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Communication in
Peacebuilding
Civil Wars, Civility
and Safe Spaces
Stefanie Pukallus
Communication in Peacebuilding
Stefanie Pukallus
Communication
in Peacebuilding
Civil Wars, Civility and Safe Spaces
Stefanie Pukallus
Department of Journalism Studies
University of Sheffield
Sheffield, UK
ISBN 978-3-030-86189-6 ISBN 978-3-030-86190-2 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86190-2
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To the sisterhood
Acknowledgements
This book was written in the most unusual of times. My deepest gratitude
goes to my ‘no matter what’ family and friends, near and far, who—
I hope—know how much they matter to me, each in their special and
unique way. I also want to thank the members of the Hub for the Study
of Hybrid Communication in Peacebuilding (HCPB) who it has been
wonderful to work and embark on new adventures with. I have experi-
enced great team spirit, mutual encouragement and the kind of intellec-
tual generosity (and curiosity) that makes life in the academy worthwhile.
I am indebted to Stacey Connaughton, Laura Brouwers, Derya Yüksek,
Birte Vogel, Valentina Bau, Nicki Hitchcott, Jaremey McMullin, Rousbeh
Legatis, Anastasia Shesterinina, Frank Möller, Hannah Baumeister and
Maria Tomlinson who read parts of the manuscript and took the time
to comment, make suggestions and recommend relevant literature. Of
course, all omissions and errors are mine. Finally, I would like to thank
Jackie Harrison for creating an environment in which my colleagues and
I can flourish, where opportunities can be seized, and new ideas explored.
vii
Contents
1 Introduction: Civil Wars and Communicative

Peacebuilding 1
2 Civil War as Discursive Dehumanisation 15
3 Remnants of Civil Life and Civil Potential in Post-civil
War Settings 77
4 Communicative Peacebuilding: Discursive Civility
and Safe Discursive Spaces 139
5 The Transformative Capacity of Communication:
Integrative Communicative Acts Across
the Communicative Spectrum of Civil Society 181
Index 259
ix
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: Civil Wars and Communicative

Peacebuilding
Civil Wars: A Global Challenge

Civil wars (or intra-state conflicts) have been and still are the ‘most
widespread, the most destructive, and most characteristic form of orga-
nized human violence’ (Armitage, 2018: 5). Indeed, since the end of
WWII, civil wars have been a recurring and seemingly insoluble global
problem as Fig. 1.1 shows. The number of intra-state wars spiked in the
early 1990s and then declined only to return to consistent highs between
2013 and 2019 (which had 52 ongoing civil conflicts—see Pettersson &
Öberg, 2020). Since 2013 civil wars have become increasingly interna-
tionalised.1 This can be explained by the ‘expansion of the Islamic State
(IS)’ and ‘is concurrent with IS declaring a worldwide Caliphate on 29
June 2014’ (Palik et al., 2020: 9). Overall, there is an ‘average of twenty
[civil wars] (…) in progress at any moment’ (Armitage, 2018: 5) meaning
that since 1989 around 20% of nations have ‘experienced at least ten years
of civil war’ (Blattmann & Miguel, 2010: 4).
Half of those experiencing a civil war will experience another one with
recurrence rates estimated at 43% (Philpott, 2012) and sometimes even
50% (Jenkins, 2013). What these statistics show is that civil wars are not a
1 Internationalised civil wars can be defined as ‘internal conflicts in which other states
intervene militarily on one or both sides (…). In 1991, 4% of conflicts were internation-
alised according to this definition; by 2015, that number had multiplied ten-fold to 40%’
(von Einsiedel, 2017: 5).
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2022
S. Pukallus, Communication in Peacebuilding,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86190-2_1
2 S. PUKALLUS
Fig. 1.1 State-based: Armed conflicts by conflict type and year (1946–2020)
(Copyright: Pettersson et al. [2021]. https://ucdp.uu.se/downloads/charts/)
feature of the past but a persistent feature of the contemporary globalised

