A Different Future

Oslo, Norway

Wed, 19 Feb 2025 05:00:00 GMT

Valerie and I traveled for three weeks in Scandinavia, visiting seven cities (including our excursion to Tromso and the Arctic Circle, which I already posted). The cities of Northern Europe have become synonymous with international agreements – the Oslo Accords (Israel and the PLO), the Helsinki Accords (the USSR and Western Europe), The Stockholm Agreement (Yemen), and others.

We flew to Oslo from The Hague. Oslo is a lovely city, with beautiful parks and cultural institutions, and engaging and moving public sculpture.

Oslo calls itself the “City of Peace” (though others do, too - see “Geneva, City of Peace”). As I noted in the “My Nobel Pursuit” blog entry, Oslo houses the Nobel Peace Center and the Norwegian Nobel Peace Institute, and the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded at Oslo City Hall. So the idea of being a City of Peace is central to Oslo's identity.

A moment of merriment with the Chris and Haviva

Before I get to my meetings with the remarkable peace organizations in Norway, we were delighted to meet Chris and Haviva, relatives of the Osheroffs, friends of ours here in Atlanta. We were in Oslo over Rosh Hashanah, and so we accompanied the Mitchell family to an evening gathering run by Chabad in a rented room in a soccer stadium. There was a service, but the gathering was not about the service; it was a chance members of the small Oslo Jewish community to sit together, to eat a meal, to discuss issues ofimportance. There was something lovely and deeply moving about it, and, having lived in cities most of my life with significant Jewish populations, it reminded us of the importance of community in those places where Jews feel isolated. Ubiquitous signs and flags that remind you that the Norwegian people in general are Palestinian sympathizers can further increase the sense of isolation. The Mitchells showed us around Oslo, we had a lovely dinner with them, and hung out a bit at their apartment. Very grateful for their hospitality and warmth.

Torunn Tryggestad, Henrik Urdal, and Kristoffer Lidén of PRIO. I was fascinated that the large picture they are standing in front of - prominent in their office - is of Martin Luther King and other American civil rights marchers on the march to Selma.

My first professional meeting was with PRIO, the Peace Research Institute of Oslo. I met with the Director, Henrik Urdal; the Deputy Director, Torunn Tryggestad; and Kristoffer Lidén, Research Director. PRIO is an independent, non-profit, research institute, though government funded for specific projects. It is the largest social science research institute in Norway, with between 150-160 people, representing 30 nationalities. PRIO is also mandated to communicate its research to the public. It is part of consortium of research institutions funded by the Flemish Peace Institute.

I have written before on how fascinating Belfast is as a study of (attempted) conflict resolution in an ongoing struggle; PRIO does the same in Cyprus, where the Turks and Greeks are still in what PRIO calls a “frozen” war (which is equally true of Belfast). PRIO works in Track 2-3, that is, with organizations and the public, not so much with high officials. They look critically at the impact of dialogue; the success of mediation depends a lot on the political context, on how much the pursuit is supported by the political systems involved (these days, generally, not so much). The UN and, in general, European organizations are declining in their participation in peace mediation.

The kinds of problems they look into are immediately sobering. They research things like maternal health outcomes in armed conflicts and sexual and domestic violence, or the 300,000 people killed in less than 24 months in Tigray Ethiopia. Torunn runs a center that tries to encourage women’s participation in peace negotiations, and to train people in gender and peace mediation.

Kristoff is interested in ethics in peace and humanitarian negotiation (which, of course, immediately perked my interest). There is a considerable opportunity for the new Center at Emory to help with that conversation; the ethical challenges in doing peace work and conflict mediation are legion, yet the literature is not well developed. Ethics and peace? Hmm….

Jana Krause of PECOS

I also met with Jana Krause of PECOS, a center for Peace and Conflict Studies. They are focused on Track 3, the community – developing techniques of non-violent conflict resolution, actually inspired by work that was going on in the United States. They try to develop and study organic community strategies to reduce violence and build resilience. They work in place like sub-Saharan Africa, South Sudan, Indonesia, and Myanmar (though much harder there since the 2021 coup). The focus is on peace research with a political science lens, qualitative but empirical, and they generate policy advice, agency briefs, and public and academic talks.

They also run a master program in peace conflict education (for which they get over 800 international applications for their 25-30 spots). They have a powerful alumni group, and also train senior policy makes, so they have alumni who are diplomats, in government, and working with NGOs, many back in their home countries. The focus on non-violent conflict resolution is hopefully a force in negotiating around violence in some of these countries more used to solving conflicts with the force of arms.

Finally, I also visited NOREF, a governmental organization started in 2008 by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway which funds 100% of their budget. They actively try to mitigate actual conflicts, and are thus very applied. They work at Track level 1.5 – heads of governments and significant non-governmental actors. They therefore keep a low profile and do not issue public reports, and asked me not to write about the details of what we discussed. So I will only say that I was impressed by the importance of the work that they do.

Really enjoyed Oslo, would love to visit again.

Pakistan: An Extraordinary Trip

Mon, 06 Jan 2025 05:00:00 GMT

The Badshahi Mosque, Lahore, Pakistan (built 1671-1673)

How do you describe a once-in-a-lifetime trip? I was invited by Ali Siddiqui, the former Ambassador to the United States from Pakistan, to join a group of about 20 on a VIP tour of the country. The trip included traveling with two former Prime Ministers, meeting with the current Prime Minister and his entire cabinet, flying to a dinner at a resort in a military helicopter, a private plan up to Gilgit and Hunza in the Himalayas, and the opportunity to travel for five days with tech CEOs, leading academics, NGO directors, and other assorted accomplished and interesting people. A singular opportunity.

Unfortunately, I can’t include names or pictures of the people in the group, because the terms of the trip were that everything personal was off the record, including who attended. So I can show you what I saw and tell you what I heard, but I can’t attribute anything to anyone except to the officials we met.

The trip to Islamabad was an ordeal for me. Three flights over, stopover in Rome and then Jedda, Saudia Arabia, where I got food poisoning. The rest of the trip was, let’s say, unsettling. When I landed in Islamabad, though, I was met at the gate by the Director of the airport and two deputies, who escorted me through passport control (I felt guilty bypassing the lines) and handed me off to a driver. As we left the airport, a small army truck with four armed guards pulled out in front of us:

Vehicles were pulling over to let this truck through and my driver tagged along right behind. I was thinking – how smart of my driver to stick behind this army vehicle so he can coast in its wake, because people are naturally getting out of his way. It is Pakistan, and they are army. I thought this until we hit real traffic; then the army truck started blasting its siren and weaving through traffic. Surprisingly, my driver continued to stick close behind him. Through my haze of jet lag it finally hit me:

The armed escort is for me.

And there was another armed truck behind us, and both escorted me to the hotel. I later learned that our entire trip was being given the highest level of accompaniment; we were treated as if we were a presidential entourage. Armed guards, and a mobile medical unit, accompanied us everywhere we went; We could not even take a walk from the hotel without an armed escort. We flew by private chartered plane and military helicopter to our events and destinations. The staff was incredibly efficient and kind, catering to any needs we had, and even to many we didn't.

We started with a welcome dinner Sunday evening. We stayed at Serena hotels while there, very nice hotels owned in large part by the The Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development. Aga Khan – who heads the Ismaili community – is the funder of major hospitals in Pakistan and other charitable and developmental projects. We have an active Ismaili community here in Atlanta, and I consulted with some friends there before going to Pakistan. Seeing the impact of the Ismailis in Pakistan was gratifying, and they are talked about with great respect by everyone I mentioned them to in Pakistan, including the Prime Minister himself.

Monday morning we piled onto military helicopters to fly to lunch at a resort. Russian-made MI-17 Pakistan Army helicopter (I was on the one in back)

In the helicopter I had the honor and pleasure of sitting next to former Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, who was a caretaker Prime Minister from Aug 2023 to March 2024. We had a fascinating discussion about conflict resolution and peacebuilding. He said that he dedicated his administration to those ideas, and recounted how, at a roundtable of top political leaders in Davos, he commented that diplomacy is not enough to solve conflicts, that conflict was about identity, nationalism, and theology. So I told him I was trained in theology, was Jewish, and that my father, two brothers, and a daughter were rabbis. His eyes lit, up, he was delighted.

Former Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar and me on the helicopter

He told me how happy he was that Jews were visiting Pakistan (there were other Jews on the trip, too) and informed me that he preached to anyone who would listen the need for a balanced view on the Middle East, that one must understand Israel’s side of the story to really understand the dynamics there, and not just demonize one side. He then referred to the story in the Quran where a Jew and Muslim had a dispute and brought it to the Prophet, who decided in favor of the Jew’s position. Prime Minister Kakar wanted to point out both that justice must be blind, and that both sides of a dispute have to be carefully considered to know the real truth. He was an engaging person to talk to, and I was pleased when he gave me his card and asked to stay in touch about my new center.

We had many meetings with the leaders of the country. We met with Finance Minister Muhammed Aurangzeb, with Major General Asad Ur Rehman Cheema and his high-level government group trying to help new businesses navigate red tape in Pakistan, and with army Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudry, who briefed us on the state of the country and its army.

Mr. Muhammad Aurangzeb, Finance Minister of Pakistan

I asked the Lieutenant General a challenging question I thought he handled, well, politically. I noted that army participation in governments range from armies that run a country or have puppet governments, to armies that are on the sides but ready to step in if the government seems to go astray, to those completely subordinate to the civilian governments. Where does Pakistan’s army sit in that spectrum, and does the world’s impression of where the army sits reflect reality?

He -- perhaps wisely -- never answered the question directly, saying instead that the civilian government often calls on the army for tasks, so the army is very involved in governmental actions. He did say the army is controlled by the Prime Minister, and that the world’s impression is not really accurate. But it is also true that the army is not only the military authority, but also, for historical reasons, over 50 commercial entities are owned and controlled by the army. Current Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is trying to divest the army of many of these companies and interests, as even the army believes it is not in their interest to be running commercial enterprises.

We met with current Prime Minister Sharif and his entire cabinet at the Prime Minister’s residence (pictures were not allowed, we had to surrender our phones at the door). It was quite an experience to enter the residence of the Prime Minister of Pakistan and to meet with him and his entire cabinet. Questions were posed to him about the economy, business, and plans for Pakistan’s future. I asked him about the brain drain of young people from out of Pakistan - a question he did not like - and he did try to assure that Pakistan was making progress in incentivizing its best and brightest to stay in (or return to) the country, which he sees as emerging from difficult times into a brighter future.

