My name is Nick Hathorn, I am in my fourth year at
Nipissing University in the Political Science program and I am currently a
research assistant here at NUPRI. My first formal encounter with NUPRI
happened at the end of the 2011-2012 school year when I was approached to
partake in NUPRI's first ever intimate conversation on the problem of peace
with a friend and fellow student of mine. In February of 2013 I was
approached by NUPRI to take over the position of their research assistant,
which involved combing through the many enlightening interviews that NUPRI has
conducted over the years. While working on these interviews I was
presented with a plethora of thought provoking and thought challenging
definitions of peace and the obstacles of peace. This post will discuss
how my working with NUPRI has changed and supported my definition of peace
through the various interviews they have conducted.
In the intimate
conversation on the problem of peace that I took part in last year I was asked
what does peace mean to me as an individual. At the time I took peace to
mean inner peace. My definition then was that people needed to be first
and foremost at peace with themselves and who they are as an individual.
I believed and still do believe that if people are insecure with who they
are, their ways of life, and their beliefs, it is more difficult for the
insecure person to accept any beliefs or ways of life other than their own as
valid or legitimate (Nick Hathorn and Matthew Welwood, Intimate Conversation on
the Problem of Peace, April 21 2012, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMNjOjVlm5g).
When working on the interviews conducted by NUPRI I discovered that other
individuals shared my idea of inner peace such as Claude Desjardins (Interview
with Claude Desjardins, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-h4y9SME1E&list=PL5B9E20CABF823A88&index=3). Claude believes that this state of inner
peace is achieved by having a balance of the masculine and feminine. I believe that Claude may be on to something
here, there is no doubt that the masculine has long been dominant in society and
could be very well be the cause of many conflicts in our societies. However I stand by my claim that inner peace
is achieved by accepting who you are, how you live your life, and in your sets
of beliefs. I believe that many conflicts
(not all) can be boiled down, in essence to insecurity.
When an individual or even
a country is insecure they have a tendency to otherize. An insecure person for example who is not
secure in their religious beliefs may feel threatened by other existing
religious beliefs and as a result will turn a person with those other beliefs
into an other. What I mean is that human
beings throughout history have often defined themselves through what they are
not, this is what it is meant by othering.
The Romans for example identified who they were by comparing themselves
to the other, in the case of the Romans it was the Gauls. Every trait that Romans saw as being well
un-roman was attributed to the Gauls, traits like cannibalism, savagery, lack
of law and order, which turned the Gauls into a sort of monster that Romans
could point their fingers at and say we are roman because we are not like
them. When people or a state otherizes
a group, they are indirectly claiming that the way in which these people live,
who they are, and what they believe is barbaric and by extension is not a
legitimate way of life.
It is this practice of
othering that has led to wide spread racism, cultural intolerance, and
prejudices that have been plaguing human societies for thousands of years. Countless atrocities have been committed on
the claim that a certain group of people were different and other than
ourselves. The Crusades for example
where many thousand of individuals killed and died in the name of a peaceful
god, was justified on the basis that Muslims and their different beliefs were
in someway wrong. So long as people and
states are insecure the practice of othering will always be prevalent in
society. It is my belief that unless
this practice of othering comes to and end we will never be able to achieve a
lasting sustainable peace for all peoples.
Brennain Lloyd (project coordinator for Northwatch) in her interview
with NUPRI also claims that one of the greatest obstacles to peace is the
practice of othering (Interview with Brennain Lloyd, August 19 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UrZJlwlLHU&list=PL640AB1163E63F093&index=3)
This insecurity occurs not
just on the level of the individual but also on the level of the state and as a
result can be found within foreign policies.
The United Sates foreign policy, especially under the Bush doctrine,
reflected their insecurity. As a result
much of America’s foreign policy is governed by what is referred to as
preemptive warfare or preventative warfare (both of which in my opinion are
really just the same thing). Preemptive
warfare like that of Iraq is meant to repel or defeat a perceived threat. The insecurity of the United States in my
opinion has always stretched back to Pearl Harbor where the American’s were
attacked without warning. Despite the
wealth and military power of the United States, Pearl Harbor has left a
permanent scar on their security. This
scar I feel has put the United States in a state of paranoia and insecurity. The whole aim of preemptive warfare in my
opinion is to prevent an attack on the U.S. by striking first and dictating
where and how the war will be fought.
This scar was further deepened after the events of 911, which caused the
Bush doctrine and preemptive warfare to become the crux of American foreign
policy. The United States due to these
two events led the States to becoming so insecure that they began to use
preemptive warfare as an excuse to attack the Middle Eastern barbarian that was
created out of American insecurity after the events of 911. Even when there was concrete proof that Iraq
did not in fact have WMD’s, America’s insecurity still led them to engage in a
long a bloody war for no reason other than insecurity. Shirley Farlinger in her interview with NUPRI
claims that we will never have a peaceful world unless countries like the
United States change their foreign policy (Interview with Shirley Farlinger,
July 20 2011, http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL113A5E8749A29457).
After going through the
interviews conducted by NUPRI and being exposed to a plethora of definitions, I
have become more secure in my own definition of peace. During these interviews many brilliant
definitions have been given, for example peace with the environment, global
peace, domestic peace, action vs. non-action, and each and every one of them is
a valid definition of peace. What I have
truly learnt here at my time with NUPRI is how multifaceted peace really
is. My definition is merely one of many
and is perhaps just a small part to the multifaceted puzzle that is peace. Many of these interviews do not discuss peace
in terms of inner peace, instead people like David Tal claim that peace is the
permanent dismembering of militaries and being able to have open communications
with other nations (Interview with David Tal, March 2 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQim-DRi7r4&list=PL814AA21B25FD9721). While David’s definition in terms of military
dismembering is quite different from my own does not make it any less valid due
to peace being multifaceted. The open
communication part of his definition however I feel is directly connected to my
definition of peace. Open and honest
communication between different cultures or peoples with different beliefs can
only be achieved when both (or all) parties are secure within themselves. A person or a state that is insecure in its
beliefs and way of life will be unable to accept opposing viewpoints. If an insecure person or state cannot accept
opposing beliefs or ways of life, open and honest communication cannot be
achieved. If honest and open
communications cannot be held between people or states then we will never come
to any sort of consensus as to how to coexist peacefully with one another.
States like individuals need to
accept other cultures, ideas, lifestyles, and beliefs in order to coexist
peacefully with one another. This
acceptance comes from being secure with ones own lifestyle and beliefs. Once a state or person is secure in their own
beliefs and ways of life, an open and honest dialogue can then be had to
discuss how to overcome the many other obstacles to peace. So long as states and individuals remain in a
state of insecurity the practice of othering will always be around and as a
result we will be unable to ever create a peaceful society or even begin a
dialogue about achieving peace. Inner
peace, accepting who you are and then being able to accept others, is the first
step of many in achieving a true sustainable peace.
Special thanks to Dr. Koivukoski of Nipissing University’s Political
Science Department for this amazing opportunity to work along side him and aid
him in the Agents of Peace Project that NUPRI has been working on.