world. What they obviously don’t show are the dire humanitarian conse-
quences that affect civil war countries. Civil wars typically entail extreme
deprivation for civilian populations. The destruction of physical, social and
economic infrastructures leads to poor hygienic conditions, an accelera-
tion and worsening of endemics as well as poverty, famines and starvation.
The net result of this, in turn, is the depredation of human capital usually
exacerbated by the lack of continuous school education for the young. In
addition, most civil wars also lead to high numbers of internally displaced
persons (IDPs) and refugees which has ‘important implications for inter-
national security because of their potential to spread conflict, overwhelm
neighboring states and host communities, and undermine postconflict
peace and development’ (Lichtenheld, 2020: 253). These humanitarian
consequences are problems that need to be urgently addressed by the
international community, donors, local peacebuilding organisations and
communities alike—and of course, it is exactly this that the many attempts
at peacebuilding try to successfully do.
Through various declarations since 1945 such as the Charter of the
United Nations (UN) and the UNESCO Constitution, the international
community (including UN member countries that have experienced or
1 INTRODUCTION: CIVIL WARS AND COMMUNICATIVE PEACEBUILDING 3
are experiencing civil war) have made a commitment to contribute to the

achievement of worldwide peace. This commitment has been re-affirmed
and strengthened through the establishment of the UN’s 17 Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015. In order for these 17 SDGs to be
realised account needs to be made of the enduring problems that civil
wars pose. Redress must therefore be based on the recognition that such
problems are global in significance and not just parochial in consequences.
And whereas local (the term ‘local’ referring to what are variously called
hyperlocal, local, regional or national levels, see Chapter 3) features pose
unique problems that must be well understood and handled with the
greatest sensitivity, the rationale for redress and peace also has a universal
dimension because without the achievement of peace (SDG 16), all other
SDGs including the fight against climate change (SDG 13), poverty (SDG
1), hunger (SDG 2) and inequality (SDG 10) as well as for quality educa-
tion (SDG 4), health and well-being (SDG 3), decent work and economic
growth (SDG 8) will remain elusive and merely aspirational. The imper-
ative to find ways to achieve sustainable peace therefore rests on a very
basic premise: if the SDGs represent a genuine commitment rather than
a rhetorical flourish, then it is crucial to continue to discuss, identify and
redress shortcomings in peacebuilding and to look for complementary
approaches and innovative solutions in order to permanently end civil
wars. It is this search for complementary and innovative approaches to
peacebuilding that contextualises what I attempt to do in this book—
namely to make a contribution to the ways in which peacebuilding can
be conceptualised and practically be carried out. Specifically, I suggest
that we look more comprehensively at communicative peacebuilding as
fundamental to the (re)building of an associative and cooperative civil
society and as complementary to existing political, social and economic
approaches to peacebuilding.
Civil Society, Communication

and Communicative Peacebuilding
Overall, this book is concerned with the question of how communication
can contribute to peacebuilding in a post-civil war setting.2 More specif-
ically, it is concerned with the communicative conditions for civil peace
2 By post-civil war peacebuilding I mean peacebuilding after a peace agreement.

4 S. PUKALLUS
understood as the peaceful cooperation that can and does occur, despite
differences and disagreement, within communities and civil societies. My
argument is straightforward: in order to build self-sustainable civil peace
in a post-civil war setting it is necessary to encourage and support the
reimagining of former enemies3 as co-citizens. Such reimagining relies in
part on the use of the transformative capacity of communication to bring
about integrative communicative acts4 that help individuals and commu-
nities to move from enmity to inclusive solidarity to peaceful cooperation
with co-citizens. It is this that I wish to explore.
Before mapping out how the argument unfolds throughout the book it
is necessary to clarify three things: first, my understanding of civil society;
second, the way in which I define communication and third, what I mean
by communicative peacebuilding. This clarification is necessary for two
reasons: first, I derive my understanding of these three ideas from a mix of
sociological, communicative and cultural approaches and second, I hope
that it will be helpful to the reader to be presented with the intellectual
architecture for what follows in Chapters 2–5.
Civil Society
I follow Alexander’s (2006: 31) understanding of civil society as ‘a
solidary sphere, in which a certain kind of universalizing commu-
nity comes to be culturally defined and to some extent institutionally
enforced’. Ideally, such a civil sphere is based on a form of inclusive soli-
darity that can ‘provide a thread, not of identity in the narrow sense, but
of the kind of mutual identification that unites individuals dispersed by
class, race, religion, ethnicity’ or culture (ibid.: 43). Civil society relies
‘on feelings for others whom we do not know but whom we respect
out of principle, not experience’ (ibid.: 4) or in the case of a post-civil
war setting, often despite experience. It relies on a ‘feeling of connect-
edness to “every member” of that community, that transcends particular
commitments, narrow loyalties, and sectional interests’ (ibid.: 43). Inclu-
sive solidarity is ‘the sine qua non of civil life’ (ibid.: 7). However, this
ideal of civil society based as it is on the normative principle of inclusive
solidarity can never be fully realised. It is an ideal and, to be blunt, real
3 Lederach (2005) speaks of moral imagination.

