CPID 586998

UNIV 2002 Global Issues

Xanedu OriginalWorks
Custom Book
Spring 2017
 UNIV 2002 Global Issues
Custom Book

THIS PRINT COURSEPACK AND ITS ELECTRONIC COUNTERPART (IF ANY) ARE INTENDED SOLELY FOR THE PERSONAL USE
OF PURCHASER. ALL OTHER USE IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
XanEdu publications may contain copyrighted materials of XanEdu, Inc. and/or its licensors.
The original copyright holders retain sole ownership of their materials. Copyright permissions
from third parties have been granted for materials for this publication only. Further reproduction
and distribution of the materials contained herein is prohibited.

WARNING: COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IS AGAINST THE LAW AND WILL RESULT IN

PROSECUTION TO THE FULLEST EXTENT OF THE LAW.

THIS COURSE PACK CANNOT BE RESOLD, COPIED

OR OTHERWISE REPRODUCED.

XanEdu Publishing, Inc. does not exert editorial control over materials that are included in this
course pack. The user hereby releases XanEdu Publishing, Inc. from any and all liability for any
claims or damages, which result from any use or exposure to the materials of this course pack.
 In print copy only Online only

Unmarked items are available both in print and online

UNIV 2002 Global Issues

Table of Contents
Global Issues Cover 1

Front Matter 3

Contents 5

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Le Guin, Ursula 7

Prologue by Crosby, Alfred W. 15

Shaping a Vision: The Nature of Peace Studies by Brunk, C. 23

The Trial by Mosley, Walter 49

Bibliography 75

Bibliography 77

i
ii
 UNIV 2002:

Global Issues

1
2
 UNIV 2002:
GLOBAL ISSUES

3
W5hfgm5Fairleigh Dickinson University
1000 River Road
Teaneck NJ
07666, USA

95omn7g7kfllo7mfm7o

This coursepack contains copyrighted ontent. In some cases,

the copyright is owned by third parties, and is being made
available to you by permission or under the fair use doctrine.
The Content is made available only for your personal,
noncommercial educational use. You may not use the Content
for any other purpose, or distribute or make the Content
available to others. The content will be deleted at the end of
the semester and will no longer be accessible to you.

Acknowledgments:

First published in New Dimensions Three in 1973, and then in The Winds
Twelve Quarters, published by HarperCollins in 1975. Copyright 1973 by
Ursula K. Le Guin. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.
From Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 9001900 by
Alfred W. Crosby. Copyright 2004 by Cambridge University Press. Re-
printed by permission of the publisher via the Copyright Clearance Center.
From Patterns of Conflict, Paths to Peace edited by Larry J. Fisk and John L.
Schellenberg. Copyright 2008 by University of Toronto Press. Reprinted
by permission of the publisher.
From Freedom: Stories Celebrating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
by Walter Mosley. Copyright 2011. Published by Broadway Books, an
imprint of Random House, Inc., a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

530 Great Road

Acton, MA 01720
800-562-2147
www.xanedu.com

4
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas 1

Ursula K. Le Guin

Prologue 9
Alfred Crosby

Shaping a Vision: The Nature of Peace Studies 17

Conrad G. Brunk

The Trial 43
Walter Mosley

5
6
 THE ONES WHO WALK
AWAY FROM OMELAS

Ursula K. Le Guin

With a clamour of bells that set the swallows soaring, the Festival
of Summer came to the city. Omelas, bright-towered by the sea.
The rigging of the boats in harbour sparkled with flags. In the
streets between houses with red roofs and painted walls, between
old moss-grown gardens and under avenues of trees, past great
parks and public buildings, processions moved. Some were deco-
rous: old people in long stiff robes of mauve and grey, grave master
workmen, quiet, merry women carrying their babies and chatting
as they walked. In other streets the music beat faster, a shimmer-
ing of gong and tambourine, and the people went dancing, the
procession was a dance. Children dodged in and out, their high
calls rising like the swallows crossing flights over the music and
the singing. All the processions wound towards the north side of
the city, where on the great water-meadow called the Green Fields
boys and girls, naked in the bright air, with mud-stained feet and
ankles and long, lithe arms, exercised their restive horses before
the race. The horses wore no gear at all but a halter without bit.
Their manes were braided with streamers of silver, gold, and
green. They flared their nostrils and pranced and boasted to one
another; they were vastly excited, the horse being the only animal
who has adopted our ceremonies as his own. Far off to the north
and west the mountains stood up half encircling Omelas on her
bay. The air of morning was so clear that the snow still crowning
the Eighteen Peaks burned with white-gold fire across the miles of
sunlit air, under the dark blue of the sky. There was just enough
wind to make the banners that marked the racecourse snap and

7
flutter now and then. In the silence of the broad green meadows
one could hear the music winding throughout the city streets, far-
ther and nearer and ever approaching, a cheerful faint sweetness of
the air from time to time trembled and gathered together and
broke out into the great joyous clanging of the bells.
Joyous! How is one to tell about joy? How describe the citizens
of Omelas?
They were not simple folk, you see, though they were happy.
But we do not say the words of cheer much any more. All smiles
have become archaic. Given a description such as this one tends to
make certain assumptions. Given a description such as this one
tends to look next for the King, mounted on a splendid stallion
and surrounded by his noble knights, or perhaps in a golden litter
borne by great- muscled slaves. But there was no king. They did
not use swords, or keep slaves. They were not barbarians. I do not
know the rules and laws of their society, but I suspect that they
were singularly few. As they did without monarchy and slavery, so
they also got on without the stock exchange, the advertisement,
the secret police, and the bomb. Yet I repeat that these were not
simple folk, not dulcet shepherds, noble savages, bland utopians.
There were not less complex than us. The trouble is that we have a
bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering
happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual,
only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to
admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you
can't lick em, join em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is
to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of every-
thing else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe
happy man, nor make any celebration of joy. How can I tell you
about the people of Omelas? They were not naive and happy chil-
drenthough their children were, in fact, happy. They were ma-
ture, intelligent, passionate adults whose lives were not wretched.
O miracle! But I wish I could describe it better. I wish I could
convince you. Omelas sounds in my words like a city in a fairy tale,
long ago and far away, once upon a time. Perhaps it would be best
if you imagined it as your own fancy bids, assuming it will rise to

8
the occasion, for certainly I cannot suit you all. For instance, how
about technology? I think that there would be no cars or helicop-
ters in and above the streets; this follows from the fact that the
people of Omelas are happy people. Happiness is based on a just
discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor
destructive, and what is destructive. In the middle category, how-
everthat of the unnecessary but undestructive, that of comfort,
luxury, exuberance, etc.they could perfectly well have central
heating, subway trains, washing machines, and all kinds of mar-
velous devices not yet invented here, floating light-sources, fuelless
power, a cure for the common cold. Or they could have none of
that: it doesnt matter. As you like it. I incline to think that people
from towns up and down the coast have been coming in to Ome-
las during the last days before the Festival on very fast little trains
and double-decked trams, and that the train station of Omelas is
actually the handsomest building in town, though plainer than the
magnificent Farmers Market. But even granted trains, I fear that
Omelas so far strikes some of you as goody-goody. Smiles, bells,
parades, horses, bleh. If so, please add an orgy. If an orgy would
help, dont hesitate. Let us not, however, have temples from which
issue beautiful nude priests and priestesses already half in ecstasy
and ready to copulate with any man or woman, lover or stranger,
who desires union with the deep godhead of the blood, although
that was my first idea. But really it would be better not to have any
temples in Omelasat least, not manned temples. Religion yes,
clergy no. Surely the beautiful nudes can just wander about, offer-
ing themselves like divine souffles to the hunger of the needy and
the rapture of the flesh. Let them join the processions. Let tam-
bourines be struck above the copulations, and the gory of desire be
proclaimed upon the gongs, and (a not unimportant point) let the
offspring of these delightful rituals be beloved and looked after by
all. One thing I know there is none of in Omelas is guilt. But what
else should there be? I thought at first there were no drugs, but
that is puritanical. For those who like it, the faint insistent sweet-
ness of drooz may perfume the ways of the city, drooz which first
brings a great lightness and brilliance to the mind and limbs, and

9
then after some hours a dreamy languor, and wonderful visions at
last of the very arcana and inmost secrets of the Universe, as well
as exciting the pleasure of sex beyond all belief; and it is not habit-
forming. For more modest tastes I think there ought to be beer.
What else, what else belongs in the joyous city? The sense of vic-
tory, surely, the celebration of courage. But as we did without cler-
gy, let us do without soldiers. The joy built upon successful
slaughter is not the right kind of joy; it will not do; it is fearful and
it is trivial. A boundless and generous contentment, a magnani-
mous triumph felt not against some outer enemy but in commun-
ion with the finest and fairest in the souls of all men everywhere
and the splendor of the worlds summer: this is what swells the
hearts of the people of Omelas, and the victory they celebrate is
that of life. I dont think many of them need to take drooz.
Most of the processions have reached the Green Fields by now.
A marvelous smell of cooking goes forth from the red and blue
tents of the provisioners. The faces of small children are amiably
sticky; in the benign grey beard of a man a couple of crumbs of
rich pastry are entangled. The youths and girls have mounted their
horses and are beginning to group around the starting line of the
course. An old woman, small, fat, and laughing, is passing out
flowers from a basket, and tall young men wear her flowers in their
shining hair. A child of nine or ten sits at the edge of the crowd
alone, playing on a wooden flute. People pause to listen, and they
smile, but they do not speak to him, for he never ceases playing
and never sees them, his dark eyes wholly rapt in the sweet, thing
magic of the tune.
He finishes, and slowly lowers his hands holding the wooden
flute.
As if that little private silence were the signal, all at once a
trumpet sounds from the pavilion near the starting line: imperious,
melancholy, piercing. The horses rear on their slender legs, and
some of them neigh in answer. Sober-faced, the young riders
stroke the horses necks and soothe them, whispering. Quiet, qui-
et, there my beauty, my hope. They begin to form in rank
along the starting line. The crowds along the racecourse are like a

10
field of grass and flowers in the wind. The Festival of Summer has
begun.
Do you believe? Do you accept the festival, the city, the joy?
No? Then let me describe one more thing.
In a basement under one of the beautiful public buildings of
Omelas, or perhaps in the cellar of one of its spacious private
homes, there is a room. It has one locked door, and no window. A
little light seeps in dustily between cracks in the boards,
secondhand from a cobwebbed window somewhere across the cel-
lar. In one corner of the little room a couple of mops, with stiff,
clotted, foul-smelling heads, stand near a rusty bucket. The floor is
dirt, a little damp to the touch, as cellar dirt usually is. The room is
about three paces long and two wide: a mere broom closet or dis-
used tool room. In the room, a child is sitting. It could be a boy or
a girl. It looks about six, but actually is nearly ten. It is feeble-
minded. Perhaps it was born defective, or perhaps it has become
imbecile through fear, malnutrition, and neglect. It picks its nose
and occasionally fumbles vaguely with its toes or genitals, as it sits
hunched in the corner farthest from the bucket and the two mops.
It is afraid of the mops. It finds them horrible. It shuts its eyes, but
it knows the mops are still standing there; and the door is locked;
and nobody will come. The door is always locked; and nobody ever
comes, except that sometimesthe child has no understanding of
time or intervalsometimes the door rattles terribly and opens,
and a person, or several people, are there. One of them may come
in and kick the child to make it stand up. The others never come
close, but peer in at it with frightened, disgusted eyes. The food
bowl and the water jug are hastily filled, the door is locked; the
eyes disappear. The people at the door never say anything, but the
child, who has not always lived in the tool room, and can remem-
ber sunlight and its mothers voice, sometimes speaks. I will be
good, it says. Please let me out. I will be good! They never an-
swer. The child used to scream for help at night, and cry a good
deal, but now it only makes a kind of whining, eh-haa, eh-haa,
and it speaks less and less often. It is so thin there are no calves to
its legs; its belly protrudes; it lives on a half-bowl of corn meal and

11
grease a day. It is naked. Its buttocks and thighs are a mass of fes-
tered sores, as it sits in its own excrement continually.
They all know it is there, all the people of Omelas. Some of
them have come to see it, others are content merely to know it is
there. They all know that it has to be there. Some of them under-
stand why, and some do not, but they all understand that their
happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friend-
ships, the health of their children, the wisdom of their scholars,
the skill of their makers, even the abundance of their harvest and
the kindly weathers of their skies, depend wholly on this childs
abominable misery.
This is usually explained to children when they are between
eight and twelve, whenever they seem capable of understanding;
and most of those who come to see the child are young people,
though often enough an adult comes, or comes back, to see the
child. No matter how well the matter has been explained to them,
these young spectators are always shocked and sickened at the
sight. They feel disgust, which they had thought themselves supe-
rior to. They feel anger, outrage, impotence, despite all the expla-
nations. They would like to do something for the child. But there
is nothing they can do. If the child were brought up into the sun-
light out of that vile place, if it were cleaned and fed and comfort-
ed, that would be a good thing, indeed; but if it were done, in that
day and hour all the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas
would wither and be destroyed. Those are the terms. To exchange
all the goodness and grace of every life in Omelas for that single,
small improvement: to throw away the happiness of thousands for
the chance of happiness of one: that would be to let guilt within
the walls indeed.
The terms are strict and absolute; there may not even be a kind
word spoken to the child.
Often the young people go home in tears, or in a tearless rage,
when they have seen the child and faced this terrible paradox.
They may brood over it for weeks or years. But as time goes on
they begin to realize that even if the child could be released, it
would not get much good of its freedom: a little vague pleasure of

