{"id":2061,"date":"2025-09-22T13:57:16","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T10:57:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jineoloji.eu\/en\/?p=2061"},"modified":"2025-09-22T13:57:16","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T10:57:16","slug":"an-attempt-to-define-peace-and-the-role-of-memory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jineoloji.eu\/en\/2025\/09\/22\/an-attempt-to-define-peace-and-the-role-of-memory\/","title":{"rendered":"An Attempt to Define Peace and the Role of Memory"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peace and its Processes<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

According to official figures, in 2023 there were around 45 peace processes and negotiations in the world, and 52 in 2024. There are dozens and dozens of peace processes, or attempts at them, that have been experienced worldwide since the beginning of the 21st century. But despite this, it is difficult to discern the true solutions that these processes and peace announcements have provided to the peoples who, at a given moment, organized themselves to defend their existence and their political will, and how much they have contributed to Peace in a world that is approaching the abyss with endless wars, militarization, aggressive immigration policies, the growth of neofascism, and extermination through femicide, ecocide and sociocide, in the period known as the Third World War.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let us examine some definitions that may shed light on the matter.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Vicen\u00e7 Fisas’s definition, a peace process is an “effort to achieve an agreement that ends violence (…) through negotiations that may require third-party mediation. (…) A process is not a specific moment, but a set of phases or stages extended over time, in which all affected actors intervene, in a collective effort to, at a given moment, reach agreements that will allow ending the previous situation, dominated by violence and armed confrontation, to give way, through dialogue and consensus, to pacts or agreements that end physical violence, and, through the implementation of agreements, begin a new stage of progress and development that also allows overcoming the structural violence that led to the emergence of the conflict.”<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Vicen\u00e7 Fisas, there are mainly five models of peace processes, depending on the objectives being sought:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n

    Reintegration model<\/span><\/strong>: Occurs in cases where an armed group or organization agrees to lay down arms in exchange for facilities to reintegrate into society. It follows the DDR program: Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration. “This (process) occurs after reaching a ceasefire, proceeding with an amnesty, integrating part of the combatants into the governmental Armed Forces and granting some political or economic privileges to the leaders of the demobilized groups.”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  2. \n

    Power-sharing model<\/span><\/strong>: Occurs mainly in situations where armed groups or organizations seek to become part of institutions and power. It is a model that predominates in African countries.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  3. \n

    Exchange model<\/span><\/strong>: Requires a quid pro quo in exchange for peace. In the peace processes in El Salvador and Guatemala, democratization of the respective regimes was demanded in exchange for ending armed struggle. For many years, the Basque National Liberation Movement put forward the “peace for prisoners” formula to try to force the Spanish Government to release its prisoners in exchange for abandoning armed struggle.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  4. \n

    Confidence-building measures model<\/span><\/strong>: A model that consists of each party implementing bilateral and reciprocal measures to gradually reduce tension. It is a model that is not sufficiently solid on its own, especially if situations that generate distrust continue to occur. An example would be India and Pakistan.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  5. \n

    Self-government model<\/span><\/strong>: “Refers to achieving some form of self-government for those regions with demands for autonomy or independence.”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Likewise, Fisas affirms that peace processes that involve primarily the main actors in the conflict are “elitist” processes, that is, the State and the armed organization, with the eventual participation of international mediators, as would be, for example, the case of Colombia, with the participation of the Colombian government on one side, and FARC on the other, along with Cuban mediation; while they are “participatory” processes if they have the active participation of local actors, such as representatives of civil society, creating “participatory structures that allow society to have a voice.”<\/span><\/p>\n

    Perhaps one of the examples of a participatory process we could find in the disarmament of the ETA organization in Euskal Herria, which after announcing the end of armed struggle in October 2011 completed its disarmament in spring 2017. Faced with the refusal of the states against which ETA had fought, France and Spain, to participate in a bilateral process for solving a conflict of more than 60 years (if we only count the years of ETA’s activity, but several decades more if we count the years of persecution and denial of Basque identity that in the last century took form through Francoism, conditions that led to the birth of ETA), it was finally with the help and participation of international associations and personalities, and of Basque social movements and civil society – through the so-called Artesanos de la Paz (Peace Craftsmen) – that the disarmament and subsequent dissolution of the organization was finalized. But can we speak of peace in the example of Euskal Herria? We will try to provide an outline of an answer to this question in the second part of the article.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Along with Fisas’s definition of “elitist processes” and “participatory processes,” one of the questions that may arise is: who makes peace? Recently, in the perspective written and sent by Abdullah \u00d6calan for the 12th PKK Congress, in which it was decided to end the method of armed struggle and dissolve the organizational structures of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, \u00d6calan mentioned that:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n