4 Following Geertz (1963) who speaks of integrative revolutionary acts.
civil society is always fragmented and contradictory and conceptions of

solidarity are always contested. And yet such contestation, including the
extremes of a civil war, can never completely obliterate the civil conscious-
ness through which citizens express and practice a variety of forms of
inclusive solidarity. Civil societies are never ‘governed by power alone
and are not fueled only by the pursuit of self-interest. Feelings for others
matter, and they are structured by the boundaries of solidarity’ (ibid.:
3). The degree of solidarity is constantly negotiated between members of
civil society, or as Harrison (2019: 7) puts it, ‘the civil sphere is a space
of contestation where civil and anti-civil forces collide and compete for a
form of hegemony in the institutions of civil society’. Accordingly, inclu-
sive solidarity is always vulnerable to hierarchy, power and self-interest
but at the same time and particularly in a post-civil war setting, the desire
for peace amongst citizens can be inclusive and based upon an expan-
sive version of solidarity—one capable of recognising former enemies as
partners (of some kind) in building civil peace.5
Civil society is institutionally grounded. It has its own institutions and
therefore can be understood as ‘a sphere or subsystem of society that is
analytically and, to various degrees, empirically separated from the spheres
of political life, economic, family and religious life’ (ibid.: 53). It can be
studied and importantly and practically, be built. Alexander (2006) distin-
guishes between the regulative institutions (legal institutions, voting,
office and political parties) and the communicative institutions of civil
society (public opinion, civil associations and the mass media both factual
and fictional). And although I discuss regulative institutions at various
points in the next few chapters, particularly when defining civil peace as
peaceful cooperation, my focus is primarily on the communicative insti-
tutions. Here, it is worth clarifying that civil associations can have both
formal and often permanent forms such as is the case with the various
kinds of NGOs (international, national, regional and local) that comprise
civil life as well as less formal ones where individual citizens come together
on an ad hoc and temporary basis for a specific purpose such as the
5 Alexander (2006, 2016, 2018) has developed a concept of civil repair which, when
applied to post-conflict societies, consists of repairing the civil sphere in such a way that
it can be seen as a ‘society of self-regulating individuals, who see not only themselves but
also others as honest, independent, open, cooperative, and rational, as fellow members
of a horizontally organized community who merit their trust’ (Alexander, 2018: 3). This
resonates with the idea of a civil society being repaired when it is able to peacefully
cooperate.
6 S. PUKALLUS
building of a school, the planting of a community vegetable garden or