12
warmth and food, no real doubt, but little more. It is too degraded
and imbecile to know any real joy. It has been afraid too long ever
to be free of fear. Its habits are too uncouth for it to respond to
humane treatment. Indeed, after so long it would probably be
wretched without walls about it to protect it, and darkness for its
eyes, and its own excrement to sit in. Their tears at the bitter in-
justice dry when they begin to perceive the terrible justice of reali-
ty, and to accept it. Yet it is their tears and anger, the trying of
their generosity and the acceptance of their helplessness, which are
perhaps the true source of the splendour of their lives. Theirs is no
vapid, irresponsible happiness. They know that they, like the
child, are not free. They know compassion. It is the existence of
the child, and their knowledge of its existence, that makes possible
the nobility of their architecture, the poignancy of their music, the
profundity of their science. It is because of the child that they are
so gentle with children. They know that if the wretched one were
not there snivelling in the dark, the other one, the flute-player,
could make no joyful music as the young riders line up in their
beauty for the race in the sunlight of the first morning of summer.
Now do you believe them? Are they not more credible? But there
is one more thing to tell, and this is quite incredible.
At times one of the adolescent girls or boys who go see the
child does not go home to weep or rage, does not, in fact, go home
at all. Sometimes also a man or a woman much older falls silent
for a day or two, then leaves home. These people go out into the
street, and walk down the street alone. They keep walking, and
walk straight out of the city of Omelas, through the beautiful
gates. They keep walking across the farmlands of Omelas. Each
one goes alone, youth or girl, man or woman. Night falls; the trav-
eller must pass down village streets, between the houses with yel-
low-lit windows, and on out into the darkness of the fields. Each
alone, they go west or north, towards the mountains. They go on.
They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness, and they
do not come back. The place they go towards is a place even less
imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot de-

13
scribe it at all. It is possible that it does not exist. But they seem to
know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

14
 PROLOGUE from
ECOLOGICAL IMPERIALISM

Alfred Crosby

GIVE ME A CONDORS QUILL! Give me Vesuvius crater for an

ink stand! Friends, hold my arms!
Herman Melville, Moby Dick

European emigrants and their descendants are all over the place,
which requires explanation.
It is more difficult to account for the distribution of this subdi-
vision of the human species than that of any other. The locations
of the others make an obvious kind of sense. All but a relatively
few of the members of the many varieties of Asians live in Asia.
Black Africans live on three continents, but most of them are con-
centrated in their original latitudes, the tropics, facing each other
across one ocean. Amerindians, with few exceptions, live in the
Americas, and nearly every last Australian Aborigine dwells in
Australia. Eskimos live in the circumpolar lands, and Melanesians,
Polynesians, and Micronesians are scattered through the islands of
only one ocean, albeit a large one. All these peoples have expanded
geographicallyhave committed acts of imperialism, if you will
but they have expanded into lands adjacent to or at least near to
those in which they had already been living, or, in the case of the
Pacific peoples, to the next island and then to the next after that,
however many kilometers of water might lie between. Europeans,
in contrast, seem to have leapfrogged around the globe.
Europeans, a division of Caucasians distinctive in their politics
and technologies, rather than in their physiques, live in large num-

15
bers and nearly solid blocks in northern Eurasia, from the Atlantic
to the Pacific. They occupy much more territory there than they
did a thousand or even five hundred years ago, but that is the part
of the world in which they have lived throughout recorded history,
and there they have expanded in the traditional way, into contigu-
ous areas. They also compose the great majority in the populations
of what I shall call the Neo-Europes, lands thousands of kilome-
ters from Europe and from each other. Australias population is
almost all European in origin, and that of New Zealand is about
nine-tenths European. In the Americas north of Mexico there are
considerable minorities of Afro-Americans and mestizos (a con-
venient Spanish-American term I shall use to designate Amerindi-
an and white mixtures), but over 80 percent of the inhabitants of
this area are of European descent. In the Americas south of the
Tropic of Capricorn the population is also dominantly white. The
inhabitants of the Deep South in Brazil (Paran, Santa Catarina,
and Rio Grande do Sul) range between 85 and 95 percent Euro-
pean, and Uruguay, next door, is also approximately nine-tenths
white. Some estimations put Argentina at about 90 percent and
others at close to one 100 percent European. In contrast, Chiles
people are only about one-third European; almost all the rest are
mestizo. But if we consider all the peoples of that vast wedge of
the continent poleward of the Tropic of Capricorn, we see that the
great majority are European. Even if we accept the highest estima-
tions of mestizo, Afro-American, and Amerindian populations,
more than three of every four Americans in the southern temper-
ate zone are entirely of European ancestry.1 Europeans, to borrow
a term from apiculture, have swarmed again and again and have
selected their new homes as if each swarm were physically repulsed
by the others.
The Neo-Europes are intriguing for reasons other than the
disharmony between their locations and the racial and cultural
identity of most of their people. These lands attract the atten-
tionthe unblinking envious gazeof most of humanity because
of their food surpluses. They compose the majority of those very
few nations on this earth that consistently, decade after decade,

10

16
export very large quantities of food. In 1982, the total value of all
agricultural exports in the world, of all agricultural products that
crossed national borders, was $210 billion. Of this, Canada, the
United States, Argentina, Uruguay, Australia, and New Zealand
accounted for $64 billion, or a little over 30 percent, a total and a
percentage that would be even higher if the exports of southern
Brazil were added. The Neo-European share of exports of wheat,
the most important crop in international commerce, was even
greater. In 1982, $18 billion worth of wheat passed over national
boundaries, of which the Neo-Europes exported about $13 billion.
In the same year, world exports of protein-rich soybeans, the most
important new entry in international trade in foodstuffs since
World War II, amounted to $7 billion. The United States and
Canada accounted for $6.3 billion of this. In exports of fresh,
chilled, and frozen beef and mutton, the Neo-Europes also lead
the world, as well as in a number of other foodstuffs. Their share
of the international trade in the worlds most vitally important
foods is much greater than the Middle Easts share of petroleum
exports.2
The dominant role of the Neo-Europes in international trade
in foodstuffs is not simply a matter of brute productivity. The Un-
ion of Soviet Socialist Republics usually leads the world in the
production of wheat, oats, barley, rye, potatoes, milk, mutton, sug-
ar, and several other food items. China outproduces every other
nation in rice and millet, and it has the most pigs. In terms of
productivity per unit of land, a number of nations outdo the Neo-
Europes, whose farmers, small in number but great in technology,
specialize in extensive rather than intensive cultivation. Per farmer,
their productivity is awesome, but per hectare it is not so impres-
sive. These regions lead the world in production of food relative to
the amount locally consumed, or, to put it another way, in the pro-
duction of surpluses for export. To cite an extreme example, in
1982 the United States produced only a minuscule percentage of
the worlds rice, but it accounted for one-fifth of all exports of that
grain, more than any other nation.3
We shall discuss Neo-European productivity again in the final

11

17
chapter, but now let us turn to the subject of the Europeans pro-
clivity for migrating overseas, one of their most distinctive charac-
teristics, and one that has had much to do with Neo-European
agricultural productivity. Europeans were understandably slow to
leave the security of their homelands. The populations of the Neo-
Europes did not become as white as they are today until long after
Cabot, Magellan, and other European navigators first came upon
the new lands, nor until many years after the first white settlers
made their homes there. In 1800, North America,4 after almost
two centuries of successful European colonization, and though in
many ways the most attractive of the Neo-Europes to Old World
migrants, had a population of fewer than 5 million whites, plus
about 1 million blacks. Southern South America, after more than
two hundred years of European occupation, was an even worse
laggard, having less than half a million whites. Australia had only
10,000, and New Zealand was still Maori country.5
Then came the deluge. Between 1820 and 1930, well over 50
million Europeans migrated to the Neo-European lands overseas.
That number amounts to approximately one-fifth of the entire
population of Europe at the beginning of that period.6 Why such
an enormous movement of peoples across such vast distances?
Conditions in Europe provided a considerable pushpopulation
explosion and a resulting shortage of cultivable land, national ri-
valries, persecution of minoritiesand the application of steam
power to ocean and land travel certainly facilitated long distance
migration. But what was the nature of the Neo-European pull?
The attractions were many, of course, and they varied from place
to place in these new-found lands. But underlying them all, and
coloring and shaping them in ways such that a reasonable man
might be persuaded to invest capital and even the lives of his fami-
ly in Neo-European adventures, were factors perhaps best de-
scribed as biogeographical.
Let us begin by applying to the problem what I call the Dupin
technique, after Edgar Allan Poes detective, C. Auguste Dupin,
who found the invaluable Purloined Letter not hidden in a
bookbinding or a gimlet hole in a chair leg but out where everyone

12

18
could see it in a letter rack. A description of the technique, a sort
of corollary to Ockhams razor, goes like this: Ask simple ques-
tions, because the answers to complicated questions probably will
be too complicated to test and, even worse, too fascinating to give
up.
Where are the Neo-Europes? Geographically they are scat-
tered, but they are in similar latitudes. They are all completely or
at least two-thirds in the temperate zones, north and south, which
is to say that they have roughly similar climates. The plants on
which Europeans historically have depended for food and fiber,
and the animals on which they have depended for food, fiber,
power, leather, bone, and manure, tend to prosper in warm-to-
cool climates with an annual precipitation of 50 to 150 centime-
ters. These conditions are characteristic of all the Neo-Europes, or
at least of their fertile parts in which Europeans have settled
densely. One would expect an Englishman, Spaniard, or German
to be attracted chiefly to places where wheat and cattle would do
well, and that has indeed proved to be the case.
The Neo-Europes all lie primarily in temperate zones, but their
native biotas are clearly different from one another and from that
of northern Eurasia. The contrast becomes dramatically apparent
if we look at some of their chief grazers and browsers of, say, a
thousand years ago. European cattle, North American buffalos,7
South American guanacos, Australian kangaroos, and New Zea-
lands three-meter high moa birds (now, sadly, extinct) were not
brethren under the pelt. The most closely related, the cattle and
buffalos, were no better than very distant cousins; even the buffalo
and its closest Old World counterpart, the rare European bison,
are different species. European colonists sometimes found Neo-
European flora and fauna exasperatingly bizarre. Mr. J. Martin in
Australia in the 1830s complained that the

trees retained their leaves and shed their bark instead, the
swans were black, the eagles white, the bees were stingless,
some mammals had pockets, others laid eggs, it was warm-
est on the hills and coolest in the valleys, [and] even the

13

19
 blackberries were red.8

There is a striking paradox here. The parts of the world that

today in terms of population and culture are most like Europe are
far away from Europeindeed, they are across major oceansand
although they are similar in climate to Europe, they have indige-
nous floras and faunas different from those of Europe. The regions
that today export more foodstuffs of European provenance
grains and meatsthan any other lands on earth had no wheat,
barley, rye, cattle, pigs, sheep, or goats whatsoever five hundred
years ago.
The resolution of the paradox is simple to state, though diffi-
cult to explain. North America, southern South America, Austral-
ia, and New Zealand are far from Europe in distance but have cli-
mates similar to hers, and European flora and fauna, including
human beings, can thrive in these regions if the competition is not
too fierce. In general, the competition has been mild. On the
pampa, Iberian horses and cattle have driven back the guanaco and
rhea; in North America, speakers of Indo-European languages
have overwhelmed speakers of Algonkin and Muskhogean and
other Amerindian languages; in the antipodes, the dandelions and
house cats of the Old World have marched forward, and kangaroo
grass and kiwis have retreated. Why? Perhaps European humans
have triumphed because of their superiority in arms, organization,
and fanaticism, but what in heavens name is the reason that the
sun never sets on the empire of the dandelion? Perhaps the success
of European imperialism has a biological, an ecological, compo-
nent.

NOTES

1
The statistic for this brief discussion come from The New Rand
McNally College World Atlas (Chicago: McNally, 1983), The World
Almanac and Book of Facts, 1984 (New York: Newspaper
Enterprise Association, 1983), The Americana Encyclopedia

14

20
(Danbury, Conn.: Grolier, 1983), and T. Lynn Smith, Brazil;
People and Institutions (Baton Rouge: Louisiana Press, 1972), 70.
2
Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations Trade
Yearbook, 1982 (Rome: Food and Agricultural Organization of the
United Nations, 1983), XXXVI, 424, 528, 11214, 11820,
2378; The Statesmans Year-book, 1983-84 (London: Macmillan,
1983), xviii; Lester R. Brown, Putting Food on the Worlds
Table, a Crisis of Many Dimensions, Environment 26 (May
1984): 19.
3
The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 1984 (New York:
Newspaper Enterprise Association, 1983), 156.
4
For the purposes of this book, I shall define North America as
that part of the continent north of Mexico.
5
Colin McEvedy and Richard Jones, Atlas of World Population
History (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1978), 285, 287, 313
14, 327; Robert Southey, History of Brazil (New York: Greenwood
Press, 1969), III, 866.
6
Huw R. Jones, A Population Geography (New York: Harper &
Row, 1981), 254.
7
American buffalo are really bison (buffalo are ox-like animals
that live in Asia and Africa), but pedantically accurate terminology
in this context would only lead to confusion.
8
Joseph M. Powell, Environmental Management in Australia,
17881914 (Oxford University Press, 1976), 1314.

