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Article: Peacefully Resolving Conflicts By Rev. Robert V. Thompson, Chair of the Chicago-based Parliament of the World's Religions Published December 5, 2001

Because we Americans are suckers for the quick fix we want to believe the war on terrorism will be won through military action, improved intelligence, stemming the flow of terrorist money and stepped-up national security.

While most of us believe these policies will solve the problem, many of us are plagued by a palpable uneasiness and persistent ambivalence. We are, after all, an intensely empathic people. We care very much about the plight of the Afghan people and it is not OK with us that one more time, innocent people are being offered as a sacrifice on the altar of a just cause. Equally unsettling is the gnawing awareness that terrorism is the face rather than the heart of the problem. If we destroy terrorists in Afghanistan, where do we go next? Is it back to Iraq or on to Indonesia? And it is common knowledge that our war in Afghanistan will likely create hundreds or perhaps thousands of new terrorists. Where will it end?

Bill Ury, author of "The Third Side," has extensive experience in creative non-violent conflict resolution. Ury says terrorism, for that matter any form of violence, is comparable to a virus. He says terrorism, like a virus, lies sleeping, spreads throughout the body and attacks, as if from out of nowhere. It flourishes when the world's immune system is weak.

I asked Ury what might have been different had we had a strong global immune system prior to Sept. 11. He said, "Witnesses might have informed us of the terrorists' plans. Peacekeepers the world over might have frustrated the terrorists and taken them into custody. Healers would have been healing the wounds of the Islamic world. Mediators would have been working hard to resolve the obvious conflicts like that of Israel-Palestine. Teachers would have been at work teaching other ways of dealing with differences and about the tragic futility of violence. Providers would have been addressing the conditions of poverty and oppression that often breed terrorism. Bridge-builders would have been building bridges between the Islamic and Western world. Arbiters, equalizers, referees would all have been at work."

Violence prevention requires paying attention to conflicts in their earliest stages and addressing them creatively. Long-term prevention of terrorism requires seeing violence as a symptom rather than the root cause. The way to overcome terrorism is to alter the climate that allows it to grow and flourish. It is easy to delude ourselves into thinking that addressing short-term symptoms can cure what is ailing us. By confusing symptoms with causes we are living out a dangerous collective fantasy. Global health and wholeness requires nothing less than a profound commitment to living at a deeper level, a deeper awareness of root causes. Only this commitment will empower us to build up our global immune system.

Every person has a role to play in strengthening the global immune system. Every human being can become a peace keeper, healer, mediator and teacher of non-violent conflict resolution. We can do this in our homes, schools, neighborhoods, religious communities, nation, and around the world. This is an infinitely greater challenge than flying a flag or singing the national anthem on key. We are now being called to this greater patriotism. One like that envisioned by Martin Luther King Jr., who said, "No nation can live alone . . . we are tied together in a single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality."

This wisdom, this greater patriotism is the awareness that a healed and renewed America cannot exist apart from a healed and renewed world. And history has taught us that if the people will lead, the leaders will follow.

Copyright © 2001, Chicago Tribune