    “Only those who fight can make peace. That is, not second or third forces, not intermediary or allied forces, only the forces that have taken responsibility for war on their shoulders can take responsibility for peace on their shoulders. Because peace is at least as serious as war. And the responsibility for something so serious can only be carried out by people who have taken the first level on their shoulders.”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    Would this be an elitist situation? No, rather we can see the responsibility of those who have taken up arms to build peace and freedom. It is possible that, initially, especially for those people who come from pacifist movements and have been formed in the “culture of peace,” this may sound contradictory. But everyone knows that when we refer to revolutionary movements that have opted for the path of armed struggle, we speak of movements that have not made this decision precipitously, but on very firm foundations. As \u00d6calan emphasized in his historic call “Peace and Democratic Society” made last February 27:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n

    “The PKK was born in the 20th century – the most intense century of violence in history – amid the conditions created by two world wars, the Cold War, the suppression of freedoms and, above all, the denial of Kurdish identity. (…) The emergence and widespread support for the PKK – the longest and most complete uprising and armed movement in the history of the (Turkish) Republic – were a consequence of the closure of democratic political channels.”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    Likewise, in the third volume of the Manifesto for Democratic Civilization, Sociology of Freedom, written from the prison-island of Imrali, \u00d6calan stated that:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n

    “When a society is no longer capable of creating and managing institutions that provide moral and political guidance of importance, it means that society has succumbed to oppression and exploitation. It is in a state of war. History can be defined as a state of war waged by civilizations against society. When morality and politics are dysfunctional, a society has only one path left: self-defense. A state of war is nothing more than the absence of peace. In this way, only self-defense will make peace possible. Peace without self-defense can only be an expression of submission and slavery. Liberalism today imposes peace without self-defense on societies and peoples. The unilateral game of democratic stability and reconciliation is nothing more than the fig leaf that covers the domination of the bourgeois class achieved by armed forces. It is nothing more than a disguised state of war. The main pillar of capitalist ideological hegemony is the idea that true peace is peace that does not require self-defense.”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    At this point, we find the need to define what peace is.<\/span><\/p>\n

    The Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) defines peace as “situation in which there is no armed struggle in a country or between countries,” “harmonious relationship between people, without confrontations or conflicts,” or “agreement reached between nations by which a war is ended.” We find, then, a definition of peace that, on one hand, supposes only a situation of lack of confrontation, conflict or armed struggle, and on the other hand, the situation agreed upon to end a war. Thus we encounter an insufficient definition of peace, as it does not take into account the rights and ethical and political will of society. Likewise, the RAE defines war as “armed struggle between two or more nations or between factions of the same nation” and “disagreement and breaking of peace between two or more powers,” so at least two confronting parties are necessary to speak of war. So, how can we speak of possible peace if one of the parties does not recognize being at war? This is what we find, for example, in the case of Euskal Herria, where the Spanish right opposed the very concept of “peace process” by considering that there was no war situation, but only, in the words of former Spanish Government President Mariano Rajoy, “part of Basque society attacking Spanish society.”<\/span><\/p>\n

    Abdullah \u00d6calan, in the volume Sociology of Freedom, explains it as follows:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n