the repairing of the local water system peacebuilders (see Chapter 2).
Defining Communication
Following Dewey, I understand communication to be foundational to
civil society. For him, civil societies ‘exist (…) in communication’ (Dewey,
2011 [1916]: 6). It is through communication that members of civil
society build relationships, define the identity of civil society; that is,
the values it stands for and the values it rejects as well as how it
represents itself to the many non-civil spheres of life. Following Park
(1938 in particular), Jaspers and Alexander I also understand that the
role of communication in civil society is to bring about inclusive soli-
darity, to create customs and civil norms as well as understanding and
consensus on those aspects that define civil society. Civil engagement—
that is the coming together of members of the community to decide a
common cause of action or to imagine and experience alternative ‘better’
versions of current societal/civil life—is always communicative. In this
way, communication can be seen as a cultural process of diffusion and
acculturation in Park’s (1938) sense where the communicative spectrum
of civil society spans a variety of different forms of communication—
both mediated and non-mediated. Mediated communication includes
for example the factual mass media such as news journalism, documen-
tary (which can also be considered visuals arts), social media (though
it certainly takes a fictional character when perpetuating lies, rumours
and disinformation) as well as citizen journalism and peacebuilding radios
such as UN radio. It also includes the fictional mass media such as liter-
ature, poetry, film, radio and TV soap opera (or series). Non-mediated
communication comprises face-to-face interpersonal communication, i.e.
the mundane routinised daily exchange between members of civil societies
as well as dialogue, debate, negotiations, discussion groups and delib-
eration. In its entirety the communicative spectrum of civil society also
spans the visual and the performative arts: graffiti, street art, paintings,
photography, dance, music, memorials, murals, sculptures, architecture
(buildings and bridges), cartoons, graphic novels and theatre. What
unites all of these forms of communication is that they all possess a
transformative capacity to change social relationships. It is through this
transformative capacity that they can all contribute to peacebuilding in
post-civil war societies.
Communicative Peacebuilding
My concern for peacebuilding is exclusively contextualised by post-civil
war settings and with that the task of building of civil peace between
former enemies who have to face the challenge of reimagining each other
as co-citizens through communication. By civil peace I mean a mundane,
banal everyday kind of peace where interactions with others are safe and
predictable; where citizens accept that difference and disagreement are
part of every society but that they can be dealt with in non-violent
agonistic ways. It is a setting in which tolerance and pluralism are possible
because difference is not feared or perceived as a threat to one’s own
existence or the identity of one’s group. In essence societies that enjoy
civil peace are associative and cooperative in character; their civil engage-
ment is civilised and non-violent. Civil peace as peaceful cooperation is
communicatively performed and more specifically, relies on the commu-
nicative performance of three categories of civil norms: first, assent to
civil peace as peaceful cooperation; second, substantive civility and third,
building capacity and civil competencies (see Chapter 2). Any civil society
that is associative and cooperative will interpret and enact these three
categories in its own culturally specific and locally contextualised ways.
The aim of communicative peacebuilding is to use the entirety of the
spectrum of the different means of communication available to partic-
ular civil societies to support the development of both the relationships
and the social and cultural transformations necessary to move from
enmity to co-citizenship, i.e. to peaceful cooperation, in post-civil war
settings. Alternatively expressed, communicative peacebuilding aims to
use communication to contribute to the (re-)building of a solidarising
and inclusive civil sphere.
With these qualified understandings of civil society, communication
and communicative peacebuilding in place and to repeat the point that
in order to build self-sustainable civil peace in a post-civil war setting it
is necessary to use the transformative capacity of communication to bring
about integrative communicative acts that help individuals reimagine
former enemies as co-citizens, I shall now outline the form the elaboration
of this point takes.
8 S. PUKALLUS
Mapping the Argument

Chapter 2 establishes that a civil war is a statement of difference—of seem-
ingly irreconcilable difference and unsurmountable alterity, otherisation
and enmity. It is a difference that goes so far as to dehumanise ‘the other’
thereby justifying the elimination of this other. In civil wars, commu-
nication is weaponised to discursively dehumanise6 a fabricated internal
enemy. Analytically speaking, discursive dehumanisation proceeds in two
steps: first, the already existing antagonism and hostility (whether histor-
ical in origin or completely fabricated) between different groups in society
are utilised to create an internal enemy. Second, this fabricated enemy is
then discursively dehumanised across the communicative spectrum; that
is in public discourse, the factual and fictional media as well as through
the visual and performative arts. Essentially, discursive dehumanisation is
a communicative weapon that targets and attempts to destroy civil peace
within civil society and attendant upon that, the possibility of the commu-
nicative performance of the three categories of civil norms of peaceful
cooperation. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the damage done
by discursive dehumanisation to the institutions of civil society and civil
relationships and asks the question of how we can move on from the civil
war conditions of discursive dehumanisation to the performance of civil
and peaceful cooperation.
The premise of the argument in Chapter 3 is that civil life can never
be entirely obliterated but that remnants of it always survive. Accord-
ingly, and in order to overcome the enmity experienced during civil war
6 I follow Pettit (2001: 67) who defines discourse as follows: ‘The word “discourse”
derives, etymologically, from the idea of running to and fro, or back and forth, and
thereby connotes a social exercise in which different parties take turns in exchange with
one another. In this respect it has the same connotations as “conversation”, which derives
from the idea of turning things around. But discourse does not refer to just any form of
turn-taking between people. Specifically, it refers to the sort of turn-taking involved in the
attempt to resolve a problem by reference to what all parties regard as inferentially relevant
considerations or reasons. To discourse is to reason and, in particular, to reason together
with others (Scanlon, 1998)’. To this definition I would two things: first, Williams’s
(2002: 198) observation that discourse aims at arriving at a ‘practical conclusion typically
involving a shifting and indeterminate set of wishes hopes and fears in addition to the more
clearly defined architecture of desire and belief’ and second, that ‘inferentially relevant
considerations’ regarding the way I use discourse throughout are derived from a desire
for peace.
and redress the damage done by discursive dehumanisation and atten-

