by
May 11, 2022
| Author’s Note: This paper is based on an interview conducted with Nawaz Mohammed on March 7, 2022. A video of the interview is available here. |
Background
Nawaz Mohammed grew up in Sri Lanka during its nearly three decade civil war. The Sri Lankan government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam brutally fought, spurred on by impacts of colonialism, ethnic power struggles, and religious tensions. As a Muslim in Eastern Sri Lanka, Mohammed and his family were a vulnerable minority in the country. When he was young, Mohammed’s town was attacked during Friday prayers leaving around 100 people massacred. His sister was kidnapped never to be seen again, and his uncles were lost to the violence. He has experienced the effects of the war firsthand. Mohammed’s mother is a defining figure in the development of his attitudes of those around him. She was a peacebuilder in her own right. Despite the trauma their community and family experienced, she encouraged her family to view the community as a cohesive body, not label groups or view the world as us versus them.
With such a background, Mohammed went on to study development, policy, peace, and international relations in Sri Lanka, Europe, and the United States. He has worked with a variety of nations around the world as well as international and national non-governmental organizations (INGO/NGO) on gender issues, governance, and human rights.1 Despite opportunities to work elsewhere, Mohammed currently chooses to work on reconciliation efforts in Sri Lanka. While the war lasted from 1983-2009, the dynamics of the conflict preceded the beginning of and extend beyond the end of the war. 2 There is still work to be done. Mohammed is the Sri Lanka Country Director for Search for Common Ground (SFCG), which is an NGO operating in over twenty-five countries. Its mission is “to transform the way the world deals with conflict, away from adversarial approaches and toward cooperative solutions.”3 Mohammed is a fitting choice as the director of SFCG’s Sri Lanakan office due to his personal background and education. He and many of his staff at SFCG are insider reconcilers which allows them to more effectively lead projects and dialogues in the communities they serve.4 Their reconciliation efforts are critical in a post-war context where youth experience continuing tensions, discrimination, and inequity.5 SFCG and other organizations can play a pivotal role in promoting a transformation in how Sri Lankans respond to conflict in their society.
Definition and Perspective of Reconciliation
Reconciliation can be characterized in many ways with definitions involving outcomes or describing processes, environments, or attitudes.6 Mohammed defines reconciliation as a process that happens in the present while simultaneously acknowledging the past and developing a shared vision for the future. The process is a collective, societal approach in a constructive and collaborative manner. Instead of viewing reconciliation through the lens of devolving power, retribution, peace, or truth, Mohammed operates under a definition of timeframes where those elements may fluctuate in importance and focus. His emphasis on concurrently engaging aspects of the present, retrospective, and prospective timeframes coincides with the concept that reconciliation does not occur in a linear fashion or in phases.7 That means there is not one process or a single outcome, but a cyclical series of processes with outcomes that aim to convert a society to positive peace.8
According to Mohammed, it is important to balance processes and outcomes. One reason is that older generations have experiences that the younger generations have not lived. While older generations grapple with their past, younger generations are confronting issues of the present. The structural and root causes that led to the conflict are still in place when the war ends, and younger generations battle those causes even if they manifest differently in the present society. Thus, a minimalist outcome, such as nonviolence, will not produce long-term reconciliation, because it does not attend to the past or address systemic issues that are still affecting the present. Processes need to be iterative to reach a maximist reconciliation in a society like Sri Lanka, where distinct groups live among each other. Older and younger generations need to work together to transform the narrative of the past and future. Mohammed says that societies can devolve into conflict and violence quickly, whereas peace and reconciliation can be arduous and long-term. Thus, reconciliation is not just outcome based, but a process that spans generations.
