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The Gaiafield Project is a collaborative action research program of the Gaiafield Center for Subtle Activism at CIIS.
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Rene Wadlow
The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed in Resolution A/61/L22, the year 2009 as the International Year of Reconciliation “recognizing that reconciliation processes are particularly necessary and urgent in countries and regions of the world which have suffered or are suffering situations of conflict that have affected and divided societies in their various internal, national, and international facets.” The Resolution was introduced by Nicaragua’s representative who stated that “reconciliation between those estranged by conflicts was the only way to confront today’s challenges and heal wherever fraternity and justice were absent from human relations.”
Yet we need to ask how can genuine reconciliation take place between people and groups with bitterly held beliefs and a violent history? How can the needs for national healing be reconciled with the demands for justice by the victims of terrible violence?
The General Assembly resolution gives a partial answer by stressing that “dialogue among opponents from positions of respect and tolerance is an essential element of peace and reconciliation.”
For there to be a respectful dialogue among opponents, certain barriers that prevent negotiations must be dismantled as a sign of a willingness to enter into a process of negotiations. Some barriers are physical, some psychological, others ideological. These barriers must be overcome if we are to progress on the long road to reconciliation. Let us, with the New Year, start now both as individuals and as members of movements in the spirit of the historian Howard Zinn’s “People are Practical”
They want change but feel powerless, alone,
do not want to be the blade of grass that
sticks up above the others and is cut down.
They wait for a sign from someone else
who will make the first move, or the second.
And at certain times in history
there are certain intrepid people who take the risk
that if they make that first move others will follow
quickly enough to prevent their being cut down.
And if we understand this, we
might make that first move.
…And if we do act, in however small a way,
we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future.
The future is an infinite succession of presents,
and to live now as we think human beings should live,
in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself
a marvellous victory.
Rene Wadlow, Representative to the UN, Geneva, Association of World Citizens
I would like to highlight the growing conflict in the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the area that shares a frontier with Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi — basically the administrative provinces of North and South Kivu, and ask for your help. The situation is growing ever more dangerous. There are many newly displaced persons since fighting started anew in late August 2008— some 250,000 persons uprooted by the violence. In addition, there are over a million persons who had already gone to refugee camps, often far from their original villages.
The United Nations has its most numerous peacekeeping force in the area — some 17,000 soldiers — but there is, alas, no peace to keep. There is a need, not so much for soldiers, as for peace bridge-builders, persons who are able to restore relations among the ethno-tribal people of the area, especially among the Hutu and the Tutsi, who also live in Rwanda and Burundi.
The Association of World Citizens is particularly interested in developing bridge-builders, persons who are able to begin the long process of restoring broken relations and setting in place a framework of reconciliation. The people in eastern Congo have lived together for many centuries and had developed techniques of conflict resolution, especially between the two chief agricultural lifestyles: agriculture and cattle herding. However, political considerations, a desire to control the wealth of the area — rich in gold, tin and tropical timber — all these factors have overburdened the local techniques of conflict resolution and have opened the door to new, negative forces interested only in making money and gaining political power.
The United Nations, national governments, and non-governmental organizations need to develop bridge-building groups which can help to strengthen local efforts at conflict resolution and re-establish community relations.
In the Congo, events are moving quickly, but largely in a negative, more conflict-driven direction. In the short run, it is difficult to know what is possible to transform the situation. But your interest in developing a corps of bridge-builders is welcome. World Citizens were among those in the early 1950s who stressed the need to create UN peacekeeping forces of soldiers especially trained for such a task. Today, we need to take the lead to press for the creation of a new type of world civil servant — those who in areas of tension and conflict can undertake the slow but important task of restoring confidence among peoples in conflict, establishing contacts and looking for ways to build upon common interests.
Your efforts in this effort are most welcome.
Rene Wadlow, Representative to the United Nations, Geneva, Association of World Citizens
A World Citizen’s Marching Orders
by René Wadlow
As World Citizens, we work to safeguard and implement all human rights civil and political, economic, social, and cultural as the foundations of a just world society.
One of the foremost challenges of our age is to eliminate the current culture of violence and to construct a culture of peace and non-violence based on justice and tolerance within which dialogue, mutual recognition, and negotiation will replace violence in homes and communities, within nations, and between states.
Thus, we strive to safeguard all communities from the scourge of war, violence, and the violation of human rights.
As World Citizens, our central aim is to develop institutions and methods for non-violent conflict resolution.
René Wadlow is the Chief Representative of the Association of World Citizens to the United Nations, Geneva.
Dear Friend,
There are many efforts at healing individuals through the use of subtle energies, including efforts to heal from a distance. It may also be possible to heal a large number of people — a whole country — from a distance with the use of creative visualization and psychic energy.
Ethnic and racial tensions, hate, violence — all create a dark, negative energy field which continues to manifest itself in additional divisions and violence. Thus, there is a need for a Healing Light which will help scars to heal and divisions to be overcome through a knowledge of the unity of all life. Such Healing Light will give new energy to peacemakers who exist in all societies to build bridges and work for reconciliation.
There is a need for those of us who work with subtle energies to be active in projecting Healing Light to the many parts of our planet where tensions are strong and violence ever present. Your efforts are most welcome. Rene Wadlow