Sermon Archive	Sermon Archive
Peace Keeping and Peace Making OPENING WORDS There is Han in this world. Han is the emotion of the oppressed, the downtrodden, the used, the exploited. There is more destructive energy in those feelings than in any Bomb ever created. There is more potential for creative transformation in those feelings than in any religious experience yet to take place. Han - the emotion of the poor. As we enter this new year may this candle burn with consciousness of Han. MEDITATION Every one of us has a place where fear lives! Is it related to old age? Is it related to rape? Is it a home vandalized? Is it a mugging? Is it treatment on the job? Is it verbal or physical abuse at home? Some of these fears demand immediate attention, but no fear is worse than another. Any fear will consume, and divert our attention from others to ourselves. When we enter the fear of others and know what it is to live another's life our own fears will be relieved. The fear in another person is always more consuming than our own. Our problems are solved because we join in community to build lives that go beyond fears. Only the idealism and the solidarity of community can save us. Not communities of protection, but communities which seek to embrace the fears and pains of others. This is not a popular idea. It places us next to the downtrodden, the poor, the weak, the ill. It is not a popular idea because our own fears will be killed by it . . . and our fear will do anything to continue to live. Fear will disappear only through embracing that which fear fears the most. What do you fear? What prevents you from living at peace? What do nations fear? What prevents nations from living at peace? What must you do - what must we do? FIRST READING As the world moved towards war in the Persian Gulf in the last months of 1990, a great debate raged in Canada. Should this country take part in the United Nations authorized build-up of the coalition against Iraq by sending ships, aircraft, and troops? And if so, what would such participation do to Canada's acceptability for any future request from the United Nations for peacekeepers? Critics of the decision to send men and women from the Canadian Armed Forces to the Gulf were genuinely concerned about the nation's proud record of peacekeeping. Was this now to be squandered by participation in a shooting war? By the time the war was concluded, before the end of February, 1991, the 2,200 Canadian pilots, ground crew, sailors, infantry, and medical personnel had played a small but important part. But that question of their future usefulness in peacekeeping hung over the country. Not for long. For within days of the end of the Gulf War, the United Nations authorized the establishment of the U.N. Iraq-Kuwait Observation Mission (UNIKOM). Canada was asked along with teams from Britain, France, Pakistan, Egypt, and Bangladesh to provide army engineers to help lift the thousands of mines the defeated Iraqis had left behind them. The Canadians had one of the most dangerous chores, that of clearing the demilitarized zone between Iraq and Kuwait. Canada's usefulness in peacekeeping had not been impaired by its role in the Gulf War. The critics, however, wondered - Would we be acceptable in other parts of the world? [Granatstein and Lavender, Shadows of War, Faces of Peace(Toronto: Key Porter Books, 1992) p.14] SECOND READING John McLeish asked John Robbins if Canada as Canada had some special contribution to make to international society . . . Robbins responded, "Pope Paul thought so . . . When I was making the usual "adieu" as an ambassador going home, the Pope and I talked in his reception chamber. He cited two aspects of Canada that gave her authenticity as a force for world peace. Canada had respect, the Pope said, exactly because she was not a major power broker. She had great resources and a high standard of living, but she wasn't suspected of seeking self-aggrandizement as was bound to be the case with a major power . . . The second aspect mentioned by Pope Paul quite moved me. Canada, he said, was one of the few models in the world of people of differing religions, distinctive ethnic and linguistic groupings, living together in relative harmony. Without exactly saying so, the Pope indicated that this was the road to the future - to a world at peace in diversity. And Canada's role was to keep indicating that road. [McLeish, A Canadian for All Seasons(Toronto: Lester and Orpen, 1978) p. 274] SERMON In May, 1992, at the Annual Meeting of the United Church of Canada in Toronto, Kay Cho, minister of the Toronto Korean United Church gave an address outlining a Korean theology of victims. While "traditional Western European based theology emphasizes sin, forgiveness, and reconciliation . . . in Korea there is a different theological approach. It is called Minjung theology. It is based on Han . . . the suffering that all victims know. Han is experienced. It is not something we do. It is broken-heartedness. It is bitterness, grief, the abyss of anguish, anger