Peacebuilding &conflict transformation A ... - Peaceworkafrica

) Terpstra and David 12Culture is a learned, shared, interrelated set of symbols whose meanings provide aset of orientations for members of a society. These orientations taken together providesolutions to problems that all societies must solve if they are to remain viable.c) Geert Hofstede 13Culture is the collective mental programming of individuals in a society as a resultof common background, education and life experiences. Culture is more often asource of conflict than of synergy. Cultural differences are a nuisance at best andoften a disaster.e.) John P. Lederach 14“I understand culture to be rooted in the shared knowledge and schemes createdand used by a set of people for perceiving, interpreting, expressing, and respondingto social realities around them. I therefore assume that understanding the connectionof social conflict and culture is not merely a question of sensitivity or of awareness,but a far more profound adventure of discovering and digging in the archeologyof accumulated shared knowledge common to a set of people.”Ethics and values 15Ethics is the analysis of concepts such as right, wrong, obligation, responsibility,ought, should, duty. Ethics examines morality; it reveals what ‘right and wrong’,‘good and bad’ actually mean when applied to human decisions, actions and behaviour.Ethics investigates what one can do compared to what one ought to do. Ethicsanalyses the arguments and reasoning behind the process (acting, behaving, thinkingetc).Ethics is a system of moral principles, by which human actions may be judgedgood or bad, right or wrong. Ethical judgments make a distinction between whatis and what ought to be, between what one can do and what one should do. Coreethical values affirm human dignity and allow humans to serve a common good.They define our rights and responsibilities in a democratic society and meet thestandard test ‘would you want to be treated this way?’Values are principles, ideals or things we are for or against. We express our valuesin the way we think and act. We attribute so much worth to values that they givepurpose to our lives. Values play an important role in our decision making, they justifyour positions and direct and guide our actions. Values are the foundations ofcultural norms, laws, ethics or principles. The parties in a conflict may understandany compromise about their most cherished values as a threat to their basic humanneeds and their sense of identity. This is why value (and moral) conflicts tend to belong lasting. Some ethical values:4 . S o u r c e s o f c o n f l i c t 105