Incidentally, that was the first of many peace meditations (the logical form of demonstration in a country where Buddhism is the majority). There were many others, the largest of which had over 600,000 participants. Not a bad showing for a country of only 18 million.

Sue sometimes sighs about conflicts saying, well, I guess it’ll be over when they all kill each other. But conflicts can resolve. Northern Ireland is at peace now. It can happen. Is everyone happy about the way it resolved. Of course not. But the bombings and murders have stopped and former deadly enemies are at least in the same rooms of government with each other now.

Maybe that’s a model to study to determine how it happened. One part certainly was the mothers on both sides who quite courageously stood up and said the slaughter must end. So protest can help, I think.

It is worthwhile mentioning, however, that the war “works” not only for the LTTE leadership, which never has to face a peaceful election as long as the war continues, but for Sinhalese leaders in the government as well, giving them the platform they need to consolidate power (and eliminate participatory democracy) among the Sinhalese, hence neither leadership really needs to find a solution to the conflict. This gives rise to an alternate model of the conflict: it is not the “Sinhalese” against the “Tamils;” it is the leaders of the two groups against the mainstream population of Sri Lankans.

In this new model, the means of ending the conflict is not satisfying the demands of the “Tamils”– because the Tamil people are not the ones making the demands– but changing systems and consciousness so that the people of the two groups realize that the war is being perpetrated not by them, but against them– encouraging them to choose new leaders (or transform the old ones) and create participatory representation. On their own– or at the demand of a small segment of society– the leaders will never change. But when the consciousness of the whole of society begins to change, leaders must change as well.

Can it be done? Yes. We came near to succeeding in 2001-2002. But we dropped the ball after the Cease Fire Agreement, because everyone, ourselves included, mistook cease-fire for peace. We expected that, having taken the process that far, the leaders would take it the rest of the way– but these were the same leaders that were served by the conflict so of course that’s not what they did. Cease fire, we now realize, is only the beginning, and (like a seed planted in the garden) it must be nurtured and is remarkably easy to disrupt.

The cycle of violence means that extremists (both governmental and extra-governmental) gain support (power) with strategic attacks, and lose support (power) in times of calm. To counter this effect takes planning, strategy, and comprehensive action over a long period. And above all, it takes change in consciousness from adversarial relationships to holistic thinking. Protest has not been one of our tools (and though I think it has its place, I am in the minority on my team). The methods, like the goal, must be a holistic combination of strategies toward the goal of inclusiveness. We cannot transform adversarial relationships by being adversarial ourselves.

The first step in any solution is to understand the problem, and this post is an excellent step in that direction. Thanks, Bob. I look forward to seeing where this leads.