For decades, Muslims and Christians in Nigeria have lived in peace, irrespective of faith and tribal affiliation. Today, the communities are segregated along religious lines and this has greatly affected the peaceful coexistence enjoyed in the country years back.
Learning the Lessons from the Minsk Peace Process: Why Can Fragile Peace Be Dangerous?
Russia’s war against Ukraine became a strong wake-up call for the West. It easily refuted a long-nurtured assumption about the impossibility of a new large-scale war in Europe. Moreover, the invasion challenged the global non-proliferation regime, showing that an exchange of nuclear weapons for security assurances is not an optimal security choice. It also demonstrated an imperfection of the global and European security architecture, lacking tools to either prevent or stop blatant violations of the foundations of international order, committed by a nuclear country and United Nations Security Council member. Not least, the outbreak of a large-scale war in Ukraine is illustrative of the fragility and non-enforceability of contemporary politico-legal peace agreements, such as the Minsk I and Minsk II agreements, signed in 2014 and 2015, respectively.
The Minsk I and Minsk II agreements sought to resolve the conflict in Eastern Ukraine, which started in early 2014 after Kremlin-backed rebellions in Ukraine’s Donbas region and the creation of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk “People’s Republics” (“DPR” and “LPR”). Both agreements were developed by the Trilateral Contact Group (“TCG”) on Ukraine, bringing together Ukraine, Russia, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Europe. Though the leaders of the “DPR” and “LPR” were informally engaged in some of the TCG’s meetings, they were not signatories of the agreements. This was because Ukraine did not recognize “LPR” and “DPR” and their leaders as an independent negotiating party due to Russia’s de facto control over the region and its self-proclaimed governors. The TCG peace talks were additionally facilitated by the Normandy Format, where Ukraine and Russia negotiated with the mediation of French and German leaders.
Both the Minsk I agreement and its more detailed successor Minsk II represent “a shopping list” of security and political measures aimed at a ceasefire and gradual reintegration of the Donbas into Ukrainian territory. While the security block focused on ceasefire and the withdrawal of illegal armed groups and heavy weapons, the political arrangements concerned the decentralization of power in Ukraine and broad autonomy for the so-called “DPR” and “LPR”. Though in theory, the agreements offered meaningful steps to reconciliation and the reintegration of breakaway regions, the practice of the Minsk Peace Process was prone to endless challenges and an eventual deadlock. The key practical obstacle to the agreements’ implementation dealt with the lack of the Parties’ consensus about the sequencing of implementing security and political measures, as well as specific steps to the items’ implementation and the verification of implementation. Logically, the TCG and the Normandy Format had to be the venues to agree on the mode and detail of implementation, yet they ended up as forums for the Parties’ blaming each other for non-compliance and exercising political pressure, including Russia’s pressure to push Ukraine to direct negotiations with leaders of the so-called “DPR” and “LPR”. A consequence of both the agreements’ hybrid politico-legal nature and the disagreement about the sequencing of measures had been the lack of a mutually agreed way to establish the violations of the Minsk agreements and enforce them.
A series of unsuccessful attempts to revive the Minsk Peace Process in January-February 2022 ended with President Putin’s recognition of the so-called “DPR” and “LPR” on 22 February 2022 and invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.
The Minsk Peace Process offers some important lessons for peacebuilders. First, it demonstrates how fragile peace agreement are easy to break amid the absence of enforcement mechanisms and the leeway of third parties to support the implementation process. Second, this case shows how much the Parties’ genuine intention to resolve the conflict and political will matter. Political will is inevitably central to making contemporary peace agreements work, as there are no effective international mechanisms to ensure the Parties’ compliance with such agreements. Third, the experience of Minsk I and Minsk II must be remembered during negotiations to end of the current war. Any freezing of the demarcation line, vague reintegration provisions, and unspecific security assurances to Ukraine from the West will be nothing as a respite before the new war. If the model used in the Minsk agreements repeats itself, the region will be even more fragile. The new peace agreement thus needs to include clear obligations from the parties and sequencing of steps to be taken, including the definition of targets to be achieved (e.g. withdrawal of troops and weapons from specific areas), the ways to verify the targets’ achievement and enforcement mechanisms that shall be supported by the international community.