15

21
22
 SHAPING A VISION:
THE NATURE OF PEACE STUDIES

Conrad G. Brunk

A. Why Study Peace:

The twentieth century has been described by many historians as

the bloodiest century in recorded human history. Judging simply
by the numbers of people who have suffered violent death or the
many other terrors of warfare and social strife, they are surely justi-
fied in their claim. The majority of those killed in the two major
world wars, like most of the victims of the many regional wars that
followed, were terrified, innocent civilians. The latter half of the
century was dominated by a cold war in which the superpower
nations of the world, having developed weapons of mass destruc-
tion, threatened massive genocide upon each others populations.
Their weapons, many scientists believed, held the potential to
terminate human life on the planet. Although this cold war came
to an end in the last decade, the nuclear, chemical, and biological
weapons it produced remain in existence and continue to place the
peoples of the world at risk.
This is only a part of the bloody story of the twentieth century,
however. The rest includes chapter upon chapter of border wars
between smaller nations, and ethnic, religious, and revolutionary
conflict, in which acts of terrorism, guerilla war, and even geno-
cide have become commonplace. The human race has achieved
many apparent economic, scientific, and political advances in the
modern era, but when it comes to managing our conflicts our most
recent record demonstrates that we have made little, if any, pro-
gress. Indeed, it appears that the human race has a decided pen-

17

23
chant for turning its most impressive technological achievements
to the task of finding ever more painful and destructive ways of
dealing with its conflicts.
Surely one of the most important tasks for humanity in the new
millennium is to learn how to handle individual, social, and na-
tional or international strife in more constructive and peaceful
ways. The toll in human misery and the threat to our survival on
this planet have become far too great. Rather than continuing to
rely on entrenched procedures, we need to find less destructive,
less violent ways of dealing with conflict at every level, from the
family and the neighbourhood all the way up to the community of
nations and states.
For this reason increasing numbers of educators and scholars
have developed the conviction in recent years that the problem of
conflict and violence in our world requires focused attention to the
conditions that can turn human conflicts so quickly and easily to
violence and war, as well as new ways of thinking about the alle-
viation of these conditions. After seeing the horrible power of the
atomic bombs dropped upon the Japanese people at the end of
World War II, Albert Einstein observed that nuclear weapons
technology had changed everything, except our way of thinking.
What he meant by this was that the awesome power this technol-
ogy introduced had radically changed the world, especially human-
itys ability to threaten the life of the planet. This, of course,
should have altered just as dramatically the way we think about the
place of violence and war in dealing with human conflicts, but it
did not. Many people concluded that the only serious way to re-
spond to the problem noted by Einstein was to set issues of peace
and conflict apart as a special area of research and education in the
university.
Of course, problems of conflict and its resolution have always
been the subject of study and research by the traditional disciplines
represented in the university. Historians study the history of con-
flict. In fact, many people think that historians tend to focus too
much of their attention on wars and violence, as if these were the
only important events in history. Psychologists study human be-

18

24
haviour at the individual level, to try to understand what influences
us to choose violent or nonviolent means of handling our disputes.
Social psychologists, anthropologists, and sociologists focus their
attention on the behaviour of social groups; political scientists try
to understand the behaviour of nations and political organizations.
Philosophers and theologians are interested in the moral and reli-
gious significance of conflicts and the most appropriate means of
dealing with them. Even some of the so-called hard sciences like
biology, zoology, and ethology claim insights into the problems of
human violence.
But each of these disciplines tends to study only a narrow as-
pect of human behaviour; that is, the one that most naturally fits
its own methodological approaches and assumptions. And it is
clear that the problems of human conflict and their peaceful reso-
lution are much larger than any single discipline can capture. Each
discipline has important insights to offer, but none can understand
these problems fully in their real-life contexts. Further, there are
aspects of these problems that can fall in the cracks between disci-
plines. This is why the proper study of human conflict and its
resolution is interdisciplinaryunderstanding the problem requires
the insights both contained in and overlooked by many disciplines.
Only by setting the study of conflict and peace apart as a separate
problem area is it possible to stimulate the new ways of thinking
necessary for our radically changed world.

B. Objections to Peace Studies

1. Is it Really a Discipline?

The points just mentioned indicate the usual rationale for the de-
velopment of Peace Studies as an independent course of study in
many colleges and universities. But some traditional academics
have argued that Peace Studies really isnt a discipline in the
commonly understood sense of that term, and therefore should not
really be a separate field of study. This argument is not very per-
suasive, because it is not at all clear what defines academic disci-

19

25
plines in the first place. They are not identified by a common
methodology, since in many disciplines there are lively debates
about the proper methods to use (especially in the humanities and
social sciences). Nor are they characterized by common assump-
tions shared by their members, since these too are constantly de-
bated. It appears that many disciplines are defined by the range of
problems, or the subject matter, they study. History is defined by its
concern with events in the past, psychology with human behav-
iour, anthropology with practices of different cultures, and so on.
In this respect, Peace Studies, which takes as its subject matter
the problem of human conflict and its peaceful resolution, is no
less a discipline than many of the well-recognized academic disci-
plines which have emerged over time, especially in the twentieth
century. But it is not necessary to establish Peace Studies as a dis-
tinct academic discipline in order to establish its value as a separate
course of study, because it is clear that some of the most signifi-
cant and highly respected courses-of study to emerge in colleges
and universities in the past several decades are, like Peace Studies,
attempts to explore highly important social issues which require
the perspectives of many disciplines.
Take, for instance, the emergence of Environmental Studies in
universities around the world in the past forty years. Environmen-
tal issues have come to be recognized as demanding immediate,
well-founded responses in personal behaviour and in economic
and political policy. Understanding these issues requires input
from many sciences, as well as disciplines in the humanities: phys-
ics, biology, geology, zoology, ecology, psychology, sociology, ge-
ography, political science, economics, ethics, and religious studies,
just to name the most relevant. But these disciplines cannot tackle
environmental problems in an integrated and coherent way in their
own isolated corners. They need to be brought together around
real environmental problems, where the solutions require insights
from each and require each to recognize the limitations and possi-
bilities identified by the others. Environmental Studies is one of
the best examples of the importance of interdisciplinary research
and education in dealing with critical social problems. Other simi-

20

26
lar examples in the university include Development Studies, Area
Studies (e.g., Canadian Studies, African Studies), and Ethnic
Studies (e.g., Aboriginal Studies). Few people today would argue
that these do not have a legitimate place in the university, even
though many of the traditional disciplinarians were highly suspi-
cious of them when they were first proposed because they in-
fringed on their disciplinary turf.

2. Is Peace Studies Too Political?

Even though Environmental Studies is now an accepted and high-

ly respected course of study, when it was first introduced into col-
lege and university curricula many people opposed it on the
grounds that it was not an objective science. It was, they said,
merely an excuse for introducing environmentalist political activ-
ism into the academic curriculum, and this was a violation of the
scholarly commitment to maintaining a neutral or objective atti-
tude. It is not appropriate for colleges and universities to be sup-
porting items on the green agenda (like limited growth, sus-
tainability, or saving the spotted owl), which are controversial
and challenge many entrenched ways of thinking and acting with-
in our society.
Peace Studies programs meet with the same arguments. They,
too, are charged with being too political because they are often
critical of mainstream ways of thinking about government behav-
iour and policy. Thus they are often seen as promoting pacifism,
socialism, or other left-wing political agendas and providing a
platform for engaging students in anti-war protests and other
forms of activism, rather than maintaining the appropriate level of
scholarly objectivity.1 Now it is certainly true that Peace Studies,
like Environmental Studies, looks for new ways of thinking about
conflict and violence that often are critical of entrenched ways of
thinking about these things. But there is nothing inherently more
political about this than other accepted forms of critical scholarly
inquiry. Indeed, most people would argue that this is just what the
university is all about: the promotion of new, and often very un-

21

27
popular, ways of thinking. Politicization is something to worry
about in universities, but the politicization to be feared is not
that of ideas critical of mainstream politics. It is rather that which
suppresses the free expression of unpopular viewpoints for political
reasons. We might also ask which is the greater threat to the ob-
jectivity of the university: a research grant of millions from a gov-
ernment defence department to a physics professor to study the
feasibility of a laser weapon, or a Peace Studies course which in-
vestigates nonviolent alternatives for national defence or interna-
tional peacekeeping!

3. Is Peace Studies Value-Free?

An important related question is whether Peace Studies is defined

by a commitment to a certain set of values. Some of its academic
critics have claimed that it is defined primarily by such a value
commitment, and that this is the sense in which it is really the in-
appropriate introduction of a moral or political agenda into schol-
arly research and education. Thus it is often said that Peace Stud-
ies is defined by a common commitment to pacifism or nonvio-
lence as a moral or political ideology, or that it shares a common
opposition to patriotic nationalism in favour of trans-nationalist or
internationalist sentiments. Some of its harshest critics have even
claimed that it is motivated by strong socialist or Marxist ideology.
There is an important sense in which it is true that Peace Stud-
ies is defined by certain values. One of these is certainly the value
of peace itself; that is, the belief that peaceful relations among
people and nations are better than unpeaceful ones. This implies
another closely related value central to the very definition of Peace
Studiesthat violence is undesirable, and that where the same
human goods can be achieved by them, nonviolent means are pref-
erable to violent ones. But these two values are, as just stated,
hardly controversial ones. They would be shared by most people
and should not be identified with any particular political agenda.
With respect to these value commitments, Peace Studies is no
different from many, probably most, other academic and scholarly

22

28
endeavours, which are also motivated by underlying values or
goals. For example, the whole point of Environmental Studies is
to find ways to ameliorate destructive impacts upon the environ-
ment. This distinguishes it from Geology, which is more often
taught with an eye towards facilitating the extraction of resources
from the environment (this, after all, is what most geology gradu-
ates do). Administrative and Management Studies have as under-
lying values such things as efficiency and profitability. Aboriginal
Studies is premised upon the explicit value of preservation of cul-
tural and ethnic traditions and practices. Even Strategic Studies,
often hailed by its proponents as a value-free or realistic enter-
prise, is based upon national interest. These are, in each case, val-
ues appropriate to the community served by the area of study and
appropriate to the area of study itself. Peace Studies is committed,
equally appropriately, to the values of peace.

C. The Subject Matter of Peace Studies

As already suggested, Peace Studies is defined, not so much in

terms of its methods and assumptions, but in terms of its subject
matter, the problems with which it is concerned. This problem
area has been loosely identified as that of human conflict and its
peaceful resolution. The domain of human conflict is, of course,
extremely broad, because we are very conflict-prone creatures who
construct many levels of social interaction and generate conflict at
every level of that interaction. Individuals find themselves in con-
flict with others in a variety of social contexts: in families, in
schools, in the workplace, and in the community. We organize
ourselves within racial, religious, ethnic, economic, and political
groupings which regularly come into conflict with each other. And
we also form nation states and alliances in the international arena
which vie with each other for power, influence, resources, and ter-
ritory. If we ever encounter beings from other galaxies, we will
surely add intergalactic conflict to the list!
That humans come into conflict with each other at various lev-
els of individual and group interaction is normal and expected.

23

29
Conflict is itself inevitable among beings who live together in situ-
ations where common interests meet finite resources, and where
different interests lead to incompatible activities. There is nothing
particularly bad, or even undesirable, about the inevitability of
conflict. It is, in itself, neither bad nor good, though it can have
both good and bad consequences. It can lead to misunderstanding,
hostility, alienation, and violence. But conflict can also be a stimu-
lus to creative thinking and the development of new ideas, new
technologies, or new forms of social interaction, all of which can
make things better for everyone. Nothing would be more boring
and unsatisfying than life without conflict. The only human com-
munity without conflict, it has been said, is to be found in a ceme-
tery!
Conflict can be defined (and usually is defined in conflict theo-
ry) simply as what results from the existence, real or imagined, of
incompatible interests, goals, beliefs, or activities. It is a situation
in which one partys interests cannot be fully realized without their
impinging upon the realization of some other partys interestor a
situation in which one of them thinks that the interests are in-
compatible. Defined this way, it should be clear that conflict
among finite beings on this earth is inevitable. It would be inevita-
ble even if humans were perfectly good beings. It is not our failure
to be good that brings us into conflict with others. It is simply the
fact that, being the same kinds of beings, with similar interests, we
will naturally want the same things when there is not enough for
everyone at the same time. But we also have different beliefs and
values, and these too come into conflict with the beliefs and values
of others. This is normal and naturalthere is nothing bad about
it at all.
The important thing about human conflicts, then, is not so
much the conflicts themselves as the means we choose to deal with
them. These means largely determine whether the conflict leads to
good or ill. Not only do we generate strife at various levels of social
interaction, from the individual to the international, we also have
developed habits, practices, and institutions for dealing with it at
all these levels. Some of these work better than others, are better at

