Awards

• 2004 Awards    Week Main • Daily Pictures of   Winners' Week • Winner's Pictures    and Bios • 2004 National    Winners    Announced • Awards Banquet    Keynote Address • Sudan    Simulation • Program Webcast Archive

2004 National Peace Essay Contest Awards Banquet

What It Takes to Be a Peacemaker

A Keynote Address by Chester A. Crocker

Chester A. Crocker, Institute Board chairman and James R. Schlesinger Chair in Strategic Studies at Georgetown University, was the keynote speaker at the Institute’s National Peace Essay Contest awards banquet in Washington, D.C. on June 23. Addressing nearly fifty of the award recipients about "What it Takes to Be a Peacemaker," Crocker encouraged them to "join our Nation’s educated and committed leadership in working for a better and more peaceful world."

---

What It Takes to Be a Peacemaker

Chester A. Crocker
Chairman, Board of Directors, United States Institute of Peace
National Peace Essay Contest Awards Banquet
Washington, D.C.
June 23, 2004

Chester Crocker (left) stands with the National winners of 2004 National Peace Essay Contest after the conclusion of the awards banquet. Shown (from left to right) Chester Crocker, Pamela Aall (Institute education program director), David Leimbach (2nd place winner from Oklahoma), Vivek Viswanathan (1st place winner from New York), Kevin Schaeffer (3rd place winner from Indiana), and Richard H. Solomon (Institute president). (Photo: Bill Fitz Patrick, June 23, 2004).

The Variety of Peacemakers

Peacemakers come in many sizes and shapes. Some are officials working in formal, governmental institutions. Dag Hammarskjöld and Javier Perez de Cuellar were peacemakers. Ronald Reagan was a peacemaker. Kofi Annan is one. Jimmy Carter, Margaret Thatcher, and Mikhail Gorbachev are peacemakers, as are former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari and his Costa Rican counterpart Oscar Arias Sánchez.

Some are the leaders of civil society-based movements or political movements and parties. Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King were peacemakers. Corazon Aquino, Nelson Mandela, and F. W. de Klerk are also peacemakers. Some leaders set up private peacemaking entities when they retire to continue their work: Martti Ahtisaari and Jimmy Carter have done that, and F. W. de Klerk established the Global Leadership Foundation for precisely this sort of mission.

Some peacemakers are relatively obscure people who get their boots on the ground and get close to the action in zones of conflict. They work in the media, in relief agencies, or in civil society-based nongovernmental organizations, reporting on wars, bringing relief to the victims of humanitarian crisis, and bearing witness against thugs and warlords who abuse civilians and live off conflict. These people put their lives at risk for peace and decency.

Since 1990, 274 journalists have died in war zones, bringing the story of war to audiences in their home markets—people like Daniel Pearl of the Wall Street Journal and Michael Kelly of the Atlantic Monthly. Then there are people like Fred Cuny, the extraordinary humanitarian worker whose career took him to more than 25 war- or violence-torn societies on four continents before he finally succumbed to the assassin's grip in Russian-controlled Chechnya in 1995. And I think of another, Bob Gersony, a remarkable specialist on refugees and displaced persons who is frequently contracted by the U.S. Agency for International Development to enter into dangerous places at their most perilous moments (such as Uganda, Nepal, and Mozambique) to document what is going on in civil wars and to bring out the detailed data of what is happening to people on the ground, why it is happening, and who is responsible. Bob Gersony is a peacemaker.

So is Shirin Ebadi, the gutsy Iranian lawyer and human rights activist who has battled quietly for women's emancipation and for a political opening in her native land and received the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts. Shirin Ebadi is a peacemaker. Or take an example closer to home, at the U.S. Institute of Peace. One of our distinguished fellows has been in residence with us twice to analyze the roots and sources of the identity conflict in Sudan: I am speaking about former Sudanese foreign minister, distinguished scholar, and international activist for internally displaced persons Francis Deng. His tenacious pursuit of understanding exemplifies what all of us connected to the U.S. Institute of Peace believe and attempt to carry out in our work. Francis Deng's lifelong work to explain Sudan will one day bring peace and freedom to that country. Francis Deng is a peacemaker.

This is only a cross-section of a large universe of people. They come from all backgrounds and regions, prominent and obscure, and their callings require a range of personal qualities. Moreover, they do a wide range of things and pursue their work in a variety of ways. Peacemakers carry out diverse activities, they work in all kinds of organizations, they adopt multiple roles and techniques that can contribute to a more peaceful world.

