As human beings, we must live in relative harmony with our friends and family to be happy and stable. We all want connection, recognition and respect as individuals and groups. We do not want to be humiliated. We want our relationships to be dignified and positive.
People may have disputes, quarrels and discussions; some more than others depending on character, culture and habits. Don’t they say that people around the Mediterranean Sea and in South America communicate more than others; they debate, disagree and talk.
At the same time, they may be more concerned about each other, and certainly more social than people from many other places. Through communication they learn to know each other well. People who are always polite and quiet may never be able to know others well, not even themselves.
Family counsellors say that what many times lead to the breakdown of marriages is that communication ends. The same goes for friends and colleagues. If connection, recognition and respect are withdrawn or denied, we often see it as humiliating. We drift apart, as we say, but there is always a cost and loss when we turn the back on somebody and close communication.
This is communication at the individual level. But interestingly, it is not very different at group level and for that matter at macro level, including the broader and perhaps more abstract international levels. The main result of today’s globalisation may not be the increased trade and financial transactions. It may rather be the increased communication and exchange of views across the globe.
We can today easily communicate from north to south and east to west, from the far ends of the world, in the blink of an eye through email and telephone. The world has become smaller, as we say. We know more about each other. As we travel more as tourists and students, we also deepen the human contacts across the globe.
In the past, groups of people within countries and from abroad had to live with the images that were created of them. Sometimes the images and the reputation were right. Other times not, and always, the images were painted with a broad brush; they were stereotypes and clichés, often hindering rather than contributing to communication, to dignified and equal relationships.
The renowned German-Norwegian peace researcher, Professor Gerda Evelin Lindner, discusses many of these issues in her books and articles. She is the founder and leader of the International Network for Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies (Human DHS). She is a particularly creative and innovative thinker, living by Albert Schweitzer’s words: “No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it. We have to learn to see the world anew.”
Lindner and the Human DHS Network say that psychology is one of the disciplines with the least impact in diplomacy and conflict resolution. Many experienced diplomats, politicians and top leaders support this view. Psychology has often been seen as soft and simple, and diplomats think that their general knowledge and skills can substitute for deeper knowledge and understanding of psychology. And then, even if psychology is made an important field, along with political science, law, military expertise and practical politics and administration, it will only be useful if people have a positive attitude to the field.
It is a fact that psychology and other behavioural and social sciences also include common sense and reasoning. Hence, maybe you, respected reader, find much of this article simplistic? But I say not.
In the end, dignified relationships are not always easy to establish and maintain, not between individuals and not between groups and countries. And if there are long and dragged out conflicts, psychological analyses of them will probably reveal that the concrete causes are no longer logical and rational. Such conflicts are just taken for granted, frozen in time and content, avoiding analysis, not remember the above quote from Albert Schweitzer.
We just marked Kashmir Solidarity Day on Tuesday this week. I had the opportunity to attend a gathering and give a speech at the Human Rights and Pakistan Economic Forums in Islamabad. That prompted reflections on many issues related to protracted conflicts. There is little logical about the long and unresolved Kashmir conflict, which also leads to other conflicts in the region. There is little logical about the West’s occupation of Afghanistan, or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and indeed Israel’s settlement policies.
Psychologists would be able to identify causes for prolonged conflicts, and ways out of them, not alone, of course, but as one of the disciplines that can help on the road to peace and prosperity. Often conflicts may have begun because of economic and other real disagreements between individuals, groups and countries. But over time, conflicts are kept alive through propaganda and made to be seen as “normal” - sometimes until new generations have forgotten why there was a conflict in the first place. And if those original causes are analysed, it may be realised that most if not all issues have been solved long ago. Conflicts have become “normal”, not dignified relationships.
Ethnic, religious or cultural differences do not create rifts and conflicts by themselves. But economic differences do, and when there is lack of fairness and equality between groups and countries. Multicultural communities may be enriching local cultures as long as relationships between different groups are characterised by mutual respect. It is when it fails that those who are humiliated feel the right to rise against it, even using power, and the oppressors will use power to control situations that are unjust.
In Europe today, and in many other countries with large migrant populations, it is important that the political and cultural leaders, on both sides, are aware of the importance of contact and communication between the majority resident population and the newcomers, and between the different groups of immigrants. Much of this has to do with communication, which psychologists can help us understand better, so that dignified relationships can be established and maintained. If not, conflicts are bound to happen, and depending on how authoritarian regimes are, they will use power to “solve” them. Wise regimes will have dialogues and real cooperation to find solutions that are good for all.
In Pakistan, we should keep analysing situations and expanding the dialogue and cooperation between groups. Since Pakistan is a class-society, with feudal traditions, too, there are many relationships that are not dignified. There are deep economic and social differences between people. There are often vertical relationships between men and women, people with high formal education and those without education at all. There are differences between people, who live in rural areas and those who live in the cities and so on.
If we analyse these and other situations from psychological perspectives, we will soon understand that the unequal relationships are not sustainable. They are bound to lead to conflicts, unless dignified relationships are built. Reaching fairness often include changing many economic as social structures.
In the border areas with Afghanistan, Fata and Fana, there are today serious problems, part of which is said to be related to the war in Afghanistan. The strategy for “solving the problems in Fata” is military. But focus should be on economic and social development, and establishing dignified relationships between the people there and the provincial and federal governments.
The current strategy is entirely opposite and is, therefore, going to be counterproductive. The drone attacks from abroad are humiliating the people further, in Fata and the rest of Pakistan. It is a short-sighted ostrich policy. It is sad because there is, indeed, potential for prosperity and harmony between the great people of the border areas and the rest of the country.
Let me end today’s article by underlining that all people are equal and equally good. It is just the ways we human beings go astray that lead to abnormal relationships and conflicts. If we can use psychology and peace studies to analyse conflicts and find solutions, we can develop any society into prosperity. Dignified relationships are what we all wish for. We all want connection, recognition and respect. I hope the politicians keep this in mind in the upcoming elections.
The writer is a senior Norwegian social scientist with experience from research, diplomacy and development aid. Email: atlehetland@yahoo.com