24

30
preventing hostility and violence, while others seem to promote
hostility and violence or even depend upon them.
The primary concern of Peace Studies is to understand how
conflicts among human beings arise, what causes them to become
harmful for some or all the parties, and what means are most likely
to deal with them in less harmful ways. Adam Curle, founder of
one of the first Peace Studies programs in Britain, defined the
function of Peace Studies as identifying and analyzing unpeaceful
relationships in order to devise means of changing unpeaceful
into peaceful relationships.2 A useful aspect of Curles definition
is the way it points out that human conflicts can be handled in
unpeaceful as well as peaceful ways, and that the point is to
find ways of turning conflicts of the former type into conflicts of
the latter type. What this amounts to depends, of course, upon
what is meant by peaceful relationships, and, as we shall see in a
moment, this is a matter of much interesting debate within the
Peace Studies community.
Another useful aspect of Curles definition is that it defines
Peace Studies very broadly, since it includes the study of peaceful
and unpeaceful relations at every one of the levels of human con-
flict from the individual to the international. Peace Studies is in-
terested in the analysis of conflict between individuals and groups
in communities and in finding methods of transforming violent
and harmful relations arising in these conflicts into more construc-
tive or peaceful relations. This is the focus of what is often called
Community Conflict Resolution Studies..
But Peace Studies is interested in conflicts at the more politi-
cal levels as well. These include the unpeaceful relations that of-
ten arise in conflicts between the diverse racial, religious, ethnic,
and political groups within our communities and nations. While
most states have legal and political institutions for dealing with
these conflictspolice, courts, prisons, social agencies, elected
councils, and legislatures, which are designed to keep the
peacethey often do not perform in ways that resolve the under-
lying conflicts or transform them into more peaceful relationships
between the parties. Creative nonviolent means of confrontation

25

31
and conflict transformation, such as those used by Mohandas
Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., have therefore been a major
subject for study.
Conflict between nations and between ethnic or nationalist
groups within nations, which typically leads to the organized vio-
lence of civil or international war, has been a major focus of Peace
Studies in the past. Indeed, during the past several decades the
major impetus for the establishment of such programs in Europe-
an and North American universities and colleges has often been
concern about the growing destructiveness of regional wars around
the world, the high risks of nuclear war during the cold war peri-
od, and the emergence of ever more horrifying military technolo-
gies, such as chemical and biological weapons. The search for
more peaceful ways of managing regional and national conflicts
rightfully remains a high priority. There is a desperate need for
investigating new methods of intervention in highly volatile situa-
tions: peacebuilding or peacekeeping roles which do not simply
multiply the violence and suffering of the people in conflict, as
traditional military methods of intervention so often do.
Peace Studies researchers and educators have also been inter-
ested in undertaking critical examination of the prevailing doc-
trines and ideologies that shape the mainstream ways of thinking
about human conflict. This is especially true at the level of inter-
national conflict, where international relations theory has been
strongly dominated by debates between realism and idealism,
Marxism and capitalism, liberalism and fascism, and similar di-
chotomies. Many people think that these debates are based upon
assumptions about individual, group, and national behaviour that
are outmoded and prevent the emergence of new, creative solu-
tions to conflict at this level. Perhaps these assumptionsthe
identification of political power with force and violence, the idea
that human individual or group behaviour is essentially egoistically
motivated, that social order is dependent upon the monopoly of
violence, and so onneed to be challenged. Here Peace Studies
provides a useful service by examining the evidence from the many
sciences which may call these assumptions into question. For ex-

26

32
ample, the political realist assumption that social order and co-
operation can only be maintained by the existence of a scheme of
centralized enforcement has been called into serious question by
recent research on the emergence of cooperation and altruism
among insects and animals in their natural evolutionary adaptation
to their environment.3 There is reason to believe that the same
might be true of the human animal in social contexts.
So we see that Peace Studies is defined by concerns with hu-
man conflicts and their peaceful resolution across a broad spec-
trum of human interaction. The chapters in this book speak to this
wide variety of conflict issues and introduce critical challenges to
entrenched ways of thinking. It is thus clear in what ways Peace
Studies can be distinguished from many other disciplines and re-
search programs. For instance, Strategic Studies, a growing area of
research in universities and non-academic research institutes, gen-
erally limits its focus to international conflict situations, and it
views them from the point of view of the national interest of a par-
ticular national actor or government. It tends to make certain as-
sumptions about the interests of states and their use of power and
examines conflict situations with the aim of finding the most ef-
fective strategy for maximizing the interests of the particular
state. It provides useful input for policy-makers who are interested
in serving the particular interests of their own country, however
these interests may be defined (and they are usually defined in
terms of economic advantage and political influence). Peace Stud-
ies, on the other hand, attempts to take a broader view, which may
include the critical assessment of assumptions made by Strategic
Studies and their implications for peaceful relations among na-
tions.

D. Central Concepts in Peace Studies

1. Peace

The best evidence against the claim that Peace Studies is defined
by any particular ideology lies in the existence of an ongoing vig-

27

33
orous debate within the field about how to define peace, the
concept central to Peace Studies as a field of research and educa-
tion. If we accept anything like Adam Curles definition of the
field, as the analysis of unpeaceful relationships and the means of
transforming them into peaceful ones, then the first question we
must address when undertaking our study is: What do we mean by
unpeaceful and peaceful relationships between people?
Curle himself defines these terms in the following way. Peace-
ful relationships, he says, are those in which individuals or
groups are enabled to achieve together goals which they could not
have reached separately. In contrast, unpeaceful relationships are
those in which the units concerned damage each other so that, in
fact, they achieve less then they could have done independently,
and in one way or another harm each others capacity for growth,
maturation or fulfilment.4 Curle clearly includes more within the
concept of peace than is usual in newspapers and popular lan-
guage. He does not mean merely the absence of war or other
forms of overt violence which kill or maim persons and does not
believe that a situation is peaceful simply when there is a cease-
fire or temporary truce in hostilities between parties. There are
many subtle and inconspicuous ways in which people can harm
each other psychologically, socially, and economically even though
they are not actually engaged in acts of violence in the usual sense
of this term.
Curles definition of peace is an example of what has come to
be known as positive peace, because it is said to define peace in
terms of the presence of a state of affairs that is beneficial for all the
parties in a relationship. Positive peace is contrasted with nega-
tive peace, which defines peace negativelyas the absence of cer-
tain kinds of specific violent actions, like those which physically
maim or kill other persons. From the point of view of negative
peace, a situation is peaceful among individuals and groups if they
are not engaging in specific acts of physical or psychological vio-
lence, such as occur in assaults in which people are seriously in-
jured or even killed. Among nations there is negative peace if
they are not at war or are not using the threat of war to advance

28

34
their diplomatic objectives. The concept of negative peace is the
one that we typically use in our ordinary speech when we talk
about peace among nations or among conflicting political groups
within a society.
Curle prefers to use a positive as opposed to a negative con-
ception of peace because he thinks that there are many ways in
which relations among individuals and groups can be harmful to
some or all the parties to the relationship even when they do not
involve overt acts of violence. A situation should not be called
peaceful if persons are suffering harm from the nature of the re-
lationship. A marriage is not peaceful if one of the partners is
being exploited, oppressed, or prevented from realizing his or her
potential as a person because of power imbalances or simply habit-
ual ways of structuring the roles, even when these are unrecog-
nized or unintended. A society is not peaceful if, as in a slave-
holding society, its laws or social practices demean or impoverish
certain groups or exclude them from the opportunities and bene-
fits available to others. Those who, like Curle, prefer the notion of
positive peace would say that any relationship of extreme injus-
tice should hardly be considered peaceful. Furthermore, a situa-
tion that places people in such positions is a fertile breeding
ground for overt forms of violence, and thus is not likely to be
peaceful even in the negative sense for very long.
The well-known Scandinavian peace researcher, Johan Gal-
tung, has defended an even stronger conception of positive peace
than Curles. He calls any situation unpeaceful in which human
beings are being influenced so that their actual (physical) and
mental realizations are below their potential realization.5 Galtung
has been much criticized for this view because it suggests that we
have peace only when we have reached a perfect utopia! Others
have pointed out that on this definition there is no difference be-
tween the concept of peace and the concept of perfect justice. We
will return to this criticism a bit later.
Johan Galtung also has an interesting way of explaining the
distinction between positive and negative peace by pointing out
that really each of them has a negative definitionpeace is the

29

35
absence of something, which can be called violence. But negative
and positive peace, it may be said, refer to the absence of two dif-
ferent kinds of violence. The violence with which negative peace is
concerned Galtung calls direct, personal violence. This is what
we normally think of when we hear the word. Violence in this
sense has four essential elements: a) an identifiable actor or groups
of actors, b) an identifiable physical action or behaviour, c) a clear
physical or psychological harm which results from the action, and
d) an identifiable victim who suffers the harm. The usual things
that come to mind when we hear the word violencesuch as
physical assaults, stabbings, shootings, bombingshave all four of
these elements.
But Galtung points out that some of the most pernicious ways
people are harmed do not have all these elements, and hence they
tend to be ignored or not recognized as violent, even though
they should be. People can be harmed, not only by the actions of
others, but also as a result of the way the relevant relationships or
social practices are structured. In these cases it is not anybodys
particular actions but the structures themselves that cause the
harm. The examples cited earlier of the lack of positive peace
slavery, apartheid, or an oppressive marriageare for Galtung per-
fect examples of what he calls structural violence. In these cases
there is a clear victim who is being harmed in some way in the
situation, or by the situation, but the victim may be unable to
identify any particular action of any particular person or group as
the cause of the harm. It is the way things go as a result of the rel-
evant social arrangements that puts the person in the disadvantaged
situation. The poverty and dehumanization of the slave is the re-
sult of the system of slavery, not the result of any identifiable act of
violence on the part of the slavemaster. The fact that a specific
slavemaster may be very nonviolent (in the sense of direct, per-
sonal violence), or even unusually benevolent, in the treatment of
his or her slaves does not mean that the situation of the slaves is
not extremely detrimental to them. There is a sense in which slav-
ery does violence to the slaves, even though no one may be act-
ing violently toward them. This is what Galtung means by struc-

30

36
tural violence.
This distinction between direct, personal violence and struc-
tural violence makes it easier to clarify the distinction between
negative peace and positive peace. Negative peace can simply be
understood as the absence of direct, personal violence. Positive
peace is the absence of structural violence. When viewed this way,
it becomes evident that the common element in both conceptions
of peace and violence is the element of harm. How broadly we un-
derstand the notion of peace depends in large part upon what we
include as the types of harm that are violent or unpeaceful.
This is not just an academic question about terminology, as it
might appear to be on the surface. Very important debates about
the nature of peace studies, peace research, and peacemaking turn
on this issue. Consider, for example, the debate that raged among
peace researchers in the 1960s and 1970s, when Galtung and
Curle were writing about the issue. Many of the most visible wars
occurring in the world then were wars of liberation, in which
dissident groups fought revolutionary guerilla wars against very
oppressive, undemocratic regimes. Even if we agree that the goal
of peace research is to find ways to help these societies restore a
peaceful situation (to turn unpeaceful relationships into peaceful
ones, as Curle puts its), we must still ask whether this means
finding ways to end the wars (restoring negative peace) or finding
ways to end the oppression of the governments, against which the
wars were being fought (restoring or creating positive peace).
Not surprisingly, peace researchers did not agree about this, nor
did many of the people involved directly in the violent situation.
Some people (like Galtung and Curle) argued that merely to focus
on the direct, personal violence of the fighting and to advocate
ways of stopping it was to take sides with the oppressive status quo
which the people were fighting to end, to side with the political
and economic structures that were structurally violent, and to pre-
fer a negative peace to a positive peace. If one wanted to contrib-
ute to peacemaking in this situation, it was argued, then one
should focus upon ways of ending the oppression, not just on ways
of ending the war. Further, the revolutionaries fighting these wars

31

37
claimed that they were not the ones who should be criticized for
being unpeaceful. They were, in fact, fighting against the struc-
tural violence of the oppressive regime and for positive peace (as
well as for negative peace in the long run). They needed to break
the negative peace (with direct, personal violence) in order to
achieve positive peace. Those who were truly on the side of real
(positive) peace should, they said, side with the revolutionaries.
Those who merely wanted to stop the fighting werent really on
the side of peace.
Other peace researchers, like the well-known American econ-
omist Kenneth Boulding, were strongly critical of this position.
They argued that this emphasis on positive peace confuses the is-
sues. By defining peace and violence so broadly, they said, the
ideas become indistinguishable from the concepts of justice and
injustice, thus obscuring an important and enduring moral ques-
tion that arises when we face the need to choose between peace
and justice. We value negative peace too, the critics argued, and
sometimes it comes into conflict with justice. When it does, we
simply have to make a moral decision about which value is more
important: whether the injustice is so great that ending it justifies
breaking the peace by using direct, personal violence. Recognizing
that this is a real choice between two values also forces us to look
seriously for the least violent (or as we should say, most peaceful)
ways of struggling against injustice. This, Boulding argued, was
exactly what Peace Studies and peace research should be seeking to
doto find effective nonviolent (negatively peaceful) ways of
fighting against injustice. So, negative peace should be the central
conception of peacemaking.
Those who in this way prefer the concept of negative peace as
the controlling idea in Peace Studies point out an important fact
about human beings and their propensity to violence in dealing
with conflict. The fact is that people nearly always believe in the
rightness of their own cause. So, when they fight, they are fighting
for justice. If the injustice against which they fight is perceived
to be grave, then the temptation is to use whatever means are con-
sidered necessary to succeed. This is why intense conflicts have the

