Termination II

Abstract

Chapter 9 started to consider the whole issue of ending a conflict “once and for all”, but immediately confronted the problem that while particularly violent forms of behaviour could cease, this might do nothing to affect the way in which individuals and communities thought and felt about one another. It might also do less than nothing to influence the issues that gave rise to the conflict in the first place. Moreover, even if adversaries could, indeed, be brought to a state in which they had abandoned strategies of violence and coercion — or even felt reconciled to past antagonisms — and were prepared to coexist with one another, the contradictions and contradictory goals which led to the violent behaviour could remain in place, unresolved and ready to lead back to further antagonisms and future harmful behaviour that would start up the cycle once again.