Global Mindset for Peace -GDC Peacebuilding Dialogues

Peace workers, Activists, Engaged Citizens

The people who come together in the GDC Peacebuilding Dialogues have a professional or personal motivation for peacebuilding. Many of them have long term experience in various practice fields of peacebuilding, Some have lived experiences in countries that suffer from war, instability or generalised violence. Then there are people like me, who feel concerned by what they see on the news and the stories told by refugees and other forced migrants. The personal and professional biographies of the participants provide a large geographical coverage. All together, they provide a global outlook.

The GDC dialogue meetings offer room for participants from all these different backgrounds to formulate questions they have on their mind, listen to reactions from others and hear individual perceptions. This dialogic exchange leads you to take a wider perspective to see conflicts in a different light.

The participants come for different reasons and with different expectations and surely leave with entirely different takeaways. In my view, we are united through a willingness to hear each other and to reflect together on how to contribute to peace in our respective environments.

What can I do?

At a recent meeting, a person directly affected by the war in Israel and Palestine asked what she should do. She addressed the others to suggest concrete actions for her. After decades of engagement in promoting peace, and despite all her efforts, she now found herself stuck in a fully escalated conflict. Neither she nor many others could escape.

Such statements open important opportunities to stop and think for a moment in very concrete terms: What can I offer? What is my contribution?

Solutions are not found there and then, during the meetings, but what you hear from the others through careful listening might help you to develop your own way to become active. Personally, I experience these meetings as a succession of eye openers and comments that make me think.
Of course, the question of what do remains. Peacebuilding is more than talking about peace. The meetings contribute to strengthening your confidence in peacebuilding and enable you to become active.

Sharpen your awareness of your own peacebuilding capabilities!

Taking the example from above: How do you behave in debates about the events happening in Israel and Palestine? Are you willing to hear all sides? Challenge yourself and others with the question what you would do if you were there. That might bring you new insights. In heated discussions remind yourself to apply critical thinking. Allow people to tell their story and why they have come to the opinion that they have. How does the fact that you are not physically engaged in a conflict contribute to the way you see the world?

Peacebuilding means staying in difficult conversations, having the courage to speak up and asking for room to be heard and hear others. This involves being aware of what influences your thinking and behaviour and to consciously use peacebuilding practices like grieving together, restoring trust and reconciliation. Peace grows organically, slowly, and needs to be practiced and planted.

Empowering a Community of Peacebuilders

We need to invest as many resources in peacebuilding as we are investing in building up security and defence systems. We need at least as many peacebuilders as soldiers.

For me, the GDC peacebuilding dialogues are about developing a global mindset that you carry into your local work. It is about knowing that there are people out there that want to contribute. People who keep talking, stay in dialogue and act as they can.