Reposted from South Centre.
Julius K. Nyerere
Peace is a product of Justice; it is not simply the absence of violence. All violent conflicts represent earlier failures of leadership, either by wrong-doing or by default. They represent failures at local levels, and especially at national levels. With the interdependence associated with modern technology, they can also mean failures at international levels. And these leadership failures themselves breed more hatred, fear, and injustice and more violent conflict. It is much easier to prevent than to end wars and revolts once these have started.
In Africa today, and especially in Rwanda and Burundi, we hear a great deal about ethnic conflicts. Yet these are taking place at particular times and places after members of the different ethnic groups have for long periods lived side by side in the same villages and towns, have worked together, and have intermarried. Thus ethnicity is clearly not a sufficient explanation of conflict. Ethnicity can, however, be used to conceal the real problems,—the genuine economic problems or cultural clashes—behind the easily aroused human fears about those who are unlike ourselves in appearance, culture, or beliefs.
Ethnicity can also be used to “divide and rule”. And in the case of Rwanda and Burundi this use of ethnicity was clearly made by both Germany and Belgium as colonial powers.
I am asserting that ethnic conflict will only arise when leaders in the society deliberately strengthen the concept of ethnicity, and for their own purposes ignite inter-ethnic hostility. In Rwanda and Burundi, conflict has economic roots. The fight for power is mainly a fight for economic resources.
Ethnicity is simply being exploited.
Conflicts of interest or desire within a social or political group are inevitable; they are an intrinsic part of living in society. And some level of conflict between nations is also quite normal; our duty is to prevent normal conflict interest from developing into hostility. We need to defuse potential conflict, and deliberately build peaceful relationships through the extension of Justice throughout the society.
This duty, to say the least, is not always easy to fulfil. In poor countries it is especially difficult. The introduction of Political Democracy, can help, but it is not enough; indeed it can aggravate civic conflicts. When the political system gives the vote to the many, and the economic system gives the bread to the few, civic strife is almost inevitable. When the vote is a human right and bread is a privilege of the few, democracy is a mockery; it cannot be an instrument of Peace and Harmony because it is not an instrument of Justice.
I am suggesting that the surest way to build and to maintain peace within and between nations, and in the world as a whole, is to work for Justice—Justice for all persons and all groups.
A nation and a world organized on a basis of upholding the principles of Human Equality, Human Dignity, Justice and Respect for all, will be a nation and a world where peace prevails. We are not there yet anywhere in the world. And I am not sure that the relentless weakening of Government and Community, and the equally relentless globalization and marketization of our economies will prove to be particularly conducive to the building of Peace through Justice. Where the law of the jungle—the survival of the fittest—reigns supreme; where Might is Right; where the game of money-making includes arms trafficking and corruption: What is Justice? And what is Peace? When Governments themselves are weak, or corrupt, or both, who can intervene on behalf of the weak in our poor societies?
People have instincts of co-operation as well as of self-interest. If societies are so organized as to encourage human co-operation and mutual toleration of differences, then building or maintaining peace will gradually become easier. For Justice to all will become easier.
Friends, I repeat: Peace is a product of Justice. They work for Peace who work for Justice.
Copyright 1996 South Centre
The above address was given by Mwalimu Julius K. Nyerere, Chairman of the South Centre, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the International Peace Academy, New York, on the 4th December 1996, when he received a prize for his efforts to promote peace in Burundi.