    “In capitalist modernity, the word peace is full of traps. Using the word without defining it correctly has many drawbacks. Let us redefine peace: it is neither the complete elimination of the state of war nor stability or the absence of war under the supremacy of one of the parties. There are different parties in any peace and the total domination of one party over another does not bring peace. (…) For a well-founded peace to exist, three conditions must be met. Any other type of peace is meaningless. (…) Let us develop those conditions: first, complete disarmament of the different parties is not on the table. The conflicting parties must commit to not attacking each other regardless of the dispute. It will not be about achieving military superiority. All parties must accept and respect the right of the other to maintain the means necessary to guarantee their security. Second, the ultimate superiority of one party over the others is not at stake. While it is possible to achieve stability and quietude under the domination of arms, this cannot be considered peace. Peace will only be on the agenda when all parties agree to stop the war without one of the parties achieving armed superiority, regardless of whether it is right or not. Third, again regardless of the positions of the different parties, it is agreed to respect the moral and political institutions of societies when addressing the problems underlying the conflict. (…) In that situation, democratic politics plays a vital role. Only dialogue between democratic forces can confront the power and forces of the State and achieve a meaningful peace process. Without that peace, even if the warring parties silence the weapons for a while, the state of war will continue. The silencing of weapons in this context cannot be considered peace, but rather a ceasefire that is a harbinger of a fiercer war to come. For a ceasefire to lead to authentic peace, the three conditions described must be met.”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    In Romance languages, pau (Catalan), paz (Spanish), paix (French), pace (Italian) as well as in English “peace,” it is believed that their etymological origin is located in Latin pax, with the Indo-European base *pak-, meaning pact or agreement. The German word for peace, frieden, shares roots with freude (joy) and freiheit (freedom). Similarly, in Dutch vrede (peace) shares roots with vriend (friend) and vrijheid (freedom). Arabic salam and Hebrew shalom, both used as forms of greeting, come from the Semitic root s-l-m which implies concepts such as peace, security and completeness. In Basque, although the etymological meaning of bake is unknown, it is believed it may be related to other Basque words that would mean “quiet place,” “refuge,” “open space,” or “without movement,” words that evoke rest, tranquility, harmony and well-being. The word used in Kurdish and Persian to refer to peace, a\u015fit\u00ee, has its origin in the ancient Hurrian language, in which it meant woman, which reminds us of the tradition among Kurdish women that, in case of dispute between two tribes or two people, they were the ones in charge of taking the initiative and intervening in favor of peace, removing their head scarves to place them in the middle of the fight and thus stop it.<\/span><\/p>\n

    We see then how in most of the given examples peace refers to a situation of harmony, calm, and friendship, or to an agreed situation. As \u00d6calan says, “peace is nothing but the conditional reconciliation of democracy and the State.” On the other hand, the Kurdish-Hurrian etymological relationship between peace and woman makes us think about the important role of women in achieving this situation of calm and harmony.<\/span><\/p>\n

    If we look at it from a dialectical perspective, just as we cannot speak of light without darkness, it would not be correct to think of total peace. Here comes into play the concept coined by Francisco Mu\u00f1oz of “imperfect peace.” This is an “imperfect peace, in permanent construction, responsibility of all, processual; paradoxical, because it coexists with violence.” “Another of the substantial differences that imperfect peace presents is that it does not necessarily depend on violence. Peace is a form of conflict transformation, and as I have expressed previously, conflicts should be considered an opportunity, and their peaceful management, an expression of human creativity.”<\/span><\/p>\n

    “Peace is not about silencing rifles. It is about a process of social transformation.”<\/strong> – Rigoberta Mench\u00fa<\/span><\/p>\n

    Thus, peace is never total, but is a constant process of construction. Likewise, peace does not suppose the end of struggle, as many states pretend during peace processes. In that case we would no longer speak of peace, but of surrender. As affirmed by the Group for Peace and Democratic Society, formed by 15 female and 15 male PKK guerrillas who burned their weapons last July 11:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n

    “As you know, things were not achieved easily, without cost or without struggle. On the contrary, all achievements came at a high price, through hard struggle. And what is to come will undoubtedly require demanding struggle. We are fully aware of this, and with the aim of ensuring greater democratic achievements, we firmly believe in the vision and paradigm of Leader Abdullah \u00d6calan, as well as in ourselves and our collective strength.”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    In this sense, despite the Turkish Government’s insistence on referring to the current process as “a Turkey free of terrorism,” thus continuing with definitions and languages that do not contribute to the solution, the way the Kurdish Movement refers to the process as “Peace and Democratic Society,” inspired by \u00d6calan’s call of the same name made on February 27, is revealing, since it involves a construction of peace that is not ethereal, nor has a classic position of negotiations with the State to get something in return, nor seeks power, nor seeks to unilaterally dismantle itself, but is the construction and realization of a peace that is only possible with the construction and realization of a social and political project that offers a new dimension to the concept of peace and to its processes. Because as \u00d6calan affirmed in his historic message issued on July 9, the first video images since he was captured on February 15, 1999, “politics knows no voids; therefore, the void must be filled with the program of Democratic Society and the strategy of Democratic Politics.” In this way, the greatest contribution to peace is made, taking it out of the molds in which it had been placed, and it becomes a peace not only with the State, but a peace for society, where the main role that society must play is not only to participate in the peace process as such, but in the process of constructing itself. This can respond, in turn, to the legitimate and well-founded mistrust of the State by a society that does not forget all that has been suffered, since the Peace and Democratic Society process is a call to resignify and reorganize as a people and society, beyond states.<\/span><\/p>\n