32

38
well-known tendency to spiral into ever-increasing levels of vio-
lence and horror. And as they do, the parties on both sides become
ever more firmly convinced that their horrible deeds are justified
by the end of the justice they seek. The more people use the term
structural violence to describe the injustice of their opponents,
the easier it becomes for them to think of themselves as peace-
makers and the more difficult it becomes for them to see the vio-
lence of their own actions. The language of structural violence
and positive peace helps warriors to avoid making an explicit
moral choice about the justification of their own violent actions, or
about whether there might be morally preferable, nonviolent ways
of dealing with the conflict.
The debate about justice and peace cannot be resolved here.
Perhaps the best thing to say at this point is simply that the two
concepts of violence and peace call our attention to importantly
different aspects of conflict and its peaceful resolution. We know
that situations of structural violence are often fertile breeding
grounds for the outbreak of many kinds of direct, personal vio-
lence and that, in most cases, structural violence is maintained by
the regular use or threat of direct personal violence, which often
incites those who suffer to employ violent resistance. So there is a
clear sense in which it is true that the only real peace is a positive
peace. It is also clear that to be concerned about negative peace,
without taking into account the underlying conditions that pro-
duce the direct, personal violence, is to take too narrow' a view'.
Those who seek negative peace as a goal must also be concerned
about how to achieve positive peace (or justice) peacefully.
Different peacemaking approaches can give high priority to
both these values. Jo Vellacott illustrates how both the historical
practice and the theory of nonviolence address situations of injus-
tice with methods that do not require direct, personal violence.
Loraleigh Keashly and William Warters also show how the injus-
tices that characterize many conflicts between individuals can be
addressed, even transformed, by effective nonviolent strategies of
conflict intervention. Alex Morrisons chapter on international
conflict points out that the peacekeeping roles of the United Na-

33

39
tions focus directly on the maintenance of negative peace be-
tween warring parties in the world, but this often helps create
conditions of greater positive peace as well.
This allows us to suggest an alternative definition of Peace
Studies to that provided by Adam Curle. Perhaps we can say that
its aim is to analyze human conflicts in order to find the most
peaceful (negatively peaceful) ways to turn unjust relationships
into more just (positively peaceful). This definition has the ad-
vantage of capturing the full importance of the concept of positive
peace without losing sight of the distinction between peace and
justice.

3. Conflict

We often think of conflict among human beings as a bad thing

something to be avoided at all costs. Partly as a result of this per-
ception many people avoid conflict as much as possible. We might
even think that peace is the absence of conflict, and that the aim of
Peace Studies is to find ways of avoiding or reducing conflict
among human individuals, groups, and nations. This would be a
mistake, however. The reader will notice that the definitions of
peace we have reviewed so far have referred to the absence of
violenceboth direct and personal and structuralbut not the
absence of conflict.
This is because conflict is not necessarily a bad thing, although
it is the occasion for the well-known unpleasant things people may
do when they are not very good at handling it. In fact, conflict can
cause many good things. [T]he many positive functions that con-
flict can play in human relations, such as fostering creative solu-
tions to problems, facilitating personal and social change, and
maintaining personal and social identities. In addition, it can be
exciting and fun. This is the whole point of competitive games, of
courseto engage in a contrived, but controlled, conflict for the
enjoyment of the participants and the spectators.
Many people think that if they find themselves in a conflict
with another person or group, it must be because someoneme,

34

40
another person, or both of usis doing something wrong. Psy-
chologists have found that people have tendencies toward one or
other of these alternatives. Some people tend to assume that they,
themselves, are doing something wrong when they find themselves
in a conflict. They feel guilty and tend to resolve the conflict by
giving in immediately to the other party. Others assume the oppo-
site. They feel threatened by the conflict, blame the other party,
and are more likely to be combative and aggressive. Still others
blame themselves and others. These people are either very pessi-
mistic and fatalistic about conflict and avoid or withdraw from it,
or they look for ways to reach quick compromises. None of these
are very constructive ways to deal with the problem. None of them
motivate the person to engage in constructive problem-solving. A
person who does not immediately assume that conflict is a sign of
someone doing something wrong is less likely to engage in blam-
ing (oneself or the other) and is therefore less likely to be aggres-
sive and competitive and more likely to look for constructive ways
of dealing with the situation.
So the point of Peace Studies and peacemaking is not neces-
sarily to find ways to end conflicts, but to handle them more con-
structively. Because conflict is so often the occasion for people to
become nasty toward one anotherto become hateful, distrustful,
alienated, aggressive, and violentwe need to find ways to carry
on conflicts without becoming nasty ourselves.

4. Power

Another central concept in Peace Studies, power, is like conflict,

commonly understood in many different ways. Throughout hu-
man history there has been a tendency to think of power (especial-
ly political power) as synonymous with force and violence or the
threat of force or violence. Western political theorists from the
Greek historian Thucydides to the seventeenth-century philoso-
pher Thomas Hobbes and modern social theorists like Max We-
ber and Mao Zedong have all claimed that the use or threat of
force or violence was the source and measure of political power.

35

41
They believed that the greater the ability of a person or state to
wreak violence upon others, the greater its power. Hobbes, for
example, believed that all forms of social cooperation and trust,
including moral relations between people (and presumably all an-
imals), were possible only because a strong leader could punish
with violence those who refused to cooperate.6 Apparently he had
never observed social animals and insects, who seem to cooperate
regularly, without threat from such a centralized leader.
However, throughout this same history there have also been
thinkers such as Socrates, Jesus, and the Buddha, and such influ-
ential modern political theorists as Gandhi, Hannah Arendt, and
Gene Sharp, who have seriously questioned this equation of power
and violence. They define power in broader, more general terms,
as the ability to organize persons and groups into cooperative en-
terprises for the accomplishment of social goals. When power is
defined as cooperation, it leaves open the question of its relation-
ship with violence. Threat of violence or force may be one way to
exercise power, but it may not be the only or even the most effec-
tive way. As Arendt puts it, violence may be an efficient means of
exercising destructive power, but it is an extremely inefficient and
often ineffective way of exercising constructive power.7
At the centre of the argument for nonviolent action is the
view, shared by Gandhi, King, and Sharp, that there are forms of
social power, made possible by the willingness of people to stand
up to threats of violence against them, which can undermine the
power of those who depend upon the threat of force and violence.
The argument is based upon a simple but often ignored fact: a per-
son who threatens others with violence in order to get them to
cooperate and do his or her will is powerless if those others refuse
to give in to the threat. All that is left for the threatener to do is to
wreak his violence upon the refusers. In doing so, he or she de-
stroys those who are needed to carry out the purpose. This is what
Leo Tolstoy taught Gandhi about the British subjugation of India:
the British colonizers needed cooperative Indian colonists to do
their labour and buy their goods. When Gandhi gave the Indian
people the courage to resist the British threats of violence, there

36

42
 Conflict Resolution Conflict Management Conflict Transll1rmation

Coercive

Definition of Peace

Iflter11lediale Goals Elil11inate or Weaken the

43
Defeat Strong Party
Opponent

"Winning"

lVIemlS Used

Bargaining Policing (Law Fighting

(with Threats) Enforcement )
Sabotage

Force
Enforcement
of Vote

Coercive NegotiatJon

Bargaining
(with Threats)
was nothing the latter could do to get the cooperation they sought.
It is the subjugated, Gandhi realized, who ultimately have the
power over the subjugators.
Part of the task of Peace Studies is to understand the dynamics
and uses of power. It is one of the most important elements in
conflict, since balances of power among conflicting parties have a
significant impact upon the outcome of the conflict or the way it
is handled. If peacemaking is concerned with both peace and jus-
tice (or negative and positive peace), then it is concerned to
find ways of managing conflict which do not simply allow power-
ful parties to impose unfair settlements upon weaker parties.

E. Approaches to Peacemaking

One of the primary objectives of Peace Studies is to identify, test,

and implement many different strategies for dealing with conflict
situations. Human beings have had such strategies for as long as
they have experienced conflicts. However, some are more violent
than others, and some are more effective at achieving positive
peace, or justice. Some aim at winning the conflict or imposing a
loss on the opponent; others try to find some way of ending the
conflict altogether by finding a win-win solution. Some attempt
to manage the conflict through agreed-upon procedures (like
tossing a coin or voting) or systems of rules, while others aim at
actually intensifying the conflict in order to motivate one or more
of the parties to resolve it in a constructive way.
Some conflicts are between parties that are relatively equal in
power and resources; some are not. A strategy likely to reach a fair
resolution between parties (such as a mediated negotiation) is not
nearly as likely to do so if they are highly unequal. The outcome of
a negotiation between two unequal parties is predictable: it will
favour the interests of the party who has the greater power. So an
unrestrained negotiation between unequals will not necessarily
produce a more just, or positively peaceful, outcome than will an
unrestrained fight between two parties of unequal strength. Nego-
tiation is a more negatively peaceful means than fighting or war

38

44
between parties, but it does not necessarily guarantee that the re-
sulting relationship will be good (or even better). This is why
methods of conflict resolution that may be good in one type of
conflict may not be as good in others.
Figure 1 provides a helpful way to understand important ways
in which strategies of peacemaking define their objectives differ-
ently and employ different procedures with different implications
for peacefulness, in both of the senses we have discussed. It dis-
tinguishes three very different approaches, each defined by a dif-
ferent underlying conception of the peace to be attained. Within
each of these three general approaches both coercive (and violent)
and non-coercive (and nonviolent) methods can be used. The bot-
tom row provides some examples of actual conflict resolution
techniques that can be used to achieve the goals of each approach.
You will notice that some techniques, such as bargaining and de-
bating, can be used to accomplish quite different goals.
The most important things to notice in Figure 1 are the three
very different aims that a peacemaking approach might have. In
the first, which I have called Conflict Resolution, the goal of the
approach is to end the conflict between the parties altogether.
There are many ways to do this, of course, some more constructive
than others. Conflict resolution is most appropriate and construc-
tive in those situations where the parties may perceive their inter-
ests to be incompatible, but where there is a win-win solution
available which would allow them both fully to achieve their goals.
Careful problem-solving through negotiation, often with the help
of a mediator, can be the most constructive or peaceful approach.
A typical way to end the conflict is for one of the parties simply
to inflict defeat on the other and win by imposing terms in its
own favour. Complete elimination of the opponent will end a con-
flict, of course, but hardly in a constructive way.
In the second peacemaking approach, Conflict Management,
the aim is not to end the conflict, but rather to get the parties to
live with it or to carry it on in ways that keep it within limits that
are beneficial to both parties. What else is a recreational competi-
tive game like hockey or chess but a contrived conflict that is car-

39

45
ried on by the opponents because they both derive certain benefits
(fun, exercise, thrill of competition, etc.): The success of the game
rests upon keeping the conflict within the rules that regulate it.
Many real-life conflicts are like competitive games in this respect.
For example, most of the political conflicts within societies can
never be terminated completely. Peoples political beliefs and pref-
erences dont change that easily. What a good political system
does is to find effective rules and mechanisms for deciding what
laws and policies to follow, without actually ending the diversity of
opinion and disagreement about these things.
Democracy, for example, is a system of conflict management. It
resolves questions by a set of rule-governed mechanisms like vot-
ing (majority rule), establishing rules to protect the minority (or
minorities), and so on. Courts are rule-governed institutions that
decide disputes by imposing an arbitrated settlement on the parties
(which does not necessarily end the conflict between them). One
of the best-known mechanisms for settling conflicts between good
friends is through some ritual such as coin-tossing, straw-
drawing, or dice-throwing, which the parties consider a fair proce-
dure.8 Another common, and very effective, conflict management
device is that of compromise. In a compromise, both parties agree
not to end the conflict, but to live with it in a way that allows
each to get some of what they want. Negotiation and problem-
solving cannot always end a conflict by finding a complete win-
win solution; sometimes parties have to settle for compromise.
What about the third approach to peacemaking, Conflict
Transformation? Some people find it hard to understand how
intensifying a conflict can be called peacemaking or conflict reso-
lution. Sometimes, however, it is necessary to intensify conflict
before it can be resolved in a fair and constructive way. Earlier we
discussed the problem of the apparent conflict between negative
peace and positive peace, or between peace and justice. There we
saw that a negative peace between parties that is destructive or op-
pressive for one of them is hardly an acceptable peace: it is not
peace in the fullest sense of the word. Conflict Transformation
models attempt to deal with this issue. They recognize that often,

40

46
before a conflict can be resolved (regulated or terminated) in an
acceptable way, it may have to be intensified first. Maybe the pow-
er balance between the conflicting parties is extremely unequal, so
that one has the power to impose terms on the other in negotia-
tion, bargaining, debating, votingor fighting. In such cases, one
must try to restore a more equal balance of power between them.
Or, maybe, one party gains much more from the conflict than the
other. In such cases the party getting the benefits may find it hard
to see that there is a conflict to be resolved, and even if they see it
they may not be motivated to enter into any resolution. These are
cases in which the first step of conflict resolution has to include
ways of getting the attention of the other party.
That is why Conflict Transformation approaches to peacemak-
ing are usually confrontational in nature. They are concerned with
finding ways to motivate unwilling parties to make peace. Often
they are aimed at either strengthening the power of the weaker
party or weakening the power of the stronger party. Various forms
of persuasive or even coercive pressure, such as demonstrations,
strikes, boycotts, non-cooperation or civil disobedience, and other
tactics associated with nonviolent resistance have power equaliza-
tion and motivation as their intermediate goal. The primary goal is
to achieve a positive peace. This is what distinguishes Conflict
Transformation from Conflict Resolution that aims merely at
beating or eliminating ones opponents.