dant atrocities, communicative peacebuilding needs to both identify the
remnants of civil life and recognise the civil potential of non-civil ties. My
point here is that the remnants of civil life (its culture, norms and social
identity) survive in some form or other. They are inspired by both indi-
vidual and collective remembering of how things used to be, how forms
of co-citizenship and association existed and how they could be again.
They speak of both a past and future peaceful civil life. In post-civil war
settings these remnants of civil life and ultimately of civil consciousness
need to be stimulated, encouraged and mobilised through civil engage-
ment across the communicative spectrum of civil society because they are
vital in making the reimagining of former enemies as co-citizens possible.
The civil potential of non-civil ties is equally important in the process
of rehumanising the former enemy and especially former combatants and
child soldiers and encouraging a civil consciousness of belonging to the
same community. There are three types of non-civil ties that have the
potential to act as excluding forces and to preclude peaceful collaboration:
primordial, platoon and ideological. This is because each of these types of
ties generates fear and suspicion of former combatants and child soldiers
and their ability to reintegrate into civilian life (or be part of it for the first
time). Communicative peacebuilding has to focus on the civil potential of
these ties which lies in first, the fact that these ties can be challenged,
transformed and reoriented towards peaceful cooperation and second, in
the recognition that returnees with these ties often possess transferable
and even collaborative skills that can be used in the peacebuilding process
and help former combatants and child soldiers to be accepted into the
community.
Chapter 4 addresses the practical matter of how the reimagining of
former enemies as co-citizens can be undertaken and importantly, how the
recurrence of discursive dehumanisation can be prevented. Ultimately, the
achievement of civil peace as peaceful cooperation depends on two things:
discursive civility and safe discursive spaces. Discursive civility is a universal
feature of self-sustainable civil peace which aims to ensure dignity-
as-respectfulness in civil engagement. It is a minimal communicative
requirement for civil engagement defined by three principles:
• Principle 1: Participants have to make a commitment to manage their

individual negative emotions (emotional forbearance)
10 S. PUKALLUS
• Principle 2: Participants have to make a commitment to both listen

to the other and importantly to hear the other (perspective-taking)
• Principle 3: Participants have to commit to making only such contri-
butions that are supportive of the pursuit of peace (reasonableness)
These three principles can be locally and culturally interpreted in different

ways but they are the universal standards that ensure that disagreement
and difference can be dealt with in non-violent and agonistic ways. They
represent the minimal communicative conditions for safe civil engagement
with former enemies. In this way, they are indispensable to the creation
of safe discursive spaces. To put it differently, safe discursive spaces are
characterised by the utilisation of the three principles of discursive civility
to serve as a form of guarantor for safe civil engagement with former
enemies. To be clear safe discursive spaces are not abstract spaces but
real spaces, places or locations which can be built. Accordingly, they can
exhibit different features and dynamics; they can be permanent or tempo-
rary, mobile or fixed, natural or artificial. They can be created by building
new physical spaces, by repurposing and re-designing existing buildings
and public spaces, by adapting outdoor space to specific forms or modes
of civil engagement or by creating new plastic space that can house or
embody civil engagement. However, and importantly, they all have one
invariant ethico-pragmatic purpose which is to encourage the reimag-
ining of the former enemy as a co-citizen through the experience and
instantiation of civil peace as peaceful cooperation.
Chapter 5 shows that when these safe discursive spaces in which the
principles of discursive civility are upheld are built, then it is possible to
harness the transformative capacity of communication; that is, its power to
help transform relationships of enmity to relationships of co-citizenship,
to revise and soften prejudices and stereotypes, to encourage rehuman-
isation and cooperation as well as support the creation of mutualistic
relationships (Karlberg, 2005) and the ‘capacity for doing’ (Keith &
Danisch, 2020: 16). Communication needs to be understood as a
‘process of forming, maintaining, building, fostering and changing rela-
tionships’ (ibid.: 14) as well as of changing behaviours and perceptions
(Connaughton et al., 2017).7 The success of this communicative process,