Accordingly, Mohammed emphasizes the need to go to the next level and beyond, not back to the way things were. Returning to the past limits a community’s ability to enact structural changes that will increase social capacity and aid social cohesion. Mohammed’s position follows Keyes’ idea of creating new attitudes and inclusive identities in the society, which is crucial in circumstances where ethnic tensions still exist after a civil war, like in Sri Lanka. 9 This must include Rasool’s view of promoting the need to acknowledge the “other’s” right to a life in the same community and country. 10 This encourages an environment where citizens can create a vision together around common goals and needs. Inevitably, societies that have experienced severe trauma from violence will grapple with questions of justice and forgiveness. Mohammed’s approach leaves room for practices like Lederach’s Meeting Place, where truth, justice, mercy, and peace can be balanced instead of sacrificing the future when justice outweighs mercy or peace eclipses truth. 11 Ultimately, Mohammed’s reconciliation allows the space to review the past and “visualize a positive future for the society. 12
Good Practices
Applying Mohammed’s views of reconciliation into practice, SFCG approaches an initiative by evaluating the context by asking questions such as: “Should the international community, state, or local communities take the lead? What will make a catalytic change? Should the initiative focus on changing behavior or cultivating knowledge?” How they answer these, and other contextual questions, aid Mohammed and his team as they create a strategy based on the stakeholders and communities’ needs.
Regardless of the context, level, and scale, Mohammed claims there are certain fundamental actions that any approach will logistically and substantively benefit from. When starting an initiative, Mohammed recommends commencing the consultation process immediately. His experience has been that this stage of a program is often rushed for a variety of reasons, including political aspirations and funding, which risks the most vulnerable groups being excluded from the consultation process. Mohammed stresses that reconciliation efforts should be organic and community led. If the community desires memory and truth related efforts, then organizations should allow them to lead those efforts while supporting their needs. Taking care to engage all stakeholders in the process helps answer the initial questions the team at SFCG ponder at the beginning of their process.
Mohammed emphasizes that various communities experience the conflict differently leading to different views and expectations after the violent conflict has ended. Thus, how the individuals in those communities define reconciliation itself will be varied. Individuals who were further removed from the conflict may feel reconciliation has been achieved with monetary reparations, while those who lost loved ones and/or their own physical well-being may define reconciliation as uncovering truth and serving justice.
Mohammed’s recommendation is to create a shared vision for disparate groups, consequently creating an environment where they can work together with balanced expectations. That will require creating frameworks developed from an understanding of the context of diverse groups. For example, the community that feels the end of the war means the end of societal obstacles and strife, Mohammed says, will benefit from a knowledge based approach. The reconciliation team will gear initiatives toward helping them develop empathy for “others” whose experiences were more traumatic. SFCG has worked with additional stakeholders who have had the right knowledge but not the appropriate behaviors. Mohammed’s team designs projects that address destructive behaviors that need to shift in order to transform reactions to conflict from detrimental to constructive. These initiatives are imperative as Galtung warns that “violence breeds violence in a vicious circle”, and communities need a new approach where “peace breed(s) peace.”13
A common hurdle Mohammed and his team face is that in addition to lived experiences, all sides’ beliefs have been shaped by polarized media and propaganda. It is important to educate communities about campaigns that have been and may still be used to distort the truth about the “other”. Otherwise, communities remain vulnerable to those who would exploit fear and distrust in communities for personal gain and power.14
Once the initiative is in process, Mohammed underscores the importance of designing engagement activities for the community. As Doxtader and duToit indicate, reconciliation “changes form over time and across contexts.” 15 These sessions are intended to elicit genuine feedback from participants. For practitioners hoping for reconciliation to materialize, Mohammed points out that this is a critical method in assessing the impact of a project and if minor or major adjustments need to be made to programs and initiatives. Thus, reconcilers can utilize the engagement activities to tailor programs with the communities’ changing needs.
Mohammed also stresses the importance of making the necessary institutional arrangements for programs to operate. In a complex society, there will be connections and buy-in from community and political leaders, local and national organizations in a variety of sectors, and possible regional and international interests. Without the proper institutional preparations, initiatives can be impeded or never realized.
Obstacles
One of the challenges Burgess highlights of a complex system, like a society, is that it is indeterminate and outcomes are unpredictable. 16 As such, those involved in reconciliation efforts face a myriad of challenges, no matter the context. Mohammed highlights four issues that he and his team at SFCG encounter in their endeavors.
