Peacebuilding &conflict transformation A ... - Peaceworkafrica

that differ from ours. When we are not able to imagine a point of view other thanour own; when we think in terms of right or wrong, a conflict can easily escalate andturn into violence 21 .A culture of violence stems from a perspective that sees the world in terms ofgood and bad. This dualistic thinking can be found in sacred texts (the world is splitinto good and evil), the ideas of nationalism (one belongs or not) or racism (nonacceptance of those that are not the same as oneself) and this justifies dealing withconflict violently (the righteousness of violence in people’s views).Some examples of Manichean thinking▶ The attitude of “Americans” at the Conference in Kyoto (Spring 2001), beingthe most polluting nation on the planet — with all the catastrophic consequencesof this for our single planet —, but refusing to take serious measures toreduce their pollution. This in contrast with the rest of the world that undertookto work on reducing their part of pollution and its destructive effects onthe planet.▶ The war on terrorism declared after the destruction of the Twin Towers inNew York in 2001 by the then US President Bush. He urged his allies to supporthim and declared “If you are not with me, you are against me.”▶ Sports (matches, competition) are sometimes based on dualistic thinking –there is only one winner, the others are losers.Often the root of violence is fear — fear of not being respected, of losing materialor non-material things. This fear can lead to the development of a negative pictureabout others, whom we imagine are the reason for us feeling fear. This mightbe exaggerated to a level that makes it impossible to see any good in others andstart to fight against the one(s) that triggered the fear in us. Additionally, the person(or group) who triggered the fear may be used as scapegoat and become thetarget of our violence. Consequently, we may develop an arsenal of weapons andin turn slip into an endless spiral of violent actions for the sake of ‘protecting’ourselves. However, fighting against the innocent, who simply released the fear,cannot be the solution. The solution — overcoming our fear — can only be developedin ourselves by finding out the causes of the fear and dealing with them oneby one.5 . A l l - o r- n o t h i n g t h i n k i n g 155