Abstract
Time is the most precious resource we have (This article is a long version of the keynote speech the author gave at the International Peace Research Association (IPRA) in Istanbul in August 2014, on the occasion of IPRA’s 50th anniversary. This text was first published as: “Time, Temporament, and Sustainable Peace: The Essential Role of Time in Conflict and Peace”, in: Asian Journal of Peacebuilding, 3,1 (2015): 19–41. The permission to republish this text here was granted by the original copyright-holder.). It is irreversible and non-renewable. It makes the difference, more than ever, between the best and worst scenarios of climate change, energy competition, economic development, poverty, and security. Despite this, an incredible amount of time is wasted, especially the time of others and of nature. These latter resources are needed to prevent violence, build sustainable security, and ensure the well-being of all. Therefore, is it high time to radically change the way we deal with time and to develop a more adaptive ‘Temporament’? This article defines time, surveys temporal deficiencies, and presents the parameters of a more responsible way of dealing with time in conflict transformation.
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Notes
- 1.
A term used and coined by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in an interview during the Gaza war of 2014. https://www.haaretz.com/netanyahu-gaza-must-be-demilitarized-1.5257042 (accessed 19 February 2015).
- 2.
A complete cost assessment considers humanitarian, economic, political, material, social, cultural, psychological, ecological, and spiritual costs (Reychler/Paffenholz 2001: 4).
- 3.
The promise of military intervention encouraged the armed rebellion and the refusal to negotiate. The NATO intervention also increased the number of casualties significantly.
- 4.
See also Wikipedia. “Double bind”, at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_bind (accessed 5 January 2015).
- 5.
Shock therapy involved a sudden privatization of Russia’s 225,000 or so state owned businesses, a sudden release of price and currency controls, withdrawal of state subsidies, and sudden trade liberalization. See Smith (n.d.) and Wikipedia, “Shock therapy”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_therapy_(economics), accessed on 20 March 2020.
- 6.
The legitimacy of a government depends on effectiveness and democracy. Political legitimacy = democracy × effectiveness.
- 7.
For Rothman (1997: 33–52), this is a slowed-down and self-conscious analysis of the interactive nature of reactions that allows actors to be proactive agents in a conflict instead of reactive victims, and which furthers analytic empathy.
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Reychler, L., Langer, A. (2020). Time, Temporament, and Sustainable Peace: The Essential Role of Time in Conflict and Peace. In: Reychler, L., Langer, A. (eds) Luc Reychler: A Pioneer in Sustainable Peacebuilding Architecture. Pioneers in Arts, Humanities, Science, Engineering, Practice, vol 24. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40208-2_15
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