Building peace in a world of war

Sixty years after Pacem in terris, the voice of the Pope speaks again against all wars, with major insistence on the war in Ukraine. A war between brothers, involving peoples that have in common both the early days of their Christian baptism in the Dnieper river, and the contemporary experience of mixed families, or families living across boundaries now impassable. A war within geographical Europe, and part of that “third world war in pieces” pope Francis has been recalling since 2014 (Francis, Homily at Military memorial in Redipuglia, 2014).

Wars hardly make sense: with a war, nobody wins. But the mystery of evil, mysterium iniquitatis, is present in our lives: the roots of war are deep in human experience, despite human hearts call for love, beauty, truth, justice. “A monumental struggle against the powers of darkness pervades the whole history of man” (Gaudium et spes, 1965, 37). “Every war leaves our world worse than it was before. War is a failure of politics and of humanity, a shameful capitulation, a stinging defeat before the forces of evil” (Fratelli tutti, 2020, 261).

Against war

Pope Francis’ book “Against war. Building a culture of peace”, published in 2022, collects papal speeches and writing calling for peace in concrete forms, from denuclearization (Francis, Message on nuclear weapons, Nagasaki, 2019) to stopping the trade in weapons (Fratelli tutti, 262). The sub-title of the English edition speaks of building a culture of peace; the sub-title of the Italian edition speaks of the courage to build peace. Culture and courage: a call to convert both thinking and acting towards peace.

To many contemporaries, the Pope’s message against war appears both obvious (what else would you expect from a Pope?) and irrelevant, and is quickly dismissed as unrealistic or utopian. This attitude seems to me too cheap, that should be challenged on the basis of sound, robust reasons. Europe is a continent that experienced centuries of war among brothers, and also unprecedented events of peaceful transformation, from the European Coal and Steal Community in 1951 in Western Europe, to the virtually bloodless political transformation after 1989 in Eastern Europe.

Today, can we say “no” to war in Europe? and how to build peace?

Unrealistic, utopian message? A reality check

“No to war” has a long historical record in Popes’ messages (Against war, 2022, final chapter by Andrea Tornielli). Just some highlights: in 1848, Pius IX refused to send soldiers of the State of the Church in the war against another Christian people, Austria; he superseded temporal considerations because the Pope is the “father of all faithful”.

In 1917, Benedict XV’s Letter to the leaders of the belligerant peoples (Ai capi dei popoli belligeranti) declared the war a “useless slaughter” and spelled out “concrete and practical proposals […] which appear to be the cornerstones of a just and lasting peace”. Among the proposals, we find the condonation of war damages: “As for war damages and expenses, we see no other way out than in the general rule of a complete and reciprocal condonation, justified moreover by the immense benefits of disarmament”. The Pope’s invitation to peace was not accepted; in the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 the Allied powers actually did the opposite, imposing heavy reparations on the succumbing Central powers, at a loss for everybody, as that decision paved the way for the second world conflict.

John Maynard Keynes, in 1919, wrote The Economic Consequences of the Peace arguing for a much more generous attitude, on the basis of very pragmatic economic considerations. His position shaped the Allies’ attitude in the second post-war: condonation, plus support for reconstruction also extended to former enemies. This clearly made the difference between the two post-war periods: nationalisms and depression after the first world war, versus openness and growth after the second.

Realism, after all, seems to sit more on the side of those who call for peace, rather than being the prerogative of those that negotiate on the basis of power considerations.

There is another line of possible reality check, that I will not expand here, but leave to the reader’s judgement: did the XXI century military interventions, including those with humanitarian, defensive or precautionary ‘justifications’, actually accomplish their goals?

The Church’s “no to war” is not so unrealistic, after all.

Just war and legitimate defence

Fratelli tutti 258 maintains that “it is very difficult nowadays to invoke the rational criteria elaborated in earlier centuries to speak of the possibility of a ‘just war’ ”. The statement obviously does not amount to equidistance between the parts involved in the Ukrainian war, as the Pope explicitly acknowledged that there is an aggressor and an invaded country, which is the immediate victim of the war. Fratelli tutti affirms “the possibility of legitimate defence by means of military force, which involves demonstrating that certain rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy have been met”. But the conclusion remains: “Never again war!” (ibidem).

