YOUTH ENGAGEMENT IN NEGOTIATING THE TERMS OF PEACE: THE MEDIA AS A CATALYST
YOUTH ENGAGEMENT IN NEGOTIATING THE TERMS OF PEACE: THE MEDIA AS A
CATALYST
Oluwaseyi Ige
As a basic definition, the
media are the several mediums or channels used in an organised fashion to
communicate to individuals and groups. The most commonly recognized forms of
media are print, audio, video and new information technologies (new media), which
can be divided between ‘mainstream’ and ‘alternative’ outlets dependent on
their structure, focus and content.
Media, particularly new media, has no doubt
transformed the way in which youth engage with their environment, government
and community leaders to promote peace and reconciliation.
Reliable,
accurate and objective media, whether it be mainstream, alternative or
traditional/nonconventional, can both prevent and resolve conflict
through the automatic functions of responsibly disseminating information,
furthering awareness and knowledge, promoting participatory and transparent
governance, and addressing perceived grievances. In the last 10 years, the new media influence has grown exponentially with the advance of technology. Many people are today fully dependent on the information through this media to keep moving in the right direction and their daily activities like work, entertainment, healthcare, education, personal relationships, traveling are greatly controlled by what they read, hear and see.
The media can contribute to peace, by engaging in credible reporting, representing balanced opinions in its editorial content, and opening up communication channels among parties in a conflict. It can also identify and articulate without bias the underlying interests of warring factions. By doing so, the media is capable of disseminating information that builds on the confidence of stakeholders in a conflict.
It is important to note that no development
can take place in any community or nation, except there is a considerable
atmosphere of peace. No investor will put his money in a conflict zone, except
he’s selling weapons. The relevance of peace to development cannot be
overemphasized. Cost of rebuilding Syria is put at $ 180 billion according to
World Bank President Jim Yong Kim. The Syrian President, Bashir al Assad said
it’s more than $ 200 billion. Imagine how many
infrastructure that amount will provide, if it were not for the escalated
conflict that made it necessary.
In other words, it is far easier for a few people to burn down a house, while on the other hand; it takes many people to build a house, just as it takes many to build peace.
Building a culture of peace requires mass changes in the way people think, their attitudes, and their behaviors. This is what the media can do. It can shape the dialogue. Everything you hear gives you an opinion.
As the ‘fourth estate’, the media acts as the ‘guardians of democracy, defenders of the public interest, revealing abuses of state authority and defending the democratic rights of citizens’.
When Edmund Burke in the 17th Century was referring to the journalists as the ‘fourth estate’ I guess he had no idea that the news gathering work will become an all-comers affair as it is now. Conventional media organizations encourage the audience to also contribute content. Real-time responses to content being aired are now a standard practice. The game has changed. So has the players. Examples abound around us here. Before now, citizens with new-worthy contents sold them to the media outlets. But now, you will be gratified if what you sent got a decent mention in the news bulletin.
We need more people and not key people. More people have their number in the youth. There is power in numbers. Key people are few and not trusted. In every demography, however you define it, the youth is always the largest.
But unfortunately, youths as a conceptual category are frequently ‘othered’ in the discourse on peace building, either in post-conflict scenario or in neuter grounds. They are seen as potentially dangerous ‘subjects’ and policy approaches often regard them as ‘a problem’. Policy makers seem not to know what to do with them. Often, youths in the age group 16-30 have been observed as the main protagonists of criminal and political violence. Much of contemporary thinking on youth and conflict tends to be overly negative. It focuses on the dangers posed by disaffected youths as they are more of ‘statistics’ than players in any peace talk. This has become a dangerous assumption as youths do play very key roles aiding peace building in societies recovering from conflict, or maintain the peace in any community.
The UN World Population Prospects statistics estimate
that there are 1.3 billion 15-24 years olds in the world and nearly
one billion live in developing countries where conflict is more likely to have
taken place.
With such demographic realities, the
potential youths hold for change and positive action should be the subject of
growing research agenda, and this is particularly important with the recent
wave of social upheavals and humanitarian crises in different parts of the
world.
For much of human social interaction, the
category called ‘youth’ has been perceived as a historically constructed social
category, a relational concept, and as a group of actors that is far from
homogenous. A myriad of factors make it so: gender, class, race, ethnicity,
political position as well as age.
The reality is that youths can be heroes as
well as victims, saviours and courageous in the midst of crisis, as well as
criminals in the shantytowns and military entrepreneurs in the war zones. Yet,
as a category, youth are often approached as a fixed group or demographic
cohort.
The young vacillate between the two extremes
of ‘infantilizing’ and ‘demonizing’. On the one hand, youths are viewed as
vulnerable, powerless and in need of protection. On the other, they are feared
as dangerous, violent, apathetic and as threats to security. Youths are
subjected to stereotypical images of being angry, drugged and violent and as
threat, especially those who participated in armed conflict as combatants.
The positioning of youth in society has a
bearing on their leadership potential and their possible role in peace
building. The tension between young and old has been one of the key features of
inter-generational shifts pertaining to the control over power, resources and
people. Young people are innovative and think outside
the box. They are more willing to experiment with ideas, as they are open to
suggestions and not set in their ways. This could make them confrontational and
aggravate the negative perceptions of that demography.
The tension lies in the palpable impatience
of youth, their desire to strive for more and their willingness to be seen as
responsible and capable.
Without recognizing youths as key actors,
their trajectories in peace building would likely be ignored, wasted and at
best, under-utilized. To acknowledge their roles in peace building, there needs
to be a comprehensive understanding of their conflict trajectories, and this is
particularly important for those young people who have taken direct
participation in an armed conflict as combatants. An example that readily comes
to mind is the Niger Delta militants of South South Nigeria.