however, depends on the upholding of the principles of discursive civility
as it is this that provides participants with the necessary communica-
tive agency (also Keith & Danisch, 2020) to harness the transformative
capacity of communication in and through civil engagement across the
communicative spectrum of civil society and in safe discursive spaces.
When this happens, then communication can bring about integrative
communicative acts. Integrative communicative acts are a form of civil
engagement. They include both participants and audiences in opportu-
nities for the performance of various versions of cooperation. Integrative
communicative acts provide them with the opportunity to reimagine and
rehumanise their former enemies, to revise prejudice and stereotypes, to
soften or even lose fear and suspicion of former combatants, to experi-
ence the compatibility of civil ties with non-civil ties (primordial, platoon
and ideological) as well as explore their civil potential and skills. The
integrative aspect of these communicative acts lies in the triple move
from enmity to inclusivity/commonality to peaceful cooperation with
co-citizens. It is therefore concerned with communication that aims at
‘relationship transformation’ (Ellis, 2006: 140). The integrative aspect of
these communicative acts lies in the triple move from enmity to inclu-
sivity/commonality to peaceful cooperation with co-citizens. This does,
of course, not mean that disagreement and difference disappear but simply
that they become part of the ordinary features of everyday life. It means
that civil peace as peaceful cooperation is instantiated in the real, to
use Alexander’s (2006) words. Finally, and to illustrate the argument
built throughout Chapters 2–5, the book concludes with a performance
of this argument via four sketches of civil engagement as integrative
communicative acts: news journalism, theatre, music and memorials.
Final Introductory Remark

One of the aspects that concerns any civil society is thematised in various
ways throughout this book: difference. The aim of communicative peace-
building is not to eradicate difference and disagreement as they are vital
7 They show this kind of transformation through the example of how the behaviour of
Liberia’s pen-pen riders changed through an appropriate communication campaign and
how in turn the pen-pen rider’s visible change of behaviour transformed the way in which
they were perceived by other citizens.
12 S. PUKALLUS
to a dynamic and progressive society but rather to help societies move

from the perception of irreconcilable difference to one of inclusive soli-
darity despite differences. This book starts with civil war as a statement
of difference as enmity where difference is perceived as so threatening
that the killing of the other is seen as the natural consequence and only
solution. However, as the argument unfolds ‘difference’ is addressed in
myriad ways. Chapter 3 addresses different civil war experiences, different
non-civil and civil ties which matter to varying degrees to individuals and
groups, different memories, different skills, different visions of peace as
well as different experiences of remnants of civil life. Here, difference is
moving from being a threat and dividing mechanism to being seen as
having the potential to actually contribute to the building of civil peace.
Chapter 4, in turn, is concerned with how the principles of discursive
civility can be used to marginalise attempts at exclusion and power as
domination and instead be oriented to practically deal with differences in
opinions, views and interests in non-violent and agonistic ways. Differ-
ence is also addressed in terms of the myriad forms that safe discursive
spaces can take, the multiple ways in which the principles of discursive
civility can be interpreted and applied. Finally, Chapter 5 brings all of
these considerations together in showing how civil peace as peaceful coop-
eration can be performed despite difference or maybe even because of
it; that difference can be seen as enriching and be valued. What these
different kinds of difference show is simply that post-civil war settings are
terribly complex and varied and that no post-civil war setting and no post-
civil war community are ever the same—not even in the same country.
And this is also the case for civil peace—no community or civil society
ever peacefully cooperates in the same manner or interprets and performs
the categories of civil norms in the same way. Rather, the performance
of civil peace as peaceful cooperation, the upholding of the principles
of discursive civility and the outlook of safe discursive spaces are deter-
mined by local traditions of communication and dispute resolution,8 by
historical circumstances and cultural processes as well as by the actual
root causes that made enmity and subsequently discursive dehumanisation
possible. And it is this recognition of difference and ultimately possibility
for pluralism that ties communicative peacebuilding so closely to a specific
8 See for example Welty et al. (2019) on local conflict resolution mechanisms and
initiatives in Kenya and Uganda. For a mixture of traditional mechanism and innovative
approaches to mediation and conflict resolution see Ervin (2019).
kind of local peacebuilding; locally led peacebuilding. This kind of local

peacebuilding can be defined as ‘an approach in which the people involved
in, and most affected by, violent conflict work together to create and enact
their own solutions to prevent, reduce, and/or transform the conflict,
with the support they desire from outsiders. (…) It is an approach to
peacebuilding that aims to amplify local ownership of conflict transfor-
mation’ (Locally Driven Peacebuilding, 2015: 2). This approach can be
described as a ‘local leadership module’ (Kuang et al., 2020: 986; Krishna
et al., 2019) in which locals, i.e. ‘those who must deal with the conflict on
a day-to-day basis and live with its consequences’ (ibid.), lead some ‘com-
bination of the design, implementation, and evaluation of peacebuilding
efforts’ (Connaughton & Berns, 2019: 6). I will return to this aspect and
its practical challenges in more detail in Chapter 3.
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CHAPTER 2
Civil War as Discursive Dehumanisation
Towards a Definition of the ‘Civil’ in Civil War

