different from, you know, their experience in Afghanistan? Well, firstly, getting the context right. 113 00:13:34,520 --> 00:13:40,980 Getting the. And I think defining the community by looking at the various layers of identity, you know, 114 00:13:40,980 --> 00:13:47,580 so that it's not just sectarian, but it's also the provincial identity that's that can be very important. 115 00:13:47,580 --> 00:13:50,100 And you know, whenever we talk about conflict analysis, 116 00:13:50,100 --> 00:13:57,510 I think we need to look at the sources of tension and the different ways in which, you know, it is expressed. 117 00:13:57,510 --> 00:14:03,900 And I feel like sometimes when you look, when you take a local peace builder, 118 00:14:03,900 --> 00:14:10,770 you need to look at how does she relate to what role that you play in your institution, what you know? 119 00:14:10,770 --> 00:14:22,440 How long is this person deployed? And and to be very sure that renown does not translate into impact, the relationship that we, 120 00:14:22,440 --> 00:14:32,220 as external stakeholders have with the local peace builder is very critical to the success of the peacebuilding effort. 121 00:14:32,220 --> 00:14:39,510 We need to. We in this case invested quite a bit in building a skills of facilitation. 122 00:14:39,510 --> 00:14:44,880 But one of the most important things for me was that I was fortunate I got to travel. 123 00:14:44,880 --> 00:14:52,890 I travelled about 15 of the 19 provinces in the country in the country to ensure that in each case that our local peace building, 124 00:14:52,890 --> 00:15:02,360 our an officer, was introduced to the local government as. She's obviously, you know, he's our man, so if you'd like to pass on any message to us, 125 00:15:02,360 --> 00:15:08,270 please, you can do so through them so that from being merely monitors, they got transformed. 126 00:15:08,270 --> 00:15:16,610 You know that they were empowered in the eyes of the local power structures and then getting the crisis right now. 127 00:15:16,610 --> 00:15:22,280 Again, we talk about peace building, but often it's just about swinging from one crisis to another to another. 128 00:15:22,280 --> 00:15:28,460 And I feel that if we get the crisis right, the crisis right over a period of time, 129 00:15:28,460 --> 00:15:36,410 then we'll get will actually be able to build peace in understanding the cost of doing nothing. 130 00:15:36,410 --> 00:15:46,760 And as compared to the cost of action, the cost of action often the biggest concern for external peace builders reputational risk. 131 00:15:46,760 --> 00:15:50,630 What if we fail this time? Well, if you fail this time, that's fine. 132 00:15:50,630 --> 00:15:54,770 The most important thing is that what if you don't act at all? 133 00:15:54,770 --> 00:16:03,170 And then if you try to go into, you know, years down and by the way, it may be another minor crisis, but you know, 134 00:16:03,170 --> 00:16:13,910 a crisis of like, you know, layers of conflicts are like layers of a pastry, you know, so you have the stack up over the same day. 135 00:16:13,910 --> 00:16:24,650 So it's whenever you try to cut through one, you realise that you're actually cutting through layers that have, you know, from decades ago, actually. 136 00:16:24,650 --> 00:16:33,500 So when we say we prepare the theory of change, but you prepare an intervention strategy but identify all potential satisfactory outcomes, 137 00:16:33,500 --> 00:16:41,810 which means that a satisfactory outcome could be that there is no violence, but no one is exactly the winner. 138 00:16:41,810 --> 00:16:49,070 Perhaps one side is a decisive winner, and the other side, for now, you know, accepts the solution. 139 00:16:49,070 --> 00:16:57,140 So there could be any number of permutations on this. Identify all of them and be prepared for all of them and then getting the intervention right. 140 00:16:57,140 --> 00:17:05,390 I think it was very important consent, of course, and we all understand the very fact that we were deploying these officers. 141 00:17:05,390 --> 00:17:14,600 We had the consent, but then identify who can back or block your intervention and then engage the spoilers very early on. 142 00:17:14,600 --> 00:17:22,370 Potential spoilers. To be honest, what I found was that there were a number of actors would spoilers because 143 00:17:22,370 --> 00:17:26,960 they were not getting attention or they were not going to get attention or so. 144 00:17:26,960 --> 00:17:31,880 And you need to understand, why are you somebody being a spoiler? Is it because you said for the sake of attention? 145 00:17:31,880 --> 00:17:43,280 Is it because of for the sake of ambition? Or is it because they are insecure about losing, you know, whatever they have within their camp? 146 00:17:43,280 --> 00:17:48,620 And then use your peace builders to, you know, use them in tandem. 