Making Our Way Back to Humanity

Beyond September 11

"Interdependence suggests that security is connected to new ways of relating in our global community based on inclusion, participation, and access to meeting basic needs."

Our global community, with the events of 11 September 2001, has been challenged in ways not imagined only a few months earlier. Following are a few reflections on where we stand in this field of peacebuilding as we think abou these current situations, locally and globally. I can speak to what I see and feel from the context of my home, recently affected so directly and massively by an act of violence unprecedented on our soils, and I can speak from what I learn from my travels with peacebuilders in various parts of the globe.

Lederach, John Paul. “Making Our Way Back to Humanity: Beyond September 11.” In Searching for Peace in Central and South Asia: An Overview of Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding Activities, edited by Monique Mekenkamp, Paul van Tongeren, and Hans van de Veen, 9–13. Searching for Peace in Central and South Asia. Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002.

From “Making Our Way Back to Humanity: Beyond September 11,” by John Paul Lederach, in Searching for Peace in Central and South Asia: An Overview of Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding Activities, edited by Monique Mekenkamp, Paul van Tongeren, and Hans van de Veen. Copyright © 2002 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc.

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The Challenge of Terror: A Traveling Essay

Written while stranded in Guatemala after September 11, an essay suggesting a number of lessons learned from peace initiatives where terrorism was employed as a tool of struggle and calling for new approaches to combating the challenge.

2001