Point of View Process

Rotary and Conflict Prevention & Resolution: new horizons & new opportunities

DECEMBER, 2022

Executive Summary

The Point of View (POV) Process is a collaboration between the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution and the War Prevention Initiative of the Jubitz Family Foundation, focusing on the role, capacities, and future trajectories of Rotary International’s organizational and individual Rotarians’ conflict prevention and resolution work globally, and the work to be undertaken by the Carter School during its next period of development.

At this initial Point of View meeting, the participants determined three areas for collaboration. The goal is to begin building the partnership between the Carter School and Rotary clubs in the Washington DC Metro Area, with a long-term intention of furthering partnerships with the entire Rotary network.

Three Working Groups

Education – a tangible, meaningful and impactful partnership with the Carter School would enhance and inform Rotary’s existing peace programs, utilizing direct and indirect education, and perhaps using art as a medium to discuss a wide range of peace and conflict related subjects among interested Rotarians. We hope to run such a pilot event before the next POV meeting in March 2023.

Community Initiative / Environmental Peacebuilding – As climate change has different regional effects on Rotary Districts, projects involving Rotarians and the entire Rotary Family would be developed by Carter School experts in this discipline, specific to Rotary District regions. The overall goal is to explore how such partnership in response to global threats such as climate change and water scarcity can be designed to scale up programmatic efforts by Rotary and the Carter School for broader and deeper impacts.

Violence as a Public Health Issue and Threat – Using the CureViolencemodel, Rotarians could be trained as “credible messengers,” engaging in conflict early warning and early response, working closely within their own communities to implement programs to change norms around violent behavior, always with a focus on violence prevention.

The second Point of View Process will take place on March 6 and 7, 2023.

2

Dear fellow peacebuilders,

From November 7 to 8, 2022, a group of academics, Rotarians, Rotary International Staff representatives, and Rotary Peace Fellows involved in and concerned about peace and conflict transformation accepted the invitation by the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution and the War Prevention Initiative of the Jubitz Family Foundation to gather at the Point of View retreat center in Lorton, Virginia, to address the general theme of “Rotary and Conflict Prevention & Resolution: new horizons & new opportunities”.

TheHosts

We feel privileged that participants came from different parts of the country for the two-day gathering which was kicked off with an opening reception and powerful keynote remarks by Sara Haaghdosti, Executive Director of Win Without War. Weaving personal stories and global challenges into her remarks, Sara reminded us eloquently that the state of the world was not ok and that different forms of power were at play. That includes our own power and obligation to see the world for what it is and the moral obligation to be change agents. And while we want to make sure to ground our work in the realities around us and be informed by the field of peace and conflict studies, our objective for POV and beyond is clear: We want to change the world to one that is more just and peaceful. That’s in the mission of the Carter School and the War Prevention Initiative alike.

The JimmyandRosalynnCarterSchoolfor Peace and Conflict Resolution is a communityoffaculty,students,staff,alumni, and partners with a fundamental commitment tobuildingpeace. Through the development of cutting-edge theory, research, education, and practical work, we seek to identify and address the underlying causes of conflict and provide tools for ethical and just peacebuilding on the local, national,andglobalstages.

The mission of the Jubitz Family Foundation is to enhance the communities inwhichwelivebystrengtheningfamilies,by respecting the natural environment, and by fostering peace. Its War Prevention Initiative focusesontransformingtheglobal securityparadigmtopromotealternativesto violence and militarism. They research, advocate for, and advance knowledge on proven peacebuilding practices to create a worldbeyondwar.

The skilled and people-centered facilitation by Prof. Susan Allen, kept the meeting dynamic and flowing. A series of catalyzing remarks, set the tone for various group conversations: The state of the conflict resolution field and the areas that need more or different attention; the role of Rotary International and Rotary Clubs in collaboration with the Carter School and the most relevant approaches for the current era of peace work; meaningful engagement for peace and the lessons learned from engaging Rotary International and Rotarians; networks for peace and how to engage the Carter School and Rotary strengths for impact; and on the critical role of intermediary level peace actors.

