Give Peace a Chance

This is a story about how a someone learns from local context in order to develop his understanding about the society.
It was almost 8 p.m. when we landed at the Central Sulawesi airport, after a long trip from Java Island to Sulawesi. We started the trip at 6 a.m. and our time mostly spent in the airport waiting room. I and other two colleagues represent the Centre of Alternative Dispute Resolution from our university were invited by an international agency to develop curriculum, prepare and deliver the peace-building training for the conflict-affected youths in the conflict-torn area in Poso, Central Sulawesi, after we won the call for proposal for the particular purpose.
From the airport to Poso, we still had to continue with a five hours drive trip. Everything seems perfect to the picture, our car was equipped with satellite-radio facility (and its strange-look antenna on top of the car) and a dashboard sticker warns “No weapon allowed in this car.” We arrived at Poso over midnight, there was electricity blackout going on the town, very dark and to make it perfect we have to knock the hotel door. We could see the shadows of buildings around the hotels which were stay in ruin condition, burned down during the conflict and nobody dares to redevelop it until now.
This is the county where just six months before we arrived there was a big offensive by the special police force to the armed-group. At that particular time (while waiting for the hotel employees find the keys), I realized about the unclear challenges we face ahead. At that very night, we held our three-person meeting and assess all the circumstances. We decided that during the training we’re not going to touch the issue of local conflict and instead will employ other cases from other places or countries. We didn’t know about their level of trauma and the best way to deal with it was by avoid the issue.
The training went well for a week; we succeeded to build an in-group solidarity among the participants who represents both the Islamic and Christians communities. At the end of the training, the participants develop their joint activities to strengthen the bridge of peace among them and for the bigger communities.
The question finally risen by them to us as facilitators before the closing program, “Why did during the training you guys never mentioned anything directly about the Poso conflict?” that one followed by another “Did you afraid to come when you know that you have to come to deliver the training here? How do people in Java think about us, do they think of our place as a worth-avoiding area?”
We tried our best to explain about our reason regarding our choice of cases during the training. When we asked them, “How do you feel about the cases we presented to you, did it help you to look into your own case?” The responses were very positive so we continue to explain that now they have the model as motivation to build their own bridge of peace. They asked us “to tell the world that actually we’re peace loving persons, we made a mistake and we learned a lot from it.”
Regarding the second question, as the team leader, I confessed that I was slightly worried not about the conflict but about my ability to deliver an effective training and it came out of my responsibility to made our best for them, adding that it will be deceiving if people only rely on the newspaper or television for sole information regarding this place.
The training gave me hope that the future of Poso will be different from now, consider the youths are at their early 20s and they already become the leaders in their community activities. We built many commitments to support their efforts.
After the youths’ training, we still had to continue with training at the same area under the same theme. However the participants were different. They were the stakeholders of the youth development activities. So many of them were real community leaders such as heads of villages, religious groups’ leaders, village schools teachers, farmers, etc. and they represent the Muslim and Christian communities.
For this group, we couldn’t avoid to talk about the local conflict because from the very beginning they already express their opinion related to the past conflict. Some of them are explicitly spoken that the choice of hotel also disturbs his/her feeling because people are living in segregate compound based on their religion. It’s a difficulty for the local committee to find neutral place, because there’s no such a place that could seen as neutral at that region.
Nevertheless they decided to come because they rely on our reputation and they want to know more about the issue. I said that actually it was us who have to learn more from them as leaders rather than the other way around.
The training continues with contrast approach. This time every issue was reflected to local conflict context. The discussions during the training were very rewarding because these people were actually the real leaders during the communal conflict. After learning from the past they can build their own reflection about the future and it was at this point when the defense mechanism started to broke, trust started to grow and everybody decided to share their feelings.
A man interrupts our discussion and shares his own story about the conflict. He shared the story of how he rescue a family (of different faith) from the mass killing and brought them to a save place. They must be safe now, he never knows their names but he did it as an obligation to help other God’s creation from the hegemony of hatred.
This story touched other participants, when a man stood to his feet and point to another man in the participants and said “Sir, I want to confess, it was me myself who burned down your house, and it was a terrible act to do at that time.” The pointed man reply, “I knew since long time ago, but I could forgive you because it was me and my fellow’s villagers who attack and destroyed your village.”
Everybody in the room was amazed by those developments, as moderator I decided to enter the conversation by guided them to forgive each other and to build their commitment as a model to build a bridge of peace.
To tell the truth, it was beyond my wildest imagination that this training will culminated into this turning point. It was only strengthening my confidence that when we dare to give peace a chance, then it will work in its line of logic and as long as we tend it, we take care of it, strengthening it and it will be blossom to be the beauty for others as a whole.
And that inside every human being there is a prospect to be a reconciliatory agent and to be a peacemaker, even the person who did commit any violent acts will able to find rescue in the hand of peace if they are invited to enter the door.
The more amazing fact is as the trainer, three of us were christians and came from a christian-background university. The participants were predominantly muslims and they welcomed us warmly without any suspicion. As a matter of fact, we’re communicating very well throw jokes and anecdotes even with the participants who came from the most religious-based organizations.
The lessons I got from the conflict-torn area, convince myself that there’s no such a big problem that couldn’t be solved as long as we give peace a chance. People learn from the mistake they made and start a new beginning if they are allowed to. To tell you the truth it’s a very precious lesson for me to be applied in the context of leadership in my university or in my community.

Valparaiso, Indiana, April 30 2008.