One serious reason for saying no to war is the “uncontrollable destructive power over great numbers of innocent civilians”. Back in 1965, Don Lorenzo Milani’s Letter to the Judges, written as self-defense for supporting conscientious objection to military service, refers to a paper by Nobel Prize Max Born («Bullettin of the Atomic Scientists», April 1964) and writes: “in World War I the dead were 5% civilians 95% military (it could still be argued that civilians died ‘incidentally’). In the second 48% civilians 52% military (it could no longer be argued that civilians had died ‘incidentally’). In the Korean one 84% civilians 16% military (it could now be argued that the military died ‘incidentally’)”. In contemporary conflicts, not only in Ukraine, conducting war seems to coincide with directly aiming at making life impossible for civilians. Not to speak of possible escalation involving the use of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction; pope Francis has repeatedly called for denuclearization (with unforgettable speeches in Japan – Nagasaki and Hiroshima, 24 November 2019), and the Holy See signed and ratified the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) during the 20 September 2017 signing ceremony (The International Day For The Total Elimination Of Nuclear Weapons).

War and the “fading of faces”

In the Introduction of Against war, pope Francis recalls an expression of Venerable don Tonino Bello: conflicts and wars find their roots in “the fading of faces”. That is: the macro phenomenon of war is one with dismissing the micro experience of looking into the eyes of the other.

As a micro implication, “Let us not remain mired in theoretical discussions, but touch the wounded flesh of the victims. Let us look once more at all those civilians whose killing was considered “collateral damage”. Let us ask the victims themselves. … Look at reality through their eyes, and listen with an open heart to the stories they tell. In this way, we will be able to grasp the abyss of evil at the heart of war. Nor will it trouble us to be deemed naive for choosing peace” (Fratelli tutti, 261).

Touching the flesh of the victims is about converting at the same time hearts and minds; it is about the courage and the culture of peace even in times of war.

The macro implication about peace building is very similar: “Beginning with the least. Building social friendship does not only call for rapprochement between groups who took different sides at some troubled period of history, but also for a renewed encounter with the most impoverished and vulnerable sectors of society. For peace is not merely absence of war but a tireless commitment – especially on the part of those of us charged with greater responsibility – to recognize, protect and concretely restore the dignity, so often overlooked or ignored, of our brothers and sisters, so that they can see themselves as the principal protagonists of the destiny of their nation”(Fratelli tutti, 233).

Peace agreements negotiated at top levels should never be detached from active recognition of the human dignity of concrete persons, especially of the most vulnerable.

The flesh of the victims in the Russian-Ukrainian war

We are overwhelmed by grief in learning about the many victims, military and civilians, in Ukraine, including children and elderly persons; about mass graves and all sort of atrocities; homes and civil infrastructures destroyed, making life so difficult for survivors; devastation of farming land and crops; millions of internally displaced persons and refugees/asylum seekers. There are also victims in Russia: young and unexperienced soldiers, and mercenaries – often cynically recruited among prisoners; political opponents and “foreign agents” incarcerated. And, last but not least, there are victims out of global interdependence, as the Russian-Ukrainian conflict provided shocks in food prices, in food availability, in fertilizers and energy prices.

One overall feature emerges from the multifaceted world of victims: the most severely affected are the poor, the most vulnerable. Refugee women at risk of human trafficking; food insecure people; smallholders facing prohibitive costs for seeds and fertilizers; vulnerable households facing higher prices for basic goods such as food and energy. A small but telling example of the poor being a victim: in Russia, drafting for the army mostly occurred in low income regions and in smaller cities, where population has little voice and virtually no alternatives (Where are Russia’s newest soldiers coming from?, «The Economist», 21st Oct. 2022).

Touching the flesh of the victims reminds us that no victim is simply a number in the overall count: each victim has a face, relatives and friends; their flesh is the visible sign of their being imago Dei. The non-material damages of war go deep into human hearts, and leave deep scars in future human coexistence.

