The illusion of Western peacemaking

In her latest publication titled Girlhood astatine War, governmental subject student Vjosa Musliu tells the communicative of the 1998-1999 warfare successful Kosovo, done the eyes of her 12-year-old self. Musliu explains however pursuing the extremity of the war, planetary organisations were speedy to connection workshops connected reconciliation and peacebuilding for Serbs and Albanians who lived successful Kosovo.

In the last chapter, “Little Red Riding Hood”, she describes 1 specified league she attended arsenic a teen successful 2002. Led by facilitators from Belgium and the United Kingdom, the store began with the communicative of Little Red Riding Hood, which the participants were asked to reimagine from the position of the wolf.

In the reimagined version, monolithic deforestation had near the wolf progressively isolated, truthful erstwhile helium met the miss successful the reddish hood, helium had not eaten successful weeks. Driven by hunger and fearfulness that helium mightiness die, the wolf ate the grandma and the girl.

The communicative puzzled Musliu and her peers, who struggled astatine archetypal to recognize however hunger could perchance warrant the wolf sidesplitting the small miss and her grandmother, and second, to spot the intent of this communicative successful a reconciliation workshop. The facilitators explained that the workout was meant to amusement that determination are galore perspectives to each story, the information lies determination successful the middle, and determination could ever beryllium antithetic truths.

Absurd arsenic it is, much than 20 years later, I recovered myself successful a precise akin situation. In October, I attended a store organised by the Organization for Security and Co-operation successful Europe (OSCE) to bring unneurotic young women from Kosovo and Serbia and thatch them dialog and peacemaking.

Just similar Musliu, we excessively had a overseas facilitator and respective planetary speakers. This time, they had besides added 2 adjunct facilitators, 1 from Kosovo and 1 from Serbia; it was wide that some had been fixed a elaborate publication to follow, which they could not deviate from.

The archetypal time of the training, we were asked to explicate however we understood peace. So we did truthful by sharing antithetic stories, galore of which were traumatic. Some I inactive cannot halt reasoning about. The facilitator seemed little acrophobic astir what we were saying and much preoccupied with america moving 15 minutes late. There seemed to beryllium small knowing of the extent of emotions, courage, and vulnerability that those stories carried.

On the 2nd day, we learned astir integrative negotiations. One slug constituent successful the presumption said that dialog requires “separating the radical from the problem”. I work it, and I felt thing successful my chest; I couldn’t proceed speechmaking further.

How bash I abstracted the radical from the problem, erstwhile I cognize what happened to my household and my assemblage during the war? My parents were forced to fly to Albania earlier Serb forces entered their neighbourhood; erstwhile they came back, their location had been breached into, damaged and immoderate items missing – including my mother’s wedding dress. Neighbours told her that Serb soldiers made it a constituent to pain women’s wedding dresses they found.

In different communities, the crimes went good beyond breached homes. More than 8,000 taste Albanian civilians were killed oregon forcibly disappeared; much than 20,000 girls, boys, women and men were raped.

“During the rape, I was trying to support myself—I was conscionable a child, lone 11 years old. But they marked me. They carved a transverse into maine and said, ‘This is the representation you’ll support of us.’ It destroyed maine arsenic a child, from the inside. They made those marks connected maine with a knife,” 1 subsister recounted.

Knowing this communicative and truthful galore others, I recovered it hard to recognize however 1 tin archer a radical of young women whose household members were displaced, raped, tortured, oregon killed during the warfare that the occupation has to beryllium separated from the people.

I conjecture it is casual for overseas facilitators to bash truthful due to the fact that astatine the extremity of a peacemaking workshop, they would instrumentality a cab to the airport, alert location and permission down the survivors inactive struggling with a modulation from warfare to bid and each the symptom successful between. I recalled Musliu’s words astatine the extremity of her communicative astir peacemaking betwixt the wolf and Little Red Riding Hood: “We should inquire them however they would reconcile their differences if the wolf had eaten their grandmothers?”

Throughout the workshop, we were assigned seats successful the league room, wherever we were mixed, the girls from Kosovo and the girls from Serbia sitting adjacent to each other. However, arsenic soon arsenic the luncheon interruption clip came, the effort to marque america beryllium unneurotic and befriend failed, arsenic we sat astatine antithetic tables.

When asked by the organisers astir this division, I responded that the store was yet to code the elephant successful the country – the warfare itself. How could we consciousness determination could beryllium solution and closure without discussing what triggered the war, what happened during it, and however it ended? How could we reconcile if we could not speech astir justice?

Every clip I wanted to emphasise the complexity of the post-war concern – for example, by bringing up the taxable of survivors of intersexual unit – determination was an involution from the facilitators who told maine “you are not acceptable yet” to speech astir this.

I was furious to perceive idiosyncratic other measure my quality to grip a conversation. It is simply a code the West often uses erstwhile speaking to the remainder of the world. We are told we are “not ready” for democracy, “not prepared” for self-governance, “not nonsubjective enough” to face our ain past.

Readiness becomes a mode to measurement civilisation, to determine who tin talk and who indispensable listen. In these spaces, “not being ready” is ne'er astir affectional strength; it is astir power. It is simply a polite mode of saying that our information is inconvenient, that our symptom indispensable hold for translation, moderation, and approval.

It speaks volumes that the store organisers claimed to person a absorption connected gender, but astatine the aforesaid clip avoided the taxable of rape arsenic a warfare transgression due to the fact that it surpassed the level of extent – oregon alternatively level of superficiality – they had planned successful their agenda.

On the 5th time of the training, the facilitator announced that we would speech astir humanities narratives to recognize “different perspectives and antithetic truths, adjacent if we don’t hold with each of them”.

For the organisers, clearly, specified an workout was useful. For me, utilizing perspectives and truths interchangeably was dangerous. It could blur the lines betwixt facts and narratives.

Yes, wars whitethorn clasp galore perspectives and experiences, but information is not among the things that tin beryllium multiplied. Truth, retired of each the things, is not a substance of equilibrium oregon compromise; it rests connected evidence, and it is rooted successful facts. When we situation oregon statement facts, we hazard distorting truth; we hazard allowing falsehoods to look similar tenable interpretations of history.

And so, I sat connected that day, 26 years aft the extremity of the war, listening to a painful, outrageous, and unsafe message: There are galore truths to a story. I was told that present we person to determination connected from the past and look towards the future, reconcile and find a mode to unrecorded with each other.

I cannot assistance but think, however successful a fewer years’ time, idiosyncratic volition spell and bid the Palestinians who experienced genocidal horrors arsenic children connected Western-style peacebuilding.

How would they look a Palestinian successful the oculus and archer them determination are galore truths to the Gaza genocide story? How connected world would this beryllium promoting peace?

If this is what the West contiguous calls gathering peace, I bash not privation to beryllium a portion of it.

The views expressed successful this nonfiction are the author’s ain and bash not needfully bespeak Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.