Together we identified three areas for further exploration through ad-hoc working groups. First, to focus on education efforts led by the Carter School to enhance and inform Rotary’s existing peace programs. Second, an environmental peacebuilding initiative responding to the climate crisis involving Rotarians and the entire Rotary family developed by Carter School experts. Third, examining violence

3

Introduction

prevention efforts involving Rotarians via the Cure Violence model which considers violence as a public health issue.

In an immediate next step, funded by David Fishman and Mari Clarke, the Carter School has just commissioned a study project to explore the scope and focus of a Rotary Program at the Carter School. The investigation will be undertaken by Ana Patel, Arthur Romano, and Michael Shank, and their report will be presented at the POV Rotary meeting in March 2023. The team has been asked to develop recommendations for specific project ideas and a way forward for a Carter School program initiative of 2-3 years in the short-to-medium term. For this process, the POV Rotary process participants, as well as a wide range of key representatives from Rotary, Carter School, and other possible stakeholder institutions, will be contacted for their input during this study. Your collaboration with the project team during this process will be critical in developing a comprehensive plan for a Carter School-Rotary partnership.

Throughout the facilitated discussions and during the breaks, the Point of View retreat center offered an inspiring backdrop to ponder the challenges as well as the opportunities and new horizons. We achieved a lot, but we have more work to do. We are grateful for everyone’s commitment to this process.

Patrick Hiller Executive Director, War Prevention Initiative Alpaslan Özerdem Dean, Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution

About the Point of View Process

The Point of View (POV) Process is a collaboration between the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution and the War Prevention Initiative of the Jubitz Family Foundation, focusing on the role, capacities, and future trajectories of Rotary International’s organizational and individual Rotarians conflict prevention and resolution work globally, and the work to be undertaken by the Carter School during its next period of development.

The POV process is formed by a series of 2-day meetings that are taking place at the Carter School’s International Retreat and Research Center (POV), a facility set on 120 acres of pristine wooded land in Lorton, Virginia. The POV is dedicated to peacebuilding practice, teaching, and research.

The first meeting took place in November 2022, the second meeting will take place March 6 and 7, 2023, and the third meeting in July 2023. In each forum, 12-16 participants from Rotary, Carter School, the broader peacemaking/peacebuilding community, with peace actors previously considered nontraditional such as the business sector and building on the inclusion of civil society actors like trade unions and places of worship, are invited for in-depth discussions, pathway-changing explorations, and transformational decisions. While we intend to add new participants based on the direction and

4

priorities determined throughout the process, we aim to keep the core group from the first meeting largely intact.

The first POV Process meeting in November of 2022 had the goal of setting a collective agenda for setting the overall direction of how the process will be run with well-thought-out deadlines and milestones for each stage. Therefore, the meeting had two main sections: the exploration of contemporary conflict prevention & resolution frameworks and how recent global peace and security trends have made them less effective. Hence, how varied emerging dynamics, such as subtle and overt militarism, the diffusion of non-state armed groups in conflict settings, shifting geopolitics, pressures of militarized security, and climate change, will be considered an overall framework for discussions. Considering these trends, the second section of the meeting focused on how Rotary and Rotarians are responding to such conflict prevention & resolution trends. Therefore, the second session covered primary Rotary initiatives, programs, and funding schemes in peace work.

The POV Process pays particular attention to how different civil society actors, including businesses, labor organizations, churches, and other community organizations, could become active agents of conflict prevention & resolution. This initiative considers the absence of business in most such efforts as a tremendously important missed opportunity. The process aims to build on such approaches as a ‘peace economy’, ‘profit-making and peacebuilding hand-in-hand’, ‘business that cares for peace’, and ‘peace for more business and business for more peace’. Diversity, equity, inclusion, justice are core to the process and intellectual framework.

