{"id":65957,"date":"2021-07-23T11:00:48","date_gmt":"2021-07-23T01:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=65957"},"modified":"2021-07-23T11:00:48","modified_gmt":"2021-07-23T01:00:48","slug":"peacemaking-after-the-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/peacemaking-after-the-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"Peacemaking after the pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

In Paradise Lost<\/em>, the English poet John Milton encapsulates a fundamental truth about the struggle to end a violent conflict and establish a sustainable peace:<\/p>\n

Who overcomes by force,<\/p>\n

Hath overcome but half his foe.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This insight was crucial to my own understanding of how to chart a way to end<\/a> Colombia\u2019s long and costly civil war, and it is acutely relevant to our shared global challenges today.<\/p>\n

To build peace, leaders need to foster hope and anchor policies in empathy, solidarity and a long-term vision of the common good. This is precisely the approach we must take now to overcome the Covid-19 pandemic and build a more resilient world that can better withstand shocks and crises.<\/p>\n

Humanity\u2019s collective experience of Covid-19 has reminded us all how precious, fragile and intertwined life can be. Each person\u2019s existence on this planet is inextricably connected with that of our brothers, sisters and neighbours, as well as with our forebears and unborn generations. As we begin to map a post-pandemic recovery, recognising our shared destiny makes it critical that we draw inspiration from the legacy of previous successful leaders.<\/p>\n

In this regard, there\u2019s no better model than Nelson Mandela, a man of infinite courage and determination who defied a particularly evil system of racial oppression and became the greatest peacemaker of his generation. Mandela endured nearly three decades of imprisonment, led his people to freedom and built a resilient, multiracial democracy in South Africa that endures to this day.<\/p>\n

Mandela\u2019s abiding humility and his iron faith in democracy helped lay the foundations of modern South Africa. These qualities also resonated globally, because Mandela always placed the African National Congress\u2019s liberation struggle in the context of the wider international fight against colonialism, racism and discrimination.<\/p>\n

This affirmation of our common humanity lay at the heart of Mandela\u2019s decision to found The Elders, the group of independent global leaders of which I\u2019m a member. In his speech<\/a> at the organisation\u2019s launch in Johannesburg in July 2007, Mandela charged the group with a specific mandate: \u2018Support courage where there is fear, foster agreement where there is conflict, and inspire hope where there is despair.\u2019<\/p>\n

Today more than ever, we must recommit to this approach in the face of the pandemic, as well as even greater existential threats such as climate change and nuclear weapons. We urgently need an explicit recognition by global leaders that solidarity matters, and that they must act decisively to defend and rejuvenate multilateralism.<\/p>\n

This ambition and sense of hope is essential. One sobering example of its absence is the underwhelming collective reaction to the March 2020 call<\/a> by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres<\/a> for a \u2018global ceasefire\u2019 in response to Covid-19. True, Guterres\u2019s appeal was compelling, and the UN estimated<\/a> that warring parties in 11 countries\u00a0had heeded it by early April last year. But the UN Security Council took more than three months to pass a resolution endorsing it. And too many conflicts continued unabated throughout 2020 and still rage today.<\/p>\n

The toll on human life<\/a>, particularly among unarmed civilians, has been devastating. By mid-2020, violent conflicts had contributed to a rise in the number of forcibly displaced people, to nearly 80 million. And by the end of the year, almost 100 million people faced severe food insecurity as a result of conflict\u2014up from 77 million in 2019.<\/p>\n

This is a damning indictment of collective failure, especially by the Security Council\u2019s five permanent members. But we must understand the council\u2019s near-paralysis in the wider context of the many global leadership failures laid bare by Covid-19. These include insufficient coordination and information-sharing to contain the pandemic, inadequate collaboration\u00a0by the G20\u00a0to\u00a0protect the global economy, a dearth of financial assistance to\u00a0support the global south, and the moral catastrophe of \u2018vaccine apartheid\u2019.<\/p>\n

Contemplating this litany of challenges and disappointments, it\u2019s easy to be overwhelmed by pessimism. But resigning ourselves to failure is not only an indulgence of the world\u2019s privileged, who do not have to endure the pain and loss of war, but also a betrayal of its victims. Hope persists, and so must our determination.<\/p>\n

As for me, I\u2019m hopeful and determined that we will recover from the pandemic in a way that affirms the words<\/a> of my compatriot, the great writer and Nobel laureate Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez: \u2018Neither floods nor plagues, famines nor cataclysms, nor even the eternal wars of century upon century, have been able to subdue the persistent advantage of life over death.\u2019 In that spirit, we must then get on with the life-affirming task of building peace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Paradise Lost, the English poet John Milton encapsulates a fundamental truth about the struggle to end a violent conflict and establish a sustainable peace: Who overcomes by force, Hath overcome but half his foe. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1393,"featured_media":65960,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2658,467,149],"class_list":["post-65957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-coronavirus","tag-multilateralism","tag-united-nations-security-council"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nPeacemaking after the pandemic | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/peacemaking-after-the-pandemic\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Peacemaking after the pandemic | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In Paradise Lost, the English poet John Milton encapsulates a fundamental truth about the struggle to end a violent conflict and establish a sustainable peace: Who overcomes by force, Hath overcome but half his foe. ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/peacemaking-after-the-pandemic\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ASPI.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-07-23T01:00:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/GettyImages-1228201008.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"682\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Juan Manuel Santos\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Juan Manuel Santos\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/\",\"name\":\"The Strategist\",\"description\":\"ASPI's analysis and commentary site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/peacemaking-after-the-pandemic\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/GettyImages-1228201008.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/GettyImages-1228201008.jpg\",\"width\":1024,\"height\":682,\"caption\":\"A man holds a flower and a flag reading \\\"Peace\\\" during the funeral of Heine Collazos and Esneider Collazos, two of the six men massacred by alleged members of an armed group on August 21 in the rural area of El Tambo, on August 25, 2020, in Popayan, Cauca Department, Colombia. - Massacres have returned to the countryside in Colombia, where groups financed by drug trafficking killed 36 people in the last days, after the relief brought by the 2016 peace pact with the ex-guerrilla FARC, also a target of violence. 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