Press room

By Germán Sierra. Can civil society change the course of conflicts? What should the level of commitment be in light of massacres or international silences? How to act in a violent confrontation without resorting to violence? These were some of the questions that the participants tried to answer at the “Civil Participation in Conflict Transformation” symposium, an open arena for debate in which representatives from a number of Catalan mediation-related organisations spoke of their experience and work. On the basis of “neutrality”, a member of the Peace Brigades International defended non-intervention in exchange for visibility: “we physically and politically accompany those under threat in places such as Mexico and Nepal as though we were international eyes”. Lucia Oltra, of the Movement for Peace, highlighted the importance of the constancy and determination of civil society to change legislative scenarios: “we must never lose heart because even though it may take years, in the end civil society obliges governments to legislate”, and she quoted the Oslo and Ottawa treaties against cluster bombs and anti-personnel mines as examples of the victory of civil society.

And if it is a question of mobilising for peace and against war, what better than to do it against the undecided and not against those who are convinced. That is the principal thesis put forward by Jordi Armadans, of the Foundation for Peace. “The militarist virus is very widespread,” he claimed. “And we have to undermine some of the traditional values from the institutions.” Martí Olivella, Director of NoVA and presently a promoter of Catalan Civil Service for Peace, also spoke of perseverance, speaking against the current management of aid to NGOs and calling for a change of model to streamline processes, with which all the speakers were in agreement.

A website as meeting point for conflictologists and a journal to combine theory and practice

A number of projects created at the UOC were also presented. Subject tutor at the university, Roberto Luna outlined the founding principles of the International Association of Conflictologists, a new global organisation using 2.0 tools that seeks to collate knowledge and carry out actions by creating synergies between conflictologists and students in the subject from all over the planet. The future model of Conflictology was also debated, a specialist journal that published its first issue in September. Members of the editorial committee stated that there would be room in the publication for teachers and also for the best work by students on the Master’s course. “We will try to give a voice to the works with a more practical slant and to create a close relationship between the Master’s course and the journal,” explained Ian Macduff, lecturer at the Singapore Management University and editor of the journal. They also announced that they would try to turn their present six-monthly publication into bimonthly or quarterly.

Platforms for peace and mediation

The conference also enabled two working groups on police and mediation and peace culture to meet to debate and put forward their conclusions, an experience that Vinyamata described as “highly fruitful, with more participation, more agents involved and more defined conclusions than in previous years”. These included that the police should mediate increasingly more because the concept of force is out of date and inefficient. With regard to the peace charter, the importance of a good historical narrative to bring identities closer and not drive them apart was discussed.

Image as weapon of peace

One of the most animated debates during the conference took place after the screening of a number of excerpts from La vida bajo las bombas [Life Under the Bombs], a documentary filmed during the 2006 Lebanon War. Its director, Flavio Signore, and the UOC Head of Communication, Eric Hauck, considered the role of the reporter in armed conflicts. Signore, who labels himself a peace reporter in times of war, defended the idea of the militant reporter, who not only records what they see but denounces it and actively collaborates in raising social awareness against war. Both called for viewers to be alert and vigilant to the trivialisation of violence. TV viewers have to realise “that they are being sold Barça’s win one minute after being shown images of war.”

Courses in conflictology for the first time in English

The two days of the conference were also used to present the Master’s courses in conflictology offered by the UOC, with a few new features, such as the launch of the Master’s in Conflictology in English, which features the work of teachers from a number of countries, half of whom attended the sessions and valued highly the progressive nature of the online range of courses that the university has designed and the importance, due to its multidisciplinary nature, of having specialists from different fields and cultures. The programme’s coordinator, Nicole Jenne, highlighted the good pace of enrolments for the English version and the variety of origins of the students. For her part, Marta Burguet, the academic coordinator of the courses in Spanish and Catalan, stressed both the theoretical and the practical orientation of the subjects, stating that “the aim is to propose projects with a real application and to acquire intervention skills in personal or social crises because conflict occurs in every environment.”