The end goals for the POV Process are (1) to develop an action plan that could assist Rotary in forming an International Peace Constituency and (2) to help the Carter School fulfill its mission to transform peace work globally.

5

Participants’ meeting expectations

action imagine synergy centering leverage networks bridging social capital and social cohesion clarity and challenges integral leadership issues related to Power merging cultures of academia and Rotary – tools first principal of Rotary – is it the truth? independent views of conflict and how to deal with it Point of View – process catalyze

6

Session Overview

Overview of the state of the conflict resolution field

In his catalyzing remarks, Professor Rich Rubenstein provided an overview of the conflict resolution field showing the multi-faceted nature of political conflicts ranging from current and historical largescale international warfare to extreme polarization we are facing domestically. When Rich talked about “a blooming buzzing confusion”, he was letting us know that what drives, sustains and reinforces violence is a complex system and that we therefore need to develop a systematic approach. That is, with all its nuances and strengths and limitations, the unique contribution of peace and conflict studies. The multidisciplinary field examines the causes and conditions which generate and sustain violent conflict, the mechanisms and models for the resolution of violent conflict, and the norms, practices and institutions for building peace1 .

Opportunities and questions for Rotary/Rotarian engagement:

• The state of the world is such that “business in conflict resolution is good”

• Social and political conflicts go through phases (see “Conflict Management Curve” under additional resources), all of which have different opportunities and limitations for intervention and transformation. Post-conflict reconstruction and peacebuilding efforts potentially provide the most meaningful entry points for Rotarians.

• Systems are creating conflicts, how do we change systems?

• Rotary can play a role in empowerment of local peace practitioners

Additional resources for this session:

• Peace Studies: History and Contested Areas of the Field - https://youtu.be/Gfp2ZwNQ8zg

• Peace Briefing: Conflict Dynamics & Conflict Resolutionhttps://warpreventioninitiative.org/2022/peace-briefing-conflict-dynamics-conflict-resolution/

• Conflict Analysis - A quick guide to structured conflict assessment frameworkshttps://warpreventioninitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/conflict-analysis-quickguide.pdf

• Conflict Management Curve 2 - https://youtu.be/tffLhrsHECc

1 Peace Studies: HistoryandContestedAreas ofthe Field (overviewbyProfessorGeorge Lopez)- https://youtu.be/Gfp2ZwNQ8zg

7

Overview of the Opportunities and Challenges of Rotary Peace Work

Peter Kyle, Fergal McCarthy and Rebecca Crall shared complementary perspectives on the historical and existing Rotary peace engagement and ecosystem. Rotary has been in the “peace business” for over 100 years. Notable peace influencing relationships are those with the UN, UNESCO, UNOCE, Peace Fellows, Mediators Beyond Borders, Institute for Economics and Peace, etc. Despite these macro level relationships, Rotary’s culture is that of a bottom-up organization where all projects begin at the club level and work their way up. Moreover, not all Rotarians are interested in broader peace issues, but in service in their local community.

Rotary International is at a point where the organization’s peace activities are organized, and it is now a good time to consider bigger actions. Global grants through The Rotary Foundation have supported community-based peacebuilding projects.

Opportunities and questions for Rotary/Rotarian engagement:

• Small scale Rotarian projects could be increased in number and in nature if they are focused, targeted, and achievable; the Carter School could help identify such high impact initiatives.

