Research papers on international experiences of nonviolence
«Moving and transitioning: an analysis of South Africa's transitional period», by Fadila Mohammed and Anis Daraghmeh — reading one of the twentieth century's most important transitions, a conflict long deemed insoluble without violence.
- Author
- The editorial team
- Date
- 2019-11-04
The first paper: Mobilising and transitioning — an analysis of the transitional period in South Africa
Fadila Mohamed and Anis Daraghma
The transitional process in South Africa is considered one of the most important developments of the twentieth century, since the conflict that raged in South Africa was considered among the issues least amenable to a peaceful, violence-free solution.
Many scholars and researchers, in documenting the transitional process in South Africa, focus on the stage before Nelson Mandela's release and the first few years of the democratic parliament, without speaking of other stages of great importance.
This paper addresses the influence of the years preceding the negotiation process that took place in South Africa, proceeding from a fundamental premise: that the essential factor in South Africa's peace process lies in the high degree of mobilisation and public participation by all during the negotiation processes.
The second paper: The Croatian experience of peace — the Pakrac volunteers project and the peace teams in Osijek
The two successive volunteer peacebuilding projects, each extending four to five years in Croatia's post-war areas, contributed clearly to building a “social fabric founded on non-violence” in Croatia. The groups gathered more than 400 international volunteers from 30 countries and more, in shifts of mostly three weeks, in addition to 30 local citizens and 10 foreigners in shifts of at least two years.
Both were large in financial and organisational size in different ways — through each volunteer's personal contributions, and the boldness of applying for grants that were huge at the time. Achieving normalisation through living in the afflicted communities, and building a culture of non-violent conflict transformation by example and learning through experience, are the three most important features the teams shared.
Both projects were designed and implemented on foundations of equal-power cooperation. The achievement of both projects lies in their having contributed to increasing the culture and possibility of peace at the national level, and in the fact that they engaged communities that have been incident-free now and for twenty years.
The third paper: How to build peace in fragile contexts — strategies of defence and return to the land (the Colombian experience)
Laura Henao
Important dates in the armed conflict in Colombia
Colombia has the second-largest population among the Spanish-speaking peoples, and is the fourth-largest state by (nominal) GDP in Latin America, inhabited by 49 million people, the majority mestizo (58%). And though 75% of the population live in urban areas, there is a markedly heterogeneous ethnic composition, especially in the rural areas, among the Indigenous peoples, the peasants, the Afro-descendants, the mestizos, and the colonists.
This diversity, mixed with geographic complexities, the density of the land, and the expansion of the agricultural frontier, has reproduced social inequality — which in turn deepened the state of armed conflict in Colombia.
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