This essay was written for the course Complex Emergencies as part of a master's degree at the London School of Economics and Political Science. By sharing this work I hope to generate discussion on the issues raised.

Peace is not so nice...: p1

There exists a seemingly incontestable understanding that peace is the ideal state towards which all peoples strive, that it is the direct opposite of the evils that characterize war. However, one need only scratch the surface of this peace to recognize that this assumption is naïve, that peace as it is commonly perceived is indeed not so nice as you think, at least not for everyone.

In the same way that war has its functions and distinct beneficiaries, so too peace often has its winners and losers and therefore also its inherent conflicts and embedded violence.

In this essay I will consider the statement in its three parts. First I will stress the idea that institutional structures in time of peace can maintain a distorted social equilibrium, often serving a distinct social group to the detriment of another, taking Johan Galtung’s seminal theory on structural violence as a starting point and investigating embedded violence in Brazil; second, I will put forward the notion that actual violence often evolves as a mere continuation of the violence embedded in social inequalities, using the Rwandan genocide as an extreme case study; and third I will consider how actual violence can generate peace processes, looking at the relatively successful case of Northern Ireland and the less successful case of Israel/Palestine.

In his influential work on structural violence, Johan Galtung describes violence as “the cause of the difference between the potential and the actual, between what could have been and what is” (Galtung 1969, 168), present when human beings are prevented from reaching their full mental and physical potential in life.

Violence is then not only direct actual bodily harm suffered at the hands of an actor but also incorporates all forms of inequality and social injustice. In the same study, peace is agreed to be the “absence of violence” (Galtung 1969, 168). When we understand peace in this way, it becomes clear that violence will, to a greater or lesser degree, be inherent in all societies whether in the shape of racial prejudice, lack of access to employment, education and health care, or other forms of discrimination.

Peace is not so nice...: p2

Although endemic to all societies, structural or indirect violence is particularly visible in countries where poverty is rife, for example when the poor die because they cannot afford treatment for illnesses that would rarely be fatal in the developed world. Where there is great disparity between rich and poor, as is the case in Brazil, this violence is embedded in institutional structures that prioritise the privileged rather than the disadvantaged social classes. The latter are hungry and cannot afford proper health care or education, nor do they have recourse to a fair criminal justice system; rather, it progresses from a position of “systematic suspicion” and favours the rights of the middle class (Scheper-Hughes 1992, 227).

Scheper-Hughes’ book on everyday violence in Brazil takes this indirect violence a step further by illustrating the actual, or direct, violence inherent in the unequal structures that threatens the country’s poor through “disappearances”, “pest control” death squads and organ trafficking (Scheper-Hughes 1992, 218). Whereas under military dictatorship disappearances were reserved for so-called subversives, the lowest social strata as a whole are now threatened. Scheper-Hughes suggests that disappearances are not an aberration but that a state of emergency has become the norm.

Fifteen years after her study, this violence still exists: in the 2006 World Report, Human Rights Watch noted that police violence in Brazil is systemic and widespread, “disproportionately affecting the country’s poorest and most vulnerable populations” and that indigenous “people and landless peasants face discrimination, threats, violent attacks, and killings as a result of land disputes in rural areas” (Human Rights Watch 2006, 168, 170).

In Brazil as elsewhere, the same violence that is considered unacceptable when carried out by a hooligan might well be condoned when carried out by governmental officials (Allen 1997, 102).

Furthermore, in granting impunity to perpetrators, authorities encourage violence, whether in the form of social injustice and discrimination or outright persecution. That the institutional structures serve the middle class to the detriment of the lower class comes at a price not only for the underprivileged: in Brazil, the poor are considered “dangerous” due to their desperate need, which poses a “threat to the artificial stability of the state” (Scheper-Hughes 1992, 219, 224), and the middle classes claim to live in constant fear of attack and theft.

Peace is not so nice...: p3

In Rwanda, peacetime institutional violence was so inbuilt that conditions were created whereby actual violence flared up at intervals and eventually boiled over into civil war and a period of extreme actual violence, namely the 1994 genocide.

It was during the 1920s Belgian colonial reform that Hutu and Tutsi were officially separated, physical features identified and ethnic identity cards distributed, and Tutsis declared to have superiority over Hutus.

