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Reconcile contains practical ideas for transforming conflict in
everyday life from an internationally renowned mediator, who has
worked in war zones and entrenched conflicts across five
continents. The author challenges Christians to renew their
commitment to reconciliation as the heart of the gospel message.
All over the world, poverty is gradually giving way to cooperative
economic activity. At the same time, there are signs that standard
competitive "free" markets are failing. Empirical evidence shows
that cooperation works better than competition and that
cooperatives succeed more often than standard corporations.
Assumptions underlying the competitive system are that competition
results in equity for all and that poverty can be eliminated
through the market. These assumptions simply are not true. On the
contrary, the rich get richer; the poor, poorer. Cooperatives,
where each member holds one share and one vote, are more democratic
than hierarchical corporations. Poverty is actually eliminated
through a combination of microfinance and cooperation. Examples
include Muhammed Yunus' Grameen Bank, Indonesia's People's Bank,
and the cooperative adventure of Mondragon in Spain. These examples
provide a vision of true globalization from below, a vision of a
just and sustainable world. The "how-to" is right here.
The US State Department, the US Institute of Peace, and other governmental agencies now recognize that religious leaders, transnational religious movements, and faith-based NGOs are central players in the post-Cold War era of ethnic and religious conflict. The Mennonites, through the Mennonite Central Committee and its international Conciliation Service, have been leaders in this emerging area of expertise. This collection of new essays chronicles, analyses, and evaluates the Mennonite contribution to the new cultural paradigm in conflict resolution and peacebuilding theory and practice.
Designing Peace asks, how might we collectively put our creative
forces together to envision a future we want to live in and take
action to create it now? This book is an intersectional snapshot of
the actions-culturally diverse and wide-ranging in scale-that are
currently in play around the world. Offering perspectives on peace
through essays, interviews, critical maps, project profiles, data
visualizations, and art, this book conveys the momentum that design
can gain in effecting a peace-filled future. From activists,
scholars, and architects to policymakers, graphic, game, and
landcape designers, Desiging Peace flips the conversation: peace is
not simply a passive state signifying the absence of war, it is a
dynamic concept that requires effort, expertise, and
multi-dimensional solutions to address its complexity. Designers
engage with individuals, communities, and organizations to create a
more sustainable peace-from creative confrontations that challenge
existing structures, to designs that demand embracing justice and
truth in a search for reconciliation. This publication aims to
expand the discourse on what is possible if society were to design
for peace.
John Paul Lederach's work in the field of conciliation and
mediation is internationally recognized. As founding Director of
the Conflict Transformation Program and Institute of Peacebuilding
at Eastern Mennonite University, he has provided consultation and
direct mediation in a range of situations from the
Miskito/Sandinista conflict in Nicaragua to Somalia, Northern
Ireland, the Basque Country, and the Philippines. His influential
1997 book Building Peace has become a classic in the discipline.
This new book represents his thinking and learning over the past
several years. He explores the evolution of his understanding of
peacebuilding by reflecting on his own experiences in the field.
Peacebuilding, in his view, is both a learned skill and an art.
Finding this art, he says, requires a worldview shift. Conflict
professionals must envision their work as a creative act - an
exercise of what Lederach terms the "moral imagination."
Around the world communities that have suffered the trauma of
unspeakable violence--in Liberia, Somalia, West Africa, Columbia,
and elsewhere--are struggling to recover and reconcile, searching
for ways not just to survive but to heal.
In When Blood and Bones Cry Out, John Paul Lederach, a pioneer of
peace-building, and his daughter, Angela Jill Lederach, show how
communities can recover and reconnect through the power of making
music, creating metaphors, and telling their extraordinary stories
of suffering and survival. Instead of relying on more common linear
explanations of healing and reconciliation, the Lederachs
demonstrate how healing is circular, dynamic, and continuing, even
in the midst of ongoing violence. They explore the concept of
"social healing," a profoundly important intermediary step between
active warfare and reconciliation. Social healing focuses on the
lived experience of those who have suffered protracted violence and
their need to give voice to that experience, both individually and
collectively. Giving voice, speaking the unspeakable, in words and
sounds that echo throughout traumatized communities, can have
enormous healing power. Indeed, the Lederachs stress the remarkable
effects of sound and vibration through tales of Tibetan singing
bowls, Van Morrison's transcendent lyrics, the voices of mothers in
West Africa, and their own personal journeys. And they include
inspiring stories of transformation: a mass women's protest
movement in Liberia that forces leaders to keep negotiating until a
peace agreement is signed; elders in Somalia who walk between
warring clans year after year to encourage dialogue; former child
soldiers who run drum workshops and grow gardens in refugee camps;
and rape victims in Sierra Leone who express their pain in poetry.
With equal measures of insight and compassion, When Blood and Bones
Cry Out offers a promising new approach to healing traumatized
communities.
For eight years, the San Francisco neighborhood of Bernal Heights
was mired in controversy. Traditionally a working-class
neighborhood known for political activism and attention to
community concerns, Bernal housed a diverse population of Latino,
Filipino, and European heritage. The branch library, beloved in the
community, was being renovated, raising the issue of whether to
restore or paint over a thirty-year-old mural on its exterior wall.
To some of the residents the artwork represented their culture and
their entitlement to live on the hill. To others, the mural
blighted a beautiful building. To resolve this seemingly
intractable conflict, area officials convened a mediation led by
Roy, an experienced mediator and Bernal resident. The group, which
reflected the wide range of ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds in
the community, ultimately came to a strong consensus, resulting in
the reinterpretation of the artwork to reflect changing times and
to honor the full population of the neighborhood. The Bernal Story
recounts in detail how the process was designed, who took part, how
the group of twelve community representatives came to a consensus,
and how that agreement was carried into the larger community and
implemented. Roy's firsthand account offers an essential tool for
training community leaders and professional mediators, a valuable
case history for use in sociology and conflict resolution courses,
and a compelling narrative.
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