PEACE CALLS FOR SACRIFICE

Sir,

Looking at events around the world, I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that peace has become the biggest loser of all times. I mean, everyone pursuing peace has to sacrifice something to maintain peace.

Talking of governments, it has become abundantly clear that in order to maintain the peace they have to succumb to demands of society in order to keep the peace. It is now only in very small societies such as ours that the roles are reversed - I mean, our people as a peace-loving nation would trade their rights in order to maintain the peace. And here I mean bending over backwards, literally.  And this is wisdom by the way - preservation of that scarce commodity (peace) amid competing priorities. And opting for a compromise doesn’t mean abandoning legitimate ways of resolving conflicts or disputes, it just says that you do not want to pursue a certain course of action whose end would jeopardise peace or is the perpetuation of distraction as seen in protest actions. Some communities can take a leaf from us on this one.

Population

Granted, we are too small as a country to boast about this if one understands that we are just under two per cent in population terms to that of neighbouring South Africa (SA), our big brother. SA’s population means more diversity and many different languages and ethnic diversity; much of which lends itself to conflicts. However, the principle that underpins all this is the attitude and culture of society in terms of how they go about resolving issues. In the midst of conflict as commonly happens, the party that chooses the route to peace by giving up its rights or makes concessions is viewed as the weaker party, this is the reason not too many people opt for this role.

However, on the contrary, the strongest party is actually the one who extends the olive branch first, in his quest for peace.  Consider the situation with our neighbours where the slightest conflict results in mass protest action culminating to the burning of State property, even schools serving the same protesting community, costing hundreds of millions to rehabilitate. Tragic state of affairs this!
 
Burns

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