Palestinian Hazem Almassry says Israel wants peace — just as Russia wants peace and China wants peace. But peace based on what? It’s a fundamental question that reverberated throughout the opening session of the inaugural Taipei International Peace Forum, which yesterday saw experts from around the world descend on a ballroom in Taipei to give their perspectives on the current state of the global order and where it might be heading.
Almassry’s framing of the question made for some uncomfortable listening because of Taiwan’s support for Israel and the obvious parallels between a Palestinian occupied present — where Israel is starving the population and, according to a UN commission, is committing genocide — and a possible Taiwanese future occupied by China, an occupied future done in the name of appeasing the Chinese Communist Party.
“What kind of peace are we looking for and how to bring about peace?” he asked the audience. “Is it based on beating you, subjugating you and keeping you under control. Or is it based on justice, equality, freedom and dignity that makes everyone win.”
Photo courtesy of the Lung Ying-tai Cultural Foundation
Almassry’s skepticism about the possibility of peace was echoed by Israeli Roi Silberberg, who said that his fellow citizens will never live in safety and security by using military force and oppression.
“Sadly, many in Israel don’t feel like this,” said the director of the School for Peace, Wahat al Salam-Neve Shalom.
DIVERSE APPROACHES
Photo courtesy of the Lung Ying-tai Cultural Foundation
Taiwan has no meaningful peace studies at the educational, civil society or governmental level — odd considering the decades of tension across the Taiwan Strait. The forum was in part meant to rectify that, and provide a platform for Taiwan to start thinking about possible avenues for peace.
In that light, former culture minister Lung Ying-tai (龍應台), whose eponymous foundation hosted the event, said that Taiwanese have to think not just about war games, but peace games, “not only as a choice for ourselves but as a commitment we offer the world as well,” she said.
It’s a theme that was later picked up by Silberberg.
“The goal of the peace games is to be as truthful and honest as you can so you can arrive at a better understanding of the other,” he said. “To have care for the other, not only understanding but caring for the other. And this maybe and hopefully will create trust and then both win the game.”
Director of Ocean Nexus Center Yoshitaka Ota began his talk in the form of reconciliation by apologizing for Japan’s colonial past in Taiwan and pledging to promote knowledge of Japan’s imperialism at home. He went on to discuss the importance of “ocean equity,” or pushing for social equality at sea so that marginalized peoples are taken into consideration when governments are crafting and implementing policy.
“Ocean plays a huge role in our peace building especially if we are talking about national and human security, both necessary part of peace,” he said.
Ota said that planning for the future comes with recognizing that society is deeply unequal, the impact of which will only get worse as the climate changes and the people’s capacity to act is stymied by dis/misinformation that calls into question the efficacy of scientific knowledge.
It’s a narrative that Emma Baumhofer understands intimately. The independent consultant in digital peace building and design and a product of Silicon Valley’s early heady days recalls the early aughts as a time when people viewed new technologies as beneficial to humanity. No longer.
Baumhofer says that the mood around technology has changed radically over the past two decades.
“It’s not neutral. This is a key thing that we’ve discovered in the past 20 years. We formerly thought that technology was a neutral force, we now know that it is not,” she said.
And with issues such as mental health crises and censorship, we are seeing the impact in real time.
“It’s not on the fault of technology that we are seeing these divisions, but technology plays a key role in amplifying these divisions and dramatically changing our information and communication environments,” she said.
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