Peace
as stated by peace scholar Johan Galtung can be categorized into Negative peace
that is a mere absence of violence (the physical violence that is direct
violence of murder, killings, intimidations or beating) where as Positive peace
(absence of physical, cultural and structural violence). Positive peace that
would not only be the situation where there is absence of physical violence, but
also the absence of cultural and structural violence. The cultural violence can
be better elaborated with the hatred, fear, mistrust, racism, sexism and
intolerance. The source for this cultural violence is the attitude, feelings
and values of the person. In Nepal ’s
context, these would be the gender based violence, caste based discrimination
etc. The structural violence roots to
the context, systems and structures, and its types range from the discrimination
in the regional imbalances in terms of education, health or services, and those
who are politically weak in the context of Nepal . This can further be seen in
the context of the world peace as the world leaders claim that the peace is
achieved when they trade arms and ammunition to counter the violence. Merely,
that could be termed as peace when the regional imbalances and world poverty is
evident.
An
epitome of civil rights movement, Martin Luther King is also credited for
developing the philosophy of “Nonviolence” and practicing it in the movements
which yielded fruits in the US
in 1950s and 60s. The philosophy of Nonviolence (as opposed to non-violence
which is mere absence of violence but injustices prevail), goes a step ahead in
terms of understanding violence, nonviolence and peace. With his context of
civil and political rights campaigns in USA , what he was claiming there was
more to do with the civil and political discrimination against the blacks. Then,
there too what he was asking as peace was not merely the absence of the
violence that was inflicted by the whites against blacks but more to do with
the cultural as well as structural which he demanded as rights for individuals
regardless of them being blacks or whites. By then, the simple demands that
were put forward range from “using the same buses and beaches”. It is
significant how his understanding of addressing the cultural violence and
structural to achieve positive peace, with the nonviolence. This nonviolence approach
that he was following was from his deep understanding generated by his
scholarly reading and experience within that context in America . Dr.
King was Hegelian in approach, and he elaborated nonviolence that was the
synthesis of what he saw Violence being thesis, and Non-violence as
anti-thesis. The clear distinction here, of Non-violence (with Hyphen) being
the anti-thesis of the violence and merely, where as Nonviolence (without
Hyphen) that he generated with the synthesis of analyzing the Violence and
Non-violence. He concluded that the Nonviolence is peace with Justice and not
only mere absence of violence. This was internationalized with his statement “an
injustice anywhere is threat to justice everywhere”.
Maoist
adopted the “violent approach” to uplift the social and economic status of the
people ultimately failing in this approach. What they were successful was in
empowering the underprivileged people by making their voice heard in the
mainstream politics. Similarly, other political parties always favored the “Non-violence
approach” to which Dr King denotes the state of absence of violence thereby
with existence of social injustice. The Maoist approach of violence and then
rulers focusing on the non-violence theory led to the issues permanently
unsolved and unresolved. If the Dr King’s suggestion is to be considered in
Nepali context the Hegelian theory to analyze the thesis of violence (Maoist
approach of raising arms) and non-violence (undermining issues of social
justice) results nonviolence (peaceful methods to address social justice).
The
relevance and need to nonviolence has grown more as Nepalese context had gone
through the violent armed conflict and then after the peaceful one. This is a
historical times as these parties to the conflict can now see their approaches
in Hegelian way. This in not only seeing the weakest links and mistakes of
others but also to analyze what exactly they missed. This can only bring about
the synthesis of the weakest links and make it a strongest links for the better
future of better relations. There is much to learn to apply from the
nonviolence approaches Dr. King and Mahatma Gandhi used in the 20th
century.
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