Scholarly Contributions | Peace and Conflict Resolution

THEORY AND PRACTICE

Professor Said’s contributions to peace and conflict resolution studies were as a visionary developing robust theoretical approaches, with a strong focus on their application. Said was working at a critical time in history when borders had diminished, and cultures were interacting with each other in unprecedented ways. New approaches were required to help us better relate to each other and “the teeming diversity of our global community.”¹ Whether in his writings or in conversation with students or policymakers, Said would often say that peace is a process. It is “not a goal to be pursued. It is always in the making.”² His theory of a total peace expanded upon contemporary definitions of peace, while his emphasis on multiculturalism, the role of dialogue, and the importance of a localized approach is important to our understanding of how to better resolve conflicts within an emerging, pluralist global civilization.

Said was not afraid of sweeping visions involving a total transformation of the world as we know it, but he was also interested in the application of these big ideas, whether among state leaders or the students in his class. Indeed, right up until his retirement in 2015, Said continued to stress the importance of building “a firm and rigorous theoretical foundation” to understand and resolve conflict, while also “systematically forming the necessary connections to praxis.”³ He was long critical of the dominant Western approaches to peace and conflict resolution within the international relations (IR) field, which were largely defined by hegemonic powers and equated peace with their own conception of security and the absence of war. He called instead for a new paradigm of peace that allows us to “see each other as global citizens and realize the whole world needs the whole world.”⁴

Said developed a theory of total peace as an expansion of the concept of positive peace. Peace is not merely the absence of violence, or negative peace, but a presence: the dynamic presence of social justice, human security, ecological balance, equitable economic development, human dignity, and cultural diversity in terms of pluralism and coexistence.⁵ He explained that “peace as presence has to incorporate both the objective necessities of human needs and the subjective realm of human reflection and understanding.”⁶ It thus brings together ethical and spiritual transformation at the individual level with structural peace at the community level. “It is a dialogue between the individual and their society, and, at a larger level, between cultures.”⁷ Total peace is also “forward looking,” putting attention on shared visions of the future rather than past failures or placing blame on others.⁸ Developed as an ongoing project between Said and his students at American University (an example of his collaborative approach to peace education), the ambitions of the theory of total peace are not small; as he explained, “we are seeking to transform the world.”⁹ According to Said, the purpose of politics should be nothing short of a struggle for world peace, defined as justice and freedom for all, rather than the struggle for national interests and the status quo. Ultimately, “a simple lack of imagination prevents us from finding and implementing new solutions to old problems. The formulation of a new vision is long overdue.”¹⁰

A key component of total peace is the recognition of an emerging global civilization, and the role of a culturally diverse global citizenship. Ultimately, “a culture of total peace means unity in diversity, manifested in global community.”¹¹ Unlike the clash of civilizations thesis, which posits that different cultural civilizations are inherently at odds with each other and relationships among them will be fraught, Dr. Said stresses that cultural diversity is not a security threat. Instead, “different cultures bear within themselves resources for grappling with fundamental problems of human existence.”¹² Peace education plays a critical role in building a global citizenship by increasing our “boundaries of awareness” and expanding knowledge that liberates “our creativity to interact with the magnificent diversity and vibrancy of the many ways of knowing developed by different civilizations.”¹³ Global citizenship, and thus total peace, is also dependent on the practice of cooperative global politics and a cooperative global economics system that emphasizes sufficiency instead of scarcity, and is thus compatible with ecological values and justice.¹⁴ Spirituality is also an important theme within total peace, which according to Said “is an experience of a sense of unity that overcomes the principle that divides humanity on the basis of religions, genders, and classes.”¹⁵

While he discussed a broad vision of total peace, Said was also interested in the application of the theory. Writing in 2004 about the United Nations, for example, he claimed that despite its challenges, it still represents “the world’s best possible hope” for implementing total peace as it is “the only global institution able to reach into each community to plant the seed of peace as presence.”¹⁶ Its potential is held back, however, by the way that the core international value of sovereignty has been operationalized to support the interests of dominant elites and state power structures. He sees possibility through the role of coalitions of concerned citizens who can come together through international organizations to rearticulate “legitimacy,” tying it not to a state and its borders but to international standards and norms codified within the UN framework.¹⁷ Writing shortly after the ousting of President Saddam Hussein from Iraq (in April 2003), Said outlined how the UN can work towards total peace in the country through a focus on 1) security and legitimacy by respecting local traditions and identities and encouraging localized centers of legitimacy within government institutions and citizen coalitions; 2) transparency by initiating new anti-corruption projects – including those that have exploited Iraq’s natural wealth – and fair and accurate reporting of Iraq’s reconstruction; and 3) dignity by assisting Iraqis in developing programs that employ large numbers in cultural preservation and reconstruction of public infrastructure, in the process creating new models of citizenship. Ultimately, Professor Said argues, human dignity is at the root of total peace. In Iraq, “the single greatest hope for both near and mid-term answers to Iraq’s security dilemma is the development of human dignity, the opening up of avenues of citizenship other than violent revolt.”¹⁸

Said’s focus on dialogue was another major contribution to peace and conflict resolution theory and practice. As an important component of his vision for total peace, he recognized dialogue as a new paradigm in global relations given its potential to build bridges and understanding across differences. As he explains, “reconstructing our understanding of peace is a dialogic encounter, a conversation that explores both ‘self’ and the ‘other’ through their interaction. This exchange opens the gateway to ‘total peace’.”¹⁹ Dialogue enables us to “see each other with different sets of eyes” as we explore shared visions of peace through our different understandings, experiences, needs, hopes, and fears.²⁰ It surfaces “hidden treasures,” as all great traditions hold invaluable insights and lessons that may be the solutions to the questions being asked.²¹ By doing so, Said explains, dialogue “challenges our deepest assumptions about self and others.”²² It acknowledges the diversity in human experience and interdependence, and recognizes human dignity as “the source of self-respect and human will.”²³

