Information Underexposure

Recently, I was disturbed by a comment from a friend who remarked that all Muslims are clearly in a war to destroy Christians since no Muslims are speaking out against the increasing amount of terrorist attacks.  This perception of inter-religious conflict seems to be growing among individuals of Muslim and Christian faiths. There are in fact many Muslims speaking out about terrorism, preventing terrorist attacks and suffering because of terrorism.  This us vs them perception shown by the comment of my friend is not a new phenomenon but simply another example of conflict caused by a lack of information.  Similar to the art of photography, forming one’s opinion depends on focus area and information exposure.
Conflict theory holds that people often divide themselves into social groups during times of conflict and emphasize a social group identity over their national or human identity. For example, when resources are scarce in a country people divide into smaller groups to contend for them. This also affects us by restricting the information we ingest.  Locked into their group identity, individuals refuse to listen to any positive information about others not a part of their group.  Even being aware of this human tendency does not keep individuals from falling into this trap.
Religion, in particular, is one of the most powerful social identities as many consider it to be the highest authority in their lives.  While other social identities such as culture, ethnicity and homeland refer to ways of life, religion touches on spiritual issues that transcend daily life and ways of living.  This is difficult to understand for individuals who are not spiritual but it is worth reflection because of religion’s power to incite individuals to action.  Let us remember to emphasize our identity of humans and world citizens above all other identities in order to open ourselves to information and points of view from disparate cultural, ethnic and religious groups.
The media we expose ourselves to also has an effect on our perception of conflict.  Dominant western media tends to sensationalize stories because this brings significant attention increasing readership and sales of their magazines and articles.  Unfortunately news stories often tend to focus on one particular view of an incident, interview individuals from similar backgrounds to their readers and report biased statistics in favor of their points of view.  This is a human tendency to focus on one version of the story and promote a simplified, single-minded understanding of the issues involved.  In this day and age there are so many English language news services are available on the internet from many countries such as Al Jazeera, Russia Today and China Daily just to name a few.  Even if we are surrounded by information from the same point of view we need not restrict ourselves to such a narrow point of view from relatively few sources when broadband internet is so widely accessible.
Lastly and related to the previous point, there is a tendency of forming opinions based on very little information.  As soon as we form an opinion we restrict the data to which we expose ourselves.  We stop listening to others and gathering information about the subject. It’s difficult to admit ignorance or that we don’t have enough information on a topic to have an opinion.  The world is full of people who want to form our opinion for us:  politicians, talk show hosts, your neighbor or coworker…all try to convince you that their point of view is correct.  May we all have the courage to listen and ask questions and actively search for information before forming an opinion, especially on issues of deep emotional significance that translate into physical and political actions towards others.
As a final point, our opinions we form are affected by our focus.  You may be familiar with the saying, “separating the forest from the trees…”  Many judgements on smaller scale may seem to be suitable and just but are these opinions applicable on a wider scale? Solutions to some problems on the local level cannot be scaled to a regional or national level.  Viewed in another way, we may decide that a picture we take of a forest meadow shows beautiful, healthy nature but hidden from view in the grass may be signs of pollution and decay.  So our initial impression based on the picture would be incorrect just as our judgements and opinions must fit the context.
The world we live in is increasing complicated and global.  We are constantly bombarded by information and opinions and required to make decisions based on our judgements.  There is not always time to gather more information and listen to many opinions before making a decision but when a decision is not required immediately let us make every effort to gain as much information as possible before forming an opinion or taking an action.  Let us strive to gain enough exposure to information and the proper focus to develop our picture of the world around us to a clearer, most accurate view suitable to our purposes.