NOTES

1
A summary of these criticisms can be found in the International
Peace Studies Newsletter, 15.2 (Winter 1986). One of the strongest
criticisms of Peace Studies as a politicization of education is made
by Caroline Cox and Roger Scruton, Peace Studies: A Critical
Survey (London: Institute for European Defense and Strategic
Studies, 1985).
2
Adam Curle, The Scope and Dilemmas of Peace Studies,
inaugural lecture at the University of Bradford, 4 February 1975

41

47
(Bradford: School of Peace Studies, University of Bradford).
3
See, for example, Robert M. Axelrod, The Evolution of
Cooperation (New York: Basic Books, 1984). See also, M.
Nowak, R. May, and K. Sigmund, The Arithmetics of Mutual
Help, Scientific American (June 1995): 7681.
4
Curle.
5
Johan Galtung, Violence, Peace, and Peace Research, Journal
of Peace Research 6.3 (1969): 16791.
6
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan: Or the Matter, Form and Power of a
Commonwealth Ecclesiastical and Civil (Paris, 1651; New York:
Collier Books, 1962).
7
Hannah Arendt, On Violence (New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, 1970).
8
Rituals like these are common ways of settling important
disputes within certain so-called primitive tribes and cultures,
often with great success. More advanced, scientific cultures are
suspicious of ritualistic ways of deciding disputes, since we believe
that conflict resolution should be rational. But maybe our
modern societies would be better off if we tossed coins to decide
very tense political disputes between warring parties!

42

48
 THE TRIAL

Walter Mosley

1.

I was out of breath by the time Id reached the fourteenth floor of

our building. Because of the steep hike I rarely visited the apart-
ment of Milan Valentine anymore. I usually talked with him on
the stoop of our building or out in front of the QuickShop down
on MLK. We called each other regularly but our business that
night was important enough for me to make the climb.
The elevator had broken down two and a half years before but
the landlord had yet to fix it.
What do you expect? Ferris Burns, the super, had told me.
Citys put a cap on rents. Theres just not enough left over to pay
for luxuries.
Luxuries? What about Cilia Sanders? I had asked Burns.
What about her?
Shes nearly ninety. She could die of a heart attack climbin up
to floor nine.
If its too hard for her she can move, the super replied.
I could have argued, I guess. Anybody might wonder how an
eighty-plus widow living on three hundred dollars a month could
move anywhere. Whod carry her belongings? How pay first and
last months rent plus the security deposit, real estate agents fee?
I could have argued but Ferris wouldnt have cared. He had his
own problems: one autistic child, an asthmatic daughter and a
nineteen-year-old boy serving a seventy-two-year prison sentence
for aggravated assault. Ferriss wife hadnt broken a smile in eight
years and his girlfriend on the third floor had him running errands

43

49
day and night.
The super was a Black Man like the rest of us and, like the rest
of us, he had little time for charity or kindness.

I knocked because Milans ringer was busted. His daughter, An-

gelique, opened the door immediately, as if maybe she was waiting
for me.
Angelique was seventeen but looked a couple of years younger.
She was slender, black as a human being can be, with features that
hinted at the roots of the African American physiognomy from a
long time ago and a long way gone.
Mr. Wayne, she said extending a hand.
I shook the hand and smiled.
My father is waiting in the kitchen, sir.
Mister? Sir? Im not that old am I?
She grinned and moved her head toward her left shoulder in
response.
Wheres your mother? I asked.
She went to stay with her sister, the young woman said.
Mama doesnt approve of this.
I nodded and showed myself down the dark hall and to the
right.
Garish yellow light illuminated part of the small, disheveled
kitchen. Big-bellied, broad-faced, black-skinned Milan was stand-
ing at the cracked tile sink drinking water from a red plastic tum-
bler. At the table in the corner, under the shadow of a burned-out
lamp, sat Wilfred Arna, his hands in his lap, on top of a greasy
brown paper bag, and his head hanging down. The close-cropped
haircut and brown, brown skin marked him as a laborer from the
South Side of town. Like millions of others he was a poor man
who had worked hard every day of his life.
Milan smacked his big lips and nodded at me.
Theyll be here in forty-five minutes, he said abandoning the
usual pleasantries.
And the witness?
Shes in my room.

44

50
 Whos standing for Lark? I asked.
At the sound of that name Wilfred looked up, misery squirm-
ing under the flesh around his eyes.
I will, Milan said. I got almost as much college as you and I
went to a good high school in Accra. A Christian school with high
morals.
You know this doesnt mean anything, I said to the Ghanaian
born grocer.
Or it is everything, he replied and then smiled broadly.
Valentines smile could populate the whole South Side with
children from willing mothers loins. When he smiled you felt that
there was some chance at happinessthere was the proof beaming
right there in front of your eyes.
You can use Angeliques room, he told me. Shes going to sit
beside Wanita for the night.
After that he walked away leaving me in the half-lit kitchen
with the wretched man.
I pulled down a blue tumbler from a yellow plank above the
sink and poured myself a glass of the mineral-laden, pharmaceuti-
cally enhanced city water. I drank a bit and poured the rest down
the ancient porcelain drain.
I guess we better get started, Wilfred, I said trying to infuse
my tone with a certain lightness.
For a moment he sat still as if maybe he hadnt heard. Then he
stood up without raising his shoulders, like a condemned, man
making his way toward the noose.

2.

I had him tell me the entire story from beginning to end; starting
with the day that Lark Thinnes had taken over apartment 6G and
leading up to the events in the early hours of that very morning.
We went through the documents and forms in his paper bag and
he handed me a small .25 pistol.
Wilfred perched at the edge of Angeliques pink bed while I sat
on a padded stool she had for her makeup table. There were pic-

45

51
tures of athletes and singers on her walls. She was a child like oth-
er children but, as in the case of her father, she was also something
else.
What was in your heart? I asked Wilfred at one point, and,
Do you believe that you are above the law? at another.
We went through his story again and again. Now and then he
wept softly but I said, I dont want any of that. Your tears dont
mean anything here tonight.
We went over the story so many times because even though I
was aware of the circumstances I wasnt there to have an opinion
of my own.
Why me? I had asked Milan when he came down to my
apartment that morning to recruit me for this job.
Because you have a college degree but still you live in the Ida
B. Wells projects, hed said. Because you have studied the prob-
lem from both sides of the table. We need people like you to keep
us honest.
Theyll call it a conspiracy, I said.
They can call it what they want. You and I know what its like
to live here. You and I know that justice is not only blind but deaf
and dumb when it comes to this building and these people.
There was something majestic about Milan. He believed in big
things. It didnt matter that we lived in a tenement where gangs
and drugs, prostitution and irrational rage reigned over our lives.
To Milan these were just temporary impediments, momentary
lapses in the advancement and ultimate achievement of our people.
And when Milan spoke of our people he didnt mean Ameri-
cans or Africans, blacks or whites. He saw in the suffering of any
one person the affliction in us all. If anyone else had come down
to me and suggested what he did about Wilfred and Lark I would
have run away. But I couldnt say no to the Ghanaian. That would
have been tantamount to a condemned man turning his back on a
chance for redemption at the hour of his execution.
After wed gone over Wilfreds story six times I turned to the
records he keptfrom the complaints hed registered with the
police and the petition that hed circulated only five weeks before

46

52
to a large portrait-photograph of Josette taken when she graduated
from Emmett Till Middle School two years earlier. There were
also pages torn from his journal and her diary.
It was very sad. I could have used a few more days studying the
papers but I was relieved when the knock came on the door.
Angelique stuck her head in and said, Daddy says that its
time, Mr. Wayne, I meanRobert.
Okay, I said. Well be right out.
Okay. She grinned at me then closed the door.
Putting my hand on Wilfreds shoulder I said, Its time to go.
He waited again and then looked up at me.
I appreciate what you doin, Bobby, he said. I know that itd
be bettah for you to just call the cops and wash your hands of it.
Betters not always best, I said, quoting a fellow I once knew
named Marquis.
Remembering Marquis Brown and all of his little aphorisms
gave me a moment of elation. This feeling confounded me. I won-
dered, what was the cause of this errant jubilation?
Wilfred stood up clutching his paper bag and swallowing hard.
Lets go, Brother, he said.

3.

Angelique was waiting in the hall. She led the way toward the liv-
ing-room chambers. It was very formal. She wore a white dress
and had her tightly woven braids tied back with yellow ribbon. As
we were passing the front door a loud banging came from outside.
Another member? I asked.
Wilfred was trembling.
Angelique shook her head.
No, she said, theyre all already here.
Wilfred retreated back toward the girls bedroom. He didnt go
in, just stood there at the doorway grasping at his paper bag.
Angelique put the thick chain in its slot and then opened the
door as far as it would go, maybe four inches.
Yes?

47

53
 Police, a mans unfriendly voice announced.
Yes?
Is your mother home?
No.
Your father?
Hes at work.
Were looking for a man named Wilfred Arna. Do you know
him?
Yes. I know Mr. Arna. He lives on the twelfth floor.
Can we come in?
Im not supposed to let people in when Im alone.
Do you know Wanita Cousins?
Shes my friend. She lives on the nineteenth floor.
We think that she may have witnessed a murder.
I havent seen Wanita for weeks, officer. My parents dont
want me to be her friend. They say that shes a bad influence.
Whys that?
Angelique shrugged but said nothing.
Can we come in? the policeman asked.
No.
The door rattled then from someone on the other side pushing
hard. But Milan had used a reinforced chain with wide brackets
anchoring it. The door itself was solid.
Do you have Wanita Cousins in there?
No, sir.
Its against the law to lie to the police.
Yes, sir. I know it is. But I cant let you in because thats my
fathers rules. Never let anyone in the house when Im home alone.
I have to obey my father too.
There was a brief lull in the conversation. Angelique stared into
the opening with no discernible expression on her face.
When will your father be home? the policeman asked.
Later on tonight. He and my mother are at church.
I thought you said that he was at work?
My mother is meeting him there, she said without hesitation,
and theyre going on to church. They do that every Wednesday.

48

54
 Again there was a pause.
You tell him that we were here.
Yes, sir.
Dont forget.
No, sir, she said and then after a brief moment she pushed
the door shut.
Angelique leaned up against the wall for a moment and then
regained her composure. She began walking down the hall again.
Wilfred had come up behind me and we followed the brave child.

4.

There were nine people in the living room when we got there. Mi-
lan was sitting at the left side of the pink couch, his daughter took
the center position and poor sad Wanita Cousins sat at the far
side. In the big brown sofa chair next to Milan sat Cilia Sanders,
by far the oldest person in the room. The others sat in straight-
back and folding chairs set around the front of the sofa in a semi-
circular fashion.
You sit over there, Robert, I meanMr. Wayne, Angelique
said as light-skinned Wanita glared at the slump-shouldered Arna.
The chairs Angelique pointed out were padded white affairs
that Milan must have borrowed from some neighbor. These seats
were opposite the couch. I took the place next to Kenya Broad-
house, who had her baby in her arms. Wilfred wound up next to
Milo Stone, the elderly deacon from Third Street Baptist Interna-
tional Church, known in the community as 3B1.
How you doin, boy? the charcoal-colored, rail-thin church-
man said to the killer.
Wilfred nodded and looked down at his paper bag.
Meanwhile Milan was letting his big eyes roam around the
room.
His gaze settled upon Anthony Porter and Gina Gores, who
were to his right. Tony was a pharmacists assistant, in his mid-
forties, six years out of prison on a conviction for second-degree
murder. Pie would be on parole for the next twenty years. Gina

49

55
was on disability because of a drug she was given at the emergency
room when she was delivering her baby. The child died and she
almost did. Shed made friends with Tony at the drug store and
now they were inseparable.
On the other side of the circle was a wise-mouthed kid named
Bells. I never knew his real name. Bells was an orphan who stayed
with various families in the projects and was always talking about
joining the army or robbing a bank. The girls seemed to like him.
He was twenty years in the body and a year or two younger than
Angelique in his mind. Next to Bells was Reggie Simms. Reggie
hung plaster walls for a living. Every day hed go out to MLK and
147th Street and pick up seven or eight Hispanic, mostly Mexican,
workers and go to jobs that hed set up with construction bosses.
I got the mouth, the Mexicans got the umph and the white
boss got the green, Reggie would say.
If the government came down on the bosses they could blame
Reggie. He didnt worry about it. He was a businessman and en-
tanglements with Uncle Sam were just occupational hazards.
Milan took in the crowd and nodded.
You all know why were here, he said, but Ill go over it any-
way. Lark Thinnes was killed up in apartment six-gee at about
three-thirty this morning. We got us a witness and a suspect and I
say we should have a trial.
We not the cops, Valentine, Reggie said. His dark face was
both blunt and brutal. Why the hell we stick out our necks for
sumpin like this?
Were not the cops, Milan repeated, but we are the people.
The police will arrest, the prosecutors will arraign, but who will
speak for us?
The court will, Reggie said. He turned in his chair but did
not rise.
The cops arrested Lark seven times, Cilia Sanders said loudly
and with the rasp of old age. And seven times the court let him
go. Now Josette is dead and so is he. The courts dont give a luck
about us.
What you gonna do if we say the mothahfuckahs guilty?