147 00:17:48,620 --> 00:17:59,420 Make them work in tandem. Have them pass. Meet either side separately and then either side together in a pass backchannel messages. 148 00:17:59,420 --> 00:18:06,440 You know, whenever there was a time when one of our allies and officers in the course of a crisis 149 00:18:06,440 --> 00:18:10,610 resolution brought his colleague in from the other province and neighbouring province and said, 150 00:18:10,610 --> 00:18:15,080 This is my cousin, by the way, you know, so we're. He's just visiting. 151 00:18:15,080 --> 00:18:18,710 So we'd like to hear whether what do you think of this crisis? 152 00:18:18,710 --> 00:18:26,900 So it was a it was a great opening because it was it's it's normal, you know, to sometimes bring cousins to meetings, 153 00:18:26,900 --> 00:18:38,270 but it kind of helped, you know, for the cousin to, you know, do the work cousin to understand the narratives and the thinking here. 154 00:18:38,270 --> 00:18:43,460 In this case, we found and it was important for us to identify champions, 155 00:18:43,460 --> 00:18:52,310 which meant that in the deputy governor in one province and the provincial council chairman in another province, 156 00:18:52,310 --> 00:18:59,630 we found them to be the most inclined to a peaceful settlement. We then empowered them as champions again. 157 00:18:59,630 --> 00:19:04,220 We did not come out in the open and say that they were. We were. 158 00:19:04,220 --> 00:19:08,450 But we suggested potential interventions rather to the champions. 159 00:19:08,450 --> 00:19:16,940 And then let them do the trick. And the most important step, I believe, is to step back. 160 00:19:16,940 --> 00:19:25,730 Because if you wanted to be, you know, the solution to be locally owned and then you need them to. 161 00:19:25,730 --> 00:19:35,210 You need to step back. I'll just say that it's very important that the safety of local peacebuilding is the single biggest priority. 162 00:19:35,210 --> 00:19:40,170 And if this is compromised, you never go back. So it's it's it's. 163 00:19:40,170 --> 00:19:46,460 And building the relationship is, you know, what's most important, even if you don't think you're a satisfactory outcome, 164 00:19:46,460 --> 00:19:50,840 the relationship you build in the process, you know, always works. In the long term. 165 00:19:50,840 --> 00:20:00,400 You need to appeal to different things in from a sense of leadership to the Costa community to a sense of reason, but also to emotion. 166 00:20:00,400 --> 00:20:07,580 And and to never lose sight of why we need, you know, peace whenever we say, 167 00:20:07,580 --> 00:20:12,050 you know what exactly peace means, and I feel like it's full of suffering. 168 00:20:12,050 --> 00:20:16,370 And but there are different types of suffering. Maybe somebody didn't get the promotion. 169 00:20:16,370 --> 00:20:22,130 Maybe somebody didn't pass an exam. Maybe you know someone you loved broke your heart. 170 00:20:22,130 --> 00:20:27,170 Someone in your family has aimless. This is acceptable suffering. 171 00:20:27,170 --> 00:20:31,940 This is the only type of suffering that the human condition should have. 172 00:20:31,940 --> 00:20:38,810 If we aspire that you do not have to worry for the safety of your your family. 173 00:20:38,810 --> 00:20:41,930 You do not have to worry whether you will return home when you go out. 174 00:20:41,930 --> 00:20:52,700 You do not have to worry that if you speak out, you know you will never be able to speak up again, then that is unacceptable. 175 00:20:52,700 --> 00:21:00,740 So our goal is peace builders. My humble opinion is to limit suffering to what is not natural to the human condition. 176 00:21:00,740 --> 00:21:06,920 This is this. I would like to leave you with this. This is a picture I took in. 177 00:21:06,920 --> 00:21:14,870 This was in Herat, in Afghanistan. And what I found was remarkable about this, you know, three generations from one family. 178 00:21:14,870 --> 00:21:20,540 And it was, you know, my grandmother used to say that when we are born, our destinies are written on our foreheads. 179 00:21:20,540 --> 00:21:26,070 And somehow, you know, the furrowed brow, the furrows on their broth, all three and very, very different ages. 180 00:21:26,070 --> 00:21:40,130 You know it. It said something. The resignation of age, the the anxiety of youth, the confusion of a childhood, the fact that in all these cases, 181 00:21:40,130 --> 00:21:47,510 you know, is something I don't know about writing, about writing on the wall for it. 182 00:21:47,510 --> 00:21:54,650 But I feel that as peace builders, if we get a kiss, I don't know this crisis, then we have really been successful. 183 00:21:54,650 --> 00:21:57,276 Thank you.