• It would be a good idea to have a Rotary representative involved directly with the Carter School

• It is necessary to build a stronger narrative around peace within the entire Rotary network

• Water conflict management in Aral Sea Basin facilitated by Global Grant

• Water conflict and diplomacy could be an area of cohesion between Rotary and Carter School

• Peacebuilder perspective: need for a rapid reaction approach with work with Rotary

Additional resources for this session:

• Rotary Peace Programs - https://warpreventioninitiative.org/wpcontent/uploads/2022/12/RotaryPeacePrograms-.pdf

• Aral Sea neighbors come together to resolve conflicts over a scarce resourcehttps://www.rotary.org/en/aral-sea-neighbors-resolve-conflicts-over-water

Reflections on Meaningful Engagement for Peace

Dr. Patrick Hiller shared insights from a decade of previous work through the War Prevention Initiative of engaging Rotarians for meaningful peace engagement. Four main lessons were:

8

1. There is a Rotary peace ecosystem that has organizational support through the peace area of focus - the existing ecosystem must be nourished, but with an understanding of the many facets of peace and peacebuilding and what we know from the work of people done in the peace and conflict resolution field and by centering the voices of those affected by violent conflicts.

2. Many Rotarians are very eager to act for peace – we should not stifle this eagerness, but we must let people most affected by violence and injustices determine their pathways forward. Otherwise, we run the risk of pushing initiatives that are not aligned with the needs of vulnerable or marginalized people, are ineffective, wasteful in their use of resources, or reinforce systems of oppression.

3. Confronting militarism and militarized security, at least recognizing its pervasiveness is key to any involvement in peace work - that means rattling the cage, that means being political. If Rotary and Rotarians want to become serious actors for peace on a more global level and seen as such, they must find out a way to overcome the “too political” barrier.

4. Positive peace - that is peace with justice - needs to be emphasized above neutrality or avoiding politics. Rotarians are by nature of their membership in the organization among those who benefit from the way our social systems are organized. That means, knowingly or unknowingly, they contribute to different forms of structural and physical violence. One of the tasks for everyone benefiting from these social orders is to get out of self-imposed positions of neutrality by developing and acting upon a critical consciousness regarding their own role in upholding these forms of violence.

Opportunities and questions for Rotary/Rotarian engagement:

• Carter School creativity can “push the envelope” for Rotary

• Addressing political vs. partisan difference - find language to challenge all Rotarians to recognize that we can be political without being partisan

• Narratives and mindfulness of language - finding effective language to engage Rotary

• Peace Science Digest as an educational, practice-oriented resource for Rotarians.

Additional resources for this session:

• Peace Science Digest - https://warpreventioninitiative.org/peace-science-digest/

Networks for Peace

Professor Susan Allen discussed how “networks for peace” as a framework can guide the POV process. Networks work when they have common interests and goals, they have cycles where they

9

grow, where they transform, then contract again. As the context changes, adaptation and changes in the networks are required.

The key questions guiding the discussion were: What can we accomplish together that we cannot do apart? How can we engage the Carter School and Rotary strengths for impact?

4 C’s:

• Communication (joint strategy development)

• Coordination (sharing resources, aligning information, increase synergy)

• Cooperation (partnership roles defined)

• Collaboration (working together)

Added in discussion

Change Coalition(structure-based)

Opportunities and questions for Rotary/Rotarian engagement:

• Are the Rotary peace programs in the peace ecosystem interconnected? How?

• Rotarians have access to power, capacity, and resources

• Good initiatives can be scaled up, but cross-jurisdictions can be a huge problem in scaling from the bottom up

• Scaling requires entrepreneurialism and large commitment among grassroots efforts; leadership will follow, rather than lead

• Difficult to organize and mobilize Rotary peacebuilding family, because there are many different interests among members

• Self-reflection phase of peace engagement activities might be something that Carter School could help Rotary with

• Depth of peacebuilding needs to be more developed; bring subset of Rotarians interested in peace together more effectively and strategically to change the peace efforts from being very shallow (e.g., peace poles) to something deeper

Additional resources for this session:

• Interactive Peacemaking. A People-Centered Approach by Susan H. Allenhttps://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-mono/10.4324/9781003189008/interactivepeacemaking-susan-allen (Open Access to full book)

Peacebuilding actors

Dr. Seth Kaplan introduced the model of middle-tier peacebuilding actors who are part of Brain Trusts in the context of engagements by the Institute for Integrated Transitions. What would be considered rather “upper-middle-tier” peacebuilding actors are well networked individuals who are not in government positions but who are very influential in working with all levels of society.