Although civil wars represent the most frequent form of conflict, it ‘is
generally acknowledged that a theory of civil war is completely lacking
today’ (Agamben, 2015: 1). What exactly a civil war is, how civil
wars occur and why there are such high recurrence rates has puzzled
peacebuilders and academics alike. This problem is exacerbated by not
knowing precisely what constitutes or triggers a civil war. Certainly, the
meaning and scope of civil wars have changed over time (Agamben, 2015;
Armitage, 2018)1 but nevertheless some common aspects and patterns of
civil war do exist and lend themselves to generate at least some general
and indicative definitions. Kalyvas (2006: 17) defines civil war as an
‘armed combat within the boundaries of a recognized sovereign entity
between parties subject to a common authority at the outset of hostilities’,
a definition which he claims is minimal and ‘agnostic about causes, goals,
and motivations’ (ibid.). Other definitions are less minimal and sometimes
concerned with what motivates civil wars. For example, whereas Sohn
(1963: 208) argues that ‘a civil war exists when two opposing parties
within a State have recourse to arms for the purpose of obtaining power
1 Armitage (2018) distinguishes between four traditions of civil war or violence within
communities: the Greek tradition of stasis, the Roman bellum civile, the Arabic tradition
of fitna and the Chinese conception of internal war.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 15

Switzerland AG 2022
S. Pukallus, Communication in Peacebuilding,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86190-2_2
16 S. PUKALLUS
in the State, or when a large portion of a State rises in arms against

the legitimate Government’, Cederman and Vogt (2017: 1993) define
civil war ‘as armed combat within a sovereign state between an incum-
bent government and a nonstate challenger that claims full or partial
sovereignty over the territory of the state. In other words, civil war always
concerns an incompatibility in terms of political control’. Or in Doyle
and Sambanis’ (2006: 31) words, civil war can be seen as ‘an armed
conflict that pits the government and the national army of an internation-
ally recognized state against one or more armed opposition groups able to
mount effective resistance against the state; the violence must be signifi-
cant causing more than a thousand deaths in relatively continuous fighting
that takes places within the country’s boundaries; and the rebels must
recruit mostly locally, controlling some part of the country’s territory’.
In short, and following Weber’s definition of the state, Cramer (2006)
straightforwardly argues that a civil war is an attempt to (successfully)
establish a new monopoly of legitimate violence.
Overall, the various definitions of civil war share four broad features:
first, civil wars are intra-state wars, that is they occur within the same
country2 ; second, they take place between the State and one or more non-
state actors; third, they are armed conflicts and fourth, they often concern
struggles for territory as well as for power and control over government
or territory (separatist). These four criteria also point to what all civil wars
share and that is that in ‘the most brutal and destructive manner, both
parties to a civil war show an unbreakable attachment to the society which
is being fought over’ (Shils, 1982: 16). It is this unbreakable attachment
that makes civil wars so violent and yet, as I hope to show later, it is
precisely this shared attachment that needs to be remembered and built
upon in post-civil war peacebuilding initiatives.
Civil wars do not simply occur within the same states, they occur
within civil society; that is between different groups of the same civil
society—they are ‘fought within the bounds of a community of fellow citi-
zens’ (Armitage, 2018: 198)3 or in Kalyvas’ (2006: 17) they are fought
2 Though it is possible that civil wars spill over into neighbouring countries. Equally,
retaliation against external states that intervene militarily which is often considered and
treated as terrorism might take place outside the civil war territory.
3 Agamben (2015) traces the meaning and significance of stasis in Ancient Greece.
Stasis is, as Armitage (2018) pointed out, a form of violence within communities and it
is the ‘within communities’ that Agamben is interested in understanding. Here he uses
2 CIVIL WAR AS DISCURSIVE DEHUMANISATION 17
between rivals that at the beginning of the war ‘are subjects to a common
sovereignty or authority’. This is (at least partly) why they are referred to
as ‘civil’. The qualifier civil is used to ‘acknowledge the familiarity of the
enemies as members of the same community: not foreigners but fellow
citizens’ (ibid.: 12), family members, neighbours, teachers, students,
friends. Civil wars polarise and divide civil societies; they turn famil-
iarity into alienation. They thrive on hostility, hate and antagonism and
firmly reject pluralism especially when it comes to attachments, belong-
ings, loyalties and obligations to those once conceived of as co-citizens
but now radically conceived of as an enemy. Correspondingly, what is
rejected in a civil war is inclusive solidarity; that is, solidarity understood
as ‘a thread, not of identity in the narrow sense, but of the kind of mutual
identification that unites individuals dispersed by class, race, religion,
ethnicity’ or culture (Alexander, 2006: 43) all while respecting individual
and group identities based on more particularistic attachments to specific
traditions, cultures, customs, language, religion and ethnicity. The rejec-
tion of inclusive solidarity also signifies a rejection of pluralism and with
that the rejection of such ties that normally exist between different groups
and individuals across societies, space and time (Simmel, 1964) and are
understood as complementary, compatible and able to coexist. Instead,
civil wars introduce norms of enmity or forms of exclusive solidarity (only
extending to one’s group). When this happens and a person is required
to choose (or told what to ‘choose’), when inclusive solidarity is called
into question, when allegiances are expected to be exclusive then such
formerly universal and banal ties and attachments become an instrument
of polarisation either by creating a new antagonistic ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ or by
building on existing tensions and exacerbating them. Simultaneously, the
‘illusion of a unique and choiceless identity’ (Sen, 2006: xv) is created,
maintained and reinforced by ‘proficient artisans of terror’ (ibid.: 2).
the work of Nicole Loraux who ‘immediately situates the problem in its specific locus,
which is to say, in the relationship between the oikos, the family or the household, and
the polis, the city’ (ibid.: 5). For Agamben (ibid.) then ‘Civil war is the stasis emphylos; it
is the conflict particular to the phylon’, to blood kinship. It is to such an extent inherent
to the family that the phrase ta emphylia (literally, ‘the things internal to the bloodline’)
simply means ‘civil wars’.
18 S. PUKALLUS
In such a scenario, citizens are pitched against each other to the

