A Peace Architecture in a Post Pandemic World

Dear friends;

The suffering of a pandemic builds over months, climate degradation over years and decades, a nuclear war in minutes.  A higher consciousness is needed to survive.

In these difficult times of a pandemic we desperately need a future of resiliency, kindness and the ethic of care.  We realize that a global future will need vision, leadership and support to be successful.  We need innovative and visionary thinking.  We need a renaissance in the ethic of care for each other.

From crisis, possibilities emerge, that may build a new more enlightened consciousness.  A peaceful global community, living good peace practices, and expressing the values of non violence and the care of others, can collectively weather any pandemic, or climate disaster, depression, or conflict, and emerge with the best possible outcomes. In this regard we offer a highly  practical peace architecture, from which choices can be made,

Peace Support Structure

Being an effective citizen for peace, a peace practitioner, or a peace professional is strengthened by having a strong support structure, which in an ideal sense may consist of:

• A National Peace Center,
• A National Action Plan for Peace,
• Trained Peace Professionals and Training staffs,
• Local Community Peace Centers, committees or offices,
• Community Action Plans for Peace.
• Trained and available Peace Practitioners in communities;
• National and Community Outreach Peace Programs and Projects;
• Ultimately, a community of peace educated and engaged citizens.

Basic Peace Practices Competencies.

Core peace practices necessary for everyone should include:

Peace Within – Strengthening the self

• Basic Peace Theory
• Intention and commitment
• Purpose and meaning
• Inner practice and well-being
• Resiliency and facing suffering

Peace Between – Engaging others

• Non-violent and peace centered communication,
• Building Integrity
• Facing wrongdoing
• Basic conflict resolution
• Promoting human values
• Social Responsibility
• Nonviolent Social action
• Facing extremism
• Gender Equality.

Peace Practitioner Competencies

Structure

• Basic Peace Practices Competencies
• Peace Practitioner Roles and Responsibilities
• Community Centers for Peace
• Community Action Plan for Peace

Community Outreach and Support

• Peace Education and Training,
• Social dialogue and Building wellness
• Mentoring, Accompaniment, Coaching
• Communities of Compassion Program
• Community Empowerment activity
• Community Ethics Awareness
• Building Resiliency and Facing Trauma
• Peace Building, Peace Making, Peace Keeping
• Basic Conflict resolution, Reconciliation, Closure.
• Social action and non-violent activism

Peace Professional Competencies

Structure

• Peace Practitioner Competencies.
• Peace Professional Roles and Responsibilities
• Building Peace Institutions
• National Action Plan for Peace

Services and Support

• National and Community Peace outreach and programs,
• National Ethics and disclosure protection Program
• Peace Practitioners training, mentoring, and support
• Conflict resolution, reconciliation, and closure services
• Research, risk monitoring, advisory services to governance
• International and Domestic Peace Operations and Support

The architecture above comes with guidance and education material, training, coaching, accompaniment and implement support, all mostly freely given.  But in the end, it is only you who make the difference.

In peace

paul

Prepared by Paul Maillet, Canada

Paul Maillet Center for Ethics and Peace Services

Accredited Peace Professional . Civilian Peace Services Canada (CPSC)

Contact pmaillet@magma.ca  Tel 1 613 866 2503

2020 COVID and the Question of the Role of religious leaders

Dear friends I attended a discussion by religious leaders on COVID.  My notes and remarks included:

COVID is what it is, and we will learn about causes as time passes.  The role of religious leaders is obviously comfort for now, and of helping people on their spiritual journeys.  My question is about the role of such leaders in recovery, the different normal of the future, and the bigger context.

We will transition from coping behaviours to adaptive behaviours.  Can we keep the good and change the destructive behaviours we have?  We face the wider dangers of pandemics, climate degradation and war and risk of nuclear war.  This will be as bad but probably worse.  To survive we need to change attitudes about inequalities, violence, human rights.  We need to think about what it means to be human in these times and the future, a future of resiliency, kindness and the ethic of care.

Easy to feel something, easy to say something, but doing something is what is necessary, and to not refuse to do what one can.  Your comment on concrete action please.

My hoped-for response:  Religion has to share, to give and give more.  Spiritually, personally, financially and materially.  Sell the treasure (for example, the Vatican) give and give, show the way.  The magic solution “Acts of kindness above all”.

Who knows where this will go.

paul

2020 Global Re-think for a better world

Dear friends

Our contribution to this initiative.

It is past time in the COVID 19 pandemic to consider what kind of recovery we want and what new consciousness should emerge for humanity to flourish.  It is time to face squarely all the dangers that we and the next generation face and begin making the changes that are long overdue.

The main existential challenges facing humanity during this generation are:

• Pandemics
• Climate change
• Conflict and war.   

The suffering of a pandemic builds over months, climate degradation over years and decades, a nuclear war in minutes.    The dangers of pandemics, climate change, and conflict are all inextricably entangled.   A new normal, a new consciousness is necessary for humanity to survive.

The pandemic outcomes we are experiencing are massive death and suffering, massive national debt, job losses, economic collapse, poverty, severe stress on health care systems, and future mental health problems.   Worse in upcoming climate disasters or world war.

We have seen the emerging edge of climate change, floods, forest fires, increasing temperatures.

