Conflict Resolution Begins at Home

Jan 15, 2004, 12.00am IST


If one were to explore the philosophical basis of normative ethics to examine where terrorism falls on the moral spectrum, it will become evident that terrorism, sabotage and guerilla tactics are all acts of violence , essentially no different from overt war in the conventional sense.

Terrorist attacks amount to war by stealth, shadowy figures replacing uniformed combatants, attacking innocents to send a message to the real targets who are out of reach.

All acts of violence spring from fear, uncertainty and hate, as well as a total disregard for the lives of fellow human beings. The end is all-important and the means do not matter to the frenzied violators.

A cause is invoked in the name of a group, sect or territory. The starting point, however, is often an individual going berserk, resolute in his own self- indulgent eyes but losing touch with reality.

A qualitative transformation must, therefore, begin from within, where the conflict originates. According to a Sufi saying, the peacemaker must first make peace with himself before trying to make peace in the world.

The Bhagavad Gita teaches self-restraint, fortitude, truthfulness and faith as essential attributes of character.

Patanjali describes restraint as "the accommodation of the senses to the state of the mind" and avers that there is no inimical feeling in a Yogi who has attained the cultivated enlightenment of the soul, in whom harmlessness and kindliness are fully developed.

Swami Vivekananda said: "This life is short, the vanities of the world are transient, but they alone live who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive... Love never fails; today or tomorrow or ages after, truth will triumph.

Love your fellow human beings. Do not care for doctrines, do not care for dogmas, or sects. They count for little compared to the essence of existence in each man, which is spirituality."

The essence of the Gita, according to Swami Vivekananda, lies in these words of Krishna: "He who sees the Supreme Lord dwelling alike in all beings, the Imperishable in things that perish, he sees indeed. For seeing the Lord as the same, everywhere present, he does not destroy the Self by the Self, and thus he goes to the highest goal."

All evil comes from ignorance and all good from faith in equality, in the underlying sameness and oneness of things.

Hobbes said: "War consists not in battle only or in the act of fighting, but in the will to fight, the attitude of hostility." The so-called peace treaties do not make peace unless they are backed by honest intentions.

Peace does not require men to become angels or saints and live together in perfect brotherly love which is all too much to expect. Peace is that state of affairs in which men can settle their differences by talking to each other instead of using force.

Kant declared: "The morally practical reason utters within us its irrevocable veto: There shall be no war".

Violence as a means to achieve ends is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. An "eye for an eye" will leave everybody blind, said Mahatma Gandhi.

The concept is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than understand and thrives on hatred rather than love.

It creates bitterness in survivors and brutality in the destroyers. Ultimately, you can't reach good ends through evil means, because the means represent the seed and the end represents the tree. There is no such thing as a ‘just' war.

M N Chatterjee