In the absence of dialogue, we are challenged in our investigation of assumptions that no longer serve us. Isolated, we are more likely to hold outmoded thoughts, overlooking our errors, and responding to problems in unhealthy ways.²⁴ We will also likely experience a lack of creativity for dealing with challenges. Said explains that people assume a rigidity and defensiveness particularly under conflict, which closes off their ability to listen and communicate with others. When nations refuse to communicate, feelings of fear, insecurity, and indignation can develop, inviting the emergence of political or religious fundamentalism.²⁵ In contrast, along with Dr. Mohammed Abu-Nimer and Saji Prelis in their edited volume on reconciliation, Said writes that “genuine dialogue is a necessary condition for parties to reconcile their relationships … the sense of ’togetherness’ or the joint effort that characterizes the dialogue process is the core transforming force which changes the party’s perceptions of the other.”²⁶

Said’s perspective on multiculturalism and dialogue were also shaped by and reflected in his own life. His experiences as a minority – first as a Christian growing up in Syria and later as a Middle Eastern student and young academic in the United States – as well as his extensive travels and frequent meetings with diverse individuals from around the world, fueled his appreciation for intercultural dialogue and pluralism. As Professors Nathan Funk and Meena Sharify-Funk write in their overview of Said’s scholarly contributions, Said knew “from his own experiences, that it is possible to straddle the divergent tectonic plates of different cultures – to bridge seemingly incompatible cultural worlds within oneself and to become culturally competent at navigating multiple contexts.”²⁷ He inherently understood not just from a scholarly perspective but also from lived experience that global politics is “intercultural communication in disguise.”²⁸

The potential for meaningful dialogue between the West and Islam was particularly important for Said as the clash of civilizations thesis became popular and then after 9/11, when Western cultural triumphalism expressed itself as “you are either with us or against us” with occasional military force.²⁹ For Professor Said, such a position represented outdated thinking and an assumption of scarcity that sees “‘us’ and ‘them’ as fundamentally different beings, with unequal essences, irreconcilable dreams and unshared needs.”³⁰ In contrast to this narrative of inherent incompatibility and political confrontation, which breeds contempt, fanaticism, and paranoia, Said instead recognized the need for a dialogue among these two powerful world civilizations. He called for a new story of reconciliation, acknowledging that “our changing reality requires a new global ethic and a new perception of one another.”³¹ Such a dialogue of civilizations “can move us away from rigid adherence to form, to defensive posturing, and toward promoting an exchange of ideas on how to incorporate the lessons learned from one civilization appropriately to another. In so doing, improvements can be made where creativity is allowed to flourish in dynamic interaction.”³² A cooperative, non-adversarial relationship can develop based on mutual respect and openness to cultural eclecticism.

Another important contribution Dr. Said made to peace and conflict resolution theory and practice was his emphasis on the utilization of traditional and local cultural frameworks. While this was a key theme throughout his writings for decades, his ideas came together through the concept of “localizing peace,” on which he wrote an article with Nathan Funk in 2010. By focusing on the importance of local actors as active agents in the peacebuilding process of their community, the authors were early contributors to the “local turn” within the peacebuilding field. Said also taught courses on localizing peace and advised his students to do peacebuilding work within their own neighborhoods rather than always looking afar, recognizing the humility required to work within one’s own local community.³³

Said notes that while externally driven peace operations can help to bring stability and redirect violence, they often fail to address the conflict’s root causes or sustainably empower the local community.³⁴ He identifies localizing peace as a central challenge for 21st century peacebuilding, recognizing that local actors are valuable contributors to lasting peace given their deep understanding of the context, dynamics, and needs of their communities. Said considers three emergent themes toward localizing peace. The first is to understand peace as a locally constructed reality, recognizing that “every cultural community has its own vernacular language for conflict and conflict resolution, along with its own set of commonsense values and standards which give the concept of peace substance and legitimacy.”³⁵ These often include indigenous, spiritual, and religious resources for conflict resolution, providing a “’deep context’ for thinking about and generating commitment to peace at a grassroots as well as individual level.”³⁶ A second theme is to view culture as a resource rather than a constraint or afterthought. Significantly, culture should not be understood as “a rigid mold or template,” but as an opportunity to “seek the best” within one’s heritage, which is empowering because it allows the local community “to advance peace using tools and symbols that are immediately accessible, familiar, and culturally legitimate.”³⁷ Finally, Said argues that “outsiders are most likely to make positive contributions when they act as facilitators rather than as directive, all-knowing headmasters.”³⁸ This is not about getting rid of external experts or consultants, but “to develop a humbler mode of operation” in which an outside facilitator seeks to help local actors discover their own context-specific solutions.³⁹ Said notes that localizing peace, by “bringing more voices to the table is itself a peace process – a process of acknowledging and respecting the many parts, without which a greater whole cannot be envisioned or realized.”⁴⁰

In his chapter on “Achieving Peace: The Whole World Needs the Whole World” in the book Peace and Intercultural Dialogue, Said concludes by saying that “utopias are useful tools to design intermediate steps, to know what is our hope, but utopias cannot be used to divert the energy of the world from the intermediate, small steps that are possible.”⁴¹ In Professor Said’s case, his contributions to peace and conflict resolution theory offered both glimpses of a utopia as well as concrete steps of peace as a process.

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