Peace 589It is an attempt to achieve a positive peace, a fundamentally
just world.
The conflict between those desiring justice and those re-
sisting it could be achieved by negotiation. However, this can
only occur if parties are willing to negotiate, and there are
many situations in which people with property and power do
not wish to negotiate, particularly when oppression and ex-
ploitation are involved. Hence, the building of structural
peace often requires the creation of social strain and disequi-
libria (Montiel, 2001). Attempts at organization are often met
with violence, and this may result in counter violence. Even
when the oppressed succeed in using counter violence, it
often happens that the success only replaces one system of
exploitation with another. Knowing these facts and facing in-
justice within the context of the British colonialism led
Gandhi to create his method of nonviolent resistance.
By nonviolence (literally, satyagrhaor “truth power”)
Gandhi (1983) did not mean either passivity or the use of so-
cially acceptable nonviolent tactics to coerce his opponent to
give in. He meant asserting the truth as one saw it while being
open to the perceptions of opponents and their interests, treat-
ing them with respect and attempting to convince them, and
accepting suffering rather than inflicting it or giving in to in-
justice. Inherent in his approach are the unity of means and
end and the unity of all life. Gandhi’s approach is aggressive
in the sense of asserting one’s will, and some have argued
that his methods were coercive. However, Burrowes (1996,
chap. 7) established that he always attempted to change the
heart of his opponent and that any coercion that existed was a
coercion for a negotiation that could satisfy the needs of both
parties. Several of his nonviolent campaigns have been de-
scribed and evaluated by Bondurant (1965); a general history
of nonviolent methods and the dynamics of how they influ-
ence political decisions has been presented by Sharp (1973);
and the psychology of nonviolence, in both its positive and
problematic aspects, has been discussed by Pelton (1974). A
recent history of nonviolent social movements since 1970
may be found in the volume by Zunes, Kurtz, and Asher
(1999), and Sutherland and Meyer (2000) contrasted the role
played by both nonviolence and violence in the struggle for
freedom and social justice in Africa.
Peace Brigades International (PBI) is an example of current
nonviolence in practice. This nonhierarchical organization
furnishes unarmed volunteers who accompany human rights
workers who are committed to nonviolence but have received
death threats because of their work. Working in a nonpartisan
way with the government of the nation where atrocities are
being committed, and backed by an international emergency
response network that communicates with embassies through-
out the world, PBI has been successful in the effort to open the
political space essential for democracy (see Mahony &
Egeren, 1997). Building on such efforts, Hartsough and
Duncan (2001) are attempting to organize a volunteer nonvio-
lent global peace force that could be used in situations where
unarmed peacekeepers could function as neutral observers.Peace Through Personal TransformationAlthough each of the previous paths toward peace have
merit, it may be argued that correctly following any of them
requires a sort of personal development that can only be
called transformational. This is perhaps most evident in the
person who commits to Gandhi’s path of nonviolent action
and develops a willingness to suffer rather than inflict injury
as he or she acts to further justice. However, it is also required
in the negotiator who develops an ability to acknowledge
shame and refuses to allow egoistic needs to interfere with
the skillful conduct of a negotiation, or the practitioner of de-
fense who remains centered and balanced in dealing with a
situation of potential violence, the type of self required if we
are to have a more peaceful world (de Rivera, 1989). Form-
ing such a self constitutes another path toward peace that
takes personal transformation as its means. Rather than fo-
cusing on strength, negotiation, or justice, it emphasizes the
development of an inner peacefulness that may spread out-
ward to influence the conduct of others. An exemplar is the
Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh (1991).
Thich Nhat Hanh, who has helped thousands of refugees
and has established a number of meditation centers, is com-
mitted to living in the sacredness of each moment and devel-
oping a compassion for all being. He and dozens of other
activists who have published accounts, along with hundreds
of less well known activists (see True, 1985), have dedicated
their lives to a practical living of nonviolence that they
assume will influence the people around them and gradually
create an atmosphere of peace that will affect the communities
in which they live and, eventually, national policy. Although
there are numerous anecdotal accounts of the sorts of effects
they have generated, there has been little systematic study
of their influence. The personal transformations involved in
the development of nonviolence may be examined in the con-
text of character development or in uses of the imagination to
promote the development of peaceful action.Character DevelopmentAlthough the public is acquainted only with a few well-
known peace activists, there are many persons who have
risked or devoted their lives to working for peace and justice,
and one may ask how such commitment develops. Oliner and