Abstract
This chapter explores some of the ways that other-than-human guidance can help to restore the mutually beneficial relationships that bring peace and sustain life. Building on the chapter “Restorative Peacebuilding in Liberia” (in this volume), the authors examine some of the underlying principles that make relational peacebuilding such a compelling path to reconnection after violence. They look at how, in the Liberian context, conventional aid reinforces learned helplessness; how communities riven by bloodshed long for reconnection above all; how ecocide exacerbates and often precedes genocide; how a radical shift in perspective from “Me” to “We” opens fresh possibilities for healing; and they consider the role of borders, edges, dreams, and chance encounters as loci of unexpected support. They look at how trauma distorts our perceptions and compromises our decision-making, and they consider the false narrative of “progress.” In its place, they advocate that Westerners seek reciprocity rather than dominance for all our sakes. The authors have included an appendix with benchmarks and questions designed to help us make the necessary changes in ourselves so that we can redefine progress in relational rather than material terms. Above all, the events and stories related here invite us to consider a new kind of relationship with the natural world and each other, based on mutual healing and mutual accountability.
TopIntroduction
Since 2004, grassroots peacebuilders from the NGO everyday gandhis have been working in traditional towns and villages in Northwest Liberia to support community reconciliation, sustainable agriculture and ecological restoration. Our team includes people from Liberia and the U.S., with a wide variety of backgrounds, beliefs and training, including several people with little or no formal schooling. This chapter explores the urgency, in light of impending global extinction, of creating a culture of mutual respect and reciprocity among humans, the Natural World and the unseen forces that make Life possible. Our experiences in Liberia are the context for this discussion.
Interwoven stories from our work in the field reveal unexpected sources of guidance from elephants and the dead, as communicated through dreams and synchronicities, and show how appreciative outsiders can support local communities in recognizing their own unique wisdom and creativity as they recover from the violence of war and the assault of Western consumer culture. The chapter demonstrates the beauty of traditional wisdom in meeting the challenges of post-conflict recovery, ethnic strife, multigenerational trauma and ecological devastation. The valuable lessons learned by those of us who are Western outsiders, indicate the necessity as well as the life-changing beauty of cultivating the shared goal of mutual accountability and trust. The chapter invites consideration of the ways in which the other-than-human world exercises agency in seeking to assist humans in making the necessary conceptual and behavioral changes to meet the challenges of these times.
There is no significant body of research or literature that explores other-than-human guidance in the context of peacebuilding. Our work has revealed several nested dilemmas, particularly with regard to evaluating 'progress', 'results' and 'outcomes' of peacebuilding work in traditional, Indigenous communities: 1) The predominant models of peacebuilding, foreign aid and academic research arise from linear Western thinking exclusively, and as such tend to dismiss as unreliable the non-linear, difficult-to-measure outcomes of felt experience and story; 2) Dreams, divinations, synchronicities and other forms of subtle communication from the natural and spirit worlds are not considered legitimate sources of information for identifying what a community might need, or reliable guidance for discerning what action is required; 3) Relationships between 'experts' and 'recipient communities' are skewed to favor the authority of outside experts and the requirements of their funders over the needs and perspectives of local people. Few outsiders recognize the role this power imbalance plays in perpetuating the dilemmas supposedly being addressed by the interventions of outside actors; 4) Few Westerners recognize Western culture as the source of the problems faced by former colonies, aka 'developing countries'; 5) Little or no research exists examining the accuracy of nonlinear communication from other-than-human beings; 6) Indigenous ways of knowing are generally dismissed as superstition, though experience continues to show them to be extremely effective and precise; 7) Ecocide precedes genocide. Deforestation, industrial agriculture, resource extraction, pollution and habitat loss destroy the natural systems necessary for survival, and create or exacerbate economic injustice, ethnic and social strife. Ecological restoration supports healing by restoring the natural systems necessary for survival and by creating experiential healing and a sense of connection and accomplishment as denigrated environments are repaired in tandem with human communities.