10

Go-Between Leaders as Ethical Exemplars

It is important for middle-tier leaders to maintain credibility at both the national and community levels by expressing clearly their core values and motivations. Local communities and key groups in society often view with suspicion the national level and by extension the go-between leaders who participate in that arena. As such, middle-tier leaders must embody values of transparency, respect, and inclusivity in order to gain the trust of a country’s diverse communities, avoiding the competitive forms of leadership that often persist among national elites and fuel conflicts, and modeling alternatives that alter the terrain on which peace is constructed.

https://warpreventioninitiative.org/peace-sciencedigest/building-peace-from-the-middle-the-critical-work-of-national-brain-trusts/

By Mark Freeman and Phil Clark -

Opportunities and questions for Rotary/Rotarian engagement:

• Conduct meetings with 15-18 people (best number for real cohesion and ideas) to effectively bridge networks and parts of society, to come up with priorities for resolving conflicts – this could be a role of Rotary in peacebuilding

• Convene social covenants to build/create institutional reform that will make the systems of a country work better

Additional resources for this session:

• Building Peace from the Middle - The Critical Work of National Brain Trustshttps://warpreventioninitiative.org/peace-science-digest/building-peace-from-the-middle-thecritical-work-of-national-brain-trusts/

Where are the gaps?

Criteria for Selecting Specific Cases (for collaboration):

• Rotary network

• Carter School/Rotary experience in the region

• Possibility for systemic change/scale-up

• Centering around the needs of the community

11

Envisioning Rotary making a big difference with peace

Building on the previous sessions, but leaving space for participants’ imaginations, this session imagined “going big for peace” with Rotary. To convey the breadth of ideas, this section is largely unfiltered, with ideas grouped under sub-themes.

An organization that can call out potential unrest and spur into action to prevent escalation

• Early Warning network

• Science community involvement in the “brain trust” for validation

• Rethink peace architecture around the concept of Prevention

Agents of local security activation

• Community-based action / agents of global security on the local level

• Network of community members from all levels of society who want to help

• How do we strengthen the capacity of Rotary to be able to mobilize?

• Deepen and focus the work of Rotary programs and projects

Carter School and Rotary relationship

• Start locally and scale up

• Foreign policy analysis or local policy analysis isn’t the starting point

• Real problem has to do with the way people think about violence

• Analyze and operationalize what a cultureofpeaceactually looks like

• Certificate programs specifically designed for Rotarians – those who are peace activists who want to expand their network and their work to others within Rotary

• Make Peace Education (or problem-solving/conflict resolution) part of the national curriculum

• What is the source of the pain that drives people to commit violence? Pain produces aggression, so how can we work together to prevent that pain?

Appreciative Inquiry – asset based

• What exists, what works and what is an easy add-on to use as a starting place?

• Opportunity with the 1700+ peace fellows?

• Build a post-fellowship opportunity for these fellows – could Carter be a “home” for these fellows after they have completed their education

• Service arm of the Carter School – how can Carter School have a relationship with an organization that is doing the practical work?

• IEP – correlation between Trust and Violence; with an asset-based approach, Rotary’sassetis Trust! Carter’sassetsareinformation,knowledge,anddata. Get people talking to each

12

other first, and then continue talking about solving issues together. (Possible venues –museums, as they are trustworthy and neutral – using the arts as a common thread)

Probably 10,000+ Rotarians who would be interested in this relationship between Rotary and Carter School

• Getting Rotary projects off the ground takes time, money, and patience

• Rotary is very brand conscious, so it needs to start from the club level because the structure is bottom up

• Think realistically about what can be implemented and likely to succeed

• Plan for Polio eradication did arise from the top first because the RI leadership pushed it and it took off, gaining other partners along the way