Modeling my Kurta Shalwar

That evening we had a lovely cultural event – all of us were gifted with a traditional Kurta Shalwar, a long shirt, pants, and scarf set you can see me modeling above. We then went to a dinner evening of Sufi music and chant, a sample of which is below (clip is 1:37)

We flew up to Lahore the next day. We toured Beaconhouse University, and saw some beautiful and creative art pieces by the students. The students' and faculty's enthusiasm reflected a palpable desire to be part of the world community of culture, of intellectual achievement, of art. There was even a student who created an AI program where the user has to make decisions in an ethical scenario, and then the program analyzes the user's ethical approach. Right down my alley!

Fabric boat installation by a Beaconhouse student

Despite a late hour, they kindly opened the stunning Lahore Fort after hours just for us. (Not a trivial thing; dozens of staff and performers stayed after hours just for our group.) Lahore fort is enormous, with large grounds and many buildings, including the tomb of Allama Iqbal, the “Poet of the East” (died 1938), and the beautiful Badshahi Mosque, the Mughal-era imperial mosque pictured at the top of this blog post.

A small part of the inside of Lahore Fort

We also saw a number of cultural performances. The most remarkable was the Pakistani Dervishes. I have seen dervishes before, but only the elegant "Turkish" dervishes, who twirl gracefully in black skirts to mesmerizing effect. Pakistani dervishes are more physical and staccato, using a violent head shaking when they are not twirling that I have never seen before. Watch this video to the end, and look at the heads of the men in red – they maintained that level of violent shaking for a good 20-30 minute performance (clip 38 seconds).

From Lahore we flew to Gilgit, way up in the mountains, and then drove to Hunza, in the Himalayas, at over 8,000 feet. The flight to Gilgit was one of the most beautiful flights I have ever taken, over endless mountains that disappeared to the horizon. Pictures cannot capture it. (One of the young staff from Pakistan had never flown before in her life, and her first flight was on a private plane over the Himalayas. We told her to enjoy it, she'll never have another flight like this!) K2, the second highest peak after Everest, is in Pakistan, as are a dozen of the world’s highest mountains. We traveled with former Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, who told us stories of the coup in Pakistan by Musharraf, who imprisoned him for heading the main Pakistani airline, and then his life after release and his founding of a second airline in Pakistan. A lovely, warm, and interesting guy. Everywhere we went people wanted to take pictures with him, and one random person in Hunza told me "he was the best PM we ever had."

Former Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, the 18th PM of Pakistan (2017-2018)

Hunza is also famously studied because of the extreme longevity of its people. So they invited three elders to speak to us. They entered to the strains of a traditional trio of drums and flute, and talked to us of what had them live so long. Their faces say it all:

102 years old96 years old* 94 years old*

I don’t know their names. They told us of their secrets for healthy longevity; the woman said she made a paste of apricot seeds and ate it every morning (not the sweet ones! the bitter ones!). The man pictured in the middle is a highly respected farmer who has planted over 600 cherry trees in the area. He said to live long one must dance; and he got up and did just that. And then, before they all left, he made all of us get up and dance with him. Just magical.

I left Pakistan with mixed feelings. A generous, lovely people who treated us beautifully and would do absolutely anything for you; their tradition of honoring the guest and providing for them was so clear and lovely. But the country faces almost intractable problems, as they are trying hard to drag themselves in to the modern tech age. I am not sure I went with many expectations of what it would be like, but whatever stereotypes I had were overturned. You can see why those who live there, or are from there, retain deep ties and affection for this beautiful, proud, flawed land.

Geneva, “The City of Peace”

Tue, 03 Dec 2024 05:00:00 GMT

Ah, Geneva.

My second trip to Europe started in Geneva. Geneva is a remarkable city – it is easy to get around (known as the world’s most compact metropolis). It is a world financial center and a global diplomatic hub, and over 40% of its residents are international. And it doesn’t hurt that it is beautiful, sitting on the shore of Geneva Lake and surrounded by the Alps. In fact - not sure why - pictures of Geneva just don't seem to be able to capture its beauty and charm.

Of course, for me, the main attraction was its renown as the “City of Peace.” It has hosted high-stakes negotiations and peace talks such as the oft referenced Geneva Convention, is the home to countless organizations that engage in peace and conflict work (more people from the United Nations are housed in Geneva than in New York), and its infrastructure is set up to host international meetings and conferences. Geneva is unique not only in the scope of organizations and activity, but in the investment the city itself has made—hundreds of millions of dollars—to situate itself as a premier city for diplomacy, conflict resolution, and humanitarian work internationally.

One example is the Geneva Graduate Institute (GGI). Founded in 1927 by the League of Nations, it was one of the world’s first academic and research institutions dedicated to the study of international relations. The intent was to have GGI be the leading authority on the nature of peace and conflict, and to train future diplomatic leaders. It continues in that vein today, both in its research and scholarship, and as an applied center for conflict resolution and peace services. The campus (the “Maison de la Paix,” or House of Peace) is a vibrant set of buildings that house a dozen other NGOs in addition to GGI, such as Interpeace, the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue, and, as you will see, the Small Arms Survey.

Marie-Laure Salles

Achim Wennman

Keith Krause

I met with Marie-Laure Salles, the Director of the Geneva Graduate Institute; Achim Wennman, Nagulendran chair in Peace Mediation, and Keith Krause, Director, Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding, and Curt Gasteyger Chair in International Security and Conflict Studies.

GGI quickly determined that peace should be defined not only in terms of the cessation of conflicts, but through a restoration of justice and equity, including a plan for the sustainability of the gains. Stopping conflict is not that helpful if there is quick backsliding toward violence, or if the conditions that started the conflict in the first place still remain.

In order for the work of an accord or reconciliation to proceed, and for sustainability to be achieved, trust must be earned, established, and maintained. In order to do their work, the mediators must first earn the trust of the stakeholders, with the goal of eventually generating trust between the stakeholders themselves.

My discussion with these exerts ranged across the field of conflict and peace itself. It is a crowded, competitive field; funds are generally available for a limited number of conflicts, and everyone is going after the same pots of money. At the same time there is endless work to do be done throughout the world, wars and conflicts for which there is little money and therefore far fewer organizations willing to try and help.

GGI has carefully curated a culture of conversation. With students from over 100 countries, they believe in and teach reflection before action. It is very Swiss. To the Swiss, diplomacy is not a profession but a way of life. Dialogue is the Swiss way. But it also has its downside. In a neutral country, the ethic of dialogue and compromise, the striving for peace and harmony, can tend to avoid the tougher, more dangerous problems, the extreme issues, placing the comfort of consensus over the struggle with those issues not amenable to it.

Mark Downes

I also met with Mark Downes, Director of the Small Arms Survey, one of the many NGOs hosted by GGI. It is a database tracking global violent deaths and the global possession of small arms and light weapons. They track armed violence, arms trafficking, stockpile management, and so on. While what they do really falls outside the scope of the center I hope to build, the conversation was fascinating. While we in the US often think of gun deaths as a uniquely US problem, small arms wreak havoc all over the world. There are a half million global violent deaths because of small arms. And here was the surprising news, at least to me: while the arms they used to track were almost exclusively guns manufactured by the major companies, now up to 40% of the weapons they track are 3-D printed, polymer weapons; massive numbers of kits (basically incomplete guns and therefore often not considered firearms, but easily converted); and gas powered weapons. These non-industrial guns are beginning to be manufactured on an industrial scale; and when you add drones, IEDs, etc. we are entering a new world where guns will be easier to access, harder to detect, and more widespread. In fact, that new world is already here.

The Villa Moynier Rue de Lausanne

Zachary Douglas, MIDS Program Director Professor, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies

Laurence Boisson de Chazournes

CIDS, the "Center for International Dispute Settlement," is a joint center of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies and the University of Geneva. I spoke to two of the legal scholars who run its degree program, MIDS, the "Master in International Dispute Settlement" program. MIDS is a leading LL.M. program offering advanced and specialized legal training in international dispute settlement. Geneva bills itself as birthplace of modern international law, so it is fitting to study it there.

MIDS is run from the beautiful Villa Moynier, a historic villa surrounded by a beautiful park with a view of Lake Geneva and Mont Blanc. Idyllic. I met with Zachary Douglas, the Program Director, at the villa.

Zachary pointed out his effort to always step back, to try and see the whole, broad picture of disputes and how we resolve them. He felt the European perspective can get too narrow, too specific, tied up in silos, and is often too short-term. After stopping violence on the ground - always the primary goal - peace efforts take many, many years; he suggested 50 years at leasts (incidentally, exactly the same time frame mentioned by Gary Mason of Belfast). MIDS is legalistic, its students all practicing lawyers, and it teaches international arbitration and litigation between state actors, so its focus departs somewhat from my efforts to establish PACT. But the legal framework is crucial in much conflict resolution and peace efforts, so PACT has to walk hand-in-hand with the legal community. (I recently spoke at a meeting of ATLas, the Atlanta International Arbitration Society).

I met with the gracious Laurence Boisson de Chazournes, the former Director of MIDS, at GGI. Laurence and I also discussed the role of law in peacekeeping. And she was thoughtful about offering me a number of valuable contacts. I continue to be amazed at the generosity and interest of almost everyone I have met in this field. While don't want to idealize those who go into this field, as I am sure, like all fields, it takes many types, I also believe that those who choose peacekeeping as their focus must start with an impulse of service and reconciliation. I have not met a single person yet who has not been generous with their time and willing to help me build this new center.

The Hague Humanity Hub

Tue, 03 Dec 2024 05:00:00 GMT

This will be a short one.

My trip to he Hague was a bit of a bust – I had a wonderful visit with The Hague Humanity Hub (HHH from now on), as you’ll see, but my hosts were out of town and my other appointment cancelled at the last minute due to illness, so I do need to go back. And I am happy to, because The Hague is a fun and interesting town, a cultural center and a fun town to walk around. It is also the third-largest city in the Netherlands, known as “International City of Peace and Justice.”

Valerie snapping Girl with a Pearl Earring (circa1665), Vermeer's most famous work, at the Mauritshuis Museum. Really wonderful art all around The Hague.