and resentment. When Han explodes negatively, it will kill, or seek revenge, or try to destroy others. We saw this energy of Han in the Los Angeles and Toronto riots following the brutal treatment of minorities by the police. When Han energy implodes negatively, it may turn into a fatalism, a deep depression, and even suicide. We see Han imploding in the lives of many native people through a suicide rate that is seven times the national average. Han can also unravel positively. It can become a creative and constructive energy for change and transformation. It is the raw energy of emotions which drive liberation, energies directed toward change in society. Han does not need to explode or implode in negative ways. [Cho, Kay, 'A Korean Theology of Victims', The Practice of Ministry in Canada(Toronto: Council on Theological Education in Canada, Vol. 9, No. 4) p. 30-31] During and following the 1991 Iraqi-Kuwait War, many Canadians who expressed feelings of heartbreak over the role of Canadian Forces in the war. There was widespread worry based in a belief that we had forfeited the right to participate in peacekeeping missions that might follow the war. At stake was Canada's record of being the only country in the world to have taken part in each and every United Nations peacekeeping and peacemaking effort. For many Canadians there was more than pride involved in that record. At stake was a personal sense of identity. Canadians, around the world, are known as a people who will go to great lengths to help others avoid armed conflict. We are respected for that. When our identity is threatened, or we think it is threatened, by the decisions of politicians, we feel Han. The feelings of broken-heartedness, of grief, of bitterness, of anguish, of impotence are normal under these circumstances. At Greenfield Group in the fall of 1990, during a chapel we were asked to raise up for the group our immediate concerns . . . When my turn came, I spoke of the loss I felt as a result of the war. It was not a loss the Americans could feel. It was a loss felt by someone who had adopted part of the Canadian identity. As I spoke, tears began to fill my eyes. The tears were a surprise. I knew at that moment the emotions were those of Han. I was profoundly sad. That sadness even turned to anger toward the government from time to time. There was another part of me which said we would have to wait and see. Such is often the only option available to those with little power. It was only days after the war that the U.N. authorized the establishment of the U.N. Iraq-Kuwait Observation Mission. Canada was immediately asked to provide army engineers. Since then Canada has been asked to serve in the U.N. Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara. The Mission was delayed but the request was significant because it again signalled the readiness of the world body to place their trust in Canadians. Canada has been asked to serve in El Salvador, as observers, to monitor a cease-fire in the twelve-year war between the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front and the government of El Salvador, and in Cambodia, under the Transitional Authority in Cambodia, a force designed to run the country, demobilize guerrilla factions, and supervise the return of refugees until elections can be held this year. Last year at this time a U.N. delegation of technical experts was in Somalia trying to determine if U.N. Peacekeepers could be of use in a country ravaged by war and hunger. Today we are involved in a peacemaking force in Somalia. We have served in Croatia during this past year, securing air landing strips for relief supplies. [Granatstein and Lavender, p. 14-17] Anyone who worried about the continued role of Canada as a respected force in U.N. Peacekeeping must have had their sense of identity restored to wholeness by now. But of late, there has been another question arising amongst Canadians concerned about peace in the world. It has been framed in terms of the differences between peacekeeping and peacemaking. The common distinction between peacekeeping and peacemaking was related to me by Col. John Gardham, Project Director for the Canadian Peacekeeping Monument and author of The Canadian Peacekeeper. Peacekeeping occurs when the U.N. is invited in by all parties involved, to provide (1) observers, (2) a larger force to act as a deterrent, (3) and/or to work the diplomatic corps behind the scenes. Peacemaking occurs when the U.N. moves in without the explicit request or agreement of both sides. In a historical review of peacekeeping efforts, James Boyd extracts five commonalities: 1. an international military or quasi-military presence 2. the consent of the countries in which the operation occurs and that of the troop contributing countries 3. the objective of preventing and curtailing violence 4. strictly limited use of force to achieve this objective and 5. an attempt to create the conditions or environment in which pacific settlement can occur [Boyd, United Nations Peace-Keeping