Peace has become biggest loser

Madam,

/ooking at events around the world I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that peace has become the biggest loser of all times. I mean, everyone pursuing peace has to sacrifice something to maintain peace.

Talking of governments, it has become abundantly clear that in order to maintain the peace they have to succumb to demands of society in order to keep the peace.

It is now only in very small societies such as ours that the roles are reversed - I mean, our people as a peace loving people would trade their rights in order to maintain the peace. And here I mean bending over backwards, literally. And this is wisdom by the way - preservation of that scarce commodity (peace amidst competing priorities.

And opting for a compromise doesn¶t mean abandoning legitimate ways of resolving conflicts or disputes, it Must says that you do not want to pursue a certain course of action whose end would Meopardise peace or is the perpetuation of distraction as seen in protest actions.

*ranted, we are too small as a country to boast about this if one understands that we are Must under 2 per cent in population terms to that of neighbouring South Africa, our big brother. SA¶s population means more diversity and many different languages and ethnic diversity much of which lends itself to conflicts.

+owever, the principle that underpins all this is the attitude and culture of society in terms of how they go about resolving issues.

In the midst of conflict as commonly happens, the party that chooses the route to peace by giving

up its rights or makes concessions is viewed as the weaker party, this is the reason not too many people opt for this role. +owever, on the contrary, the strongest party is actually the one who e[tends the olive branch first, in his quest for peace.

At the root of all this behaviour is how people react to challenges not making peace a priority as they seek to resolve issues. To most of these people the ends Mustify the means. This unfortunately breeds the culture of a society that resorts to fighting for things and getting them, whether rightly or wrongly. And a society like that is ungovernable at best.

B Dlamini