50

56
Bells said with an arrogant sneer on his youthful face. What you
gonna do if we say he should die?
Do you want to pull the trigger, son? Milan asked. Do
you want to kill somebody?
Im just askin, the boy said, a little put off by the intimacy of
the question.
If we find him worthy of death and no one else will do it then
I will, Milan said pausing after every few words.
Ill shoot him, Wanita cried. Ill kill the man killed my ba-
by. Wanita broke down crying and Angelique put her arms
around her, cooing into her ear.
I glanced at Wilfred then. His head was hanging almost to his
knees and tears were dripping down.
The first order of business, Milan said, is to say whether or
not we are qualified and responsible to hold this hearing.
He looked around the circle again. For a few moments there
was a pensive silence.
Then, Ive been livin in this buildin for seventeen years, Mi-
lo Stone said in his soft deacons voice. I seen so many people die
here that its a shame. Young people shot an stabbed and slaugh-
tered for nuthin. They shout about it in my church. The police
tell us that if we do what they say well have justice. The courts say
that theyll make it right. And politicians say vote for me. But the
people just keep right on dyin. So I say maybe we should at least
see how it go.
Anybody else? I asked.
What about you, Bob? Reggie said.
Im here, Reggie. Im ready to stand for Wilfred. Im ready to
say that we are the law. Cause, brother, you know that it sure aint
the man in blue and them wearin black robes.
Amen to that, Cilia said.
Tony and Gina, while not speaking, each nodded.
At least we should hear it out, Kenya Broadhouse said. Her
baby, Leonard, cried out at hearing his mothers voice.
Okay, Milan said. Lets get to it.

51

57
5.

Robert, Milan Valentine said. How do you suggest that we go

about this?
Why him? skinny brown Bells asked.
Hes got a masters degree in political science, Angelique re-
plied.
Bells sat back twisting his lips as if to say, Whatever.
My heart was pounding. It wasnt until this moment, I realized,
that I was taking this trial thing seriously.
Well, I said. Well, II think we should hear the charges
and then the plea. After that we can have what testimony there is
and then we can, all of us, including Wilfred, make a ruling.
Why he got a say! Wanita cried. He the one killed Lark!
He came to me of his own free will, Milan said. Its only one
vote out of twelve, child.
Bastard, Wanita spat at Wilfred.
He tried to look at her but it was as if she were the sun blind-
ing him with her insane light.
Hold up a minute there, Bob, Reggie said. I said I would
come and listen but that dont mean I wont walk right outta here
an call the cops. You know this aint no legal thing in here. We
aint been made the judges of nuthin.
And even still, Milan said with infinite grace and patience,
we judge every day.
Whats that sposed to mean? Bells whined.
It means, I said, that Reggie here hires illegal workers six
days a week. He pays them and protects them and never turns
them over to the law.
Thats business, Reggie complained. That dont count.
Isnt it our business to make these halls safe our chirren? Cilia
spoke out.
Kenya nodded. So did Gina.
I said what I got to say, Reggie intoned.
Well then, I said, lets get on with it. Milan.
Yes?

52

58
 Lets hear the charges.
For this the stocky man stood up. He pulled a folded piece of
paper from his khaki pocket and read it over. Then he refolded the
paper and shoved it back into his pants.
At three-thirty this morning the accused, Wilfred Arna, went
to apartment six-gee, knocked on the door, told Lark Thinnes that
he needed drugs and, when Lark turned his back, Wilfred shot
him seven times. Fie then reloaded his pistol and shot the victim
seven more times.
Wanita screamed as if in physical pain. Milan looked down on
her and then sat.
Fourteen times? Anthony Porter asked.
Yes, Milan replied.
And did Lark have a gun?
No! Wanita shouted. All he had was the cocaine that
Wilfred asked for.
No, Milan concurred. In a court of law it would be called
first-degree murder, premeditated homicide.
Tony glanced at Wilfred, who was looking down.
Is that everything? I asked Milan.
Yes.
Wilfred mumbled something.
What was that? Reggie asked.
He killed Josette, Wilfred said a little louder.
Thats a lie! Wanita screamed. My baby aint killed nobody.
Nobody.
He sold her drugs. And when she couldnt pay he made her do
things wit men from the street. He turned her into a dog an then
he turned her away. He might as well have pushed her offa that
roof.
He wasnt nowhere near her, Wanita hissed, staring death at
the pitiful worker.
What happened, Wilfred?
He killed Lark thats what, Wanita cried.
Were going to let him speak. Wan, I said. Then you can tell
us what happened.

53

59
 Angelique put her arms around her young friend again.
Well, Wilfred?"
The man stood up straight and looked directly at me. He ad-
dressed me the whole time he spoke.
Thursday last I came home and somebody, I dont even re-
member who, told me that my dead brothers child, Josette, had
failed off the roof. They said Josette was dead. Said the cops had
come and the ambulance had come and all that was left was a
grease stain in the street. And Ferris Burns had washed that away
with a green hose. My dead brothers child was dead. Dead. She
hardly ever wanted to stay with me an Linda and then- after Lin-
da left, she acted like I was some kinda enemy. Id see her goin up
to the sixth floor, to six-gee. Id see her staggerin down the halls
and the streets. I seen her comin from apartments and corners and
the alley behind the buildin with men hitchin up then pants aftah
her.
Police wouldnt even tell me what happened for three days.
They said I had to prove she was my blood. How was I gonna do
that? Finally my minister agreed to talk to em. An they told me
that she committed suicide. Suicide. I told em that it was Lark
Thinnes and his drugs killed my niece. It was him that made her
into a whore and a soul so sad that she couldnt, she couldnt
For a moment Wilfred hovered at the threshold of crying. But
he pulled himself back.
So I got me a gun and a boxa bullets and I did just what the
little girl said. I knocked on his door and said I wanted some crack
cocaine just like they say on the news. I said I wanted some and he
smiled at me and turnt his back. I just started shootin. He run to
one side and I shot him and then he run to the other side and I
shot him again. I shot him till there wasnt no more bullets in the
gun. But he was still movin, tryin to get away. So I loaded up
again an shot him some more. I shot till all the bullets was done
and he wasnt movin no more.
Aftah that I walked away down the stairs. I was sittin outside
this apartment when Mr. Valentine came out to go to work.
You know I went to the police to try and get them to kick

54

60
Thinnes outta there. They went to see him now and then but they
didnt do nuthin. One cop told me that I should move. I should
move outta my own house.
I went to social services over Josette but they said that she was
too old and by the time they got to her shed already be eighteen.
Did you mean to kill him? I asked.
Yes I did.
Is that what you planned to do when you went to his door?
Yes it was.
Did it feel good? Bells asked put of nowhere.
Wilfred was still for a moment and then he shook his head.
Is that all you have to say, Wilfred? I asked then.
He nodded and sat down.
Everyone in the room, even Wanita, was quiet and looking at
the miserable man.
It was a shattered moment of grace.

6.

But that aint all of it is it, bastard? Wanita said then. You aint
told em how you loaded up your gun a third time and pointed it at
me, did you?
I remembered that the gun was loaded when Wilfred gave it to
me. There were also fourteen spent shells in the greasy bag. He
had known enough to keep the shells so that the police couldnt
use them as evidence.
I forgot that part, he said. I suppose I didnt wanna remem-
bahthat.
But you did, Wanita said vindictively. You loaded it up and
came aftah me.
Oh Lord, Cilia said.
Milo Stone grunted and shook his head.
Are you hurt? Kenya asked.
He was gonna kill me like he did Lark, Wanita said. He fol-
lowed me down into a corner and pointed the pistol at my head. It
wasnt till I cried and said that I was gonna have a baby that he

55

61
stopped. If I wasnt pregnant he would have killed me for sure.
Wanita started crying again.
Youre pregnant? Milan asked.
Yes, Daddy, his daughter replied. I went with her to the
doctor last Tuesday.
Is what she says true, Wilfred? I asked.
It wasnt cause she was pregnant. I was crazy. I wanted to
keep on hurtin. I saw her in there. I knew that she helped him sell
that shit. I was crazy mad. I wanted to kill her too but when I saw
her cryin I thought about Josette and I knew that I couldnt doit.
Well thats it, right? Reggie Simms said. He even stood up.
The girl saw it and the man confessed. Now its for the law to
decide.
Sit down, Reggie, Milan said. We arent nearly finished
here.
Why?
Because were having a trial and youre part of the judging
body. Youre here and you will stay here until we have finished.
I was surprised that Reggie obeyed. He was a man who lived
outside the law as far as his profession was concerned but that was
because he felt that the laws were stacked against men like him.
But Wilfred was something else altogether.
After many long months of considering his decision to stay, I
decided that it was because, in a way, Milan was offering him citi-
zenship, membership in a group that would make up their own
minds about what was right.
But he confessed, the kid Bells said.
Thats only the first part of the trial, I said. And Wilfred
says that he did it out of passion over his nieces death.
Lark didnt kill her, Wanita said.
Did he get her hooked on that shit? sand-colored Cilia asked
Wanita.
No, the child said petulantly. Uh-uh. Josie used to come up
there to party and Lark just sold her what she wanted.
But did he make her into a whore? Kenya asked.
He didnt make her nuttin, Wanita said. He didnt tie her

56

62
down. That was her own decision. You cant blame us for that.
Lark was a businessman just like Mr. Simms.
I aint no drug dealer, Simms said. What I do help peoples.
But if onea the Mexicans work for you get sick or get in trou-
ble that aint your fault, Wanita argued.
Thats different.
No it aint. If your people get sick or get killed cornin here or
tryin to go back home they caint blame you.
Reggie didnt answer because he might have said the same
words.
And, Bells, you worked for Lark before, Wanita went on.
You even sold shit to Josette before when she was sellin her ass
down in the alley.
Wilfred raised his head to gaze at the young Bells.
So? the boy replied.
So if Lark killed Josie then you did too.
Tell these people how old are you, Wanita, Gina Gores said.
What that got to do with anything?
Shes turned fourteen two months ago, Gina said. I know.
Im her godmother
Wanita pouted and looked away from the circle.
What does her age have to do with this trial? I asked, to keep
us on track.
If you sayin that Lark killed Josette because he supplied her
with drugs and put her in danger then you need to see if he did it
anywhere else. I think that if he was with a thirteen-year-old girl
and got her pregnant in a apartment where they sold drugs and sex
then that might he one thing we should look at.
The deacon nodded and grunted.
Bells looked scared.
Okay, I said. Why don't we talk about Larks life in apart-
ment six-gee.

7.

That discussion went on for over an hour. Everyone had stories

57

63
about knifings and robberies, drug overdoses and people that Lark
and his cronies had beaten for not paying. There were four girls
and two boys in the building that had turned to prostitution to pay
the handsome young drug dealer for his little vials.
The only people who didnt speak were the young ones.
Wanita glared at the conversation. Angelique was stoic and Bells
was sullen listening to the long list of indictments against the
murdered man.
Do you have anything to say? I asked Bells after the jury had
begun to repeat themselves.
I aint on trial, he told me.
I just wondered if you have any stories for or against the vic-
tim.
You mean Lark?
Yes.
I dunno. I mean he was a drug dealer, yeah. But I dont know
how you gonna blame him for that. The police go up to him an
Wans place evry other week but they left without arrestin him.
They just got they little envelope and walked away.
He was payin off the cops? Cilia asked.
He was payin some ofem. I dont know about em all. But
you know if he can do his work an nobody from city hall wanna
do nuthin I dont know how you can sit here an say it was his
fault.
Unconsciously Reggie Simms nodded.
An if you wanna blame somebody about Wan you might as
well ask Miss Gores about her mother.
Dont you say that!" Wanita yelled. She leaped up from the
coral sofa but was held back by Angelique. For a moment there
Angeliques eyes and mine met. I realized that I was attracted to
her.
Well? I asked Gina.
I dont have nuthin to say on the subject. And I think that
boy should keep his mouf shut.
No, Milan said. This is a room where anyone can speak.
This is a room where we arent going to be silenced.

58

64
 Something about Milans tone affected Bells. He sat up
straight and stared defiantly at Gina.
Wans mother was onea the first ones to come down to six-
gee. Matters fact she the one send me down there the first time to
get her stuff. She give me ten dollars an told me to go give it to
him. And then she started goin down there on her own. And
sometimes hed go up to her place. Thats where he met Wanita.
He was with her mother first.
Wanita buried her face against Angeliques shoulder. Angel-
ique was looking at me.
So you sayin that Wanitas mother sold her to Lark?
No! Wanitas scream was muffled by Angeliques white dress.
No, Bells agreed. Its just that she ended up down with Lark
and her mother got her drugs at discount.
I had never seen Milan frown like that. Lie seemed lost in the
complexity of broken hearts and promises.
Wanita? I asked.
What?
Is what Bells says true?
What if it is? I still loved Lark. He was too young for my
mother anyway.
And too old for you, Kenya said flatly.
Im havin his baby. I aint too young for that. Lark loved me.
He loved me and I loved him and that man killed him."
So why didnt you go to the police? Reggie asked. He was sit-
ting at the edge of his folding chair by then, fully engaged in the
discussion.
Wanita froze for a moment staring into the eyes of the con-
struction boss.
I she said. I was scared to go.
Why? Milo asked. You had a right. He murdered your man
right there in front of you.
Her mother been workin for a frienda Larks, Gina said.
The cops woulda taken her to some kinda foster home or
sumpin.
So you wouldnt have gone to the police? I asked.

59

65
 Wanita looked down.
I was hopin I could get justice here, she said and I began to
understand just how complex Milans project really was.