I met with Jill Willkinson and Alexandre Taillander at the HHH, and they were gracious and welcoming. The HHH is a bold idea – The Hague is chock full of organizations that do international law, peacekeeping, diplomacy, and conflict work. The Permanent Court of Arbitration, set up as an alternative to countries going to war (and very busy right now), has been adjudicating international disputes for 125 years. Peace and justice is the second largest sector of the city, involving more than 40,000 people and over 900 NGOs.

An interesting tidbit - some say ‘geography is destiny,’ and the Netherlands is a perfect example. The Netherlands is a natural location for this sort of work because of its history coping with its polder. Polder? (I had never heard the word either.) Polder is land reclaimed from the sea, protected by dikes. Over twenty-five percent of the Netherlands is below sea level, on land reclaimed from the sea from as far back as the 14th century. Some areas are over 20 feet below sea level. Preserving the dikes and controlling the sea is a national priority.

Because of this constant threat of being inundated, the Netherlands had to cooperate as a nation on the monitoring and protection of its land and water. So it set up “Water Boards” that are not subject to the kinds of national politics other parts of government are; they hold elections, levy taxes, and function independently from other government bodies. The country cannot afford to let the politics of water threaten its very existence, and so has agreed to depoliticize the Water Boards to the degree possible. This ethic has filtered through society — an ethos of cooperation for the mutual good. It is in that spirit that The Hague developed into the center for international law.

One might naively appreciate the beauty of buildings in the Netherlands, such as the Mauritshuis Museum with its beautiful wood interiors, until you read placards like the one below, in an exhibit at the Museum about Holland's slave history.

The Netherlands seized the country of Suriname in 1667 and ruled it mostly until 1975. The majority of the population was enslaved people from Africa until the mid-19th century. There is still a large Surinamese presence in Holland, and excellent Surinamese restaurants. But it all comes at a high price.

In the 1990s the city began to capitalize on its identity as a city of peace, law and diplomacy and over the following decades tried to see what else they could be doing to promote and develop their brand. They realized that there was no central place for the thousands of people and hundreds of NGOs and government workers involved in these pursuits to interact, to meet each other intentionally, to train, to run mutually beneficial programs. And so the The Hague Humanity Hub was born, funded in large part by the city itself.

HHH had to define the parameters of this sprawling and diverse community they were meant to serve, figure out how to support it and develop its ecosystem. They decided to focus on the individual doing the work so that people could could interact more freely and could join even if their organizations didn’t want to. HHH, therefore, has only individual members, no institutional members.

They try to bring sectors together, especially those seemingly fragmented. For example, they started a group for climate change and justice, and many who joined had no idea the other people working in the same sector even existed. Their main goal is to foster trust; they have no agenda, are not competitive, and so promote trust building.

They are a wonderful model for how to connect – they don’t think of themselves as “building” community, but as connecting communities already there. There are other, similar models – the Impact Hub based in Vienna, for example, runs over 300 programs in 59 countries, and tries to build networks of businesses to create “impactful solutions” for the future. In the US there are groups like the Open Gov Hub in DC whose mission is to encourage open government, or the Simmons Center in Chicago (connecting NGOs, philanthropists, and business). But HHH is unique in its focus on the peace sector. Can we incorporate this model into PACT? Hmmmm….

Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), a radical philosopher of the early modern period and a forerunner of The Enlightenment, lived the last seven years of his life and wrote much of his latter works in The Hague. He was Jewish and had a Jewish education - he even composed a Hebrew grammar for the Bible (his family were Marranos, Jews who converted to Christianity and practiced Judaism in secret). He was excommunicated by the rabbis for his heretical ideas, and therefore could not be buried in a Jewish cemetery. Spinoza is buried in the Churchyard of the New Church in The Hague.

Tromsø, Norway – Irony in the Arctic Circle

Sat, 12 Oct 2024 22:00:00 GMT

Tromsø, Norway

So, in the midst of my visits to all these peace centers, Valerie and I flew to Tromsø, almost the northernmost point of Norway, well within the Arctic Circle. Two funny, ironic things about it; one on me, the other, well, on higher powers.

The one that is on me is I had never heard of Tromsø, I found it just by Googling good places to see the aurora borealis. A number of possibilities arose, but, needing to be in Oslo and Helsinki on either side of the trip, and wanting a convenient airport, I needed something relatively easy. Tromsø it was.

Tromsø, I imagined, was a remote, sleepy Arctic Circle town on the far northern coast, probably like a fishing village, where we could do rough excursions into the wilderness to see the aurora. Though we knew it was October, not January, we also knew it could be cold and windy. So we bought clothes that would keep us warm if the temperatures plummeted to 30 below zero and we were buried under an avalanche.

It wasn’t until we got here that I realized that Tromsø has the major regional airport, the regional hospital, The University of Tromsø (The "Arctic University of Norway," the northernmost university in the world, ranked #512 out of 20,966 universities in the world) - over 100 resident nationalities, very chic shops and restaurants, and a population of over 70,000. When people starting settling here centuries ago, the cod was so plentiful, and fishing so lucrative, that it made it one of the richest cities in Norway, known as the “Paris of Norway.” The women wore Paris fashions (albeit warm ones) and the elite traveled here as a destination city.

Late 19th century Tromsø schoolteachers

So much for my sleepy fishing village. A large, modern, thriving town, wifi everywhere and nice stores, and incredible natural beauty all around it. I no longer wonder why people would want to live up here.

Second ironic thing – we planned this trip to see the aurora borealis, the Northern Lights, and booked a late night excursion to the middle of nowhere to best see it. Where did we go? See the map below – the little blue circle on the top of the big map is Tromsø, and the cutout shows where our guide, Hans, took us to see the lights, Kvaløya Island. A lovely crew of Val and I and six international travelers - from China, South Africa, the Philippines, and so on. We camped for a few hours at the base of the inlet at the red circle in the cutout.

Tromsø sits almost at the northernmost point of Norway, within the Arctic Circle, and we traveled from there to Kvaløya Island for our aurora borealis adventure.

It was windy and cold, and Hans built us a small fire. He was a delightful guide, eager to please, always checking on our desires and welfare. He is also an excellent professional photographer, and so he took shots of us and the lights.

Our camp and the Northern Lights behind us (picture by Hans Markus)

Seeing the lights was wonderful, special, especially so far north.

A spectacular show, courtesy of the night sky (picture by Hans Markus)

Val and Paul looking dramatically off into the lights (picture by Hans Markus)

Just one problem. As great as it was – and the journey and the experience was 2/3 of the greatness – it was the DAY AFTER the aurora dipped into the United States, and people started sending around the pictures they took in Connecticut, Illinois, and so on just as spectacular as what we saw. With colors we didn’t see. We had to travel to the ends of the earth to see what we could have seen from Springfield, Illinois. But traveling to the Arctic Circle was worth it on its own.

Life is different up here. People travel from everywhere - our taxi driver was from Afghanistan, Hans was from Estonia, our waitress was from Argentina. The winter is long, and you are pretty far away, though these days just a short plane ride gets you to major cities like Oslo, Helsinki, or Stockholm, or even into mainland Europe. But there is a richness, a starkness, and a singular beauty to this area. I loved it here.

Off to Helsinki. Farewell, beautiful Tromsø.

My Nobel Pursuit: Monterrey, Oslo, Stockholm

Thu, 10 Oct 2024 22:00:00 GMT

Today the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize was announced – winner is Japanese grassroots organization Nihon Hidankyo, representing thousands of survivors of the 1945 nuclear bombs dropped by the US on Japan, honoured “for efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons.” So it is a good day to write about my own Nobel journey (not to win one, just to encounter those who have). Then i will return in my next post to the cities I am visiting, the people I have met, and the lessons I am learning.

Eleven Nobel Peace Laureates and representatives of 9 winning organizations.

I was invited to Monterrey, Mexico in September to speak at the19th World Summit of Nobel Laureates for Peace. Every few years there is a summit that moves around the world (https://www.nobelpeacesummit.com/), though Covid put them on hiatus for a while. In Monterrey, there were 11 Nobel Laureates, such as Óscar Arias Sánchez, Shirin Ebadi, Kailash Satyarthi, Rigoberta Menchú, and Lech Walesa, alongside representatives from 9 Nobel Prize winning organizations like the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). There was a student day before the Summit and then the three day summit. I was invited to participate in the student day and speak on a panel during the Summit called “Peace Education: Curriculum Integration” about how to incorporate peace courses into the university curricula.

The conference was fascinating - over 4000 people, the majority students, and professionals and academics working in peace related fields. Some fascinating speeches and presentations - most notably former President of Costa Rica Óscar Arias Sánchez, one of those people whose gravitas demands immediate respect (reminded me in that aspect of Elie Wiesel). He gave a powerful speech of the need for each citizen to be part of the resolution of the conflicts raging right now.

Nobel Peace Laureate and former President of Costa Rica Óscar Arias Sánchez speaking at the Summit

One interesting aside, a notable observation especially for me as a Jew: the situation in the Middle East was mentioned frequently. Calls of “Free Palestine” rang out here and there from the largely international student audience. A number of panelists mentioned the suffering of Gaza, and one talk, by Jeffrey Sachs, economist and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, was a virtual screed against Israel. But not from a single Nobel Laureate. Every single one, when they brought up the Middle East, tried to articulate some sense of balance, even when their main point was the suffering of the Palestinians. It was deeply refreshing to hear balance, not to have people forget the Simchat Torah massacre of Oct 7, 2023, when expressing sympathy, or even outrage, for the terrible loss of life, property, and community that is the reality in Gaza ever since. It becomes clear why these are Nobel Prize Laureates.

My panel was a great experience but ended up having little to do with the topic. I was on the panel with four Deans from Mexican universities (and I was advertised as a Dean, so thanks for the promotion, Nobel Summit. How do I tell Emory?), and with Shirin Ebadi, the Nobel Laureate from Iran who had been one of Iran’s first female judges, was fired after Khomeini's revolution in 1979, opened a law firm defending victims (especially women) of the regime, and was eventually jailed. A heroic and impressive person. Unfortunately, she knows little about integrating peace education into the curriculum, so after a few comments from the panel the rest of the session was her recounting her (very harrowing) experience in Iran, her passionate defense of justice, and a call to the audience of young people to get involved and fight for justice everywhere. But the panel ending up not being at all about peace education. It was still worth it, to hear a story of true courage in the face of a repressive regime.