• Silence of Rotary on major issues is alarming and ultimately might hurt the organization –finding ways to address tough issues while still maintaining neutrality

Large System Change

• Rotarians have a charitable instinct and a desire for fellowship

• Modest changes that Rotary could make to increase its effectiveness

• Scaling – looks at a problem and then creates a project to try to solve – project is the instrument to the end game

• Governments and markets are the only two things that can deliver large solutions to large problems (philanthropy doesn’t scale; it’s always going to be relatively small in nature)

• The model of pilot, proof of concept, doesn’t work – change management process is unique each time – knowledge of the behind-the-scenes infrastructure is key to success because the project must be flexible enough to work in all different situations

• Inter-mediation will be key in building trust in this relationship

• Rotary and Carter School may have an advantage of working together because of their neutrality

Marry the larger theoretical changes in Rotary’s thinking with practical interventions/solutions

• Regional network of Rotarians, Peace Fellows, Academics who want to tackle the region’s issues together

• Scaling might be a problem globally, but might have a better chance of success if done locally, and then scaled regionally

Knowledge-management communication

• Regional network communication, rather than top-down from Evanston

• Consulting-type role for Carter Center to suggest how Rotary might improve its peace related work

• Trust Lab – maybe a podcast to get knowledge out to Rotarians

• Violence prevention into the public health frame – need a systematic approach to prevent violence – better coordination of Rotary projects to focus on specific issues within a community

• Devise an initiative together with Carter School that starts modestly and realistically that a Rotary Club could adopt; projects by that club would develop around that initiative

13

How to link the project with peace education? What kinds of projects are scalable up and scalable out?

• DC Clubs operate in an area of high urban violence

• Conflict in literature and the arts – helps people to understand the roots of conflict and social problems, and come up with solutions

• Rotary Book Club

Cultures of Peace

• As opposed to “culture of peace”

• Honor the diversity and differences of the players

Value Set between both Carter School and Rotary appear to be similar

• War Hurts Young People

• Rotarians – harbingers of peace

• UN – nations that strive for cultures of peace

• Learning to be a peacebuilder – rite of passage for everyone

• Don’t try to make Rotary what it’s not – it is a bottom-up organization

• Take the ideas, incubate them, and build partnerships to scale them up

Next steps

At this initial Point of View meeting, the participants determined three areas for collaboration. The goal is to begin building the partnership between the Carter School and Rotary clubs in the Washington DC Metro Area, with a long-term intention of furthering partnerships with the entire Rotary network.

Three Working Groups

Education – a tangible, meaningful and impactful partnership with the Carter School would enhance and inform Rotary’s existing peace programs, utilizing direct and indirect education, and perhaps using art as a medium to discuss a wide range of peace and conflict related subjects among interested Rotarians. We hope to run such a pilot event before the next POV meeting in March 2023.

Community Initiative / Environmental Peacebuilding – As climate change has different regional effects on Rotary Districts, projects involving Rotarians and the entire Rotary Family would be developed by Carter School experts in this discipline, specific to Rotary District regions. The overall goal is to explore how such partnership in response to global threats such as climate change and water scarcity can be designed to scale up programmatic efforts by Rotary and the Carter School for broader and deeper impacts.

Violence as a Public Health Issue and Threat – Using the CureViolencemodel, Rotarians could be trained as “credible messengers,” engaging in conflict early warning and early response, working closely within their own communities to implement programs to change norms around violent behavior, always with a focus on violence prevention.

14

The second Point of View Process will take place on March 6 and 7, 2023.

Looking back at POV - an opportunity for critical reflection

As practitioner-scholars in the field of conflict resolution, we are inspired by the possibilities discussed in the first stage of the Point of View Process. We would not do our jobs, however, if we didn’t take a step back to provide a critical analysis as well. The following points hopefully will sharpen everyone’s critical perspective as we move forward creating possibilities by linking our desire for a more just and peaceful world with the academic and practical rigor necessary to contribute to transformative change.

