Saturday, October 24, 2015

Building a legitimate government: From Refugee camps back to communities

In every war zone there is a need to bring security, which is a very obvious statement to make. That security is always viewed as the physical security of controlling personal attacks such as rape and of course gun control. These elements can only be controlled effectively through a legitimate force. In most war zones there is a severe lack of legitimacy to carry out such controls. To use a single word, “trust”. To build trust takes both education and action. As simple as this paragraph seems to be, the complexity is limitless when striving to bring security to any area because of the broken trust. As a peacebuilding effort is put into motion the main issue is always trust. From there that single issue moves into what is often known as “boots on the ground”. How does a policy of peace translate into action? Refugee and Internally Displaced camps are often places of great need and have been known as targets for recruitment of all kinds. Could we begin the work of building community peace from the camps back to the communities? As the people form up to enter the camp they can be filtered as to where they came from. This list can help develop a shadow council of the community people left yet are still very much attached to. Every camp can track this information and begin to filter people together based upon their desire to return and rebuild. For those that have not experienced life in such camps, there is a quick decline in a persons understanding of purpose. Other than just getting through each day life in such camps becomes almost pointless. Building such councils will offer a purpose and hope of returning to their communities. Furthermore those that doe return will have a large portion of understanding what is needed to bring peace back. Such a program would provide a purpose for those in the camps. It would provide a source for government officials when the need arises. Also, such a program will bring a sense of community that has transcended the chaos. Furthermore, such a program would put the power of decision making on the people that lived in the community, not some unknown group of international workers. The above idea is just a thought I had this morning. I have no knowledge of such a program that exists or how difficult it would be. I do know that it would be very difficult to implement. The idea is that such a program would provide a legitimate source of community leadership. With a great connection of communication these people involved would bring immediate trust of any future government. Thoughts?

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