Interviewer
Hello everybody, today we have a special show. In this morning we are going to talk about conflict and violence, and the relation with Human Rights and international humanitarian law. Mr. o Ms. XXXXX welcome to our matinee show. Our first question to start the interview is the following: How can we understand violent conflict?
Interviewee
Understanding violent conflict is not an easy task. In fact, it is an impossible one. Even if violence could be categorized and analyzed, its brutality and irrationality exceed concepts, ideas and theories.
Interviewee
For many years I have experienced that dilemma. As a Colombian I have been immersed in a sea of uncertainty due to the violent conflict in which we have lived. Every day there are situations revealing the inconsistency between how we might live and how we actually live.
Interviewer
Every day in the Colombian mass media there is news of murder and violence. Is this the reality?
Interviewee
It is not easy to accept that one’s own country’s claim to fame is its cocaine productions and its human rights violations. Colombia is truly a country in which is vital to come to a conceptualization of conflict in order to understand it.
Interviewer
What is violent conflict?
Interviewee
In this context, I conceive violent conflict as the political violence resulting from protracted armed conflict. At this point, it is vital to remark that violence is different from conflict.
Interviewer
If I understand, violence is the pathologic face of conflict, whereas conflict is no more than an essential dimension of human nature.
Conflict conceptualization is complex not only because of the ambiguous ways in which the concept itself is used, but also because of the different methods through which it is approached. What are the different perceptions about conflict?
Interviewee
On the one hand, conflict is regularly used as a synonym for dispute, violence, war, or aggression. On the other hand, every academic discipline has its own theoretical approach to conflict: psychology focuses on behavioral factors; sociology takes status and class conflicts as the focal point; economics focuses on rational choice and game-theory; political science is centered on intranational and international conflicts and so on.
Interviewer
Since conflict is part of the anthropological structure of human relations, its intrinsic character embraces much more than the notion of violence. Indeed, it is part of the very nature of human interaction. But what is conflict?
Interviewee
Peace and conflict research assume that conflicts are the expression of opposing interests and incompatibles goals that two or more parties (individuals or groups) have or think they have.
Interviewer
Can you give us an example to understand the intrinsic character of conflict in human nature?
Interviewee
A graphic definition given by Nicholson helps us to understand the intrinsic character of conflict in human nature: When they both want to stay together but one wants to go to the cinema and the other to stay at home.
Interviewer
A conflict exists when two people wish to carry out acts which are mutually inconsistent. They may both want to do the same thing, such as eat the same apple, or they may want to do different things where the different things are mutually incompatible. Is any way to resolve conflicts?
Interviewee
Yes, a conflict is resolved when some mutually compatible set of actions is worked out.
Interviewer
If conflict is understood as an innate aspect of human life, to address it, is less a question of its elimination that its management. In this sense, it is not possible to imagine humankind without conflicts, but it is possible to imagine it without violence. How do we resolve conflict?
Interviewee
In contrast to conventional approaches, the prevention, settlement or resolution of conflicts do not aim to eliminate conflict, or even the elimination of opposing interests or actors. Conflict research should be aimed at seeking peaceful interaction and between incompatible postures.
Interviewer
Our time is over, Thanks Dr. for you time I hope that the peace dialogues in La Habana (Cuba) between Government and FARC, it would reach a rational agreement that exclude violent means as a way to solve the political conflict that Colombia has lived for more than fifty years
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