It’s the people who make peace

[ Speech delivered by author and research project manager Jamil Maidan Flores at the seminar on the outcome of a research project of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations – Institute for Peace and Reconciliation (ASEAN-IPR) on “Lessons Learned from a Process of Conflict Resolution between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) as Mediated by Indonesia (1993–1996) held at the ASEAN Hall of the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta, Indonesia on 23 September 2019. The research findings are contained in the book, ‘Lessons Learned’ which was launched on the same day] THANK you for that wonderful introduction. I’m sure my wife likes it.

Bismillahir Rahman ir Rahim

Salaam alaikum waRahmatullahi waBarakatuh Excellencies, Colleagues and Friends,

I wish to share with you this morning some thoughts about the book I have just written. And about the sullen craft of writing.

In the beginning was the book.

Long before this project was proposed, the concept of the book was there. I remember discussing it with Ambassador Rezlan Izhar Jennie on two occasions at the Hotel Ambhara in late 2016.

I also remember discussing it with the then Director of ASEAN Political and Security Affairs, Pak Widya Chandra, now Ambassador to Serbia. I remember very well that he asked me as he assured me of his support to develop four more book ideas on ASEAN. Which I did.

So Pak Chandra was looking for funding for five books. Only one got funded because it’s the only one that fell within the purview of the ASEAN Institute for Peace and Reconciliation (AIPR). To get funding, the book idea had to be packaged as a research project in accordance with the Terms of Reference of AIPR.

Jamil Maidan Flores, author and project manager of the research project titled “Lessons Learned from a Process of Conflict Resolution between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) as Mediated by Indonesia (19931996” speaks at the launch of the book bearing the same title at the ASEAN Hall of the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta on 23 September 2019. MindaNews photo by CAROLYN O. ARGUILLAS

Long story short: Research was carried out. It is a fact, however, that more than 70 percent of the data that went into the book was already in my possession at the start of the project. The research part of the project remained important: it enriched, completed and corroborated a body of existing findings and references that I already had.

The book was written. I wrote that book. I am grateful for the opportunity to write it. I am indebted to the institutions and the individuals who made the writing possible.

If you read the book and while engrossed in reading, you seem to hear a voice, that voice is mine.

Apart from imbuing the writing with his voice, the writer creates a relationship between himself and what he has written. It is a relationship of responsibility. Thus I am responsible for every chapter, every passage, every sentence and every word that is in the book. If any of them is dishonest or deliberately misleading, I alone will answer for it to my Creator. If any of them is libelous, I alone should go to prison.

There is also another kind of responsibility involved here. When a knowledgeable reader begins to feel uneasy reading the book because there is something missing— something avoided—that, too, is my responsibility. For every chapter that should be there but is not there… for every passage and every sentence and every word that should be there but is not there, I stand responsible.

That responsibility stems from the relationship between the writer and the reader. When the reader is engrossed in a book, the real world disappears from her consciousness and she enters into the world of the book. There the writer leads her by the hand from one place to another in an experience of learning and discovery. This is a relationship of trust. It must not be jolted by inconsistencies and instances of writer’s incompetence. It must not be tarnished by deception. If the writer proves to be less than trustworthy, he has failed his responsibility.

When the time comes that I stand before the Author of the Universe, and I am called upon to explain, for example, the omissions from this book, I cannot say: Rabbana, Lord, I was just following orders.

No, I cannot transfer the writer’s responsibility to an institution. Nor can I dump it on other individuals.

I respect and love the members of my team. I am grateful for all they have done for the project. I will die for them any day of the week. But I cannot unload upon them a responsibility that is not theirs. For this is a moral responWHEN