Operations: A Military and Political Appraisal(Washington: Praeger Publishers, 1971) p. 10-11] Let us now go back to the founding of the U.N. and the original concept of intervention to see how the concept of peacekeeping has developed through the years. We will learn that the original charter had no conception of peacekeeping and the proposed intervention was soon unworkable. The Charter of the U.N. provides a scale of actions which might be used to keep the peace. The first step is negotiation by the parties involved. This may involve the use of regional organizations rather than the U.N. Second, the parties involved may turn the dispute over to the Security Council which can recommend methods of adjustment or terms of settlement. Any member can also bring a dispute before the Security Council or the General Assembly. The Security Council can recommend non-military sanctions or military action. In Article 24 of the U.N. Charter it states ". . . in order to ensure prompt and effective action by the United Nations its members confer on the Security Council primary responsibility for maintenance of international peace and security." Article 12 prohibits the General Assembly from acting on any issue that the Security Council is already dealing with unless invited to do so by the Security Council. All five permanent members of the Security Council must agree on any action, therefore any one has a veto. The Canadian delegation to the U.N. Conference in San Francisco in 1945 worked hard to have changes in the provision that all five permanent members of the Security Council had to agree before any action could be taken. Louis St. Laurent, then external Affairs Minister, spoke in Parliament of the dynamics necessary for the Charter to work: If there is to be an effective United Nations Organization, the great powers must remain united under the strain and stress of the post-war period. At the same time it is essential that the middle and smaller powers would be accorded a voice in the peace settlement proportionate to the contribution which they have made in winning the war and in which they are willing to make to the problems of peace . . . The coming of the atomic bomb has opened our eyes to the appalling possibilities which may face the world if the United Nations should fail to achieve international co-operation. [Thomson, Dale, Louis St. Laurent Canadian(Toronto: MacMillan, 1967) p. 176] Article 43 called for an International Force at the disposal of the Security Council. Canada wanted to know what forces they needed to maintain as their obligation. It was up to the military Staff Committee of the U.N. to negotiate the details of Article 43. In 1947 the committee reported failure to reach any agreements after two years of negotiating. The advent of the Cold War disabled Article 43 and much of the security work of the Security Council. When Canada was asked to replace Australia for a two year term on the Security Council starting in 1947, the dashed hopes of two years ago were noted by Mr. St. Laurent, Chairman of the Canadian Delegation: We are standing for membership in a body with a discouraging record . . . [because] in spite of its shortcomings, we in this country continue to believe that the best hope for humankind lies in the establishment of a world organization for the maintenance of peace . . . and if we wish to enjoy the benefits of such a development we must also accept responsibilities. [ed. fr. Thomson, p. 217] The next day in an address to the Second General Assembly, St. Laurent drove the point home again: There is a growing feeling in my country, as in other countries, that the United Nations, because of the experience of the Security Council, is not showing itself equal to the discharge of its primary task of promoting international confidence and ensuring national security. The Economic and Social Council is functioning fairly successfully. The specialist organizations are doing good work. But the Security Council, founded on what is called the unanimity of its permanent members, has done little to strengthen the hopes of those who saw in it the keystone of the structure of peace. It has done much to deepen the fears of those who felt that, with the veto, it could not operate effectively in an international atmosphere of fear and suspicion, where pride is often allowed to take precedence over peace, and power over reason. (fr. External Affairs publication, p. 34) Those who have been worried about the peacemaking aspects of the U.N. must first know that the force called for under Article 43 was generally agreed to be the type of force that went into Kuwait and Iraq. It was a force that would be sent to areas of the world where it seemed that there were activities taking place which would endanger the security of the world. From the very beginning, peacemaking with military force was built into the United Nations Charter. The term peacemaking is also used another way in the reading I did for today's sermon. Peacemaking is the diplomatic work going on