The 1959 social revolution might have brought independence and a change to Hutu leadership but the separate political identities and basic form of structural inequalities created by colonialism were carried over (Mamdani 2001, 36); the new President Kayibanda simply adopted the efficient “old colonial model of official discrimination” (Gourevitch 1998, 66), Hutu oppressors effectively replaced Belgian oppressors and post-colonial peacetime saw a continuity of repression.

Specifically, under Hutu rule Tutsis were recorded as representing 9% of the total population– 5% lower than the actual figure - and so were granted a disproportionate quota in schools and official positions. This kind of discriminatory administrative division led to decades of fundamental frustration.

Furthermore, both sides having experienced oppression by the other brought up their children to fear each other as a potential oppressor; regular bouts of civil unrest in this vein were managed with violence and ultimately left unresolved.

Corruption was institutionalised within the authoritarian government – faithful party figures kept a “monopolistic grip” on the economy for decades (Prunier 1995, 161) – whilst poverty was widespread, affecting Hutus and Tutsis alike and increasing the potential for political manipulation at the time of the genocide.

Despite the embedded institutional inequalities and violence, Rwanda appeared to be a largely peaceful post-colonial success story and was regarded as such by the international community whose aid flowed into the country in the 1980s. These funds only helped legitimise oppression in the name of development, ending in the hands of the government rather than being distributed to deprived rural areas.

Peace is not so nice...: p4

The case of Northern Ireland mirrors the situation in Rwanda in terms of its full cycle of indirect and direct violence, and its inbuilt structural violence.

Centuries of oppression by protestant English colonists led to ingrained social inequality concretely displayed in discrimination against Catholics in employment, education, housing and local elections. This could only lead to extreme frustration amongst a large part of the population.

As Cairns and Derby have identified, “[i]f one finds oneself as a member of a group from which it is difficult or impossible to leave, the only way to enhance self-esteem is to act to preserve or defend the group’s interests” (Cairns and Derby 1998, 756) – hence the post-1969 catholic civil rights claims that led to actual violence and the deployment of British troops in Northern Ireland.

What is interesting about the Irish case is that attempts were made subsequent to this violence to address these issues of inequality, which brought about an end to electoral manipulation and inequitable housing provision, and the introduction of fair employment policies and equal access to higher education.

As opposed to Rwanda’s 1993 Arusha peace accords that excluded certain popular but extreme political groups from the negotiation table [1], the peace process leading to the 1998 British-Irish Good Friday Agreement was inclusive and representative of all parties, even the hardliners, and has thus proved more successful. Ireland has also seen the introduction of a long-term strategy of anti-discrimination education aimed at young people, to discourage a repeat of similar frustrations in the future.

Often, however, the very processes that are designed to bring about peace themselves engender violence, both in direct and indirect form.

It can reasonably be argued that the 1993 Oslo peace accords between Israel and Palestine ultimately failed to deliver peace because not all Palestinian parties had a voice in the negotiations. Rather, as Rubin clarifies, the “agreement itself had been made possible only because Arafat acted…autonomously” (Rubin 1999, 5).

Without the kind of policy of inclusive representation during the negotiations that was seen in Ireland, the Palestinians’ aspirations of self-determination were bypassed: the terms of the peace agreement did not address the fundamental issues.

Despite Said’s lengthy one-sided diatribe against Israel and the US, it is clear from his conclusions regarding the 1993 negotiation that the peace accords did not bring an end to violence. Instead, he notes, the Oslo Agreement brought greater long-term suffering for both Palestinians and Israelis, particularly because the solutions specified were only interim.

“That the peace under which Palestinians suffer and are forced to lose hope… might be an undesirable state, which in fact may drive some people to suicidal violence as an alternative, is never considered.” (Said 1995, 148)

Having been stripped of their voice during negotiations, the Palestinian majority were arguably left with no alternative but to continue the violence that attracts attention to their cause, and might eventually lead to more successful peace talks.

In order to succeed, a peace process must allow all to have a voice and must address grievances; this might be achieved through the criminal justice system or truth commissions.

However, in countries where structural violence is deep-seated the judicial system may prove unable to prosecute perpetrators due to corruption and lack of political will, as has been the case in Colombia and Guatemala. Those involved in prosecution are at risk, discouraging justice altogether and thereby encouraging ongoing violence (Hayner 2001).