    The Importance of Memory in Building Peace<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

    Memory, from Latin memor (he who remembers).<\/span><\/p>\n

    Remember, from Latin re-cordis (to pass through the heart again).<\/span><\/p>\n

    Given that peace is not only “absence of weapons” or “absence of conflict,” we have seen the importance of defining the concept of peace and developing a common understanding to be able to build it.<\/span><\/p>\n

    For the State, peace is a situation that requires not only that the counterpart lay down arms, but requires the abandonment of struggle, its objectives and demands. For this, or after this, the State establishes a narrative that it has been generating since the years of conflict; the hegemonic narrative of the victor. We can see this example in the insistence of naming the Peace and Democratic Society process by the Turkish government as “a Turkey free of terrorism,” or we can see it very clearly and evidently in the case of Euskal Herria, where governments, both Spanish and the Basque government itself, have established the narrative that “democracy has defeated terrorism.” Through spaces like the Association of Victims of Terrorism; through official numbers where only the deaths of one side count, leaving out the people murdered in Euskal Herria both in the years of dictatorship and already in democracy, without forgetting the more than 4,000 people tortured by law enforcement; through the press that, 14 years after the end of armed struggle and seven since ETA’s dissolution, still speak of “etarras” when referring to Basque political prisoners or when any Basque claims their rights; through tendentious and sensationalist books that claim to explain the truth of the “terrorist band”; and through films where ETA militants are shown as bloodthirsty people without common sense (as is the case with the film “The Infiltrator”) without taking into account or explaining the reality of a people and their organized expression to defend their own existence. As a Basque family we spoke with recently affirmed, “we owe our existence to ETA, without them we would no longer exist.”<\/span><\/p>\n

    In this way, the State generates a narrative, and the importance of the narrative is that it supposes a narration of history, thus generating a memory. So, if it does not encounter organized opposition to this narrative that seeks to build a memory closer to the truth, the State will impose its memory and its truth. When what is abandoned is not only armed struggle, but struggle in general, it will not be possible to build a memory that can only be valid if it is collective and organized. For example, in Kurdistan, despite the State’s efforts to pin the winner’s medal on itself before a supposed group of heartless and bloodthirsty terrorists, there exists an organized people, thousands of organized militants and a living and dynamic movement capable of defending its memory and presenting its own narrative, that is, its narration of history, closer to the truth.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Otherwise, the narration of history that remains as memory for the following generations will be that of the State, and only the people who lived it firsthand will know what really happened, or at least what they lived, since history must be built by all the voices that lived it. The new generations, knowing only the State’s narrative, will embrace that memory as their own, and convert it into their truth. We can see this, again, in the case of Euskal Herria, where in a few years there has been a generational rupture that, more than cultural or political, is one of memory. Thus, the new generations in Euskal Herria either will not know who ETA or the Basque National Liberation Movement was, or, according to the State’s narrative, what they will know is that they were terrorists or defeated, following the State’s narrative line of winners and losers.<\/span><\/p>\n

    In this way memory is murdered. Where do the memory and truth of a people remain, the contemporary expression of the warrior and fighting character of those who wanted to remain as a people? Obviously, to build a memory committed to truth requires the courage of criticism and self-criticism, recognizing one’s own errors and shortcomings, leaving egos aside, and expressing oneself from the heart, from a “feeling-thinking” that understands memory as a way of healing, as a tribute to those who left and a duty toward those who will come.<\/span><\/p>\n