behind the scenes - the work which is attempting to build the structures of an agreement which will allow the peacekeepers to leave. St. Laurent was ahead of his time. Not until 1963 were his issues spoken of again and so bluntly. Then Secretary General of the U.N., U Thant, spoke about the changes from the original thinking in the Charter of the U.N.: Due partly to the lack of unanimity among the great powers ever since 1946 and partly to the radical change in the nature of war resulting from the development of atomic and hydrogen weapons, there has been a gradual change in the thinking on questions of international security in the United Nations. There has been a tacit transition from the concept of collective security . . . to a more realistic idea of peacekeeping. The idea that conventional military methods . . . can be used by the United Nations . . . to secure peace seems now to be rather impractical. There has been a change in the emphasis from the use of military forces of the great powers, as contemplated in the Charter, to the use, in practice, of the military resources of the smaller powers, which has the advantage of not entangling United Nations Actions in the antagonisms of the Cold War. (Address to Harvard Alumnae Association, Cambridge, Massachusetts, June 13, 1963) The idea of peacekeeping was not mentioned in the Charter of the U.N. It is a process that developed. First the Security Council had some limited success when it helped the Netherlands and Indonesia enter into negotiations in 1947. In 1948 it was able to arrange a cease-fire between India and Pakistan and set up a Truce Supervisory Organization in Palestine. At the same time the General Assembly was working out its own methods. Significantly they set up procedures of inquiry and observation that are still used today. Their immediate work bore fruit in the Balkans and Palestine. Their commission on Korea did not succeed. Canada played a major role in the development and implementation of the first major peacekeeping force in 1956, at the Suez Canal. When the Security Council was deadlocked, the issue came up in the General Assembly. It was there that Canada argued for some guts to be added to the cease-fire resolution that the General Assembly had already passed. It was Lester Pearson, Secretary of State for External Affairs, who called for a force "large enough to keep these borders at peace while a political settlement is being worked out." [To General Assembly, November 2, 1956 (External Affairs publication, p. 39)] Pearson was speaking of the ultimate military paradox and the greatest military challenge. It was truly peacekeeping, an "extraordinary military act because it calls for the use of soldiers not to fight and win, but to prevent fighting, to maintain cease-fires, and to provide order while negotiations are being conducted." [Cox, Prospects for Peacekeeping(Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1967) p. 4] This paradox is possible because the use of the soldiers, historically a rather banal force, is, under the U.N., guided by the highest of principles. With all the rhetoric about the U.N., and all the talk about peacekeeping and peacemaking, I have found one voice which speaks above all the rest in terms which inspire. It is John Robbins. Robbins was a founder of the United Nations Association of Canada in 1945. He had been a staunch supporter of the League of Nations Society of Canada before that. And while he felt that the World Federalists were filled with pie in the sky idealism that was unpractical, he supported the World Federalists because it was important, in his words, to "keep the idea alive, even if the world isn't ready for it." [McLeish, A Canadian for All Seasons(Toronto: Lester and Orpen, 1978) p. 112] Robbins said, "We Canadians should be trying to put into the stream of history what you might call a model for tomorrow." (Ibid, p. 19). Here he was echoing Pope Paul's words to him years before, the words of our second reading . . . Canada is one of the few models in the world where people of differing religions, distinctive ethnic and linguistic groupings, live together in relative harmony . . . this is the road to the future - to a world at peace, in diversity (Ibid, p. 274). I find that we have been served well in the world community by the idealism of our diplomats. They stand for something distinctly Canadian with an authenticity and an integrity which has allowed them to speak forthrightly the truth as they see it. While we may question the integrity of one politician or one diplomat or another, I believe that the general thrust of Canadian history is filled with creativity and noble paths in a world riddled with lesser values and self interest. When individuals speak to me of their fears of peacemaking versus peacekeeping, I have to listen, sometimes politely. While I am not so idealistic as to believe that the U.N. can intervene when and where it wants without permission, I do believe that there will be times when the world must intervene, if only