On a panel with a true hero, Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi

A few weeks later I was in Oslo, where the peace prize is actually determined. Alfred Nobel’s will - a very impressive and far-sighted fellow, the more you know about him - stated that the prizes for physics and chemistry are to be awarded by the Swedish Academy of Sciences (he was Swedish); those for physiological or medical achievements by the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm; and literature by the Swedish Academy. But the Nobel Peace Prize he stated should be chosen by a committee selected by the Norwegian Parliament. No one knows why he split it that way.

Nobel’s will also stated that the prize not just be given to Scandinavians but to the world community, irrespective of nationality; and that it be “prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.” Noble guy, that Nobel.

Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, with "broadmindedness, hope, commitment" under the windows.

The Nobel Peace Center is in Oslo. I was not able to tour it due to time constraints, but I did go in the bookstore. Time for a mini-rant. In the Nobel Peace Center bookstore - a building with “broadmindedness, hope, commitment” emblazoned on the front - was a display on the situation in the Middle East, consisting of six books about how Israel oppresses the Palestinians. Not a single book on Israel or its history, never mind an Israeli perspective on the war. A major contrast with the Nobel Peace Laureates themselves.

Here is the point: you do not solve conflicts through imbalance. That does not mean the two sides are equal, that some grievances aren’t greater than others, that profound criticism is not due to one or both sides, that we cannot condemn unequivocally certain actions. But conflicts are not solved through ignoring the grievances of either side. They are not solved by demonizing one side (or the other) and thinking that will stop things. The experts I have spoken with who do this kind of work emphasize the need to listen, deeply and sympathetically, to both sides, in the service of the first most important goal: to stop the killing. Historical grievances can be reconciled and dealt with after the killing ends. Apparently the Nobel Peace Center does not get this.

Nobel Prize Museum in Stockholm

After Oslo, off to Stockholm, where I did tour the Nobel Prize Museum, and was there for the announcement of the winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics.

They have displays of objects associated with many of the winners - not just peace - a cathode ray tube, models of molecules, the shawl Malala wore when she addressed the UN, The dress Nadia Murad made for a wedding before ISIS destroyed her village and captured her as a sex slave, a prosthetic leg from the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, a model of the toy car that Eric Kandel (who I have published an article with) got on his ninth birthday in Vienna. Small information sheets on every Nobel winner (there have been 973 individuals and 27 organizations) circulate on a track above your heads (see one of my favorites below, who I had dinner with when he spoke at my father's synagogue).

Isaac Bashevis Singer, 1978 Nobel for Laureate for Literature

Sure the Nobels are elitist in some ways, quirky (some winners do not stand the test of time – though the majority do), can be discriminatory, are flawed. But I think what they symbolize is important, recognition for work that changes the world for the better, in the sciences, in the humanities, and in the pursuit of peace.

Oxford, London, and Frankfurt

Sun, 25 Aug 2024 04:00:00 GMT

Brasenose College of Oxford University

OXFORD: Harvey Whitehouse, Director of the Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion

The house where we stayed was conveniently located between London and Oxford, a little closer to Oxford, which was good because I had to make day trips to each place. So Val and I drove into Oxford, a lovely town to walk around except for all of those tourists - damn it, I was there for work, and here are all these tourists crowding out the streets...).

My contacts there generously arranged for a parking space - no easy task in Oxford - so Val and I drove in and spent the day. Walking around. But NOT AS TOURISTS. Just visitors, walking around, seeing the sites, sitting in cafes....

Anyway, I met with Harvey Whitehouse, and enjoyed that he comes at all this from the other side. His interest is not conflict but cohesion; what is it that holds societies together? Now, as a sociologist myself, that is my field's bread-and-butter; sociologists try to study exactly how societies work how they manage to stay together despite all the pressures and competing needs of groups of people.

Harvey and his colleagues look at cohesion and what threatens it. Why are people so motivated to get into conflicts? There are theorized reasons: tribalism is one, or kinship, or some other collective identity - some "shared essence," as he put it, things that define who you are and you associate with the group you feel a part of. While what is called "identity fusion" is often cited, meaning what creates and fosters in-group and out-group definitions, shared essence, to Harvey, is deeper.

He studied soldiers in Libya. Once they had fused with other fighters, once they had developed a sense of collective identity, there was nothing they would not do for each other. They would fight, die for each other. The key is a shared life-changing experience, one you see as fundamental to who you are, breaking down the barriers between you and the group. Shared transformative and self-defining experiences.

The group coalesces around a unique set of experiences, and constructs a story of its exclusivity. So when people from groups antagonistic to each other start sharing experiences, listening to each other, they learn that the experiences and feelings associated with them, that felt so singular and unique to them, are actually shared. You see the suffering and perspectives of the other side, and that begins to break down exclusivity and create an opening for dialogue.

The Oxford department has a group looking at violent extremist as well, and they have discovered four elements in common in such individuals and groups:

Fusion, as mentioned; a sense of strong mutual identification (not a bad thing itself, just when combined with the other three).
Perceived (or constructed) out-group threat, coupled with lack of perceived peaceful options;
Demonization of the out-group; and
Norms and narratives that condone violence as a solution.

Leadership becomes so important, as the last three elements can be encouraged or suppressed by leadership. A leader can fan the flames of the threat, contribute to demonization, encourage violence, or they can become a peacemaker. I don't need to point out models of each in our current political environment.

Approaching the idea of conflict and peace from the perspective of social cohesion meshed well with my sociological training, so I appreciated Harvey's approach and ideas. Thanks, Harvey, for the time.

LONDON: Luke Cooper and Mary Kaldor, London School of Economics

Luke Cooper, Conflict and Civicness Research Group, Dir. of PeaceRep's Ukraine Program

Mary Kaldor, Director of the Conflict Research Programme, LSE "IDEAS" (LSE's foreign policy think tank)

Speaking of being a sociologist, in my graduate years I studied "conflict sociology," the theory that the best way to understand society is through the lens of competition and conflict, the ways people in group compete for, and allocate, resources. People pursue their interests, and every social interaction is a negotiation of conflict. Even on the micro scale; we want to see a movie, and our spouse wants to, and we begin negotiation - a romcom, a superhero flick, a documentary? I may compromise without being completely satisfied; I may "settle." Agreement thus is simply a well-negotiated conflict, (which often does not satisfy the needs of all the participants), and peace is a successful set of agreements about how to manage conflicting needs.

It came to mind as I met with Luke and Mary. They study peace agreements. There are actually hundreds of small, local peace agreements generated, it is a feature of modern wars. Luke said that he also was interested in social cohesion, and how we gain, maintain, and lose it. And when he and Mary started talking, I heard echoes of the ideas I learned from conflict sociology. For example, they said wars aren't really about conflict itself, but are usually about competition for some set of resources. War becomes in some place a long-time and sustained social condition, where leaders (warlords, for example) exploit the tensions of violence to make money - and the financial gains are more important than resolving the war, even more important than winning. People pursuing their interests.

They also criticized much of conflict resolution theory and activity, suggesting that what is seen as a successful intervention - stopping the conflict - often simply entrenches those already in power, as in Bosnia. So looking at peace agreements helps understand how to break that cycle of both conflict for monetary gain and leveraging violence to stay in power. How do local peace agreements create and maintain security, generate humanitarian help? But peace agreements can also be a vehicle for oppression - the Taliban took over in part by negotiating individual local peace agreements, thus keeping local groups from banding together to resist them.

For peacemaking to be successful, local groups are necessary. It can't just be imposed from above. But as governments become more dependent on non-tax revenue (oil money, Western aid) the governments become less responsive to the citizens and do more to construct ideologies and systems that maintain those sources of revenue. You rally citizens around a nationalistic narrative. So the tension between local groups and governments can increase.

It was, of course, interesting to listen to them analyze the worldwide situation and see how profoundly it also all applies to what is going on in the United States.

FRANKFURT: Stefan Kroll, Head of Science Communication Department, Peace Research Institute of Frankfurt (PRIF)

PRIF is a well-known and well-regarded research institute internationally, and I was delighted to meet with Stefan Kroll, a researcher there, a Board member, and Head of Science Communication Department. PRIF was founded in the 1970s and is the biggest such organization in Germany. Like many I met, PRIF is primarily interested in international conflict, though it does have an arm that looks at conflict in Germany (including anti-semitism, Kroll noted). Their Research Center for Social Cohesion is the best place in Germany for domestic conflict resolution.

However, their particular expertise is in arms control and disarmament. They work in many countries and are both a research and consulting organization. They generate blogs, research papers, policy briefs, reports for journalists and others, and engage in collaborative projects worldwide. They have social scientists and others (they even employy physicists, chemists, and biologists). They are also consulted by the government of Germany.

Rather than talking about conflict resolution theory or approaches, as I did with others, my conversation with Stefan was more about how to approach the public and structure an organization like his. Their blog has been very successful (PRIFblog, if you want to check it out). We created a nice link, and I will be reaching out to them in the future.

The English Countryside

Fri, 23 Aug 2024 04:00:00 GMT

Waiting for a call

Hi everyone! So, it's been a while, but there will be a few rapid-fire entries now.

The final leg of our trip to Europe included a long visit to England before our final stop in Frankfurt. We flew from Edinburgh to Birmingham and picked up a car there to drive south. I like driving in the UK, even though it's on the wrong side of the road, and we were in a car with manual transmission, so I had to shift with my left hand. It takes concentration, but I see it as a challenge. It was all fine until we got to out destination near tiny Stonor, England (140 homes, pop. 304), about halfway between Oxford and London, and the gorgeous house we were staying on for 11 days in the rural English countryside.

First, the house, which was a 17th century farmhouse beautifully renovated, idyllic, and generously provided to us by my long time colleague and friend, Ilina Singh, who was holiday with her family in the U.S. It sat surrounded by farms, and cows, and nothing but country air and fields.

The back patio:

Every morning and evening we sat out in the back, and one evening while basking in the bucolic setting and marveling at out good fortune, who should come and pay a visit, landing not three feet from Val's head? A wise friend:

Tawny Owl

Anyway, the English countryside is absolutely beautiful. We hiked everyday, through fields and along streams and on people's private property, who have given others the right-of-way to follow these ubiquitous paths that meander throughout the countryside, where every turn is another pastoral scene:

We visited all the lovely little towns around us - Helnley-on-Thames, Turville, High Wycombe (don't you love those names?) and had absolutely terrific food - a couple of the best meals we had in Europe, perhaps surprisingly - England isn't known for its cuisine. But the food was fabulous.

