Conflicts Can Lead to Violence or Peace

Conflict (incompatible goals or interests, disagreements, injustices, problems and misunderstandings) is different from violence (committing harm).  Violence—physical assault, verbal-emotional aggression, or systemic injustice— is harmful behaviour or harmful patterns of social behaviour.  Violence can be stopped, mitigated or prevented.  Conflicts are the reasons for that behaviour. Conflict is normal: people and societies inevitably have some conflicts. Conflicts present choices. Conflicts can be handled in nonviolent ways with peaceful and just consequences.  Violence happens when conflicts escalate: get worse, more aggressive, or get bigger by spreading to more participants.  People can learn to recognize and de-escalate conflicts —reduce their size and severity, resolve, or transform the whole situation— before violence might erupt, or to stop violence. Peacebuilding citizenship education is about learning the relationships, skills, principles and processes to resolve and transform conflicts—so as to heal, redress, mitigate, or prevent future harms.  In sum, conflicts present choices, toward violence or toward peace.