When we work with moderates in the Muslim world to help them reform their educational systems—to stop poisoning the minds of young people with hatred—we are working for peace. When we support moderate Muslim efforts to interpret their theology in ways that strengthen opposition to violence and expand interreligious tolerance, we are working for peace. When we train practitioners on how to resolve local conflicts that break in zones of warfare and how to facilitate dialogue, we are working for peace. When American or European or African or Asian officials pull together to help mediate between the parties in a "hot" conflict, they are working for peace. When we launch policies aimed at pressing recalcitrant governments or movements toward the negotiating table, we are managing conflict and building peace. When peacekeepers deploy into conflict zones to put themselves between armed factions, to witness their conduct, and to check any abuses of civilians, they are doing this to make peace. These and many other things are done by peacemakers. Look around this room—there are peacemakers right here amongst you tonight, people who have given years of their lives to doing this work. It is hard to generalize about all these people, but their work illustrates certain personal qualities.

The Qualities of Peacemakers

Peacemakers are, generally speaking, educated people. They have advanced their preparation for a life of action, research, advocacy, service, or reporting by learning about the world around them, learning what lies at the roots of war, learning what motivates parties, and how to break the mold so that peace becomes possible. Not all of them have expensive formal educations. Some are self-taught. Some struggled for educational opportunity. But all realized that no matter how expensive education is, it is nowhere near as expensive as ignorance. You are becoming educated, and we are proud of you. But don't stop here. You have the potential to transform your world for the better.

Chester Crocker, chairman of the Board of Directors at the U.S. Institute of Peace, speaks to the essay contest winners as part of their welcome to Washington and the Institute. (Photo: Bill Fitz Patrick, June 21, 2004).

Why is education important? I will cite five reasons:

1. It gets you out of your shell and exposes you to the minds, the hopes, the challenges and fears of others. Cross-cultural knowledge, including foreign languages is important. A person who can think in only one language—no matter how brilliant—is inherently limited.


2. Education in history and comparative politics and literature is especially vital. These disciplines empower you with the greatest of all skills in peacemaking: the capacity to put yourself in another's place and imagine that person's choices and priorities. They give you comparative experience, so you can bring to bear in one place the knowledge of what has succeeded and failed in another place—and why.


3. Education opens an unending series of doors into new knowledge, teaching us that the more we know, the more we are conscious of what we do not know. Such humility is the beginning of wisdom for the peacemaker and the practitioner in foreign policy.


4. Education is crucial for peacemaking because it forces us to identify our assumptions and premises. And, in doing so, it reveals potential solutions for dealing with the problems at hand. For example, if we believe that a cause of the conflict in Sudan is the greed of leaders, that points toward a solution in which wealth is shared on a transparent and accountable basis. If we believe that the conflict is caused by reciprocal insecurity between parties that are scared, we find a formula based on mutual assurances and external guarantees.


5. The educated person is aware of the assumptions and premises that he or she carries around in life. That person's self-awareness leaves open the possibility of being a good listener. And that is the fifth reason: a peacemaker must be capable of listening. Learning to listen is part of your education, and it is one of the hardest things to learn.

What else do you need besides education? Well, I have a long list, but very little time. So I will only summarize a few of the other qualities:

You need a thick skin. Peacemakers tend not to be popular, at home or in war-torn places. You will take a lot of flack. Get used to it.

You need the courage of your convictions. Our greatest peacemakers often place their lives at risk. This is what Anwar Sadat and Yitzhak Rabin—the assassinated leaders of Egypt and Israel—did. Without encouraging anyone to develop a death wish, I would say that peacemaking is not for the faint-hearted. Soldiers and war-fighters need personal courage. Waging peace also requires personal courage.

After I first met with you all, one student approached me and said, "You have painted a convincing picture of the many obstacles to peace in Sudan. How can you hope for peace in the face of so many challenges and obstacles?" It is a good question. The answer is that even a 20 percent chance of success is good odds. Just think what a wonderful thing it would be to bring peace to a place like Sudan. It is a goal worth fighting for. Of course, it is ambitious. But you don't go into this business without passion, without convictions. Even when things are looking gloomy or hopeless, you have a vital enterprise to pursue. And if you don't believe in it, no one will. So, yes, peacemakers are often described as optimists. They have to be!

So, I hope you will be inspired by your own success and your experience here this week to join our nation's educated and committed leadership, working for a better and more peaceful world. Such a world is better for America, better for our interests, better for our values.

---

The above remarks are from a presentation given by Chester Crocker on June 23, 2004. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the Institute, which does not advocate specific policies.