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From Violence to Blessing

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From Violence to Blessing From Violence to Blessing 00 REDEKOP Viol.INTRO PM6.5 1 10/24/02, 1:41 PM 00 REDEKOP Viol.INTRO PM6.5 2 10/24/02, 1:41 PM Vern Neufeld Redekop From Violence to Blessing How an Understanding of Deep-Rooted Conflict Can Open Paths to Reconciliation Foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize 00 REDEKOP Viol.INTRO PM6.5 3 10/24/02, 1:41 PM © 2002 Novalis, Saint Paul University, Ottawa, Canada Cover design and layout: Christiane Lemire and Caroline Gagnon Cover painting: Ellen Gabriel (detail from “Spirit Guide“) Publishing Offce 10 Lower Spadina Avenue, Suite 400 Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5V 2Z2 Head Offce 4475 Frontenac Street Montréal, Québec, Canada H2H 2S2 www.novalis.ca National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Redekop, Vernon Neufeld, 1949- From violence to blessing : how an understanding of deep-rooted confict can open paths to reconciliation / Vern Neufeld Redekop. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 2-89507-309-0 1. Social confict. 2. Confict management. 3. Reconciliation. I. Title. HM1121.R43 2002 303.6 C2002-904176-7 Printed in Canada. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher. We acknowledge the fnancial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for business development activities. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 16 15 14 13 12 FromViolenceToBlessing_Copyright.indd 2 12-04-27 2:47 PM Contents Foreword ................................................................................................. 9 Introduction ............................................................................................. 11 Part 1 — Violence .................................................................................. 17 Chapter 1 — Deep-Rooted Conflict ............................................... 19 Chapter 2 — Human Identity Needs .............................................. 31 Chapter 3 — Imitation and Identity ............................................... 61 Chapter 4 — The Scapegoat Function ........................................... 85 Chapter 5 — Hegemonic Structures .............................................. 111 Chapter 6 — Ethnonationalism ...................................................... 123 Chapter 7 — Self–Other Dynamics ............................................... 147 Chapter 8 — Structures of Violence .............................................. 161 Part 2 — Case Study ............................................................................. 173 Chapter 9 — Understanding Through Interpreting ........................ 175 Chapter 10 — The Oka/Kanehsatà:ke Crisis of 1990 ..................... 187 Chapter 11 — Interpreting the Oka/Kanehsatà:ke Crisis ................ 225 Part 3 — Blessing .................................................................................. 253 Chapter 12 — Structures of Blessing ............................................... 255 Chapter 13 — Reconciliation ........................................................... 285 Chapter 14 — Theological Reflections ............................................ 309 Chapter 15 — From Violence to Blessing ....................................... 325 Epilogue — Reflections on September 11, 2001 ................................ 339 Notes ........................................................................................................ 351 Selected Bibliography ............................................................................. 389 Index ........................................................................................................ 397 00 REDEKOP Viol.INTRO PM6.5 5 10/24/02, 1:41 PM Dedicated to Gloria Neufeld Redekop, my partner in life, who, by being who she is, has taught me existentially what life, love and reconciliation are all about. 00 REDEKOP Viol.INTRO PM6.5 6 10/24/02, 1:41 PM 7 Acknowledgments This book is the culmination of eleven years of study, training and program development. My doctoral program overlapped with my becoming President of the Canadian Institute for Conflict Resolution (CICR) and later Director, Program Development in Conflict Studies at Saint Paul University, Ottawa. While I was at CICR, hundreds of people participated in over 60 two-day seminars. The seminars, which were interactive and generative, helped to refine many of the ideas presented here. The position at Saint Paul University allowed time for me to complete this work. Core insights were based on research I did for my doctoral program. Professor John van den Hengel gave excellent counsel for my dissertation and modelled a laudable combination of intellectual