A Big Change is Coming When I created this blog in April 2008, I announced my intention to publish regularly on Tuesdays and Fridays. I have lived up to this commitment over the past year. Together, my guest bloggers and I have produced over one hundred blogs about peace. My vision of peace was, and is, one of possibility, of what could exist on this planet, if enough people chose it consciously: a world filled with joy, fun, abundance, a world that worked for everyone. This would be a world where violence would become less and less relevant. War would gradually disappear as human beings began to shift their thinking, their listening and their speaking about peace, war and armed violence.  What they intended with the full force of their will, would come to pass.

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The Confusion of Peace and Defeat in the American Psyche  The question is why was the American psyche so readily open to make the connection between the words “peace” and “defeat,” and why have we not been able to overcome it since then? Grandstanding on the Election Trail For the last thirty years our presidential candidates have loathed identifying themselves as peace makers in their campaigns for fear of being perceived weak and too soft.  They employ a multitude of strategies to discuss our foreign policy challenges but they never discuss peace negotiations as possible options with our adversaries.  They encourage other nations towards peace and push a few more towards negotiations, but they hold the line when it comes to our own nation making peace with those we are in conflict with.  Candidates Insist We Are Tough, Not Weak The candidates go to great lengths to express their toughness as leaders and “commanders in chief;” any language of conciliation is deemed too soft and weak. It can spell disaster in the opinion polls.  They are hemmed  in from all directions and forced to remind us over and over again that they are not afraid to use our military might;  they will use the big stick because we are tough and no one should mess with us; it smacks with teen age harangues on the playgrounds. Bullying is Acceptable in Foreign Affairs Such diatribes underscore our fundamental confusion with our image as a peace making nation.  We have become accustomed to the idea that bullying is an acceptable behavior for our foreign policy affairs.  Not only have we come to accept that our presidents carry a big stick on the world stage, but that it is perfectly normal to use it whenever and however they see fit … as long as our lifestyle and consumer slumber is not disturbed.                                                                                                                   Peace Challenges Our Simplistic Ideas About the World As a people, we have unknowingly and in a deep way come to accept that peace is not only weak but it is also messy and it challenges the simplistic answers we have come to view the world with.  As individuals this notion may not be true for most of us, but as a collective we have slipped into a dangerous trance.  Our presidents become peace makers on the world stage after they are out of office; only then do we grant them permission to discuss peace making with our adversaries without negative repercussions; we heartily applaud them if they choose to assume such a role. Individualism Gone Awry Negates Community So what is it that keeps us invested in this position as a nation?  Do we blame Mr. Nixon, our politicians, our appetite for consumerism?  I believe the issue is rooted in the founding history of the American culture; it is individualism gone awry.  America was built by the best and highest values of individualism, but individualism in its extreme negates community; it is selfish and self centered and sees little value in a cooperative, unitive view of the world.  Adolescent Nation Needs to Grow Up Peace requires all the above and more; it requires humility and a sense of equality with our neighbors.  It requires a national stance that says we are part of the world and the tribe of humanity rather than separate and different from it.  It requires grace and maturity instead of an adolescent need to be separate in order to be special.  Individualism gone awry is an adolescent developmental stage that America has struggled to give up since WWII.  We won that war and with it gained maturity as a nation, but somehow we keep reverting to our adolescence.  Perhaps it is time we grow up and embody the maturity we so dearly paid for.

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(Editor’s Note: Today I introduce you to my friend and colleague Susan Partnow, the founder of Global Citizen Journey, a new citizen diplomacy NGO that takes American citizens on trips to third world countries. GCJ is now planning its next trip, to Burundi, in July 2009.) Is a Peacemaker Born or Made? Q: Susan, How did you come to be so interested in and passionate about peace and social justice? Does a particular memory come to mind? It’s been that way since I was a child. WWII and the Holocaust deeply affected me.

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As we watch the war in the Middle East unfold on our television screens, each day bringing new scenes of devastation and horror, more and more I am hearing people say, “This is crazy, there has to be a better way.” These comments are not just coming from my peace and justice friends, the already converted dovish ones I can count on to espouse such things. No, this time I’m hearing this from unexpected quarters, from people I would never have expected it from. Yesterday’s news of 37 children killed in the village of Qana seemed so over the top, so outrageous, that I thought, “that’s it, they have to stop now,” and yet they are not stopping. The rockets continue to rain on Israel and the Israelis will not stop until they feel they have knocked out Hezbollah completely, until they feel safe. And I don’t know when, Hezbollah will ever stop. So we’re probably in this one for a very,very long time.

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