Author Archives: Sabrina Laib

Can Peace Be a Profession?

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Can Peace Be a Profession?

Peace as a profession is extremely broad, but all fields that encompass peace have the common goal of teaching, obtaining, or practicing what peace should look like in the society we live in. Despite this, I believe that peace can be a profession, based on my preview interview with Dr. Smith. 

I found my interview with Dr. Smith to be extremely informative as to how peace can be a profession. Looking at mediation as a field, the goal is to communicate and find a solution where both parties can get what they want, without the need for either physical or verbal violence. During my interview with her, she believed that peace was a profession to understand all different types of conflict, such as historical, cultural, interpersonal, and psychological. By looking into the roots of conflict at a small level, such as interpersonal, one can infer that the process is communicating with the goal of a win-win situation, or one where someone has to give up something they may want in hopes of satisfying the other party.

Looking at achieving peace on an international scale, however, is much more difficult. While peace on the international level is ideal, especially with the current war taking place against Gazans, the goal is some sort of resolution between both Hamas and the Israeli state, but international law makers and international actors have called for a ceasefire with continuous violence. Peace as a profession on the international level is one that exists, but is very difficult to achieve, especially as a mediator.

In my Introduction to Peace Studies course with Dr. Ulas, we learned of both the Rwandan and Srebrenica massacres. The Srebrenica massacres had a Tribunal held at the Hague, where Milosevic and leader Momcilo Krajisnik were found guilty of enabling and committing genocide. While these cases were not cases where mediation is involved, I find that the teaching of conflicts allows for others to understand the reasons as to why there should be peace in society, and that citizens should not fall victim to the state’s goals oftentimes pursued by selfish interests. Another reason why teaching peace is a profession is learning how peace can be achieved internationally and legally. With the introduction of international law to the world in 1945, the field is constantly evolving and being introduced to new violations of different human rights doctrines that are held highly within the international law framework. Providing insight on this as a professor allows students to understand how peace is being protected as well as the expansion of the rights of protecting minorities. One relatively recent tribunal formed was the International Rights of Nature Tribunal. The goal of this tribunal is to protect the rights of the Earth and prevent any more ecological harm done to the environment that could eventually lead to even bigger concerns, such as ecocide. All these attempts at peace are why I believe that peace can and should be considered a profession.

Through my interview with Dr. Smith as well as the past classes I’ve taken and the content I’ve learned through them, peace is a profession that should be taught for the very reason that there can be a multitude of solutions to solving issues, regardless of how large or small scale the concerns are. Peace on an international scale is the goal for countries to get along with one another, but it also starts at an individual level, where people learn to resolve misunderstandings between themselves and move forward without a feeling of resentment.

Interview with Dr. Dani Smith

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The person I interviewed in the Peace Studies Department was Dr. Dani Smith. The reason why I interviewed her was because I took her course in mediation last semester. I found it really interesting and eye opening, especially with the use of mediation on an international level. I asked her a total of 4 questions.

The first question I asked was what peace studies as a field meant to her. She explained that over different generations it changed; she first started getting involved due to the Vietnam War, and how things could change with a different approach to these conflicts. However, many viewed the study to be something along the lines of hippie culture, mostly correlating the field/ideas to the phrase “make love, not war”. Despite this misunderstanding of the field, she found it interesting and helpful to be able to understand conflicts in an intelligent manner, as well as discuss and articulate the fears surrounding specific conflicts with those who study in the field. The second question I asked was, “What do you think when you hear peace as a profession?” She replied that it’s a profession needed to understand all levels of conflict, from interpersonal, psychological, historical, and cultural. What also needs to be examined is the spillover effect of such violence, such as generational trauma, in long lasting cases. She explains that the profession delves deeper into the difference in individualistic and collectivist cultures, and how as people we need a balance of both, or else there will be issues of exclusion or outcasts amongst community members. The next question I asked her was whether or not there’s been a big change in the department since she started working at Chapman. I found this question to be relevant because professors can come from different backgrounds, but now come together to work in a department where the concept of peace studies can be interpreted differently between each person. She said that Don Will, who founded the department at Chapman in 1993, worked with her to create a class that taught mediation, as mediation is a huge part in Peace Studies. The course started off as 1 unit, but over time as the class became more established, it went up to 3 units, making it the class we know of today.

