The northeast of India is the site of many ethnic insurgencies. So peacemaking and conflict transformation are key concerns. Over the years a lot of peacemaking efforts have been invested here. I've worked in the region for over 14 years, mostly with the Nagas, but also touching on some of the other conflicts.
I was invited to be the major resource person for a 3-day peace consortium at the Martin Luther Christian University. MLCU is relatively new, only four years old, and is an ecumenical university. It already has about 1,700 students with a major peace studies program. Dr. Leban Serto directs the program, and I met him when I was last in northeast India in December 2009.
The trip was long--flights from Detroit to Frankfurt to Mumbai (Bombay) to Kolkata (Calcutta) to Guwahati. Then we drove for about three hours up into the hills of the state of Meghalay to Shillong. I left Detroit Sunday evening and arrived in Shillong on Tuesday evening with only a few hours sleep.
Shillong used to be the administrative center for the entire northeast of India during the British colonial days. The city is a bit more developed and grander than the other cities in the region. Being up in the hills the climate is much cooler than in the plains. So I'm wearing a sweater and a jacket most of the time. Shillong is a learning center for the region. It also is the headquarters for the India armed forces, facing both China and Bangladesh as well as dealing with the multiple insurgencies.
The first two days here were spent in recovering from jet lag, planning and coordinating about the consortium, and doing a little sight-seeing. Then the training started today. We are taking a day before and a day after the consortium for special programs for students and graduates of the peace studies program. So I'll be training for a total of 5 days. The consortium is an interfaith event, so with the students I'm doing a special focus on the Biblical material related to the topics we'll be dealing with in the consortium workshops.
Today we got off to a good start. We have participants from across northeast India and from many of the ethnic groups. We also have two Mizos from Bangladesh, a Hungarian woman and a South Korean man. We did some introductory material related to conflict transformation. Then later I facilitated the styles of conflict section using the "conflict animals"--which some of you have seen me lead.
So hopefully a good night sleep, then tomorrow we have a bigger group of people from different religions and even different parts of India than just the northeast. Actually, a good night sleep will be a miracle. Today is Diwali, the major Hindu festival of light. So people have already been setting off firecrackers over the past few days, but I've been warned that tonight it will be almost non-stop. The firecrackers here are much louder than in the U.S., sounding more like bombs, and I'm not talking about cherry bombs. It literally sounds like a war going on out here. So I'll have jet lag and firecracker lag most likely!
About Me
- Daniel Buttry
- I am the Global Consultant for Peace and Justice with International Ministries of the American Baptist Churches. That means that I work around the world, usually on short term peace projects. My area of specialty is conflict transformation. Simply put, conflict transformation means turning conflict from negative, destructive experiences into positive, constructive experiences… in which problems are solved, unjust relationships are structured in more just ways, violence is replaced by nonviolent means of dealing with disagreements, torn relationships are reconciled, decisions become more participatory and traumatized people are supported for healing. About 70% of my work involves training people in nonviolent conflict transformation. I occasionally am involved in mediation. I write a lot and have published a number of books on various peacemaking topics.