depth, respect and enthusiasm for ideas. As a friend and mentor he has contributed significantly to the depth and rigour of my academic work. Likewise, professors Ken Melchin, Jean-Marc Larouche, André Beauregard, Hubert Doucet and Achiel Peelman stimulated my intellectual growth and development. René Girard’s work has been pivotal to my own theoretical development, as will become clear in the text; I am indebted to him for both his intellectual contribution and his personal warmth and encouragement. Those who read portions of the book and made helpful comments include Jean Cormier, Mari-ève Marchand, Brian McQuinn, Mark Williams, Mark Jowett, Derek Simon and Laura Stovel. John van den Hengel made helpful comments on Chapter 9 concerning hermeneutical methodology. Richard Batsinduka, Tag Elkhazin, Abdi Hersi, Vesna Dasovic Markovic,´´ Wahida Chishti Valiante, and Janet McGrath added anecdotes and observations to the text. Shirley Paré not only reviewed a number of chapters but added a significant reflection on gender issues in the military, in Chapter 7, based on her experience. To Ellen Gabriel of Kanehsatà:ke I am grateful for her review of Chapter 10, on the Oka/Kanehsatà:ke Crisis, and for her detailed suggestions. She also agreed to the use of her artwork on the cover. Jessica Hill and Chief Joe Norton of Kahnawà:ke also reviewed Chapter 10. Likewise, Padré David Kettle of the Canadian Military reviewed this chapter in the light of his experience and helped me to balance the framing of events. Ian McLeod, a journalist who lived through the Crisis, also read and verified the enclosed account. Rebecca Adams played a vital role in developing some of the new concepts presented in the book. Her presentation on “loving mimesis” at the Colloquium on Violence and Religion at Loyola University in 1994 was an epiphany for me. Ongoing dialogue with her as a fellow Girardian scholar working on positive and creative dimensions of mimetic theory has helped me discover and clarify such 00 REDEKOP Viol.INTRO PM6.5 7 10/24/02, 1:41 PM 8 FROM VIOLENCE TO BLESSING concepts as mimetic structures of violence, entrenchment and blessing. I am grateful that she added a vignette in Chapter 12, telling the story of how she arrived at her original insights. The staff at Novalis has been truly outstanding. Commissioning Editor Kevin Burns had a knack for providing feedback on what really “worked” in the book. Early on, he caught the vision for what the book was about. Ellen Shenk streamlined the text wonderfully and Managing Editor Anne Louise Mahoney attended to the many details of getting it right. Anne Chevalier and Christiane Lemire attended to the aesthetics of the book. Christian Bellehumeur and Guillaume Theoret took my rough sketches and turned them into polished graphics. My parents, Bill and Loreen Redekop, imparted to me a passion for peace as they modelled community action to create what I now call mimetic structures of blessing. They joined my children – Quinn, with his wife Sue, Natasha and Lisa – in enthusiastically cheering me on. Gloria Neufeld Redekop has continued to share her life with me in a crucible that has allowed me to live the ideas presented. Her honest engagement with me has taken the Self–Other dialogue to incredible depths. She has provided a context in which mimetic desire, human identity needs and other concepts devel- oped below have become part of everyday discourse. Finally, she has allowed me to share specific aspects of our life together in the pages below. For all these reasons I am especially grateful to her. 00 REDEKOP Viol.INTRO PM6.5 8 10/24/02, 1:41 PM 9 Foreword Throughout my life I have come to know violence well. Not only in my native South Africa, where oppressive laws and brutal practices scarred generations, but also in Jerusalem, Addis Ababa, Biafra and Belfast I have felt the imminence of violence in the air. What Vern Neufeld Redekop describes in this book as violence I have known about in all its forms. Now he brings to the table of those wishing to diminish the power of violence in this world a conceptual framework that helps us name with greater precision the dynamics of hurtful actions, policies and impulses. Nor am I a stranger to blessing as the result of reconciliation processes. “Blessing” as Redekop uses the word has a close family resemblance to the concept of ubuntu, which guided many of us through the taxing days of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Ubuntu speaks of the essence of being human. It includes qualities of generosity, hospitality, friendliness, caring and compassion. It expresses the fact that humanity is shared and that through our human connectedness we find our identities. People with ubuntu feel good about the well- being and success
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