One strange quirk - all over the area where we were staying were these incredibly narrow roads, just barely wider than our car, bounded on both sides by large impenetrable hedgerows. I had to drive down these cattle chutes in our manual car, driving on the wrong side and shifting with the wrong hand, and here's the kicker: they were TWO WAY STREETS. Every 100 yards or so the road had a little cut out on one side or the other, which made it so two cars could (barely) squeeze by each other. And if you encountered each other in between cut-outs? One of you had to back up to the nearest one. The native drivers whizzed down these lanes, fast, so every time I approached a turn I was sure I was going to smash into a car coming the other way.

Counterintuitively it was much easier to drive these roads at night, because you could see the beams and the headlights of cars coming the other way from much further away, even around curves.

We watch a lot of British crime series, we are Britbox fans. There is something engaging and lovely and somewhat mysterious about the English countryside. I get it now.

Conflict and Peace: Four Interviews

Tue, 23 Jul 2024 23:00:00 GMT

Edinburgh

Time to talk about what I am learning about Conflict and Peace. I report here on four interviews I conducted with experts from centers across northern Europe. Their insights are important, and I think will reward anyone with even a passing interest in the field.

And BTW, I just received a generous grant from Raymond Schinazi to include medically-oriented conflict resolution in th work of PACT. So I started asking some people about medical conflict resolution as well. Here are the interviews:

#1. Amsterdam - David Laws, Director of the Center for Conflict Studies University of Amsterdam

David is in the Department of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam, and also directs the Masters Program in Conflict Resolution and Governance.

I met David at a nice café in Amsterdam. He pointed out the tensions, at times, between those who do human rights and justice work, and those in conflict resolution and peacebuilding. If you want to stop a civil war or domestic terror, for example, you may need to negotiate with a warlord, no matter how despicable, in order to stop the killing. You may even need to give him concessions. The same warlord that the human rights/justice people are trying to arrest for H.R. violations, or trying to get into an international court of criminal justice. How do you reconcile those two efforts? Is it temporal – stop the killing and then pursue justice? What if amnesty is a condition of stopping the terror?

He also echoed the challenge almost all of the places with an academic mission cited – how to balance the pursuit of research, knowledge, and teaching with the actual work of conflict resolution in the field. Some leaned one way, some another, but all struggle with it. Practice has to be a integral part of the program – conflict resolution and peace studies in theory is a very different animal than he messy activity of mediation and facilitation of real situations. On one hand, understanding conflict is different than encountering the messy, complex reality of any particular situation; on the other, accumulating knowledge of best practices, effective strategies, and the idiosyncratic details that differentiate one kind of situation from another is also crucially important to furthering the work, and the field.

It is also important to recognize that some situations are not yet ready for resolution. Some are very complex, still roiling in political turmoil and violence, and there may be multiple conflicts going on at once – “hot messes” in the vernacular of Conflict studies. Preliminary community organizing, political intervention, or other pre-resolution work may be needed before any real work can start to resolve or transform the conflict. Of course, those activities themselves generate conflict. But might that preliminary work be done better by professionals in fields other than conflict resolution?

So, you need a firm anchor in practice, as conflict resolution is practitioner-led and theorizing is often a half-step behind, but theory also has to be critical of practice. Studying failures is also important. That is why (as in bioethics) case study teaching is the way to go.

David, also – knowing my background – emphasized the importance of ethical reflection in confict resolution. He believes it is neglected, but permeates everything people in the field do (e.g., see “warlords,”above).

Many thanks to David for his time and wisdom!

#2. Belfast - Richard English from the Queens University Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice

Richard English (left) is Professor of Politics at Queen's University Belfast, where he directs The Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace (Gary Mason in the center)

Gary Mason (see previous post on Belfast) also introduced me to Richard English, and the three of us met at a café in Belfast near Queens University (I seem to drift from café to café…).

The Mitchell Institute brings together interdisciplinary researchers, engages in partnerships, and runs educational programs around aspects of peace, security, and justice (George Mitchell, American senator and statesman, was instrumental in bringing peace to Northern Ireland and served as Chancellor of Queen's University from 1999 to 2009). The Mitchell Institute has Ph.D. students and a Masters program in Conflict Transformation and Justice. So Richard was a good person for me to talk to!

Richard started with an important philosophical challenge: what is the work we are actually doing, what is the nature of the effort we are making, and does it ultimately make a difference? It is easy to feel self-righteous – who wouldn’t proudly announce they are into peacemaking? – but does what institutions like ours do really matter?

We discussed it as we sat in Northern Ireland, so isn’t that the answer to the question? Peace- or at least, non-violence and shared government – after decades of seemingly intractable hostility and killing. But what if N. Ireland only worked once? Is it a model, or just an exceptional case?

Richard also mused on how a program balances the academic and the applied. No one is sure they have that exactly right, but there are many models to try and emulate.

Another point we discussed – and one I have brought up in every conversation – is designing the new center at Emory in keeping with Emory’s existing strengths. As Richard put it, the new center should align with “the DNA” of the university. Create a list of questions and bring in stakeholders around the university to help answer them. (And, I would add, stakeholders from outside the university as well.)

#3. Dublin - Gillian Wylie, International Peace Studies and Course Coordinator PG Diploma in Conflict and Dispute Resolution Studies, and Head of School of Religion, Theology, and Peace Studies at Trinity College Dublin

Gillian Wylie, Head of School of Religion, Theology, and Peace Studies at Trinity

Have I mentioned before how lovely and generous people in this field are? I went to Trinity College and met with Gillian in her office, and she immediately brought in tea and biscuits (“cookies” to you Americans). Interesting that they combine religion and peace in one school, though it is also true that a lot of conflict resolution and peacebuilding activity at Emory is based in the Candler School of Theology. Still, I had not before seen a school that combines them so explicitly (and, Gillian admits, not always seamlessly).

Gillian herself is more on the peace side, with expertise include human trafficking, the politics of international migration, globalization, and gender-related issues. The program is separate from the theology side, and students there for theological studies have an opportunity to take courses on the peace side, but don’t have to. It depends what they are interested in. As in other places, the faculty does engage in work in the community, and forms partnerships with NGOs, etc. They have faculty working in various places in the world, including Jerusalem and, interestingly, South Korea. One visiting faculty member from South Korea returned there to build a peace center, and Gillian helpfully facilitated my getting in touch with him, as we are both trying to build something new and innovative in the field of peacebuilding.

I mentioned that I had a grant to look at medical issues – I had just received word that I got the grant from Raymond Schinazi. I have been thinking about ways to integrate the medical side into the work PACT will do, and Gillian cited work done by faculty at Trinity on abortion in Northern Ireland, international issues in medicine (telemedicine is internationalizing a lot of medicine that used to be done locally, like reading scans).

She also pointed out that the work in Northern Ireland is far from done, and is a “negative peace,” that is, a peace defined by the cessation of hostilities, not by transformation into a positive, mutually cooperative system. Not all peace is equal.

#4. Edinburgh - Andrew Lang and Tim Eppel, University of Edinburgh Law School and PeaceRep Program.

Andrew Lang is Professor of International Law and Global Governance at Edinburgh Law School and acting PI of the Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform (PeaceRep).Tim Epple is PeaceRep’s Managing Director.

I met Andrew and Tim at – a café. There is something delightful in sitting around in a European café and talking, for some reason it seems loftier than meetings in American cafés. Not even sure why.

PeaceRep is based in the University of Edinburgh Law School, and was founded by Christine Bell, Professor of Constitutional Law (she is on leave on assignment at the UN). It is made up of 9 partners, university-based and NGO, including such places as programs at the London School of Economics, Queens University Belfast, and St. Andrews, as well as organizations such as the World Peace Foundation and Conciliation Resources.

PeaceRep is first an academic, research organization. They have a database of other 2000 peace agreements from all over the world, as well as deep, contextual case studies,a nd so use both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Funded in part by the UK government – but independent in their choice of cases or areas of the world to explore – their goal is specifically to research and understand the nature of peace agreements.

They are interested in national dialogues as a tool for peacemaking, for example, Yemen had a national dialogue about the future of the country (as did Bahrain). What might that look like (and, BTW, we sure could use one in he US, though I have a suspicion it would not go all that well…)? Can such a dialogue in a country without a constitution lead to a unified constitutional process?

Tim and Andrew elaborated on the lessons they have learned through PeaceRep. Essentially, the main lessons include the importance of the interface between the research they do and he practice they are studying. They look at complex, ongoing applied situations, with some field studies and ongoing thought about what kinds of data are the important ones to collect. This is a methodological problem that is true in every social science study – mine included – but there are special questions tthat need to be asked when looking at peace processes involving multiple actors at different levels of society.

Secondly, what is the proper way to address the asymmetry of the global north dominating both the study and the applied practice of peace processes, and then “offering” its wisdom and expertise to the global south? How to best involve the local residents deeply in understanding and researching their own processes, and not just look on it as a research study of a northern university? Also, the impulse is to offer lots of pro bono services, how do you balance that with existing resources?

And finally, speaking as people who run a project at a university, how do you plan for and assure sustainability (of funding, especially) from the start? Great question, thanks for asking. Been thinking about that constantly since I agreed to try and build this center.

I am so grateful to all the people who have met with me and have been so willing to share their time and expertise. Only a few weeks left before I return home from my first excursion and plan the next phase of the process.

And I'll leave you with this shot of the sun setting on Edinburgh:

Belfast, "The Troubles", and the Strong Link to Israel and Palestine

Tue, 16 Jul 2024 23:00:00 GMT

(picture above by Valerie Root Wolpe)

Warning, this will be a long one, with lots of pictures.

How do you describe the complex, ancient, and ongoing - and contradictory - relationships of Belfast and Northern Ireland to one another and those around? The more you know about them, the more astonishing you will find them--very much like the Middle East. And that is why, unsurprisingly, the city, and its surrounding countries of Ireland and the rest of the UK, are so deeply intertwined with Israel and Palestine.

You see Palestinian flags everywhere in the Irish/Republican/Nationalist/Catholic areas, and Israeli flags in the British/Unionist/Loyalist/Protestant areas. The struggle in the Middle East has become a symbolic marker of your position in Northern Ireland (and Ireland, and Britain to a lesser degree).

Where to begin?