If the youth won’t be offered a seat the
table when discussing peace, they have to take one for themselves, by using the
tools at their disposal. By dictating what to be discussed from the window.
Policy makers will have to discuss what the populace is concerned about. The
youth can easily determine what the populace desires by talking about those
things themselves. The future do not belong to the older generation policy
makers of today. They may not be there to see how it pans out. The youth will
be there to live through it. Therefore, they should have a say in what will
happen in their future, today.
It is also pivotal to avoid the well-known
cliché of referring to youths as the ‘future leaders’. Leadership should not be
considered as a factor of age and providing appropriate governance contexts
would likely enable young people to flourish as leaders today. In other words,
they need to be treated as leaders today without postponing it to an elusive
future whether it is in governance in general or peace building programmes
specifically.
To achieve this objective there have recently
been a number of critical developments such as the UN Security Council Resolution
2250 on Youth, Peace and Security of December 2015 which makes
a clear recognition of positive contributions of youth to peace and sets an
overall framework to support their efforts.
With their youthful energy and capabilities,
and ability of adaptation to new technological trends, for example, youths
could act as mediators, community mobilisers, humanitarian workers and peace
brokers.
If the
current players will not have the youth contribute to the future, they have to
do that by themselves. Every young person today has the responsibility to be
aware of his environment, and take action to speak out about issues affecting
them. If you don’t do, no one will do for you, because the truth is that others
are busy minding their lives to give a hoot about how yours end.
Negotiating
the terms of peace could not be any more accessible than it is. In some
circumstances, the mundane practices of everyday life facilitate youth
organizing for peace. Youth has found ways of communicating across distances
and difference of ideas, particularly taking advantage of opportunities
afforded by technology and social media. In some cases this is organization for
direct action: the mobilizing via technology of bodies on the street—as we saw
in the Arab Spring protests, and in more localized responses. Recently, the #NotTooYoungToRun bill was passed by both houses of the
National Assembly in Nigeria. It’s a huge victory because many of the lawmakers
were engaged on social media by the constituents, demanding that they support
the passage of the bill. It symbolises the effectiveness of media advocacy to
push the boundaries on issues.
Media gives youth opportunity
to negotiate with policy makers. To set agenda. To comment on issues that
affect them.
As hate that fosters violence is contagion,
so is inclusiveness, a very necessary ingredient for peace. Every youth is an
activist in matters of peace building. It can’t be left for a select few to
handle. All hands must be on deck. Every youth must do something about what they see as wrong.
Conflicts are reproduced through stories.
Peace can be engendered through stories too. What is said and how it is said will
give issues the desired perspective. Media is not an end it itself. It is, and should continue to be the
means to an end. We may not all have access to conventional media outlets, but
we are thankful for the availability and widespread of New Media. Now, everyone
can participate in the process of building peace. Creating and managing media
content has become easier and immediate. Also, its impact can be directly
measured.
Before you hit the retweet or share button, or forwarding to all your contacts on WhatsApp, ask yourself these questions (these are self-revealing questions that must be answered by the youth in negotiating the terms of peace, the negotiations are ongoing, either we participate or not):
Who will be affected by this? Who has a
distinct stake in its outcome? What is their relationship to one another,
including relative power, influence, affluence?
What: What triggered this? What drew it to
your attention at this time? What issues do the parties need resolve?
When: When did this begin? How often have the
circumstances existed that gave rise to this?
Where: What geographical or politic
jurisdictions are affected by this information? How has this kind of thing been
handled in other places?
Why: Why do the parties hoId the positions
they do; what needs, interests, fears and concerns are the positions intended
to address?
How: How are they going to resolve this e.g.
negotiation, mediation, arbitration, administrative hearing, court, armed warfare;
what are the costs/benefits of the chosen method?
Options: What options have the parties
explored, how do the various options relate to the interests identified?
Young people looking to make a difference
must:
·
obtain detailed understanding of issues,
·
Realize that interventions should be long
term and sustainable, do not be too ambitious, ensure that the public have
realistic expectations - "do the do-able"
·
encourage the search for positive outcomes
·
avoid simplistic representations of goodies
and baddies
·
level the playing field by giving the
powerless a voice
·
encourage the development of a wider range of
solutions
·
in accessing negotiations, do not focus only
on losses and gains made by the parties as this will result in additional
difficulties in selling the proposed solution to hard-liners on each side.
·
give all the parties the opportunity to speak
and to see each other's position clearly and without bias. Help understanding
by facilitating communication and helping to avoid misunderstandings.
·
help to prevent the circulation and
broadcasting of propaganda, inflammatory material, hate-media, or damaging
rumours which destroy communities and prevent the building of trust.
The world is multi-cultural and multi
religious, sensitivity to religious and cultural requirements, is important,
and helps counteract the image of those in conflict scenarios as passive
victims. Avoid stereo-typing of groups, populations, leaders etc.
The possibilities are
endless. Even you can start a movement towards peace. We don’t have to wait
till times of conflict to discuss matters of peace. With your internet-enabled
phone, you are already a global policy maker with a front row seat on issues
that catch your fancy. Your social media handles (facebook, twitter, instagram,
youtube), blogs, sms and even calls are all very important to building a
culture of peace in our present time. The youth must leverage on their sheer
number and take advantage of the emerging realities to push the peace agenda
forward on all fronts. The media can be used to inform about, educate,
mobilize, indoctrinate and evaluate the processes of peace building.
Attaining and maintaining a
condition of peace is a necessity. Only then can we realistically participate
in nation building. How it can be done must be dictated by the youth because
they are key actors in the peace process.
I look forward to seeing
you become a world changer, even from your corner of the globe. All it takes is
you!
Twitter: @thisverySeyi
igeseyi@hotmail.com
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