Peace as a dynamic process

As in Fratelli tutti 233, the Catholic social tradition teaches that peace is more that the absence of active fighting (not to deny that a cease fire is the necessary first step in the path of peace). Achieving victory, or success at the negotiating table, does not amount to achieving peace; peace is not the status where one can accommodate, to be “left in peace” at a safe distance from others. Building peace is a permanent process, committed to recognizing, protecting and restoring human dignity of all, with courage and endurance.

Indeed, “Time is greater than space. […] This principle enables us to work slowly but surely, without being obsessed with immediate results. It helps us patiently to endure difficult and adverse situations […] We need […] to give priority to actions which generate new processes in society and engage other persons and groups who can develop them to the point where they bear fruit in significant historical events” (Evangelii gaudium, 2013, 222 -223)

Peace as a common good

Peace is the path towards the common good – of each and every person, of peoples and nations. The rights of nations (see Address to the fiftieth general assembly of the United Nations Organization, 1995) and human rights go hand in hand in the Catholic social tradition. Both are rooted in human dignity, since the right to life implies the right to participate in community life. In other words, the right of each person to contribute to the economic, social and political life of a nation is at the same time expression of human dignity, and foundational component of the rights of nations. No micro-macro dichotomy, once again: this is key in building a culture of peace, by restoring the victims’ dignity, and by making them “the principal protagonists of the destiny of their nation” (Fratelli tutti, 261 and 233).

“If we accept the great principle that there are rights born of our inalienable human dignity, we can rise to the challenge of envisaging a new humanity. We can aspire to a world that provides land, housing and work for all. This is the true path of peace, not the senseless and myopic strategy of sowing fear and mistrust in the face of outside threats. For a real and lasting peace will only be possible on the basis of a global ethic of solidarity and cooperation in the service of a future shaped by interdependence and shared responsibility in the whole human family” (Fratelli tutti, 127).

Peace building: the perspective of the international community

Creating the conditions for a positive peace is a complex process, as the international community has learned from peace building and peacekeeping practices, and their failures. The UN 2005 Brahimi Report on Peacekeeping offers detailed suggestion that can be summarized as follow: it is essential to work at the educational level for eradicating mistrust and forging a culture of mutual respect, so “to reassemble the foundations of peace, and provide the tools for building on those foundations something that is more than just the absence of war”.

In our connected, interdependent world, education is key to overcome ideological interpretations of reality and sectarian historical narratives; to oppose new, sophisticated forms of ‘alternative facts’ that easily thrive within disconnected echo-chambers; to contrast hate-speech, polarizing perspectives, and systematic denigration of the ‘others’ that can justify conflict and violence. These negative trends cannot be contrasted with repressive tools, while education allows for bottom-up transformation, by openly engaging with reality, including other cultures.

“Disarmed” encounter seems particularly urgent in the war now raging in Europe, where verbal escalation has preceded military escalation, and military escalation has prompted new waves of violent linguistic reactions on both sides. This escalation can only be defused by introducing a positive language of peace, and by a purified, evidence-based, humble narrative of historical events free from prejudice, attentive to the victims’ perspective, capable of self-questioning and of empathic listening.

Pacification is possible, but quite demanding

Pacification walks with the legs of actual people, on a narrow and risky path – almost knife-edge path. For opening to the other as a “disarmed” partner, one needs to trust the possibility that there still are “reserves of goodness present in human hearts” (Fratelli tutti, 196). Conflict is often rooted in very different visions and interests, and these differences need to be spelled out, assuming that each partner values what the other has to say, expecting the other to value what one says. This two-way communication presupposes the reciprocal recognition of a common experience of humanity.

Is this recognition unrealistic, or utopian? No, but it surely is very challenging and demanding. Opening the channels for peace may cost suffering violence, incarceration, denigration; we know that most pacification efforts imposed terrible human costs to peacebuilders. Their testimony remains as a powerful sign that there is hope even among death and ruins.