The last question I asked was whether or not Dr. Smith believed that mediation can benefit large level conflicts, or if there are only sufficient results for interpersonal conflicts. She said that mediation can be successful for international level conflicts, but the mediator must remain neutral and unbiased between the two parties. No one can have some sort of stake in the game, such as a country being a well known ally of one of the parties, as this leads to bias. Despite all this, she’s hopeful that it is another solution that we can eventually come to rely on in the international sphere. 

Through my conversation with Dr. Smith, I felt like I learned a lot from a professor’s perspective about the field and department. As students we’re expected to take in all the information without truly understanding why the professor teaches the concept the way they do and why they feel so passionately about the topic they teach. For Dr. Smith, mediation is not just an act of resolution, but something that can bring peace and less war to the world. There can be a decrease of violence, starting from cultural, going all the way down to interpersonal.

Shared Humanity: Conversations between Jews and Palestinians for a Better Tomorrow Reflection

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The shared humanity event that occurred on Monday was seemingly productive. The speakers, Mira Sucharov and Omar Dajani, who are on two completely different sides of the conversation, came together to unite the bridge and work towards a productive conversation on the Israel/Palestine conflict and how it has impacted them so differently. They are working on a podcast called “The Vacant Lot” to create dialogue and discuss the future of the conflict and whether or not people from both sides can eventually come to an understanding, regardless of what the state of Israel is doing, or what legislation in Palestine is doing to come and discuss resolutions. The event shed light on the nature of violence and how that is defined on both sides, what constitutes fear and what is considered valid to be in fear of, and the definition of Zionism in public surveys.

Both Mira and Omar started off by sharing their experiences with the conflict. Mira said that she was raised Jewish and lived in Israel three separate times. She also said that she felt a connection to the land, being that she was able to be herself in a space deemed safe enough. Omar, on the other hand, told the audience that his family left the region in 1948, the time the Nakba started. As the audience, we already witness the two realities divide and give us a whole different timeline between the two. Another divide is how both perceived the October 7th attack. Mira said that it led to a lot of sexual violence committed by Hamas towards Israeli women, on account of victims that contacted her. On the other hand, Omar admitted that he was hesitant to fully acknowledge this issue, as he was concerned it would lead to a disruption of the Palestinian struggle and his work in getting people to understand it. Both admitted that they were skeptical about certain articles and how certain instances were phrased, as they did not want to believe what was said until they discussed it with one another. Mira and Omar also shared that they were working on a book together, with the collective goal that they can reveal their true feelings of one another’s communities while understanding each other’s goals and struggles for what they want from the conflict and what levels of understanding they want from readers.

However, I found one thing that was interesting between the two speakers, and failed to understand. While understanding the struggles and histories that each party came from is important, is it also not equally as important to acknowledge the actions of external actors that could have driven the wedge between the two parties? I think that coming together as one to understand one another can lead to a smaller likelihood of holding interpersonal grudges or heavy feelings towards one another, I personally do not see how beneficial the conversations would go without acknowledging the outside actors, such as the United States funding Israel through military means yearly, or Yemen announcing their solidarity towards Palestinians by attempting to blockade Israeli ships from crossing the Red Sea. I feel as if acknowledging the root of the tensions post WW2 as well as looking at both families’ understanding of what could have been defined as liberation to each person during the time could lead to a better understanding of how things came to be, as well as see how the past has become a certain layout for the present.

I found that the survey Mira conducted sort of reflected this phenomenon. When defining Zionism a certain way, Jewish Americans were more inclined to vote for the definition that meant that Zionism promoted self-determination in the homeland of Israel, in comparison to the definition that stated it was more of an act of Jewish supremacy with the intent to make the land all of theirs and to displace Palestinians (in verbatim of what Mira said). This goes to show that narratives can impact the way one feels about their current conditions, but in terms of this conflict, the narrative itself is extremely different in everyone’s lived experiences that sometimes it can’t be chalked up to a “both sides” conversation, but open dialogue for everyone.