to make a statement about what is and is not allowed. We all know what happens when a child is raised with no guidelines and is allowed to take whatever he/she wishes from whomever. No nation can act that way in a world community. When I am faced with the potential for using war to stop aggression, a paradox, I stand strongly for all possible diplomatic means to be exhausted, for all possible sanctions to be given a chance, for every possible creative venture to be followed up before we resort to violence. I have a creative mind - I can always think of more ways to stop aggression than politicians or diplomats are willing to try - so I seldom support a military venture. However, there are exceptions. With overwhelming evidence of immediate humanitarian need, I support whatever measures are required to stabilize an area and provide the basics of life and dignity so that diplomacy may be given a chance - Somalia. I support the efforts of the United Nations around the globe to attend to peacekeeping and peacemaking. The reason... those whom I have met who work at the U.N. are highly devoted to peace and peaceful solutions to problems. They are not at the U.N. for the glory, for the money, for jobs as consultants and lobbyists when they retire. I trust the integrity and lofty ideals of that organization. If it is agreed that soldiers must be used, I will grit my teeth hard and find a way to support the effort with as much effort as I criticize it. Some may say this is hypocrisy. I call it a paradox, that's easier to live with. In the end, however, I have one final criticism to level. I return to the start of today's talk. I believe that the fact that there have been over ten peacekeeping and peacemaking operations in the Middle East attests to the failure of diplomacy, precisely because the diplomacy is based in Western concepts of reconciliation. It means that all sides must hew, in some manner, to the ways of the powerful. I do not believe that this will solve problems. I believe that we must allow the suffering of the poor and the weak to lead us in solving problems. Conflicts are more often caused by strong but threatened institutions. These institutions have taken on a life of their own unrelated to people and make demands which can conflict with other institutions: governments, religions, businesses. Only when we have learned to act out of the theology of Han, and pay attention to the needs of the victims rather than institutions will we truly be able to solve problems in ways where people can live together. Such a consciousness is at odds with the structures of the world. Lester Pearson quotes a report on Canada's foreign policy by Norman Robertson in 1967-8 as expressing his beliefs in a way better than he himself could have stated them - amongst those beliefs are a list of reasons for the good reputation of Canada at the U.N.: significant political leadership at the Assembly, especially in times of crisis, close relations with the great powers, prompt and practical response to economic and social programs and humanitarian appeals, understanding of the rights and interests of the smaller powers, sometimes at the risk of differing with powerful friends, inclination and ability to work for compromise solutions, lack of global interests and priorities. [Pearson, MIKE: The Memoirs of the Right Honourable Lester B. Pearson(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, Volume II) p. 133-134] It is significant that here we have encapsulated what is required to practice the theology of Han - having a consciousness of what the weak need and want at the expense of relationships with the powerful vested interests. Perhaps this is what irks me the most about some of the current leadership in Canada. Instead of a clear bias for the ideals of the past, there seems to be too deep an enjoyment of relationships with the powerful. A bit more of a balance with Han consciousness is necessary. The tears I fought back at Greenfield Group, the anguish of Canadians over the decision to enter the U.N. Mission in Kuwait, John Robbins's idealism, Lester Pearson's vision, Louis St. Laurent's insight, and the words of the minister of the Toronto Korean United Church are all symptoms of the incurable spirit of hope and idealism that lies in the human soul. I trust that there is enough of this spirit in the world to overcome, to overpower, to change the people who have not seen the light, who do not know Han. But nothing will happen if you do not cry, if you do not speak of your highest ideals, if you do not defend a vision of peace and security in the world. It is not up to the U.N. It is up to us, right here. What are you going to do about it? ENTRUSTING THE FLAME  As this flame is extinguished, may the consciousness of Han pass from this light toyour heart. May the Han consciousness become a living part of your days and may its energy fill you with the courage to create wider communities of sustenance for this world.	What to expect on Sundays Religious Sources "Views From These Pews"