Making Peace = Changing Men
It might seem difficult to face the urgent matters of conflict resolution without considering how men and masculinities are and can be. Yet, despite greater mainstream recognition of this question of men and masculinities, especially since the adoption of UNSCR Resolution 2106 in 2013, this is still often not at the centre of work on peacebuilding. Indeed, positive peacebuilding needs to work against structural violence at all levels.
With continuing male domination of political leadership in malestream national and international politics in handling or creating crises, different groupings of men almost always figure prominently in the lead-up to armed conflicts. Militaristic patriarchal (vertical) leadership is accompanied by militaristic fratriarchal (horizontal) power amongst the people, mainly men, making up soldieries. These issues can be understood at the macro-societal levels (such as between nations), meso-levels (such as institutions and communities), and micro-levels (between people and within individuals). Such levels of analysis are interdependent, so disentangling what contributes most to specific violent conflicts – a charismatic leader, inter-governmental policy, or the economy – is not easy.
Standing back a little, at the macro-societal level, there are established links between the greater likelihood of societal internal violent conflict and male domination of labour force participation. The most gender unequal and homophobic countries also have the highest level of societal violence and are most at risk of armed conflict within their own territory. However, before seeing this in too simple terms: societies with the most positive attitudes to homosexuality are also those most likely to be arms exporters – perhaps an indirect relation to histories of capitalism, colonialism, liberalism, and even homonationalism (that favourably associates nationalism and LGBTIQA+ people or their rights). Meanwhile, women’s well-being tends to link with societal peacefulness.
At the level of the meso-level institutions, hyper-tough, violent masculinity underpins most armed conflict as well as the operation of gangs, vigilantes, and militias. This has impacts at the micro-level– on individuals, families, and communities. A micro-level approach focuses on interpersonal and individual practices, including those supporting or destabilizing violent or peaceful masculinities.
So, to turn all this on its head – if men are the main perpetrators of violent and armed conflict, men and masculinities need to change towards peace and nonviolence. This also means changing men who are not the immediate perpetrators of violence. In their book, Societies at Peace, Howell and Willis pose the question: “what can we learn from peaceful societies?” In societies where masculine bravado, repression, and denial of fear defined masculinity, violence was likely to be higher, whereas when men were permitted to acknowledge fear, levels of violence were lower. With less gender differentiation, men were more nurturing and caring, male-led violence was less likely, and women were seen as capable, rational, and competent in the public sphere. Moreover, where bravado was prescribed for men, definitions of masculinity and femininity were often very highly differentiated.
The global IMAGES project has found that predictors of men’s more gender-equal, peaceful attitudes included: men’s education; mother’s education; men’s reports of father’s domestic participation; family background of mother alone or joint decision-making parents; and not witnessing violence to their mother. In turn, such self-reported attitudes from men predicted more gender-equal, peaceful practices, domestic participation and childcare, satisfaction with their primary relationship, and less interpersonal violence. Micro-approaches to masculinity, peace, and justice feedback to macro-and meso-approaches, with patriarchal power entwining with global intersectional inequalities.
This is, however, only part of the story. Many studies, especially with young men, highlight male vulnerability and challenges in striving for idealized representations of manhood. These are unachievable for most and often result in risks to safety and well-being. While many soldiers are men and many victims/survivors of sexual violence during war are women, men and boys are also victims/survivors of sexual violence, often involving denial and shame. Policy frameworks for peace that only consider women and girls as victims, and men and boys as perpetrators, might omit men’s, women’s, and other non-binary genders’ suffering, vulnerabilities, risks, and needs.
More broadly, whereas negative peace is directed at ending hostilities or overcoming legal oppression, positive peace works against structural violence at deeper levels. Putting together positive peace and the transformation of men and masculinities, at all points and levels in peacebuilding, means challenging and intervening with men and masculinity as the problem in peacebuilding in its multiplicity – not simply tinkering with gender stereotypes, images, and roles. It fundamentally means changing men, masculinities, and intersectional inequalities, not as an add-on. Making peace = changing men, and vice versa.
This blog draws on work with Kopano Ratele, Tamara Shefer, and Anisur Rahman Khan.
How Can Hate Speech on Social Media in Nigeria Be Reduced?
Hate speech and disinformation on social media are often blamed for the growing divisions in the country, as well as throughout the Niger Delta Region. Peace News spoke to experts and social media influencers in Nigeria to understand the problem better and understand what solutions might work to reduce it.
Global peacefulness falls during COVID-19 pandemic: report
North America recorded the most drastic deterioration in peace in the last year compared to other regions around the globe, a report on global peacefulness revealed.
