{"id":6973,"date":"2015-07-22T13:35:20","date_gmt":"2015-07-22T17:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/?p=6973"},"modified":"2015-07-28T12:56:28","modified_gmt":"2015-07-28T16:56:28","slug":"seeking-answers-to-structural-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/2015\/07\/seeking-answers-to-structural-violence\/","title":{"rendered":"Seeking Answers to Structural Violence"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_6975\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6975\" style=\"width: 660px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/51\/2015\/07\/Bonnie-Lofton-India.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-6975\" src=\"\/\/emu.edu\/now\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/51\/2015\/07\/Bonnie-Lofton-India.jpg\" alt=\"Bonnie Price Lofton\" width=\"660\" height=\"440\" srcset=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/51\/2015\/07\/Bonnie-Lofton-India.jpg 1265w, https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/51\/2015\/07\/Bonnie-Lofton-India-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/51\/2015\/07\/Bonnie-Lofton-India-600x400.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-6975\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">From the top of the Charminar mosque-monument in Hyderabad, India, Bonnie Price Lofton surveyed this scene in late 2014, enjoying the view of vibrant commerce, only later learning that these streets had seen much deadly violence, fed by deprivation and stoked for political gain.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>What to do about a world system that rewards greed and views altruism as a personal hobby or (worse) as a weakness? A system in which those wielding power generally \u201cwin\u201d by:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>monopolizing resources,<\/li>\n<li>determining our <em>lifeways<\/em><br \/>\n(not a word in the dictionary, but it serves),<\/li>\n<li>and overtly or covertly squashing anyone<br \/>\nin the way of this approach.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These questions played on my mind while studying for my CJP master\u2019s degree, 2001-04. I voiced them in the 2004 book <em>Critical Issues in Restorative Justice<\/em>, in which I titled my chapter \u201cDoes Restorative Justice Challenge Systemic Injustices?\u201d I discussed how restorative justice fails to turn off the spigot that floods the prison system with the perpetrators of one-on-one crimes. I pointed out that large-scale crimes are often not even defined as such:<\/p>\n<p><em>I am referring to the relatively faceless crimes of ruining people\u2019s pension plans in the name of greed for a few, of forcing the public to pay unnecessarily high prices (as in the case of Microsoft\u2019s monopoly on the Windows operating system), and of finding other ways to work the system to accumulate far more wealth than anyone can possibly need while others are suffering from want.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The book editors, Howard Zehr and Barb Toews, weren\u2019t entirely happy with my chapter. Howard asked me for my answer to the dilemma I pointed out, and I told him I had none. I ended up writing mushily:<\/p>\n<p><em>At least some of us need to move beyond restorative justice concepts into educating ourselves in the workings of the corporate economy. Our aim\u2026 should be to develop a more just social order while preserving the good parts \u2013 especially the dynamism \u2013 of today\u2019s economic system\u2026 Moving with cautious urgency \u2013 that is, with urgent consciousness that suffering and permanent damage are occurring now, but with cautious knowledge that ill-considered change may be worse than no change at all \u2013 we need to launch a worldwide discussion on what is the best possible socioeconomic system and how to get to it.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This year, 11 years after writing that chapter and 10 years after I produced the inaugural issue of <em>Peacebuilder<\/em>, I am ending my role as editor-in-chief at EMU to pursue a better answer than the one I offered above.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, I\u2019m not alone in hungering for a more just social order. Many of those interviewed for this issue of <em>Peacebuilder<\/em> alluded to their desire to address the \u201csystemic\u201d or \u201cstructural\u201d roots of violent conflict. They expressed hope that their incremental grassroots efforts, one-on-one relationship-building, and policy consultations with world bodies would eventually yield the structural shifts they\u2019d like to see.<\/p>\n<p>Like me, many of my fellow graduates of CJP fret over the consequences of our current global system, as it foments a massive trade in war weapons, the crushing of indigenous cultures, tidal waves of economic and political refugees, environmental catastrophes, and wealth concentrated in the hands of 1% of the world\u2019s population. But nobody has clarity on a better system, much less how to bring it into being.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t see myself as an original thinker, but rather as someone who is willing to spend years pulling strands of thought from here, others from there and yonder, and (<em>inshallah<\/em>) to one day weave an attractively fresh paradigm. One thing is for sure: it\u2019ll be entirely different from the one that Ayn Rand popularized with her books \u2013 namely, \u201cthe virtue of selfishness,\u201d the glorification of winner-take-all scenarios, and the inherent morality of unregulated capitalism.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019d like to stay in touch with as many from the CJP community as possible and, in the years ahead, to get your feedback for my lines of thought as they slowly evolve. To locate me, try LinkedIn, Facebook, or email <a href=\"mailto:bonnie.lofton@gmail.com\">bonnie.lofton@gmail.com<\/a>. (As for leaving my current role, there&#8217;s a splendid editor, Lauren Jefferson, taking my place!)<\/p>\n<p><i>\u2014 Bonnie Price Lofton<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What to do about a world system that rewards greed and views altruism as a personal hobby or (worse) as a weakness? A system in&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/2015\/07\/seeking-answers-to-structural-violence\/\" target=\"_self\" class=\"more-link\">Read more <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">about Seeking Answers to Structural Violence<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":6975,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1073],"tags":[89,1277,1276],"issues":[1275],"class_list":["post-6973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-magazine","tag-bonnie-price-lofton","tag-critical-issues-in-restorative-justice","tag-violence","issues-2014-15"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6973"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6988,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6973\/revisions\/6988"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6973"},{"taxonomy":"issues","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issues?post=6973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}