What follows is from Johan Galtung`s writings. He says that the vicious cycle of violence can only be solved by a virtuous cycle comprising the problem of reconstruction after direct violence, reconciliation of the conflict parties and resolution of the underlying root conflict. If you do only one of these three without the other two you will not even get that one. Reconstruction without removing the causes of violence will lead to its reproduction. Badly needed is theory and practice combining all three. What does combining mean?? The first model refers reconstruction to `developers`, reconciliation to theologians-psychologists and resolution to jurist-diplomats-politicians. The second model would fuse the tasks into one, based on a fundamental hypothesis: reconciliation can best take place when the parties cooperate in resolution and reconstruction. And this may also be where the road to peace is located, if peace is defined as the capacity to handle conflicts with empathy, nonviolence (here is where we come in) and creativity.
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