First, there has been deep suspicion of NGOs/INGOs in Sri Lanka. Any organizations that espouse reconciliation as their mission have been met with distrust. Community members have questioned the ideologies and agendas of organizations and the effects the approaches will have on their communities. This environment can inhibit reconciliors who desire to mobilize communities to begin the journey of reconciliation. Those first steps require the communities’ courage and “acceptance of the inherent risk of stepping into the mystery of the unknown” 17
Second, SFCG has faced challenges with the uncertain, changing context of Sri Lanka. It has been challenging to build social capacity when focus on and support of reconciliation ebbs and flows with dynamic political, economic, and governmental shifts. Many citizens felt that the government’s attempts at reconciliation after the war were short-lived. A brief period of about four years saw a reconciliation focused government in Colombo, but that government was recently replaced by a more adversarial administration. Operating in this context proves difficult for SFCG in the complex, massively parallel situation, where their ability to interconnect is influenced by the attitudes, policies, and support of those leading the nation. 18
Third, NGO projects are often short-term activities in a two- to three-year timeframe. SFCG is not exempt from that pattern. Mohammed would prefer ten years to work on longer-term initiatives where consistency would aid in the overall arc of reconciliation. These longer-term projects could conceivably assist organizations, like SFCG, in the creation of Ledreach’s platforms to build social cohesion through lasting structural transformation.19 As mentioned in the second obstacle, fluctuating political and economic issues are constant obstacles to maneuver. In addition, donors often restrict funding to short-term projects with quantifiable outcomes, so they can observe the impact of their donations. Hence, Mohammed’s dream of longer-term initiatives are stymied.
Fourth, balancing community organizations and government relationships can be problematic. Mohammed gives the example of when the government is pro-reconciliation, the Office for Missing Persons will have an independent commissioner that collaborates with NGOs. They work together to help its citizens find answers concerning lost loved ones. However, when the government is more adversarial, the flow of information from the Office for Missing Persons dries up and cooperation is restricted. Similar patterns can be seen with a variety of governmental organizations. The effectiveness of INGOs, NGOs, and grassroots organizations may be diminished if the government is unconcerned with reconciliation or fears disrupting the balance of peace, truth, mercy, and justice.
Measuring Outcomes and Determining Success
According to Mohammed, measuring outcomes is always a challenge. As there is not a one size fits all approach to reconciliation, there also is not one way to measure an outcome. Mohammed says it all comes down to context. He has considered community members developing a capacity to talk about reconciliation as a measurable result. In another context, the reinstitution of an independently run Human Rights office is a measurable outcome. For Mohammed and SFCG, outcomes can be based on the duration of a program and/or targets to be reached. A recent example, shared by Mohammed, illustrates how outcomes can be perceived in various frameworks.
A few years after the end of the civil war, SFCG teamed up with HerStory and collected over 700 personal accounts from those who had experienced the civil war in Sri Lanka. It was a two- to three-year memorialization project aimed at providing a safe space to share personal narratives in a depoliticized way. Those who contributed their accounts reported that it was a positive experience. After the stories were collected, the team decided to create an interactive, artistic exhibit of the narratives. Around 2000 people attended the exhibit, and for many it was the first time they saw that the “other” had experienced something similar to themself. Before departing, attendees were asked to make a commitment against the use of violence. Ultimately, the narratives were accepted into the national archives as an official part of Sri Lanka’s history.
From this example, SFCG observed several outcomes to measure both quantitatively and qualitatively: the positive experience of those who originally shared their stories, the state accepting the narratives, the number of attendees at the exhibit, and the attendees’ experiences and commitments. As Mohammed points out, these outcomes are completely based on context. The state accepting citizens’ stories as truth can be viewed as a major outcome and success from the program. That action cannot be compared to the result of the participants’ positive experiences. Each outcome in its own context can be measured, but they should not be compared as this program extended across national, community, interpersonal, and intrapersonal scopes. Yet, they all are important as these outcomes exhibit how reconciliation processes will work best when top-down meets bottom-up.20
Mohammed’s view of success is based on scales and levels. Reaching outcomes and observing change in knowledge and behavior at a grassroots level can be success, even if the country at large has not seen the same transformations. Mohammed points to reactions of the postwar reconciliation efforts in Sri Lanka. Many felt it was not a success, because it should have helped those affected more (ex. those trying to discover the fate of loved ones who had disappeared.) While post-war efforts have not been ideal, Mohammed claims they have built trust, hope, and confidence among some of the citizenry based on what is slowly changing in the country. Even those incremental steps can be viewed as a success, and can be an indicator for what may work on a larger scale nationally in the future.
