Peacebuilding Today

The text I just read came from my journal reflections, written in April 2002. The informal “taxi survey” that I conduct on every trip and most anywhere I travel usually comes filled with on-the-ground assessments, not always scientific, but more often than not a window into reality, a social litmus test. In the phraseology of this particular taxi driver, the litmus test bears the mark of what formal survey research would surely affirm: At a popular level, Colombia, like many other places, lives with a profound deficit of authenticity when the subject of peace is broached.

This is not uncommon for many of the places I travel to and have worked with over the past twenty years. Though more peace agreements have been signed in the last decade than in the previous three, people living in settings of deep-rooted conflict are cautious about the promise of peace. Violence creates a hard school that leaves the imprint of pessimism and with good reason…