Food for thought #1:

Rotary has an impressive track record of “Rotary projects”. Rotarians can rightfully point to success stories, often in terms of community initiatives. When it comes to Rotarian engagement for peace, we should avoid going too quickly to “Rotary projects”, assuming that “doing good” is inherently peace work and that it is merely a question of scaling and getting more buy-in across the Rotary ecosystem. Peace initiatives must be led by those affected by conflict and violence to avoid unintended harm through outside interventions regardless of their good intentions

Food for thought #2:

Rotarians’ connection to peace is at times too tied up in the positive peace framework developed by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), an institutional partner of Rotary International. Like any other model, the positive peace framework has its limitations due to generalizations as well as other areas of more substantial critique. IEP’s framework of positive peace, for example, does not address the current global state of militarism. In fact, indicators like a sound business environment and good relations with neighbors can perfectly maintain the status quo of global business conduct, including global arms trade or the poor treatment of workers. The positive peace framework focuses on the business environment and is centered around narratives of the Global North. The framework must be questioned conceptually if in a ranking of countries’ positive peace levels Saudi Arabia sits 100 places above Yemen and Israel is ranked above Costa Rica.

Food for thought #3:

The POV Process is designed to examine the potential for meaningful Rotarian engagement for peace. At the same time, The POV Process pays particular attention to how different civil society actors, including businesses, labor organizations, churches, and other community organizations, could become active agents of conflict prevention & resolution. Moving forward, we must move the POV Process beyond Rotary and examine more broadly the role for civil society organizations and actors like Rotarians and Rotary International instead of narrowly focusing on Rotary peace projects.

Food for thought #4:

15

We need data! In the POV Process and similar initiatives over the last years, participants were operating with very different departing points regarding peace-oriented Rotarians. We heard assumptions ranging from 1.4 million Rotarians with a “peace DNA” ready to be activated to 10% or even 1% only who care about peace issues. A path forward needs to be built around baseline data.

Food for thought #4:

“Rotarians are trusted and neutral” - that’s a common self-perception of Rotarians as they talk about their role in their communities. When it comes to peace and conflict scenarios, Rotarians in social conflict are not different from any other social actors who bring their own perceptions, biases, worldviewing, and interpretations of truths to the conflict. Moreover, in conflicts where social inequalities and power imbalances are underlying causes, Rotarians are by nature of their membership among those benefiting from social arrangements. Just like we know anecdotally that Rotarians have been trusted partners for community projects, we know from instances where “the last people you want to talk to are Rotarians”. This is in no way a reflection of their individual shortcomings, but simply based on social structures and networks of power. Trust, a component Rotarians highly value, is earned through relationship building and context-dependent, and not through membership in an organization. It is imperative for Rotarians to be cognizant of their own role in conflict. Training in conflict sensitivity in peacebuilding can go a long way in helping Rotarians to overcome inequalities and power imbalances.

Conclusion

The Point of View Process is the beginning of an already fruitful, potentially transformational partnership between the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution and the War Prevention Initiative (WPI) of the Jubitz Family Foundation. The Carter School is already engaged in further strategic planning in a separate yet connected process involving the Rotarian peace trajectory. With the POV Process, The Carter School, a globally leading conflict resolution program, is partnering with WPI, a well-connected and respected peace and security organization at the intersection of academia, peacebuilding, and philanthropy. Rotarians and Rotary International can benefit immensely from this partnership as the combined expertise in and commitment to peace and security issues can help us collectively have difficult conversations, re-define security towards human needs, mainstream peace education, understand causes of violence and conditions for peace, develop a critical consciousness about the state of the world, connect the dots between humanitarianism, development and peace, and ultimately move from a “shallow lake of peace” to the depths of transformative peacebuilding.

16

Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook

Articles inside