Mohammed’s philosophy defies the notion that reconciliation is a dichotomy and is able to see reconciliation on a continuum. 21 It takes time to see individuals and groups actually receive justice, truth and reconciliation, Mohammed stresses, but there are actions to take in the meantime. Mohammed uses an example of what he considers a success through the
SFCG-supported Thriloka TV series. This positive media series is a drama that follows a group of tuk tuk drivers with varying religious and ethnic backgrounds. It focuses on difficult issues for the community including poverty, prejudice, and religious tensions. SFCG created engagement circles in communities and had them share reactions and discuss questions after the episodes. The responses showed that people had an “enhance(d) understanding of the positive impact multiculturalism and pluralism” can have. 22 Based on how many people viewed the program and the responses from the engagement circles, it was considered a success. This program did not reconcile the entire country of Sri Lanka, return anyone’s lost loved one, or hold perpetrators accountable. However, it was a success in laying down Lederach’s societal platforms for transformation through media as viewers were confronted with notions of interacting with the “other” and were taught nonviolent conflict resolution practices.23
Following Boulding’s Peak and Mesa Theory, SFCG appears to consider an outcome successful when the community moves onto the mesa of reconciliation and further away from cliffs of catastrophe.24 Whether a giant leap or a small step, the cumulative effect of successful programs and interactions means the possibility of building inclusive narratives, developing constructive conflict resolution practices, and societal transformations.
Advice for Peacebuilders
As an experienced practitioner, Mohammed has advice to give to others pursuing reconciliation at the societal-level. His four suggestions are:
- Don’t wait! Mohammed stresses that there is no perfect time to get involved in reconciliation efforts. Peacebuilders may feel restricted or limited when evaluating the situation, but they can start with small initiatives. This point is consistent with Mohammed’s philosophy of reconciliation discussed above. He pushes against conflict resolution models that suggest conflict is linear and fixed. Mohammed’s proposal indicates that conflict needs to be approached as Burgess’ breaking wave analogy where all stages of conflict may need to be dealt with simultaneously.25 Thus, practitioners wanting to engage others in reconciliation efforts do not need to wait for a conflict to be “done” or for a moment of ripeness. Instead, they can start with “creative problem-solving, increased dialogue, and nonviolent mechanisms of social change."26
- Don’t box yourself in! Mohammed warned that when peacebuilders say they will not engage with others (the government, an organization, or an individual) that they may disagree with in approach or philosophy, it may end up hindering that practitioner's ability to participate and contribute effectively in reconciliation efforts overall. Whether a practitioner is working on vertical reconciliation to re-establish trust between individuals and the state or horizontal reconciliation to repair relationships among community members, it is especially important to engage with those who have a different approach in order to effectively initiate and pursue the processes of reconciliation. 27 In his many years of experience in the field, Mohammed has been confronted with individuals and organizations he did not align with, but it gave him opportunities to use the space in the middle. His next suggestion explains this idea.
- Make opportunity of the space! Mohammed asserts the need to balance societal-reconciliation efforts between nationally and locally led endeavors. Inevitably, there will be gaps amid the initiatives run between these levels. He says to make use of the space in the middle by working to bring the nationally and locally led efforts together through critical ways, such as information sharing. Pentikäinen purports that insider reconcilers can be instrumental in “strengthening the complementarity between grassroots reconciliation efforts and state-based processes.” 28 Mohammed and Pentikäinen’s philosophy points out that different actors and the work they accomplish in their spheres are essential for a holistic process to succeed. Making use of the space can assist in aligning various stakeholders towards the same goal.
- Temper expectations- it is a process! Finally, Mohammed shares that reconciliation is a process which takes time. As he noted earlier, violence can happen quickly and easily, but peacebuilding is slow, hard work. He suggests learning to balance between outcomes and processes to support communities in moving forward. He points out that part of the balance is setting up the institutions to help the initiatives progress but not get stuck in the institutional administration. This piece of advice is reminiscent of Lederach’s recommendation to embrace complexity and be adaptable. 29 Adaptability and tempered expectations not only assist peacebuilders in holding discouragement or hopelessness at bay, but these characteristics also encourage practitioners to evolve with the process.
