The end of the cold war has confronted the world community with a new challenge: with the global system no longer divided by a cataclysmic rift, how can the society of nations work together to end the countless localized conflicts that beset the world? It is doubtless a step forward that the international community has proved itself ready to bring warring parties --for example in Bosnia-- to the negotiating table. Whereas the polarized global environment of the cold war often inflamed local antagonisms, in the present more harmonious circumstances international influence is more likely to press toward a resolution of conflict. But the work of international diplomats, though positive, is inadequate to the task at hand. The work of creating a world at peace must proceed at other levels as well. Consider a spectrum of human interactions, from the least humane to the most. War, clearly, is the least humane: the organized destruction of one's fellow human beings to achieve gains for one's own group epitomizes the dark side of our species' history. Diplomacy has long been identified as the more humane alternative to war: in Churchill's phrase, better to jaw-jaw than to war-war. But it is important that we recognize that diplomacy is not the other end of the spectrum, that while the negotiating table is an improvement over the battlefield, it also leaves important human work undone. Diplomacy represents a formalized and legalistic approach to inter-group relations. Out of many centuries of chronic intersocietal strife, the nations of the world developed methods of dealing with one another across the abyss of fear and suspicion that obtains in the anarchic international system. In this respect, the development of the system of diplomacy --careful speech, inviolate embassies, binding treaties, etc.-- is a great achievement. But peace treaties alone cannot give us a world at peace. One lesson from the bloodshed attendant upon the break-up of the former Yugoslavia is that the historical animosities between people do not disappear just because the shooting stops and agreements are reached. Of all the most distressing aspects of the war among the Yugoslavian peoples, one of the most disturbing is that they had lived in apparent harmony for almost half a century. The Croats and Serbs and Muslims were neighbors. They intermarried. They were at peace, as we generally understand the term. (So also with the Hutus and Tutsis of Rwanda.) But with a shift of circumstances, with a new set of stresses, this peace could evaporate almost overnight. Neighbor murdered and raped neighbor. Suddenly, it was "Us" against "Them" again. Long memories of ancient wrongs erupted to the surface. These were not only living memories (e.g. from World War II), but also grievances, handed down through generations, from battles fought centuries ago, along with ancient claims growing out of them. This demonstrates that real peace is a good deal more than the absence of war, that the end of animosities requires far more than the "cessation of hostilities" that is the fruit of successful diplomacy. Diplomacy can sometimes put out the fire. But it is essentially powerless to remove the accumulated debris of historical grievance that new sparks can ignite into the next conflagration. If real peace is to be achieved --not just one where ancient tribal feuds are held momentarily in check-- the world must learn how to take the next step in peace-making, to go beyond diplomacy to create new approaches that can touch and heal the wounds of the human heart. Is there any way available to help resolve the emotional legacy of our fearsome history? Perhaps. There are therapeutic approaches to family conflicts, and there are people who have begun adapting them to the wider conflicts in the family of man. Groups of Israelis and Palestinians, of Irish Catholics and Protestants, have been brought together to work through together their bitter feelings. With expert facilitation, people have been helped to express and to start letting go of their sense of victimhood, to recognize the humanity and legitimate claims of their historical enemies, to move beyond antagonism. Does this approach work reliably? No, but diplomacy doesn't always succeed either. And if the techniques of diplomacy took centuries to develop, it is not reasonable to expect that the arts and sciences of deeper peacemaking will emerge fully formed at the outset. All cultural developments must begin somewhere. Is there not a disjunction between the fact that the therapeutic process involves at most small groups while collective antagonisms operate within entire peoples? This problem can be overcome by having the interaction of small groups televised to wide audiences. Just as a whole country can be moved by a program like "Roots," so might the relations among peoples be moved forward by the identification by many viewers with the experiences of a comparatively few participants. Where does the international community fit in? At present, these efforts to heal group relations --unlike diplomatic negotiations-- do not occur under official auspices. But just as the international community can pressure warring parties to accept maps apportioning territories, so also could it require as part of a settlement the participation in and broadcast of an ongoing series of sessions for the still deeper and longer-term work of peacemaking. Just as a "contact group" can provide a forum and facilitators for negotiation, so could the world community create the situation and supply the personnel for dealing with festering resentments and guilts. The anarchy of the intersocietal system condemned humankind to millennia of chronic war, and this recurrent trauma has left many of our peoples deeply scarred. Now that there is the possibility of overcoming that anarchy through the action of a more coherent international community, it begins to be possible to start unwinding our twisted history. Unless we work to heal the legacy of our tormented past, we will not be able to create a future of genuine peace.

Andrew Bard Schmookler's The Parable of the Tribes:

The Problem of Power in Social Evolution will be coming out in its second, updated edition early next year. ??