What is your peace?
What does peace mean to you?
The first thing that probably comes to mind and what is the definition in most dictionaries, is the absence of war. But as soon as you think a little further, especially if you have experienced some kind of violent conflict, your definition will go deeper. The definition can be focused on you as an individual or on society at large: a form of inner peace or a peace more focussed on justice. The first definition goes culturally back to the Eastern Cultures+ the combination of peace and justice is well developed in Europe.
You interprete the world, or the things you see around you, with the available information, your cultural frame of reference that is. It´s in fact a framework (or a pair of glasses) through which you see the world. This one is coloured by the things you learn from home, school, your friends.
What if you try to stand in the shoes of the other? The other also has different faces, or identities, just like you: the relationship within your family, your religion, your nationally/ies, your sexual inclination, but also your membership of a certain sportclub or your hobbies. You are not just one identity, but a compilation of many identities together, that cannot be detached from one another. Not every aspect of your identity has the same importance at different stages of your life. The unknown and maybe even threatening other, is more than its outside: for example the clothes that are identified with a certain kind of behaviour.
Be aware of the fact that you only see a small part of “reality”, because you have your own perspective, which is formed by your frame of reference.
Okay, let’s try then to see beyond the outside and change our perspective: to empathize with the other. But how do we do that? Well, to talk to him/her, for example, or even better, to ask question and above all, to LISTEN! And I mean, really listen! So without interupting the other with your own stories and experiences. Try to listen for the full 100% and focus on his/her story!
Litterature:
Amin Maalouf: Identités Meurtrières (also translated into English)
Edwin Hoffmann: TOPOI-model
Concept of Peace and Intercultural Communication developed with Esther en Menno for a workshop `Ieder zijn eigen vrede´, at B the Change, MECC, Maastricht, 20 January 2007