Original post:https://www.peacemakersnetwork.org/information-underexposure/

What it Means to be a Peacemaker

Peace programs are more and more prevalent in NGOs these days.  Development cooperation is trying to integrate conflict prevention and conflict management components into many of their programs.  For example, natural resources and conflict prevention, livelihoods and conflict prevention and education and conflict prevention just to name a few.  Finland, in particular, is prominent in the peacekeeping field due to the work of some of its politicians, development cooperation organizations and recent promotion of peace and mediation in international organizations such as the UN and OSCE.  This is well and good as we are well aware of the suffering, destruction and economic devastation caused by conflicts.
You don’t have to be working in development cooperation to be a peacemaker.  There are conflicts around us and in our own society every day.  The way we choose to react to these conflicts affects the outcome.  There are two simple ways to encourage peaceful resolution to our own conflicts and conflicts around us.  One of my favorite conflict resolution professors always stated that the process of conflict resolution starts with curiosity about the other.  In conflict, individuals and groups of individuals become locked into a fixed view of the other party and tend to characterize the other party as “bad” or intending to take advantage of them.  Sometimes conflicts are simply a misunderstanding that can be cleared up with explanation.  Secondly, in order to be a peacemaker one must first believe that there is some good in everyone and that a balanced resolution is possible in every conflict.  This differs from the pessimistic view of human nature that advocates the jungle law of “may the strong survive” and that people intend to take advantage of each other. So to be a peacemaker you must start with faith in people and curiosity about the other.
The Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers, for which Finn Church Aid acts as a secretariat, advocates such curiosity about the other and faith in human nature to help resolve conflicts.  The Network’s research into the causes of radicalization helps us determine what attracts young men and women to violent extremist organizations so that effective programs can be developed to address these causes.  The Network also brings conflicting parties together to a safe neutral place where they can learn about the other’s concerns and see the good that also exists within their “enemy.” Most importantly the Network is advocating for a culture of peace in our societies with the message that conflict is unavoidable but violent action is not necessary to resolve conflicts.  Our website will be published in February 2015 with details about our peace work.

Original post: https://www.peacemakersnetwork.org/what-it-means-to-be-a-peacemaker/

What Kind of Finnish Society Are We Building?

In recent times one has not been able to open a newspaper or surf the internet without encountering news about the enormous influx of refugees arriving to European countries seeking asylum.  Recent news has brought this issue even more to the forefront of public discussion as recent terrorist attacks of the bombing of a Russian passenger airplane, bombings in Beirut, Lebanon and coordinated attacks in Paris all claimed by the militant group ISIS have aroused anger, fear and suspicion toward asylum seekers from the Middle East.  This current climate will may lead to more protests, resistance and possibly violence towards asylum seekers who themselves are attempting to escape such terror in their home countries. 

Our Nordic values of equality, humanitarianism and multiculturalism are under threat by those reacting out of fear and ignorance.  It is the responsibility and duty of us all to work to reduce the escalating tensions between Finnish society and asylum seekers.  We all know that among the asylum seekers there are individuals that may not be suitable candidates for residence status just as we know that in Finnish society there are those that take advantage of the welfare state.  We must leave the work of separating those suitable for asylum and those that will be returned to their home countries to the Finnish authorities.  With this understanding and trust for our government we must endeavor to reduce the tension afflicting our society.  We must also endeavor to provide the best conditions for integration for asylum seekers by welcoming them to our societal events and even to visit our homes.  In this way we also prevent anger and mistrust of soon to be Finnish residents which may cause future violent acts by frustrated and marginalized immigrants. 

For every person that strikes out in fear and anger there are many friends, acquaintances and family that tacitly agree with the violent person’s thoughts and ideas.  Only in extremely rare cases do individuals commit violent crimes without at least moral support.  Violence in the form of hate speech in social media or physical attacks are mere symptoms of a larger problem in our society. This is where we must act as responsible citizens to change the situation.  Wherever we encounter hate speech in our daily lives whether at work, in our social lives, among our friends or even in public in social media we must act to question the person’s opinion.  If our style is not direct confrontation we can at least question the opinion of the person expressing hateful views.  Hate speech is a form of violence and by not acting we share some complicity in the crime.  It is as if we are watching a person under attack and we are turning our heads.  For more guidance on hate speech and how to intervene see the campaign Älää vihaa http://eivihapuheelle.fi/ 

It is culturally difficult for us conflict averse Finns to engage in lively discussion with our friends and or fellow citizens over political opinions and to make space in our mostly homogenous society for new cultures and customs of immigrants.  However in these extreme times where we are faced with escalating tension and violence which merely feeds on itself to create more violence. We must all work for peace and understanding.  Let us all stand up for the values we believe in and work to create an society where extremist acts and hate speech are not allowed to take root and thrive.  We do this by affecting the opinions of those individuals supporting each person committing violence.  We all create the society we live in through our speech and actions.