    How can peace be built and solution be spoken of, if it is being built on the basis of a murdered memory? How can one speak of peace without memory? In the first part of this article I wondered if one can speak of peace in Euskal Herria. Well, my feeling-thinking tells me no, since peace is not only about taking weapons out of the equation. Violence is not only physical; murdering a memory, imposing a truth, is also violence. A people cannot be at peace, no longer with third parties, no longer with an adversary, but with itself if it lacks memory, or if it is fragmented and devalued.<\/span><\/p>\n

    “Because power feeds mainly on lack of memory.”<\/strong> – Nagihan Akarsel<\/span><\/p>\n

    The Spanish State has long experience in murdering memory; three years of war and 40 years of Francoist dictatorship that murdered the memory of millions of people through silence imposed by fear. How many of us learned as adults what our relatives lived through in the Franco years? How many of us found out as older people that we had relatives in ditches, or in exile? How many of us learned by chance that our relatives had fought on the front against Francoist troops? And this, only, those of us who have been more fortunate. The vast majority have encountered silence, ignorance, forgetfulness. Haven’t we felt frustration on numerous occasions because of that silence and forgetfulness, that murdered memory, which has not allowed the wound to heal? The coup de gr\u00e2ce, in fact, was given by the so-called democratic transition with the Pacts of Forgetting. Historian Ismael Saz affirmed that “it was about forgetting a past to build a future in peace and democracy.” And well, how to build peace without memory? Francoism sentenced memory through silence and the democratic transition executed it with forgetfulness. Generations who have not lived through Francoism continue to feel the open wound, it has remained in our social and family DNA; our relatives were murdered and the earth is full of corpses, but there is no memory, we do not remember, we are an amnesic society.<\/span><\/p>\n

    The RAE defines forgetting as “cessation of the memory one had” or “cessation of the affection one had.” In turn, some of the synonyms it offers are “amnesia,” “indifference,” “contempt,” or “ingratitude.” Expressions like “fall into oblivion,” “cast into oblivion,” “bury in oblivion” show this reality. In Italian dimenticare comes from Latin mens (mind), and means “to take out of mind,” or in Portuguese esquecer, derived from Latin cadere (to fall). Ancient Greek contains leth\u00e9. In Leth\u00e9 or Lethe, the river of forgetfulness according to Greek mythology, is the root leth, which designates the hidden, the covered, the occult, and which we find in the term aletheia \u2013truth\u2013, showing it to us as the “not forgotten” or as “what should not be forgotten.”<\/span><\/p>\n

    In turn, in Greek mythology Mnemosyne, muse of memory, was the mother of the nine muses protectors of arts and sciences. Ancient Greek philosophers linked memory with the idea of immortality of the soul.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Thus, the triad truth \u2013 memory \u2013 peace is the basis for strengthening democratic society, protecting our values as peoples, and guaranteeing a dignified life in freedom. Renouncing one of them (truth, memory, peace) would mean renouncing the others, since the relationship between the three is dynamic, organic and indispensable.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Notes:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

    [1] Catalan analyst on conflicts and peace processes, Doctor in Peace Studies from the University of Bradford, and Director of the School of Peace Culture at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.<\/span><\/p>\n

    [2] “From imperfect peace to pacifist agency.” Article by Juan Manuel Jim\u00e9nez Arenas for the Journal of Latin American Educational History<\/span><\/p>\n

    [3] Ibid<\/span><\/p>\n

    [4] Indigenous leader of the Maya Quich\u00e9 people of Guatemala. Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992.<\/span><\/p>\n

    [5] Member of the Jineoloj\u00ee Academy murdered on October 4, 2022 by a Turkish mercenary.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Peace and its Processes According to official figures, in 2023 there were around 45 peace processes and negotiations in the world, and 52 in 2024. There are dozens and dozens of peace processes, or attempts at them, that have been experienced worldwide since the beginning of the 21st century. But despite this, it is difficult […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2062,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[93,1,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academy-of-jineoloji","category-article","category-in-the-medias"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jineoloji.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jineoloji.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jineoloji.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jineoloji.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jineoloji.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2061"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jineoloji.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2065,"href":"https:\/\/jineoloji.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2061\/revisions\/2065"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jineoloji.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jineoloji.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jineoloji.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jineoloji.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}