Perhaps a glimpse of the craziness is in the Battle of the Boyne; Fought in 1690, still very much remembered and alive here, celebrated every July 12 by Protestant Loyalists in Northern Ireland with a parade including a burning of the Irish flag (see last post). The victory of King William of Orange against, the deposed, King James reinforced Protestant rule in Ireland. Simple, right? A war to maintain Protestant control over Catholicism in Ireland. Except Pope Alexander VIII and the Vatican were allies of, the Protestant, William and an enemy to James, who was fighting to maintain Catholic Irish sovereignty and reinforce religious tolerance for Catholicism! The Vatican shared William's hostility to (Catholic) Louis XIV of France, who at the time was attempting to establish dominance in Europe and to whom James was an ally. Got that? Every fact about N. Ireland seems equally convoluted.

(Or St. Patrick, the very symbol of Irish nationalism and pride, who was born in Britain.)

Before we get more into it, let me reintroduce and thank the remarkable Gary Mason: a famed mediator and peacemaker of the last many decades, a Methodist Minister who founded Skainos, an organization that brings together the two sides in Northern Ireland, creating a safe, neutral space and providing social services such as a senior center and an integrated school, who now runs the NGO "Rethinking Conflict." He has been an important part of the reconciliation process in Northern Ireland, and has also been active in the Israeli-Palestinian situation for over a generation, meeting with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in the Middle East as well as hosting groups in Belfast (he just had the ultra-orthodox Shas party leadership here), there, too, bringing the opposing sides together for dialogue.

Gary Mason standing in a gateway marking the division between a Catholic and Protestant area.

Gary was the best guide one could ask for, unpacking the convoluted history, and the living legacy, of the Troubles. I won't go through the 30 years of bombings, struggles, and hostilities, leaving over 3600 dead and over 47,000 injured--bombs which hit more innocents than combatants, women and children going about their daily lives--however, except to say both sides still point with outrage to the other's atrocities while ignoring their own. This is despite the fact that overt hostilities have been stymied for more than a quarter century now. The Good Friday agreement of 1998, as an achievement in conflict resolution, is a landmark in transitioning two implacable foes to a peaceable state of life together. It is clearly a model to be emulated, even while, 25 years later, the simmering resentments persist. (Note: The Sinn Fein was the political, nonviolent - they claimed - armed of the Republican side, and the Irish Republican Army, the IRA, was the military wing.)

Let's look at how things are framed. First, Protestant/Loyalist/pro-British areas:You cannot miss the signs anywhere you go (picture above by Valerie Root Wolpe)

These are just a few of the posters and memorials that punctuate almost every street corner in the Protestant areas. Large reminders of IRA terror. To be fair, IRA bombings were more indiscriminate and, ultimately, more destructive than those launched by Protestant militias. Republican (Irish, Catholic) paramilitaries were responsible for some 60% of the deaths, Loyalists (Protestant, British) 30%, and security forces 10%. But numbers alone do not justify the ends, as the Catholic/Republican/pro-Irish-unification neighborhoods also prominently remind us:

A memorial to the Catholic fallen, note the Palestinian flags as well - more on that in a moment

A Catholic memorial. The symbol on the flagpole is the Irish lily, the Easter lily, a symbol of Irish freedom and remembrance that commemorates combatants who died during the 1916 Easter Rising. The lily's colors echo the Irish flag.

So these memorials are everywhere, a reminder that, even in peace, even though the Troubles ended in 1998, even as the country as a whole tries to heal, it remains divided. Protestant children go to Protestant schools, Catholic children go to Catholic schools, despite attempts to create and promote integrated* schools, progress is greater in some areas than others. Nationwide only 7% of schools are integrated. The Catholic children hear one version of their nation's history, the Protestant children another.

*("integrated" means something different in N. Ireland than in the US)

Walls and fences constructed between neighborhoods during the Troubles, and supposed to be dismantled after the Good Friday agreement, still stand all over Belfast. And both sides seem to want it that way (picture by Valerie Root Wolpe)

Which brings us to Israel/ Palestine. The Middle East has been symbolically grafted onto the division between the two sides. The PLO helped the Sinn Fein early on, which cemented a relationship--though, a decade or so prior, Ireland was an early supporter of the fledgling state of Israel, since it was fighting the British. The Republicans see a parallel; the Palestinians are fighting an occupation, and so are the Irish. But the depth of it is astonishing. Palestinian flags are everywhere, flying next to Irish flags, and murals in Catholic areas extol the Palestinian struggle. And not only in Northern Ireland, they are common throughout Ireland itself.

Irish prisoner clutching hands with Palestinian prisoner.

On the other side, Israel is symbolic of a realized stable society that has a right to the territory it inhabits, and is seen as the victim of terrorist bombings and an intractable foe:

The Israeli flag on the fence surrounding the tower, with Irish and Palestinian flags adorning the tower to be set on fire and incinerated at midnight, starting the July 12 event.Stories of solidarity between Ulster Volunteer Force and the Zionist struggle

And so it goes. Yet, despite the posters and the ongoing tensions, islands of hope spring up all around. Take William Mitchell, the founder and builder of ACT, the Action for Community Transformation program. As a young teen, William was recruited by his upbringing and the stories he was told into the Ulster Volunteer Force, and at 15 engaged in a political killing. After 13 years in prison--considered not as a jail by the combatants but as a prisoner of war camp--upon release he began working with at-risk youth in his community, got a Ph.D. studying the young men from the Protestant neighborhoods of his youth, and created ACT. ACT is a museum of the history of the Troubles, balanced and informative, even as it portrays the experiences of Protestant youth.

William Mitchell and me standing in a room in the ACT Museum that replicates the "POW" holding cells he was incarcerated in.

Ultimately, the experience of Belfast is one of hope and optimism. The hostilities there seem no more intractable and historical than in the Middle East; after all, I saw a parade celebrating a sectarian victory from 1690! Yet, somehow, after the bombings and the shootings, the deaths of women and children on both sides, seemingly unyielding political ideologies, they found their way to peace. With Gary Mason as a guide, one can see beneath the surface, understand the many historical, religious, cultural, and socioeconomic influences that keep the old narratives alive, even while people like Gary and William try to forge new ones.

For, in the end, it really is about the stories we tell, about how we transmit truths to the next generation, and how tightly we cling to our own version of history and ignore the pain and lived experience of the other. For 25 years, there have been no political killings in Northern Ireland. That is something to celebrate, that is the foundation you need to move forward. It is not surprising that the peacemakers of Northern Ireland see their victory, their hard-won peace, as a possible model for the Middle East.

Belfast: The Persistence of Memory

Thu, 11 Jul 2024 23:00:00 GMT

Well, we got to Belfast yesterday, July 11, and were thrown right into it. July 12 is a public holiday, an annual parade. The Orange Order (a Protestant fraternal organization and political society) and hundreds of marching bands parade across Northern Ireland to mark the Battle of the Boyne, when William of Orange - also known as King Billy - defeated King James II in 1690. Yes, 1690. And they are still fighting (or at least, thank goodness, just arguing) about it.

(It is also tied in somehow to the 1916 Battle of the Somme during WWI - don't ask me exactly how - where the British and some French fought the German Empire along the river Somme in France. Intended to hasten a victory for the Allies, more than three million men fought in the battle, with more than one million either wounded or killed, making it one of the deadliest battles in all of human history.)

Gary Mason, a Methodist Minister and renowned peacemaker in Northern Ireland (and all over the world, these days) was our guide. And he showed us just how messy and complicated the conflict in Northern Ireland is. Not surprisingly, it has real parallels with the Middle East, where Gary has also done a lot of important work (more on that later). We also had the opportunity to spend delightful time with Dr. Steve Cherry, the Dean of Kings Chapel at the University of Cambridge, a theologian who has written extensively about the idea and nature of forgiveness.

The July 12 celebration is a protestant, British loyalist celebration; the Catholics stay away. The history is convoluted and complex. The crowd was in largely in orange ("William of Orange...”) kind of ironic for Valerie and I, because we just came form Holland where, to support their football team, everyone was wearing orange (Why? because that is the color of the Dutch royal family. And that is also why William of Orange is Orange - he was originally Dutch. In fact, he became King of England from his post as steward of cities in Holland, including Utrecht.)

The venerable William of Orange

So, it started at midnight Thursday, where in a big empty parking lot a number of men (seemed mostly in their 20s) were building a massive pyre of wooden pallets. Massive. Then, at exactly midnight, they set it ablaze.

That tiny figure at the top left under the flag is a guy, to give you some sense of scale.

The fire was so hot we had to keep moving back, even a block away you could feel it.

Belfast has managed its conflict. The tension is still there, and memory is persistent. Imagine in your city a bunch of guys commandeering a parking lot, building a giant pyre out of wooden shipping palettes, and then setting the whole thing ablaze, with nary a policeman in sight. But the police have a troubled history with the good citizens of Belfast.

You feel the tension between the loyalists and the nationalists - between those who are for remaining part of Britain and those who want Northern Ireland reunited with Ireland - permiates the atmosphere here, it is never far from the surface. At the parade on Friday, entirely dedicated to the unionists and loyalists, there was not a Catholic or nationalist in sight. But there were also no protests or violence. Belfast has reached some kind of equilibrium, without sacrificing belief, or memory.

A young loyalist watching the parade.

But the parade was, well, weird. It consisted of hundreds of marching bands (in just the one in Belfast; there are over 500 other parades around Northern Ireland on July 12). But while each had a slightly different uniform, otherwise all of them - the parade went by for close to two hours - were almost exactly the same. First, a few young kids twirling batons and tossing them in the air (and all the batons were identical). Then a person with a long ceremonial mace leads the way, then a banner, some of them quite beautiful and richly illustrated. Then follows - in every case - a large groups of drums (with one bass drummer in the middle wailing away at the thing), then maybe two or three cymbal bangers, and then a fleet of men (almost all men) playing the Irish flute.

BannersDrumsFlutes

Band after band. Batons, mace, banner, drums, flutes. Over and over again. No variation (often even playing the same songs). Then the next and the next, each representing a district or community. I was used to the Philadelphia Mummers (non-Philly people: Google the Mummers Parade, it is amazing). There, the idea is to distinguish yourself within categories - you have your Comic, Fancy, Fancy Brigade, and String Bands, and each is trying to outdo the other. The Belfast Parade is about the consistency of ritual. You have to have that, I suppose, when you are still celebrating a victory from over 300 years ago.