[1] “Nawaz Mohammed.”
[2] Anandakugan, “The Sri Lankan Civil War and Its History, Revisited in 2020.”
[3] Team, “What We Do | Search for Common Ground.”
[4] Özerdem, “United Nations Security Council Brief on Reconciliation”; Pentikäinen, “Insider Reconciliers: Dialoguefor Sustaining Peace.”
[5] Anandakugan, “The Sri Lankan Civil War and Its History,Revisited in 2020.”
[6] du Toit and Doxtader,In the Balance; Lederach, "Conflict Transformation.”
[7] Burgess and Burgess, “Prospective Reconciliation: What Should We Work For—And How? | Beyond Intractability.”
[8] Galtung, “Peace, Negative and Positive.”
[9] Keyes, “Mapping Reconciliation.”
[10] Burgess and Burgess, “Ebrahim Rasool on What America Might Learn From South Africa’s 300+ Years of Struggle.”
[11] Lederach, “Reconciliation: The Building of Relationships.”
[12] Boulding, “A Journey Into The Future: Imaging A Nonviolent World.”
[13] Galtung, “Peace, Negative and Positive.”
[14] Burgess and Burgess, “Challenging ‘Bad-Faith’ Actors Who Seek to Amplify and Exploit Our Conflicts" | Beyond Intractability./p>
[15] du Toit and Doxtader, In the Balance.
[16] Burgess and Burgess, “Complexity-Oriented, Massively Parallel Reconciliation.”
[17] Lederach, The Moral Imagination.
[18] Burgess and Burgess, “Complexity-Oriented, Massively Parallel Reconciliation.”
[19] Lederach, The Moral Imagination.
[20] Pentikäinen, “Insider Reconciliers: Dialogue for Sustaining Peace.”
[21] Burgess and Burgess, “Prospective Reconciliation: What Should We Work For—And How?" | Beyond Intractability
[22] “Change the Channel! Positive Media Programming for Transformation in Sri Lanka" | Search for Common Ground.
[23] Lederach, “Conflict Transformation”; “Change the Channel! Positive Media Programming for Transformation in Sri Lanka" | Search for Common Ground.”
[24] Burgess and Burgess, “Prospective Reconciliation: What Should We Work For—And How?" | Beyond Intractabilitity
[25] Burgess and Burgess, “Complexity-Oriented, Massively Parallel Reconciliation.”
[26] Lederach, “Conflict Transformation.”
[27] Keyes, "Mapping Reconciliation"
[28] Pentikäinen, “Insider Reconciliers: Dialogue for Sustaining Peace"
[29] Lederach, “Conflict Transformation.”
Bibliography
Anandakugan, Nithyani. “The Sri Lankan Civil War and Its History, Revisited in 2020.” Harvard International Review, August 31, 2020. https://hir.harvard.edu/sri-lankan-c-/.
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Keyes, Simon. “Mapping Reconciliation,” 2019.https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5d0d32005d7640000177b27d/t/5d6733... 01df2014/1567044574969/Mapping-Reconciliaiton-.pdf.
Lederach, John Paul. “Conflict Transformation.” Text. Beyond Intractability, July 6, 2016. https://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/transformation.
Lederach, John Paul.“Reconciliation: The Building of Relationships.” In Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies, 23–35. Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace, 1997.
The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace. New York, United States: Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2005. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/gmu/detail.action?docID=3052023.
EU-CIVCAP. “Nawaz Mohammed,” February 13, 2017. https://eu-civcap.net/portfolio/nawaz-mohammed/.
Özerdem, Alpaslan. “United Nations Security Council Brief on Reconciliation.” Accessed May 7, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_I9z2aseLk.
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Toit, Fanie du, and Erik Doxtader. In the Balance: South Africans Debate Reconciliation.Melville, UNITED STATES: Jacana Media, 2011. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/gmu/detail.action?docID=914215.