Hope and faith go hand in hand; actually, “Faith is hope. […] Only when the future is certain as a positive reality does it become possible to live the present as well” (Spe salvi, 2007, 2). In all circumstances, as ancient and contemporary martyrs witness. Sharing the experience of a deep-felt faith makes it possible for different religious traditions to pray together, as “Prayer is the strength of peace” (Francis, Angelus, Oct 23rd, 2022)

Europe 1951: memories of peace

European peoples share memories that can rekindle hope that peace is possible. What happened after the second world war – quite differently from the post- first world war period – was durable peace among some countries that were former enemies (but also, quite soon, the emergence of a bipolar world, with a cold war where former allies set on opposite sides, and with one city, Berlin, divided in two by a physical wall that was also a symbolic reminder that conflict was still open).

However, it is undeniable that after the second world war an ‘unlikely’ peace, involving France, Germany, Italy and other smaller countries, became an historical fact. The first institutional accomplishment, the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), established in 1951, was a supranational organization that could directly activate policies, above state sovereignty: quite a big change, with respect to preexisting nationalisms. ECSC establishment marked the beginning of an institutionalized process of deeper and wider integration in Europe – with its up and downs, and its lights and shadows.

What is important for peacebuilding today is the following: the initial steps of European integration were conceived out of a strong faith and a reasonable hope that peace was possible.

We tend to relegate the experience of the European ‘founding fathers’ in a sort of mythical past, when they achieved a pacification we can now take for granted. It is not so: each generation is called to renew faith and hope in order to revitalize peaceful institutions - otherwise they survive by inertia for a while, but sooner or later become irrelevant or even transform into a conflictual ground.

Europe 1989: memories of peace

We have more recent, very powerful memories of peaceful political change we need to make sense of, especially today in the midst of a European war. Did we really understand what happened in 1989? Was that the end of the cold war? Was it the political victory of democracy over authoritarianism? And/or the victory of participatory market systems over bureaucratic central planning?

In the immediate post 1989 years, the above interpretations seemed more or less plausible, if not acceptable; they were thoroughly discussed and elaborated, and became the almost obvious description of the set of events that occurred around “the fall of the Berlin Wall”, a very successful expression that is however quite inaccurate in describing what had really happened.

Now those interpretations show their short-sightedness and superficiality: hot war is raging once again; authoritarianisms have not been overcome; businesses thrive, but amid kleptocracy, oligarchic conflict, oligopolist power and firms’ dominance; most worryingly, human dignity – the foundational landmark of democracy - is severely violated.

I am convinced it is high time to reassess 1989 and what followed. It was the public emergence of the powerless: ordinary people who suffered imprisonment and even worse pains for their attempt to “live in the truth” (as Vaclav Havel described the experience of peaceful resistance in Czechoslovakia), people in solidarity with them, speaking up and keeping memory of each other’s sufferings, samizdat people … All were hoping against all hopes, and accordingly endured heavy sufferings.

Let us recall that in 1979 Poland had received the historical visit of Saint JPII. His exhortation “Do not fear!” was behind the emergence of the religious and political movement Solidarność, a most innovative social and political actor that was at the forefront of political transformation in Poland and in other countries under Soviet control. Indeed, hope is highly contagious. And yet, it needs constant rekindling – here and now.

Pacification, as democracy, are constant processes – not irreversible positions.

Quoting Spe salvi again: “man’s freedom is always new and he must always make his decisions anew. … Freedom presupposes that in fundamental decisions, every person and every generation is a new beginning. Naturally, new generations can build on the knowledge and experience of those who went before, and they can draw upon the moral treasury of the whole of humanity. But they can also reject it, because it can never be self-evident in the same way as material inventions. … The right state of human affairs, the moral well-being of the world can never be guaranteed simply through structures alone, however good they are. … Even the best structures function only when the community is animated by convictions capable of motivating people to assent freely to the social order”.

Before dismissing the teaching of the Church as unrealistic or utopian, we need to consider that transformative hope is borne out of sufferings. Even today, peace will come if we are willing to suffer for peace. Peace is never cheap.