Interrogating Peace: A Perspective from the Margins

This presentation asks: what does peace mean? More specifically, what does
it mean from the perspectives of those who are on the margins of society,
who usually have little or no direct investment in war/violent conflict, and
who are discriminated against even in what are known as 'normal' times.
Taking examples from South Asia, the paper argues that women - who are the
basic subjects of this presentation - are not among the primary 'makers' or
instigators of war and conflict, although they do figure in large numbers
among their victims, and the activities they conduct during times of violent
conflict, are often those very activities that prepare the ground for peace
to return. Yet when it does, it is often a state of affairs that brings
little relief to them: for example, it is by now well known that levels of
domestic violence rise sharply in times of long conflict. When the guns stop
firing outside, these levels do not miraculously drop, and therefore for
women in the home, peace can mean enhanced violence in their lives. Examples
like this help to illustrate the failures of what we know as peace, and
direct us to begin to think of a more nuanced, a thicker way of
understanding peace. Such an understanding is enhanced also by women's own
interpretations of peace and its meanings and this paper will also turn its
attention to women's voices on the question of peace.

He is also chairman of the board of Greenpeace Southeast Asia — and serves on the boards of Transnational Institute (Amsterdam) and Food First (Oakland). Mr. Bello serves on the Program Board of the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable development in Geneva, which provides NGOs with information on the WTO.

Bello has regular columns in Philippine and Thai newspapers, Focus on Trade, and the Far Eastern Economic Review. His most recent books are Deglobalisation: Ideas for a New World Economy (Zed 2002) Dark Victory: The United States and Global Poverty (updated 2nd edition; TNI/Food First/Pluto 1999) and A Siamese Tragedy: Development and Disintegration in Modern Thailand (Food First/Zed 1998).

Walden Bello has been declared one of the "stars in our human cosmos" by the 2003 jury of the Right Livelihood Award, known as the Alternative Nobel Prize.

Sustaining Sustainability: Moving from static concepts to dynamic engagement

Ever since those concerned with environmental issues managed to place on the global agenda the idea of limits to resources, sustainability has been the ideological conceptual mantra that has been underpinning development plans, programs and projects. However, despite sustainability presenting itself as such an obvious idea with inherent appeal, it has proven to be notoriously difficult to pin down or put into practice.

‘Proceduralism’–the enactment of laws, enforcement of guidelines, EIAs, IWRMs etc.–has not helped as original optimism envisaged. This does not mean giving up on sustainability or, heaven forbid, heading back to hedonistic unsustainability. Rather, it is argued here, the need is to re-define sustainability away from neat but static ‘proceduralism’ towards a more clumsy but dynamic ‘constructive engagement’ of the primary social solidarities. The latter concept envisages a constant process of "always learning, never final", moving the debate on sustainability to the evenness and plurality of the policy terrain for all voices to be heard, as they link their perceptions of risk with the choice of technologies. These concepts are examined in light of some examples of sustainability in Nepal where community management of resources has been successfully practiced over the last two decades.

The primary example used to test this new re-definition of sustainability is that of Nepal's latest effort, the ‘communitization’ of electricity. This sector has suffered the institutionally debilitating pendulum swing from bureaucratic socialism to laissez faire "free market" individualism, leaving in its wake a "flood-drought" syndrome of too much followed by too little, too expensive. The new approach argues, and demonstrates with the ‘communitized’ electricity example, that sustainability requires a constant constructive engagement between the bureaucratic hierarchism of the regulatory state, the risk-taking innovativeness of the market, and the cautionary criticism of the egalitarian social auditors.

Give democracy a chance

A broad-based public ownership of development plans and their implementation is crucial to their success in all respects. Radical reform measures imposed through executive orders do not endure and also introduce distortions in national endeavors in other areas. This is one of the major missing links in development plans in South Asia.