These dilemmas fold in on themselves, and, if not addressed, reinforce the mindset that produced them and perpetuate the deterioration of the Natural World and the breakdown of human communities struggling to survive in the face of the relentless assaults of Western consumer culture and the resulting decimation of Indigenous cultures and the Natural World. To that end, this chapter demonstrates how Indigenous wisdom traditions and other-than-human guidance are urgently needed to help create a global culture that understands how to live in balance with the natural and spirit worlds. We explore these challenges by interweaving the surprising stories of how the other-than-human world interceded to guide community reconciliation and ecological restoration in post-war Liberia, specifically in Voinjama, Lofa County, located in the far Northwest of the country near the tri-junction of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Lorma, Mandingo: Two of the prominent tribes of Liberia, especially in Lofa County, with a long history of intermarriage, collaboration, ceremonial and trade relationships, who clashed violently throughout the civil war. The Lorma tend to be animist and Christian while the Mandingo tend to be animist and Muslim, connected to the Mandé people elsewhere in West Africa, including Guinea, Sierra Leone, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and beyond.
Elephants: A highly evolved keystone species with a sophisticated social structure, long understood by traditional people in Liberia to be bringers of peace; in spite of being endangered due to habitat loss and hunting, elephants continue to communicate with humans in order to offer guidance.
Natural World: The world of animals, Earth, weather, soil, water, insects, birds, reptiles, plants and microbes; and the natural systems and functions that make life possible.
Liberia: A country on the Atlantic coast of equatorial West Africa, founded in the 1820's by freed slaves sent back to Africa from the United States, causing ethnic and economic strife, destruction of Indigenous communities, ecological devastation and political manipulation that eventually led in a brutal civil war lasting from 1989 – 2004.
Dreams: A form of communication from the spirit world to teach, warn and guide human beings in order that we may live in right relationship with each other and with the natural and spirit worlds.
Mourning Feast: A traditional Liberian rite of grieving and peacemaking in which the family and community of the deceased come together to resolve extant conflicts, after which the dead are sent 'across the river' with drumming and dancing, making it possible for those conflicts to be removed from the community and put to rest with the dead. Afterward, the act of partaking in the communal meal is an oath of reconciliation; in Liberia, traditional mourning feasts are highly valued by people of all ethnic and religious backgrounds.
Mutual Accountability: A relational agreement to hold ourselves and each other accountable to behave with respect, dignity, honesty, transparency and love in all our interactions, be they among humans or between humans and other-than-humans; a term first used by Habuka Bombande, co-founder of WANEP (West Africa Network for Peacebuilding, www.wanep.org ).
Offerings: An ancient form of dialogue with the spirit world emanating from a variety of intentions, from a simple invitation to be connected, to a request for a specific result such as protection, peace or helpful information; a practice that seeks to create a language of humility, gratitude, respect and reciprocity that acknowledges and seeks to align with the extraordinary generosity of the Natural World and Her mysteries.
Ecocide Precedes Genocide: The understanding that violence toward the Earth and the ecological destruction that ensues (deforestation, erosion, habitat loss, pollution) precedes and predicts violence, especially genocide and civil war.
Councils: A means of gathering community members to share stories, dreams, observations, questions and concerns in order to give voice to all stakeholders for the purpose of finding common ground and consensus in order to resolve differences, and to make plans and decisions together.
Ancestors: Our human and other-than-human family whose lives made our lives possible, including animals, trees, and all other physical and spiritual entities that came before us, and to whom we remain connected
Western Mind: The mindset that predominates in Western consumer culture, privileging things over relationships; commodification over interdependence; and linear, logical, data-driven ways of knowing and decision-making at the expense of felt experience, living systems and other-than-human beings, such that the intactness of the Whole is subsumed by short-term anthropogenic preferences; term first used by author and teacher, Deena Metzger ( www.deenametzger.net ).
Other-Than-Humans: All non-human beings with whom we share the Earth as well as the spirit plane.
everyday gandhis: Non-profit peacebuilding organization registered in the U.S. and in Liberia focused on peacebuilding, community reconciliation, sustainable agriculture and ecological restoration, whose work is based on dreams and community councils ( www.everydaygandhis.org ).