PRADIP PHANJOUBAM

Peace is not just a matter of the absence of violence. It is also necessarily about removing the potential for violence – namely the uncontrolled possession of weapons. It would be naive to believe that anybody can be at ease when it is known that a potential opponent is stockpiling arms, even if the latter swears on whatever he or she believes, that the weapons will not be used. Weapons are meant to be used and pretexts will eventually be found for their use at some point or the other.

The most basic building block of any successful government is, first and foremost, a moral authority over the people it leads.

Conflict resolution cannot be merely about eliminating all opposition or reducing the choices in negotiating the problem to two mutually exclusive sets of rights and wrongs. Rather, it must consist of laboring to bring everybody to accept reality and then to project a future with this understanding as the foundation.

Peace is not just a matter of the absence of violence. It is also necessarily about removing the potential for violence – namely the uncontrolled possession of weapons. It would be naive to believe that anybody can be at ease when it is known that a potential opponent is stockpiling arms, even if the latter swears on whatever he or she believes, that the weapons will not be used. Weapons are meant to be used and pretexts will eventually be found for their use at some point or the other.

The most basic building block of any successful government is, first and foremost, a moral authority over the people it leads.

Conflict resolution cannot be merely about eliminating all opposition or reducing the choices in negotiating the problem to two mutually exclusive sets of rights and wrongs. Rather, it must consist of laboring to bring everybody to accept reality and then to project a future with this understanding as the foundation.