Causing Peace: A Nobel 'Call To Action'

I have found as a professional peacemaker that peace is much harder than conflict. Peace takes inner courage--the ability to look at one's self, deal with anxiety, overcome fear reactions, work around belief structures, separate out and identify emotions, and understand cognitive biases. That's just the inner work we each have to do. Then we have to turn to the person, group, or nation we have a conflict with and help them deal with anxiety, fears, belief structures, feelings and emotions, and cognitive biases. We have to create a deep empathic connection with someone we may at first hate or despise. If we get that far, we have to learn to engage in interest-based negotiation. We have to learn how to make good decisions on incomplete and uncertain information. We have to build mechanisms of trust through accountability, using cooperation as a model, not coercion. If all of this happens, then peace can occur. What is amazing, however, is that this happens every day. Whether I am working on a victim-offender mediation, or a half billion dollar commercial dispute or an intense family business conflict or a dysfunctional organizational conflict, peace happens. Would a Department of Peace make a difference? Maybe. But maybe a Department of Peace would give us each a personal excuse not to look in then reach out to make peace everyday to those we disagree with. After all, it's the government's job to make peace, not mine.
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