8.

So, Wilfred Arna, I said rather pompously, are you guilty of

having wilfully murdered Lark Thinnes with malice afore-
thought?
The trial had gone on for hours. We had discussed the crime
and the victims, the law as we saw it, and the law as it saw us. Cil-
ia Sanders stayed with us in spite of her age. Reggie Simms stayed
with us in spite of his doubts. Milo Stone stayed with us in spite of
the conflicts with his vows to 3B1.
We had come to the final moments of the first part of the
trial.
Yes, Wilfred said sitting up straight and looking around what
came to be known in later trials as the Circle of Judgment. I mur-
dered him right there in his room. I almost killed the girl too. I
was crazy but I knew what I was doin. I killed him. I shot him
until he was dead.
And do you, Milo asked, want to be turned over to the po-
lice or have us judge you here in this room?
You, Wilfred said with certainty that he hadnt shown earlier.
What if we find you guilty? I asked.
Thats all right.
What if they say you should die? young transient Bells asked.
Wilfred stared at the young man who had admitted selling
drugs to his niece. He stared but said nothing.
It was close to two in the morning but no one seemed tired.
Lets go around the room, I said, and take a poll.
Before we do that I have a question about procedure, Milo
Stone said.
Whats that?
How do we know if hes guilty?
The vote will tell us.

60

66
 But suppose that some think lies innocent?
If nine or more vote guilty, Milan said, then thats enough
for the verdict. Does anybody have a problem with that?
I expected Wanita to speak up but she didnt. She looked at me
and curled her lip but said nothing.
Cilia, I said.
Guilty, she replied.
Milo.
Guilty.
TonyReggieKenyaAngeliqueBellsWanitaMilan
Gina
Guilty, they all said.
And so say I, I added. We are in unanimous agreement.
Now the only thing we need to do is come up with the sentence.
Caint we just turn him over to the law? Bells asked. I mean
they got jails and shit. What we gonna do? Send him to his room
without his dinner?
Wanita, Milan said.
What? The child was in deep pain. Her eyes had heavy marks
under them and she couldnt sit up straight without Angeliques
help.
I was falling in love with my friends daughter all through that
trial. She had been a child to me before that night but seeing her
stand up against the police and for her friend had shown me a
woman.
What do you think the punishment should be?
Dont ask me.
But you knew earlier, he prodded.
Hes guilty but he was crazy too, Wanita said. I can see that
now. I can see how hurt he is. Lark used to go upstairs an beat my
mama sometimes. Mama Gina right, he made her a ho. He did
Josie too. Mr. Arna Was just mad. I mean he broke my heart an
took my baby daddy but that dont mean he have to die.
What about you, Reggie? I asked the builder. I dont even
know why you came or why you stayed. Do you have a verdict?
Just cause you went to college dont mean you know shit,

61

67
Bobby, Simms said. I known Wilfred here since we were boys in
high school. We played basketball together. I used to go out with
his sister. So when Milan came down to me I couldnt just say no.
I mean I think this is wrong, that the law should judge us. But
Cilias right, they dont do it. I know I said different but I just
wanted to make sure you people meant what you said.
If youre such close friends why didnt you say he was inno-
cent? Tony asked.
We aint close. We hardly ever even talk. But I know who he
is. He aint no criminal. And I voted him guilty because he said he
was. He had a good reason hut that don't make him innocent.
Kenyas baby was asleep on a big pillow on the floor next to his
mother.
Anybody else? I asked.
An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, Milo Stone in-
toned.
Cilia and Gina nodded their agreement.
Wilfred stared straight ahead as if he had not heard. My heart
grabbed at my ribcage. Angelique looked at me beseechingly.
No, Milans daughter cried. Thats wrong.
He admitted to the murder, the ex-con Anthony said. Its
not a mistake.
But why didnt you get together to try Lark? she reasoned. If
you had done that Josie might have lived and Mr. Arna would
never have had to get that mad.
We cant take back the past, her father said, only look at
where we are today.
But you cant, Daddy. It would be murder.
Wilfred? I asked. Will you accept the judgment of this
court?
Yes I will.
Then, I said, we have a motion for the death penalty on the
table. I second Milos motion. How many agree?
Cilia and Milo, Gina, Kenya, Milan, Bells and Reggie agreed.
Against?
I am, Angelique said but everyone else declined to respond.

62

68
 I called for the vote again with the same results.
Eight to one, I said. Should we discuss the manner in which
he should be executed?

9.

What about the baby? Angelique asked the assembly.

What about it? Milan replied.
Mr. Arna killed the babys father. Isnt he responsible for that
childs life?
There was a long silence among us then. The men, all except
Wilfred, sat forward while the women sat back considering the
question of the woman I was coming to love.
Childs right, Cilia said. He has to make restitution for
Larks baby.
Milo Stone said, Amen to that.
Do you have any money, Mr. Arna? Milo asked.
The condemned man opened his mouth but his voice was
gone. He shook his head to answer the question.
I noticed that he was sweating heavily.
He caint pay for no child if he dont have the money, Reggie
Simms said.
He could pay if we let him live and work it off, Angelique
said. We could put off the penalty or change it to be that he will
have to work the rest of his life payin for the baby whose father he
killed.
What kind of punishment is that? Bells complained. Here
he kill somebody an we tell him that all he have to do is go back
to work.
Its justice not revenge were after here, Anthony Porter said.
Were all guilty here. All of us and the police too. None of this
had to happen but now that it has we need to find the balance. We
need to try and make things right.
Bells squinted as if trying to peer into some far-off image or
mirage.
I felt a smile crossing my face.

63

69
 What about you, Kenya? I asked.
He murdered that boy, she said thoughtfully. What if he
does it again? What if hes crazy and goes out and shoots Bells
next? He know that Bells sold junk to his niece. What if he kills
again?
He already said that hes willin to die, Gina argued.
But now if we let him live then maybe hell let the anger grow
again, Kenya rebutted.
You wanna kill me, Mr. Arna? Bells asked then.
No, the murderer whispered. Ill never do sumpin like that
again. You know it was just all that stuff all at once. I was crazy.
I vote to let im do what he need to in order to carea Wans
baby, Bells said. I aint afraida him.
The rest of the assembly mumbled their agreement. All except
Kenya.
Bells aint worried bout him now, the young mother said.
But what happens when you broke again an out in the alley sel-
lin drugs to some other child? What happens when Wilfred see
you gettin another girl to drop her draws to pay you?
Ill give him a job, Reggie said then. You wanna work for
me, Bells?
Everyone was watching the boy as if he were the key to the tri-
al.
Yeah. Okay. All right. Ill work for you if thats what it takes
to save Mr. Arnas life an, an Wans baby.
An you can come live with me, Gina said to Wanita. I got a
little room you could sleep in. You could stay with me until your
mother gets better.
Wilfred was looking around, a little bewildered it seemed be-
cause the attention was no longer on him and his crime.
So its either you put me to death or I pay for Wanita an her
child? he asked.
Yes, I said. Do you accept?
Wilfred stared at me with the reality dawning on him. After
another moment he nodded.
Lets vote on it, I said. Everyone willing to commute

64

70
Wilfreds sentence if he agrees to pay for Wanita and her child say
aye.
They all, even Wanita, responded.
Thats about it, Anthony Porter said. And you know this
some serious shit here. I mean if my parole officer even hears that
I was in a room like this, havin a talk like this, I will be back in
the penitentiary in less time than it took you to kill that man.
Yes, Milan said. The law is blind when it comes to Lark
Thinnes selling drugs from his front door. The police dont see the
prostitutes and muggers that breed around a place like that.
But they will see us. They will see men and women taking the
law into their own hands. They will arrest us and convict us for
passing judgment where they failed to act.
So we have to make an oath here that tonight never hap-
pened.
What if we have to meet again? Reggie said. What if a new
drug dealer takes over Larks apartment?
If he refuses our judgment we will have to bring the whole
building together, I Said. We will meet in the laundry room and
make up our minds where the law serves us and where it does not.
If a criminal comes to us and asks us for justice we will give it
to him. If he preys on us we will stand together and act according-
ly.
Thats vigilantism, Milo Stone observed.
No one contradicted his words nor did anyone say he was
wrong.
What about Wanita? Bells asked.
Ill go live wit Mama Gina, the child said, at least until my
mama is bettah.
What about the gun? Kenya, the pragmatist among us, asked.
Well leave that with Milan, I said, and never mention it
again.

That was a few minutes after three in the morning. After that eve-
ryone left and went to their beds. Wanita, avoiding looking at
Wilfred, left with her godmother. Wilfred went to his lonely

65

71
rooms to brood over what hed done. Milo walked Cilia to her
door and Tony left with Gina as usual. I walked Kenya and her
sleeping baby to her apartment and then made my way back up to
Milans door.
Angelique was waiting there again. When I walked in and of-
fered her my hand she leaned forward to kiss my lips. We shared
three more kisses and then Milan cleared his throat. He was
standing a few feet away down the hall. Wilfreds loaded pistol was
in his hand.
Angelique rushed away to her room and Milan gestured with
the gun hand shooing me toward the room where wed held the
trial.
I sat on Cilias cushioned chair and Milo took the couch. He
laid the gun next to his thigh.
What if we decided on the death penalty? the royal Ghanaian
asked.
First, I guess, I said, we could offer him suicide. And if that
didnt, work, you and I, prosecution and defense, would have had
to do it together.
It will never last, Milan said. Sooner or later the police will
get us.
But its the right thing, I said, pretending I was him. I even
tried to approximate his broad smile.
But is it worth it? the master planner asked mehis acolyte.
I used to know a guy back in Oakland named Marquis
Brown, I said. Ive been thinking about him all night. Marquis
used to always say that the black man in this country carries his
chains with him as if they were made out of gold.
If only the black man would drop them chains, he used to say
to me. Then maybe he could stand up proud and make a differ-
ence in his life.
Have we made a difference? the usually confident African
asked.
Wanita has a home, I said. Bells has a job and Larks babys
got a chance. You know Cilia was feeling good tonight and Im
sure 3B1 will he affected by us too. Yes its worth it. Anything is

66

72
better than us believing that the lies of the law will bring us jus-
tice.
Milan gave me a weak smile and picked up the pistol.
About my daughter, he said.
My heart flipped in its cavity and the room seemed to pulsate
once, twice.
She will be eighteen in seven weeks, the African continued.
If you still want her then I will not shoot you.
He handed me the gun and we both laughed and laughed.

10.

Wilfred was arrested but there were no witnesses or a weapon.

Wanita claimed that she had been staying with her godmother.
Gina and Bells testified that he had visited them that night.
I gave the pistol to Cilia telling her that she could turn it over
to the police if Wilfred decided that he didnt have to pay for
Wanitas childs needs.
Since that day things have begun to change in the Ida B. Wells
building. No drug dealer has been able to keep a base of operations
there and the police have paid us closer attention which has also
cut down on crime.
Angelique and I dated for a while but then she moved to Accra
to become a teacher. We are still the best of friends. I am her sons
godfather. She came out to attend Cilias funeral and once or twice
when her father asked her to come and sit on one of our Circles of
Judgment.

67

73
74
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brunk, Conrad G. Shaping a Vision: The Nature of Peace Stud-

ies. Patterns of Conflict, Paths to Peace. Eds. Larry J. Fisk and
John L. Schellenberg. Toronto: U Toronto P, 2008. 1024.
Print.
Crosby, Alfred. Prologue. Ecological Imperialism: The Biological
Expansion of Europe, 9001900. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cam-
bridge UP, 2004. 17. Print.
Le Guin, Ursula. The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas
(Variations on a theme by William James). Utopian Studies
2.1/2 (1991): 15. Print.
Mosley, Walter. The Trial. Freedom: Stories Celebrating the Uni-
versal Declaration of Human Rights. Edinburgh: Amnesty In-
ternational UK, 2009. 81106. Print.

69

75
76
 Bibliography
"Global Issues Cover." pp. 1. 2016. Fairleigh Dickinson University, (1 pages).

"Front Matter." pp. 1. 2016. Fairleigh Dickinson University, (1 pages).

"Contents." pp. 1. 2016. Fairleigh Dickinson University, (1 pages).

"The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas." Le Guin, Ursula. In Winds Twelve Quarters,
Curtis Brown, Ltd, 1975.

"Prologue." Crosby, Alfred W. In Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of

Europe, 9001900, by Crosby, Alfred W. pp. 17. Cambridge University Press (NY), 2004.
(7 pages).

"Shaping a Vision: The Nature of Peace Studies." Brunk, C. In Patterns of Conflict, Paths
to Peace, by Fisk, Schellenberg. pp. 1024. University of Toronto Press (Books), 2008.
(15 pages).

"The Trial." Mosley, Walter. In Freedom: Stories Celebrating the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, pp. 81106. Random House, Inc. 2011. (26 pages).

"Bibliography." pp. 1. 2016. Fairleigh Dickinson University, (1 pages).

77
78
These course materials were produced by XanEdu and are intended for your
individual use. If you have any questions regarding these materials, please
contact:

Customer Service
cust.serv@xanedu.com
800-218-5971

XanEdu is changing the course of how knowledge is shared and how students
engage with content. Learn more about our award-winning digital solutions for
web, iPad, and Android tablets at:

www.xanedu.com

XanEdu
4750 Venture Drive, Suite 400
Ann Arbor, MI 48108