Peace Stories
April 2003
Banner photo: Nara, Japan [©SEKAI BUNKA PHOTO]
Jan Øberg--The Human Dimension of Conflict
Dr. and Mrs. Øberg meeting Mr. Ikeda in Tokyo (December 1995)
[Seikyo Shimbun] Note: All other photos on this page were taken by Jan Øberg on a visit to Iraq, January 2003
Ten million land mines were planted in the former Yugoslavia. Some of them were designed to resemble chocolate eggs or ice creams to tempt children to pick them up. There are tales of children being killed instantly by bombs planted in teddy bears. "We live in crazy times," bewailed a young Muslim mother in Sarajevo; "we are all crazy." Who deployed such weapons? Who built them? Who profited from them? Why can't we stop them? What can we do?
Scandinavian peace researcher Dr. Jan Øberg, cofounder and director of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research (TFF), has carried out extensive surveys throughout war-torn former Yugoslavia, where violence erupted in 1991. When I met him in December 1995, he had been there more than 20 times and had interviewed some 1,200 people.
The important thing, he said, is to remain in the area of conflict, stick close to the ground and listen to the voices of ordinary citizens, and then make those voices heard around the world. A peace researcher who does not get involved at the scene of conflict resolution is like a doctor, he said, who treats patients without examining them.
[This photo and the ones below were taken by Jan Øberg on a visit to Iraq, January 2003]
This is not only true of peace researchers: the same applies to decision-makers. Øberg points out that only people who have received medical training are allowed to perform surgery, yet politicians, presidents and diplomats carry out "surgery" in troubled regions of the world without any training at all. It's no wonder that the patient called Yugoslavia died.
Nichiren Daishonin compared the methods for attaining peace to the art of medicine, warning those in power that the wrong treatment would never bring about a good result. "If you try to treat someone's illness without knowing its cause," he declared, "you will only make the person sicker than before." Similarly, Øberg advocates "conflict medicine" and "conflict doctors" to treat the illness of conflict--specialists working for the health of humanity.
The first step in the treatment of conflict, as in the treatment of illness, is proper diagnosis. Øberg and his team spoke with a wide range of people, from heads of state to refugees. They listened to mothers who had lost their sons, to farmers, teachers, soldiers, journalists and shop owners. The more they listened to the voices of these people, the clearer it became that messages being broadcast around the world by the news media were incredibly distorted.
One such example was the lie that the conflict in the former Yugoslavia was the result of long-standing hatred among the region's various ethnic groups. In reality, before the outbreak of violence, members of different ethnic groups coexisted peacefully within the same communities and workplaces, and they also intermarried. However, political leaders incited nationalistic fervor, deliberately stressing ethnic consciousness and dividing the population along ethnic lines.
Dr. Øberg told me that when one is actually at the scene of a conflict, it is useless to attempt to understand the situation by categorizing it as an ethnic conflict or by trying to explain its causes from that perspective.
According to his analysis, the conflict in the former Yugoslavia was neither simply an ethnic or religious conflict nor the inevitable result of the collapse of communism in that country. What is called "the conflict in the former Yugoslavia" is actually at least 30 different conflicts. The causes and histories of these disputes are extremely complex and intricately interrelated.
Nevertheless, the media and decision-makers greatly oversimplified the situation. Their most dangerous oversimplification was viewing the conflict in stark, black-and-white terms. Consequently, the international community ended up reducing the civil war in the former Yugoslavia to a struggle between good and evil.
Øberg warns that in many countries the media is actually more of a governmental organization than a nongovernmental one. The political decisions and actions taken regarding the former Yugoslavia, he notes, were not based on reality but on reality as presented by the media. Almost without exception, the Serbs were portrayed as "evil," while the other groups were depicted as the victims. Once this story was established, any facts that didn't fit the scenario were discarded. Though brutal massacres were taking place on all sides, only those carried out by the Serbs were widely reported. As one researcher noted: "The mass media aren't really interested in the truth. They only want to confirm their preconceived notions, and they don't look at realities that don't fit their beliefs."
The biased news coverage in the former Yugoslavia was not an accident. It has been pointed out that, in fact, a public relations firm hired by one of the groups fighting against the Serbs played an active role in creating this slant. Serbia, regarded as a pariah by the international community, felt that the whole world was against it. Naturally, objective and fruitful peace negotiations were impossible, and the struggle dragged on. Oversimplification of the conflict, with its vilification of one side, easily opened the way for a scenario of military intervention to "punish" evil. In short, one side was demonized in order to justify the use of military force.
Over 70 years ago, British diplomat Lord Arthur Ponsonby wrote in Falsehood in Wartime about the perennial propaganda claims of wartime leaders. His analysis can be distilled into 10 principles, as follows:
- We do not want war;
- The other side is solely responsible for the war;
- The enemy has the face of the devil;
- It is a noble cause that we defend and not particular interests;
- The enemy commits atrocities knowingly; if we make unfortunate mistakes, it is involuntary;
- The enemy uses unauthorized weapons;
- We suffer very few losses, while the losses of the enemy are enormous;
- Artists and intellectuals support our cause;
- Our cause has a sacred nature;
- Those who question our statements are traitors.
Lies and prejudices promote war, and war in turn promotes lies and prejudices. Although we can learn to treat diseases, we will never be able to eliminate disease itself. Likewise, conflict will never disappear entirely from human society. Our choice is whether to respond effectively or ineffectively to such problems when they arise. If we respond effectively, the problem can be a springboard for progress and creativity, making us stronger and healthier.
As a peace researcher, Øberg has observed: "You cannot cure the sick by attacking and punishing them; likewise, conflict cannot be resolved through force, which only aggravates the problem and makes finding a viable long-term solution more difficult. Violence does something that can never be repaired. The cowardly and intolerant conclude that armed force is the only option available. In contrast, nonviolence is a constructive belief that other options exist."
Øberg says that the most frequently overlooked aspect of conflict is the human dimension. He comments: "It's easy to repair houses and infrastructure; it's easy to throw money around and talk about human rights. But what if people deep down keep on hating each other? Will they ever be happy and at peace with themselves? Will their children? We need to make forgiveness and reconciliation a central objective."
Dr. Øberg, together with his wife Dr. Christina Spännar and other peace researchers, has conducted conflict study sessions throughout the former Yugoslavia with participants who actually experienced the horrors of the war. In one such session, he and his colleagues brought together some Serbs and Croats--young children as well as adults--members of ethnic groups that had been "mortal enemies." When they arrived at the sessions, these participants saw people from the "enemy" ethnic group. The atmosphere was like ice. However, Øberg's aim was for the participants to speak to each other, not as representatives of one ethnic group or another, but as individual human beings. He let each person tell his or her own story on the condition that they stick to the facts of their own personal experience and avoid attributing blame. It was their first opportunity to talk face-to-face with "the enemy."
What ultimately came out, in halting speech, was their enormous pain. Talking and listening, they wept. And then they realized that they had all suffered alike; they were all victims of the same tragic errors. Eventually, they moved from weeping together to laughing together and they became friends. This, Øberg said, "was one of the most moving experiences in my life."
"Why not have truth and reconciliation committees operating before war?" he asks. "We could learn to fight against war and violence, not each other." We support Dr. Øberg's passionate cry. We support it with our entire being.