We see that conflict and the militarization of the planet is out of control, especially defence spending, and nuclear and conventional weapons proliferation.

For a better world.   Change is a constant.  Normality will change.  The pandemic shows the possibilities of a cleaner environment, more attention to health, social interaction changes, telework, online meetings and connections, less travel, guaranteed income, possibly less global tourism, pressure to reduce defence spending, less fossil fuel use, and perhaps more attention to spirituality and relationships with each other.  Facing the challenges means a vision of outcomes that reflect positive peace:

• the well-being of humanity and all living beings;
• the conservation and protection of the natural environment; and
• an improved harmonious and peaceful global co-existence

Everyone has a part in this, building peace, caring for others and respecting the environment.  This means a change in human consciousness and behaviours. A new consciousness of peace practices, of personal health practices, and of environmental protection practices.  A new age of human flourishing is possible from the ashes of these dangers.

6 May 2020  Version 2.  Prepared by Paul Maillet

Co-chair – Sri Lanka International Peace Center Project Canadian Advisory Committee

Email pmaillet@magma.ca  Tel 1 613 866 2503

DND and Pandemics, Conflict, Climate Change 2020

27 April 2020

 An open letter to Conference of Defence Association (CDA).

It is past time for visionary military and military industry thinkers to step up, and face the future with some clear unconditioned thinking and ideas.    For ours and the next generation, it is not hard to imagine the three major global dangers we face; pandemics, climate change and conflict.    In the current COVID crisis, the effects will be historic; from health, social, economic, to political.  The recoveries will be global.  The suffering of a pandemic builds over months, climate degradation over years, a nuclear war in minutes.  We need to think about this holistically.

As CNN’s Fareed Zakaria and the Economist write, this (COVID) comes at a price: “Public borrowing in the rich world is set to soar to levels last seen amid the rubble and smoke of 1945 … Across the rich world, the IMF says gross government debt will rise by $6trn, to $66trn at the end of this year, or from 105% of GDP to 122%….  If the lockdowns last longer, the load will be greater.”  There’s no guarantee the world will succeed at paying it off (in decades?) —and the specter of austerity, and its political backlash, loom large just a few years after post-2008 belt-tightening caused massive disruptions in Europe..

 From the perspective of National Defence in Canada, the COVID virus has involved only a low level of   “aid to the civil power”  operations in support  of health and political authorities. There is an uncertain impact on readiness, as the virus infects soldiers, and budgets tighten to service growing national debt.  The global humanitarian outcomes to COVID may place a yet to be defined demand for our military capacities.

So whither national Defence and our military industrial base in all this?  What are the right questions we must ask ourselves, in the face of this catastrophic debt and health crisis?   From a military perspective, deep and historic thinking must go to the heart of our relationship with war, conflict, military purpose, in the reality of the world we face now and the future.   Even insurgents and civil wars will face health crises, and their ability to conduct operations will face supply chain problems.

What does the military do when we face a climate level “existential event”?    What about collateral major events, like the collapse of the demand for oil? 

 What about the probable collapse of military budgets?  What about a collapse in demand for both small arms and expensive weapons systems from industry?  What about the sheer unaffordability of a big power arms race in these times?

Will we see the decline or increase in the current armed conflicts in the world?
Will we see an increase or decline in big power military rivalries?   Will there be increasing pressure for peace and disaster operations?

Is the spending on big ticket weapons systems and cold war force structures, becoming just dead money, a thing of the past in face of skyrocketing debt and health crisis?

This is not just an interesting thought experiment, but something we are facing the edges of now.  The failure to come to terms with our rapidly changing geopolitical, climate and health realities can only lead to catastrophe.  Military overstretch in times of economic overstretch is a recipe for collapse no matter how you look at it.

This will take courage and a will to innovative military leadership and risk taking, to see us into a better future.   The dog you get is the dog you feed.  It is time to feed peace operations big time, and less the dog of increasing global militarization.

This may mean rethinking force structure and military industrial levels dramatically.  This means a need for rebalancing and shifting our defence priorities.  Economic collapse and pandemics and climate disasters will spur unrest and suffering on a scale we are only beginning to see.

The future is a range of possibilities, unfortunately warped by bias and the conditioning of the past.  The challenge will be to make free and unconditioned choices that will give us a chance at a survival, if not a better and more peaceful world.

Perhaps this means we must consider and prepare for peace and stability operations and “aid to civil power” operations like never before.

Perhaps we need to face and reject the unfortunate military pitfall of fighting the last “successful” war.  We need to reject the mindset that has us on a trajectory to a renewed cold war, with huge force structures and bigger demands on scarce economic resources.

Perhaps at the force structure level, we need to be bold and permanently re-role, re-equip and train dedicated brigades, air and naval assets to peace operations, disaster response, humanitarian aid.  For this, the money should flow and with the support and gratitude of Canadians.

Perhaps at the military industrial level, we need to rethink, retool and reconsider product and service delivery capacities and support, that will contribute to peace operations, disaster response, humanitarian aid.  For this, the money should flow and with the support and gratitude of Canadians.

The choices are quite clear.  We adapt, we contribute, or become victims, and the former “decade of darkness” will look like a walk in the park compared to what is coming.    Are we ready for serious debt pressure on defence spending?  It is coming.

Paul Maillet

Colonel retired