But wait, don't we do the same thing? What makes this different than, for example, Jewish holidays - which I know something about - is that when we celebrate a Jewish victory from a couple thousand years ago the losers are not still with us; we don't think of modern Egyptians as having lost to us, the Pharaohs are gone. When we celebrate Independence Day in the US, we aren't lording it over the British of today. But the July 12 parade is different. Waving the British flags, wearing orange, flashing portraits of Queen Victoria and other monarchs, it is a direct challenge to the nationalists of today, not just a nostalgic celebration of yesteryear.

I think of it like dance-offs, or sports competitions. The sides face each other and perform, each trying to out do the other within a set of rules and boundaries, a surrogate form of warfare. If Northern Ireland has somehow found a way to engage in symbolic warfare, using parades as the means to both cement identity and as a form of display for the Other, without violence - well, I suppose it is not perfect, but it sure beats the bombings and deaths of the 30-odd years of "the Troubles".

We will be diving even deeper into this complex place over the next few days. Stay tuned!

So long Holland, brief Brussels interlude

Tue, 09 Jul 2024 23:00:00 GMT

So, before leaving Utrecht, I took a day trip to Brussels to meet with Michael Keating of the European Institute for Peace and Hilde Deman of Search for Common Ground.

First Brussels itself: meh. A boring city with officious looking architecture everywhere. I did find the enigmatic piece of sculpture above (sculpture?), just toes in sandals emerging from rock without explanation. Somehow, it felt like Brussels.

Michael Keating, like everyone I have met, was interested and helpful. The European Institute for Peace was established by European politicians looking for a vehicle to talk to people they couldn't talk to without political cost, and now EIP has hundreds of employees and works worldwide as an independent entity, often on Track 1 and 2.

Digression: *What are the tracks in peace and conflict negotiations? *
Track 1 is State to state relations, the UN, governments, official contacts, treaties, official meeetings. Based on diplomacy.
Track 2 is non-state actors, intermediate organizations, business and academia and NGOs, and conflict resolution is the means.
*Track 3 is people diplomacy, at the grassroots level, community baed, trying to create better understanding of the other and promote tolerance. *
These tracks can be combined; e.g., Track 1.5 is meetings between government and non-government actors. There are also other tracks - private individuals, research, etc.

OK, back to Michael - as an Executive Director, he got down to brass tasks quickly. What was my funding model? But not just that, it was the insight that the work itself is shaped by the funding because without an endowment, the controversial or difficult tasks of conflict resolution can offend funders and grantors. To end conflicts, you have to speak to problematic people - warlords, and factions, and bad actors in government, and the "other side" whatever your side happens to be. Without secure funding independent of people's political feelings, it is difficult to do the work of peacebuilding.

Then I met with Hilde Deman, at the Brussels office of Search for Common Ground (which is HQed in Washington DC). A 40 year old, large peacebuilding organization (over 1000 employees), SfCG, unlike many of the other programs I have met with, intentioinally also works on domestic conflicts. They see themselves as working on community-based peacebuilding, so tracks 2 and 3, and try to establish long-term presence and relationships with communities. They have their own methodological philosophy - "The Common Ground Approach" - interpersonal, working with peoples' and groups' complex identities.

Of many important points, Hilde lamented that peace as a concept has become marginalized, almost discredited. People are not convinced peacebuilding has vale, that it works. Even dialogue itself has become suspect. Despite its many successes, work to transform conflict has to struggle to be accepted in the current climate. So we have our work cut out for us.

Before I leave The Netherlands, just a last, longing glance back to a city Valerie and I fell in love with: Utrecht. Plan to go sometime, it is just a lovely place.

To Utrecht

Sun, 07 Jul 2024 22:00:00 GMT

Utrecht at lunchtime, eating along the canal

Sorry for the delay in the new posting; caught a bug which put me out for a few days.

We made the fortunate decision to use Utrecht as our base in the Netherlands. We just love Utrecht.

Utrecht is built at a human scale - everyone walks or bikes (or boats on the canals). The streets are almost empty of cars. It is crowded, yes, a popular tourist destination, but somehow, because of the intimate, brick-based walking and biking paths, the three-story buildings, and the calming influence of canals, it seems less crowded than Amsterdam, which is much bigger and is filled with tourism.

All the roads here are brick. The Netherlands has very little stone at all, almost all stone is imported, but they have plenty of clay, so they make everything from brick.

Quick side-story: How rare are rocks in Holland? All the towns in the Netherlands have a nickname. Utrecht's is "Domstad" - Cathedral City - because of the dominant spire of the Dom here (see pic below). Leiden is named the "Key City" because it's symbol is a key, which is in its coat of arms. The town of Amersfoort has the nickname "Keistad," or "Big Stone City" because they found a rock there, which they proudly display in a city square. The legend is about someone in the 17th century who found a big rock and made a bet that he could get the good citizens of Amersfoort to drag it into town, which they did when he offered them beer and biscuits. Embarrassed by their gullibility (and by the mocking of their countrymen), they buried the rock in 1672 where it remained until 1903 when it was dug up and put on display by the noble citizens of Amersfoort, apparently to proudly note that the town has a rock.

Amersfoort is very proud of their big rock

Back to Utrecht, which like Amsterdam but even more so, is FILLED with bicycles. Every street, every square, every possible place to stick or stack or store a bicycle is full of them. You have to learn the rules of walking in Utrecht; it is bicycles to look out for, not cars, and woe to the tourist who does not understand that you have to stop and look carefully at bicycle path crossings, or that you need to walk on the pedestrian strip of the road, not the bicycle lane (which looks the same, it's all brick). Even in the rain, everyone bikes. People own old, ratty bikes called "city bikes" that they use to commute and run errands, and that, in general, aren't worth much if they get taken (though the sentimental value can be high), and then a nicer bike (or two, or five) for recreation and family trips. There are all kinds of bikes for schlepping the kids - Children are towed in bike trailers, pushed in front in "cargo" seats, or stowed in conventional bike seats or on the cross beam. Kids go to school o bikes, are picked up on bikes. Not that so many bikes doesn't cause its own problems, but boy, it is better than car congestion, and the air is clear.

Utrecht - canals, brick walking paths, bicycles, and the "Dom" (cathedral) tower

Had a wonderful time being shown around by Utrecht native Maarten Lamers, a professor of computer science (AI, robotics) at Leiden University. An outgoing, lovely person, he took us under his wing and we had a blast with him. His wife Ebeline works at the Speelkok museum, an amazing collection of self-playing musical instruments, from music boxes to clocks to large street and dance hall mechanisms. He gave us Utrecht lore and showed us the best places to eat. Really enjoyed our time with Maarten.

Maarten and I

The enormous "Mortier" self-contained orchestra, an all-mechanical Dance Machine

People in Utrecht stop and buy their groceries for that night's dinner every day. Everything is fresh. They have wonderful open markets - we went to the country's largest fabric market, literally hundreds of booths of fabric (Val bought fabric, even though we are traveling for another five weeks). And, of course, being Holland, enormous flower markets, bursting with color and varieties.

Val at the fabric marketThe fabric market seems to go on forever.

We also had the good fortune to be in Switzerland when the Swiss football (ie, soccer) team beat Italy in the Euro Cup, and in the Netherlands when they beat Turkey. The celebrations were fun, and we felt a part of it. In Utrecht we stood outside and watched the game at a pub with the natives. Loads of fun.

For the project of building the new Center, I met with David Laws, who works with the Transnational Configurations, Conflict and Governance group at the University of Amsterdam. He is a wise experienced hand in the conflict world, and had sage advice. The University of Amsterdam has a Masters degree in Conflict Resolution and Governance.

David pointed out that those who work on "human rights" can be in conflict with those who work in "conflict resolution." A warlord, who might be the target of human rights activists for his violations, might be crucial to stop the shooting in a conflict. Hard to negotiate with him when others are trying to arrest him. Like others I have spoken to, David highlighted the tension between practice and theory, academia and applied mediation, and how a program can best balance the two.

He also stressed that conflicts go through different stages - not standardized - and that a conflict might not yet be ready for mediation or resolution (a "hot mess" is a term of the field), and that understanding the dynamic progression of a particular conflict is important. In local conflicts, community organizing might need to come before conflict resolution. Perhaps most importantly for me, given my background, David emphasized that conflict resolution has ethics at its core, where ethical reflection is central. He thinks discussion and exploration of ethics is neglected in a lot of CR teaching and programs. Perhaps that is one opening for makes a program at Emory unique?

Thanks, David. I remain amazed at the generosity in time and advice of the people I am meeting as I move forward with this project.

(Picture credits - all taken by me except the one of me and Maarten, taken by Val, and the Amersfoort rock and the Mortier dance machine, from the web.)

Zurich - International Conflict Research

Sun, 30 Jun 2024 22:00:00 GMT

Ah, Switzerland. Clean. Public transportation so good you don't need a car - trains and trams will take you wherever you need to go. Bern was a great home base for us. Yes, the architecture is staid and almost Soviet at times, but the constant activity and friendly people made it all worth while. And being there to hear and see the celebration when Switzerland beat Italy in a game in the UEFA European Championship (soccer) was a bonus.

And before i get to Zurich, we traveled to Grindelwald, an idyllic town high in the alps. I had always wanted a day where I was just surrounded by the alps, immersed in them, and we had that in Grindelwald. We went on a hike - I misread the app, which suggested the 3.7 mile hike through the alps would include an elevation of 300 feet, and off we went. We took the cable car up to a station and started the hike at 5300 feet up, over a mile. Well, we climbed, and climbed ("this has to be more than 300 feet!") and we finally, after hours, reached the top cable car station for the ride back down. I checked the altimeter. 7300 feet! We had climbed 2000 feet on this little hike. But the views, well -

I spent the day in Zurich with people from ETH, as it is universally known (it stands for Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, meaning the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, which is why everyone just calls it ETH). I started the day with Lars-Erik Cederman, currently the Head of the Dept. of Humanities, Social and Political Science - an enormous department. His area is International Conflict Research, and he is strongly research and academically oriented, interested in nationalism and its impact, as well as international threats to democracy. He was generous with his time and his advice. He stressed developing core competencies in the disciplines associated with conflict and peace, to design the center around the needs and wants of the existing faculty, and to ask: who is your intended audience? A helpful and deeply appreciated meeting.

There was a festival in Zurich the day I was there, people in traditional Swiss dress were everywhere.

