Building Peace in a Time of Terror: The challenge of insecurity in the minds of men and women

There is so much emphasis on the weapons and tools of security personnel and processes to counter violence and extremism, but the resources needed to reverse the dangers that lurk where insecurities are hatched - in the minds of men and women, to achieving peace and security remains the greater challenge... I am sharing here an excerpt from my blog, Demokrissy, linked here,  reflecting on the processes of peacebuilding and peacemaking. The full post can be accessed here:  

(From) Let's Build that Wall: A Wall of Greatness

As I waited for the UNESCO General Conference to signal its acceptance of the work of the Education Commission, I thought of the security processes applied to get into the building. It included a system of accreditation along with meeting visa requirements and the airport and immigration requirements of the host country. Then there were the physical security scans from friendly gate keepers, and badges that function as the passport into the meetings. Through the portal of peace, in dark and not so dark suits and demure or colourful dresses, passed benign philosophers, poets, peace advocates and lobbyists. The same processes were used for those of the more radical ilk; technocrats of conservative or liberal order; politicians visionary or mundane. Among them were men and women who held lofty ideals and outlooks and were thrilled to be part of the process of upliftment and charting the course for development in the path of human history; but among them, too, were, also, novices, inexperienced politicians and power mongers and those with petty ambitions, institutional and personal insecurities, harbouring grudges, prejudices and hatreds.

A microcosm of the minds of the men and women in the world poured through the security posts, but the scanners would be hard-pressed to detect any dangers that may lurk in the minds of any of those, I thought, privy to some of, but not all, of the undercurrents – political, social, cultural, economic –and going over potential scenarios and their treatment and handling that will not expose the façade of diplomacy that pervaded the atmosphere.

So what mechanisms were there; what checks on the minds of the men and women entering the walls and halls, and the danger that may lurk therein? What defences did the organization or any of the occupants have if not peace, but war, vengeance, violence raged in some of the minds of the men and women who were entering its walls? What inspection and what security checks were there on these? And what warnings and signals of danger should we look out for?

To build the defences of peace, the institution and those participating were making themselves vulnerable to such unknowns in the minds of men and women.

From unfolding occurrences behind the scenes, it seemed that while the processes of physical security might have been well thought-out, the defences of the institutions and its peace processes remained significantly vulnerable to the unknown, metaphysical elements in the ‘minds of men and women’. For full artcile go to Demokrissy, linked here,