Using Strategies of Nonviolent Communication for Living Together in Peace
International Day of Living Together in Peace
Today, May 16 is International Day of Living Together in Peace. Living together in peace is all about accepting differences and having the ability to listen to, recognize, respect and appreciate others, as well as living in a peaceful and united way.
The UN General-Assembly, in its resolution 72/130, declared 16 May the International Day of Living Together in Peace, as a means of regularly mobilizing the efforts of the international community to promote peace, tolerance, inclusion, understanding and solidarity. The Day aims to uphold the desire to live and act together, united in differences and diversity, in order to build a sustainable world of peace, solidarity and harmony. (https://www.un.org/en/observances/living-in-peace-day)
The Day aims to promote and encourage working with communities, faith leaders and other relevant actors, through reconciliatory measures and acts of service and by encouraging forgiveness and compassion among individuals.
In the backdrop of the significance of the Day, it would be apt to look at how we can promote greater engagement and connections between communities, faith leaders, and other actors through reconciliation, forgiveness, compassion and empathy. The central pillar to facilitate these connections is communication. In communities, more than often, disputes arise due to dysfunctional communication. Misunderstanding, trust deficit, miscommunication, lack of respect all lead to breakdown of a harmonious environment. It also leads to social strife and lack of solidarity amongst communities.
Hence the challenge before communities, faith leaders and other relevant actors is to ensure and encourage humanization of entire communication processes so that there is social harmony. Even if there are differences, they should be resolved through mediation, reconciliation, forgiveness and compassion. In this backdrop, it would be pertinent if communities, faith leaders and the relevant actors adopt nonviolent communication as the form of communication to be practiced in all their communicative efforts.
An online session on the issue of human solidarity and nonviolent communication highlighted how the values of solidarity was enhanced when the relevant stakeholders used nonviolent communication. The participants felt lack of humanization of communication processes led to lack of solidarity. In turn lack of solidarity led to increasing trust deficit in communities which resulted in exclusion, intolerance and stereotyping. All these harm the process of social cohesion.
During the sessions on nonviolent communication and mutual co-existence, an underlying point that was highlighted was the essence of human interdependence. We have remember that each one of us are connected and we depend on each other.
As nonviolent communication is a holistic and all-encompassing communication strategy which entails communication not just between human and human but also our symbolic communication with nature and all other living beings, its use to promote a healthy communication ecosystem helps in mutual coexistence. When we understand the importance of mutual coexistence, then only we can live together in peace.
Incidentally, today is Buddha Purnima. In this day let us recollect an important central tenet of Buddhism, i.e., interconnectedness. It is expressed in Buddhism as “When there is this, that comes to be; with the arising of this, that arises. When there is not this that does not come to be; with the cessation of this, that ceases” (Ñāṇamoli and Bodhi 1995, p. 655).
So on this International Day of Living Together in Peace, let us act on we can weave a healthy and humanistic communication ecosystem to get over with our prejudices, intolerance and stereotypes.
References
Ñāṇamoli, B., & Bodhi, B. (1995). The middle length discourses of the Buddha, a translation of the Majjhima Nikāya. Boston: Wisdom Publications.