The Global Peace Index, which is released annually by the Institute for Economics and Peace, revealed that global peacefulness has fallen each year nine out of the past 13 years, with each country falling by about 2 percent annually. Experts in peace studies said this year’s deterioration in peace is consistent with a long-term downturn in peacefulness globally and that some of the decreases could be attributed to the prevalence of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ongoing conflict and safety and security – two of the three domains the GPI uses to measure peacefulness – deteriorated by 6.2 percent and 2.5 percent respectively, according to the report.
“Militarisation was the only domain to improve,” the report states. “Terrorism and civil unrest have been the biggest contributors to the global deterioration in peacefulness.”
The report states that it’s still too early to determine the full extent of the pandemic’s impact on peacefulness but states that the changing economic situation in many parts of the world have led to an increase in the likelihood of political instability and violent demonstration.
Reuters reported that causes for economic deterioration are specific to each country, but that the impact is generally worse when a country is experiencing social unrest.
“If we don’t have social cohesion in a country, we have to try and understand how the government plans to react to that … or whether there is a political force that comes in and implements change,” Yerlan Syzdykov, Amundi’s global head of emerging markets, told Reuters.
North America experienced the greatest regional drop in peacefulness, with safety and security accounting for the majority of the deterioration.
“The primary driver of this fall in peacefulness was a deterioration on the Safety and Security domain, especially in the United States, where growing civil unrest led to increasing perceptions of criminality and political instability, and more violent demonstrations,” the report states.
Liz Hume, the CEO of the Alliance for Peacebuilding, said the pandemic has contributed to a decline in government stability worldwide. She said countries have seen an increase in violent extremism as governments’ stability has become challenged in the face of the pandemic.
She said the international community should understand that high levels of instability have become the “baseline” for countries around the globe and should focus on vaccine distribution to mitigate the effects of widespread political instability.
“It is incredibly destabilizing, because most people will look to their government to provide services, provide health care, provide vaccines, and when governments can’t do that, their legitimacy and effectiveness is challenged,” she said.
International efforts to distribute more vaccines, like COVAX and international donations, have driven the distribution of more than 3 billion doses, but more international efforts are needed to vaccinate the remaining world population.
Hume said the pandemic contributed to less social cohesion in the United States as divisions grew between people who did and did not follow COVID-19 prevention protocols. She said the pandemic has exposed cracks in the United States government that were already developing before COVID-19 broke out.
“Instead of COVID bringing the United States together with a common challenge and a common enemy like it has done in the past with let’s say World War II, when you look at something that can be a unifier, it was a divider,” Hume said.
The Fragile States Index, which is released each year by the Fund for Peace, revealed that the pandemic contributed to high levels of insecurity even in nations that had strong health infrastructure and stable economies. Across the board, the pandemic exacerbated divisions within countries that were already starting to divide.
Hume said the Alliance for Peacebuilding has worked with U.S. policymakers to push for anti-extremism policies to be implemented in the United States.
The Alliance for Peacebuilding penned a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden late last month calling on his administration to implement seven recommendations, including investing in rural infrastructure and investing in programs that build social cohesion, to curb the effects of the United States’ decline in social cohesion.
“The Biden administration must urgently develop a robust evidence-based multi-sector, whole-of-government plan to prevent violence, address the root causes and drivers of race-based violent conflict, rebuild democratic institutions, and repair fragmented relationships between individuals and groups by building social cohesion,” the letter states.
Tim Donais, a professor of political science at Wilfrid Laurier University, said the decline in peacefulness in North America could serve as a wake-up call for North Americans who don’t typically think about developed countries as needing peacebuilding.
“In the context of the developed world, we’re used to looking outwards at conflict-affected countries in Africa or the Middle East and thinking about these concepts in that kind of context,” he said. “We’re much less familiar and much less comfortable thinking about questions of peacefulness and the need for peacebuilding in our own national contexts.”
Donais said the bleak outlook on race relations in the United States and the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol has contributed to the drop in peacefulness in the country. He added that people’s perceptions of stability go hand in hand with the actual levels of instability
“A lot of safety and security issues in particular, come down to people’s perceptions as well, in the sense of growing unrest,” he said. “The country’s being deeply divided, potentially on the verge of conflict between the great demonstrations around Black Lives Matter, probably, among a lot of Americans.”