Then I met with a team of five people from different programs - Eemeli Isoaho and Inbal Ben Ezer from the Master of Advanced Studies, Mediation in Peace Process group, and Simon Mason, Joane Hollinger, and Katrina Abatis of the Mediation Support Team. Enjoyed the meeting thoroughly - they were full of suggestions and advice, such as the importance of building mediation work through multiple disciplines (public health, theology, political science) and balancing academics and practice. Simon ennobled my mission by stating I was on a "vision quest" and needed to start with the big picture - where do I want the center to contribute? The group appreciated that my center will begin with a focus on US domestic conflict, and only broaden to international conflict later. As Katrina stressed, peace work is too often seen as something "over there," in another country. Peace work starts at home.

I realized after meeting with these groups in Basel and Zurich - and in my interactions with others as I try to arrange my visits - that a special kind of person makes it their live's mission to do peace work. People have been generous and forthcoming, welcoming of a new center by a person unknown and untrained in their field. I think I made a wise choice dedicated this coda to my career in building a center for such important work, and becoming colleagues to such impressive and kind people.

My first visit: with Swisspeace!

Sun, 23 Jun 2024 22:00:00 GMT

How satisfying it is to meet people who fully live up to the values they espouse.

This week I began the actual work of researching existing models of peace and conflict centers, and soliciting ideas, designs, best practices and even dreams of what a center, designed from scratch, might look like.

But first, we traveled from Lake Como to Bern, Switzerland (picture above). We are making Bern our base for 8 days, and traveling to Basel, Zurich, and the Swiss Alps from there. Einstein developed his theory of relativity here, and so there are Einstein cafe's, Einstein statues, Einstein pictures everywhere.

Einstein's house in Bern.Chatting with Albert.

Monday I traveled to Basel to begin researching models for designing the new Emory Center for Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation (PACT - a temporary name. I am taking nominations for a better name). I traveled to Basel and meet with the wonderful team at Swisspeace. I could not have asked for a better, more gracious host than Luca Willig, the co-head of the mediation program, who arranged a whole day's meeting for me wiith various Swisspeace teams.

First, I met with the Luca and Julián Arévalo and Kathrin Däpp of the mediation program. Swisspeace is based on four pillars - Justice, Reparation, Recurrence, and Truth. Each is complex. Theey ask questions like - what are the norms in peace, what makes a "good peace"? What is peace's value set? How do you create those values without asserting that Western values should dominate?

Swisspeace works in areas of conflict all over the world (highlighted in the map below).

Swisspeace works in many ways with these countries and situations. They have a fascinating division called "Dealing with the Past," which concerns itself with issues of transitional justice. I had lunch with Claudia Josi and Tobias Hagmann from that division, along with Roland Dittli of Analysis and Impact and the COO, Mattias Boss. Dealing with the Past asks how you transition after trauma, after an authoritarian regime? What structures do you set up, and how do you cope with issues like missing persons, memorialization, preserving archives and documents?

They are also a research center, a training center, and they teach courses and run programs through the University of Basel (as described to me by Metka Herzog and Nathalie Orefice). Though not an academic unit in its own right, Swisspeace ended up being a treasure trove of information and ideas for the new center (as five pages of notes attest).

Also, they stressed the importance of bringing in nonconventional stakeholders to design the new center. Who should be at the table form the community, especially those whose voices have not been solicited before? Who does this work already - NGOs, social workers, community activists, artists? How can they be part of the center as well?

Most importantly, though, Swisspeace gave of their time. And they were gracious. I enjoyed each one of them, and never really thanked them for treating me to lunch and ice tea. What a wonderful start to my quest!

The Italian Lakes

Tue, 18 Jun 2024 22:00:00 GMT

From Austria we went to Italy, on our way first to Lake Garda, near Verona, and then to Bellagio, Lake Como.

Driving through the beautiful Alps, we stopped at Trent (Trento), where the council of Trent was held, 25 separate session by which the 16th century Catholic Church responded to the Protestant Reformation, made statements, and issued clarifications of the Church's doctrine and teachings, most still confirmed to this day.

The Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, one of the places the Council of Trent met.

From there on to the Italian Lakes. Now, my family has a special affinity for Italian Lakes, because we grew up in Harrisburg, PA, and the small lake behind our house was called, yes "Italian Lake."

This book was in our Airbnb - and Harrisburg isn't even listed!

So first we went to Lake Garda, a scenic, large lake in Northern Italy, where we stayed in the lakeside town of Sirmione. We toured the ruins of an enormous, beautiful Roman villa. Boy, if you had money in Rome, what you could build puts modern mansions to shame.

Then to Bellagio, in beautiful Lake Como (the view from our balcony at the top of the post). An idyllic place. Bellagio is built into the side of a number of steep hills, so boy, we are getting our cardio every day. Our friends Ana and Eric Robbins form Atlanta are staying with us for a few days, so today we rode hard many miles almost straight up. Thank goodness for ebikes!

This has all been vacation, and soon we will go on to Switzerland, where the work begins - appointments in Basel and Zurich to meet with people working in peacebulding and conflict studies. In the meantime, just trying to relax and detox the soul.

(Picture credits - all taken by me except the one of the four of us, taken by Ana.)

A Wedding in the Alps

Sun, 09 Jun 2024 22:00:00 GMT

After Munich we went to the little Austrian village of Kitzbuhel, where the elite go to ski (it is the most valuable real estate in Austria). In the summer it is a little less upscale. Fun wedding - Val's nephew, Chris, married Alisha, whose family are Kitzbuhel regulars. Lots of meat, lederhosen, and even some yodeling from this colorful character who sang for us:

She even sang "Edelweiss," much to the delight of the crowd, who joined in.

Salzburg, Austria was next at hand, with a couple of Val's siblings and their families, all in for the wedding.

(Side story: Val's older brother, Peter, was in the Navy Seals when he came to our wedding in 1984, and met and fell in love with Val's maid of honor, Karla. Three months later they eloped to Salzburg, and honeymooned in Kitzbuhel.)

Salzburg is very proud of the Sound of Music. Peter and Karla and family took the Sound of Music Tour. While we did not, we did manage a picture of Val in front of the actual gazebo where Leisl sang "Sixteen Going on Seventeen":

The gazebo was at the amazing Schloss Hellbrunn estate. The building hid fountains everywhere - amazing feats of engineering for the 1600s. The owner liked to seat his guests and then turn on the hidden fountains and soak them (but not him) - and by protocol of the time they were not allowed to rise until he did.

Salzburg was an impressive and interesting city. For example, you will be fascinated to know that Salzburg has the "largest Dwarf garden in Europe." And of all the many, many dwarf gardens I have visited, it was certainly the largest.

From there we drove through the alps to Hall in Tirol, a lovely town where we stayed for a night, and then to Alta Badia, a gorgeous area high in the alps - so high up I could scoop up and hand Val a snowball.

(Side note. We had to pack for nine weeks in Europe, including wedding dress clothes, warm enough clothes for the very chilly high-alps, and light clothes for the 90-degree weather of Europe in the summer. I don't advise traveling like this.)

One final point. It is still difficult for me to travel through Germany and Austria. At each place I visit I can't help but think, "I wonder if the Jews of this place hid in those mountains I'm seeing", or "Did the officers of the SS lounge around in this estate in Kitzbuhel." Salzburg famously, publicly burned Jews in 1492, expelling the rest, so it did not have a Jewish population again until the 19th century. That lasted less than 100 years, as the Jews of Salzburg were all killed again. It is challenging being Jewish and traveling in these countries.

Now, on to Lake Garda and then Lake Como. More later!

Ciao, Paul

The journey starts... in Munich!

Wed, 05 Jun 2024 22:00:00 GMT

Who would have ever guessed that this sabbatical would kick off with a nine week trip to Europe (nine weeks!) starting in, of all places, Munich. Only for two days, but being in Germany still feels strange to me (though I have been here a number of times before). Being in Munich, where I have not been, feels even stranger.

How ironic, and yet suitable, to begin this journey of building a peace and dialogue center in the city that was dubbed by the Nazis as the "Capital of the Movement." While the government was centered in Berlin, the Nazi party headquarters were in Munich and the city was know for its many Führerbauten ("Führer-buildings"), some of which still exist.

The famous Munich Glockenspiel in Marienplatz Square,
we got to see it in action as the figures marched around at noon.

Munich is also only 20 minutes from the Dachau Concentration Camp. Valerie, my intrepid better half and ethical conscience, traveled to Dachau today. She went there to bear witness. I cannot even bear the burden of going there.

Perhaps this project is a kind of penance. I have never been able to watch movies about the Shoah, visit the camps, read accounts. I feel guilty about it, not being willing to bear that pain after the unthinkable agonies those millions (including a number of my relatives) went through. If I help create a center for peacebuilding, reconciliation, to help mediate conflict, perhaps I have contributed in a small way to "never again."

This is the vacation before the work starts. Off to a wedding in Kitzbuhel, then a few days in the Alps, then to Bellagio. I know, life is rough....

Welcome to A Different Future

Fri, 24 May 2024 04:00:00 GMT

Hi, friends.

On the pages that follow, I hope to chronicle my journeys over the next year, as I travel the world on sabbatical (and, OK, some vacation, too) visiting centers, interviewing experts, and dreaming about how to build a new, innovative, and creative center dedicated to civic dialogue, conflict transformation, mediation, and peacebuilding.

We as a nation stand at an impasse in our ability to talk to one another. Discord has silenced dialogue, debates derail into division. Our inability to have real dialogue across political, scientific, cultural, and personal divides has fractured our political and communal conversations. At the same time it has impoverished education, even at the highest levels. A critical need has arisen to teach our students, and our communities, how to engage constructively with those holding differing ideologies and viewpoints, to have meaningful conversation across our divides. Emory University is poised to take a bold step with the establishment of a new center of conflict transformation, mediation, civic dialogue, and peacebuilding; but more profoundly, the initiative is a commitment to reimagine our educational priorities, strengthen community ties, and enrich democratic engagement at a pivotal moment in our nation's history.

The chronicle you are reading records my odyssey to research, design, and build this new center. It is also an invitation to join me on this journey with your reactions and ideas. Starting with a sabbatical year of traveling the globe, visiting centers in places like The Hague, Geneva, Oslo, Helsinki, Belfast, Johannesburg, and other cities renowned for their relationship to some of the world's greatest historical efforts in peacemaking, I will be seeking out new models, innovative curricula, and novel approaches to conflict, which will be built into the bones of the new center. Please come along - I need your creative minds, and I promise to listen carefully to anything you have to contribute.

Let's create something new, together!