point where ‘the “they” is perceived as putting into question the iden-
tity of the “we” and as threating its existence’ (Mouffe, 2005: 16f.).4
Once ‘the opponents are not defined in a political but in a moral way,
they cannot be seen as adversaries, but only as enemies’ and with them
‘no agonistic debate is possible. They have to be eliminated’ (Mouffe,
2013: 143). In short, civil society starts to organise itself5 around the
friend/enemy distinction.6 The enemy—who previously might have been
a club member, a friend, a family member or a neighbour—soon becomes
a threat; a fabricated and artificial threat that feels so real that the elimina-
tion of the enemy becomes equally soon legitimised as the only possible
4 The creation of an enemy that is inferior and has no qualities and represents a threat
has a long history. Thucydides in his work on the Peloponnesian War (and specifically the
debate at Sparta) attempts to show the differences between the Athenians and the Spartans
and how one poses a threat to the other. See Book I.68/69 for a negative description of
the Spartans compared to a rather positive one of Athenians in Book I.70/71.
5 This kind of organisation around the friend enemy distinction is a certain kind of
boundary maintenance that society undertakes. Though JS Mill in On Liberty does not use
the term ‘boundary maintenance’ he shows his awareness of the deep divisions that could
arise within civil society and the tyranny one group could exercise over another. Weber
and Durkheim equally recognised the importance of societal boundaries—for Durkheim
they are normative and symbolic and for Weber they arise from different social statuses.
With regard to contemporary civil society whereas Alexander (2006) speaks of bound-
aries between the civil and non-civil spheres in particular, Harrison (2019a) focuses on
boundaries within civil society as articulated through the news media.
6 This distinction was first made by Carl Schmitt for whom politics—or the concept of
the political—is defined by the distinction between friend and enemy. He insists in his
discussion of the friend–enemy distinction on the public nature of the categories, ‘it is
not my enemy but our enemy; that is, “enemy” is a political concept’ (Strong, 2007: xxi).
Schmitt (2007 [1932]: 26) himself argues that the ‘specific political distinction to which
political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy’ which, in
turn, ‘denotes the utmost degree of intensity of a union or separation, of an association
or dissociation’. To this he (ibid.: 29) adds that the ‘political is the most intense and
extreme antagonism and every concrete antagonism becomes that much more political
the closer it approaches the most extreme point, that of the friend-enemy grouping’.
However, Schmitt does not support the dehumanisation of the enemy (Runciman, 2021).
way of self-protection.7 ‘Neighbourly murders’8 do not only become

possible, they become an ordinary and seemingly unavoidable feature of
everyday life (also Lederach, 1997). They become part of a politics of
necessity (Shklar 1998) whereby the organisers and leaders of the civil
war invent a threat that makes the elimination of the enemy a ‘neces-
sity’; a necessity that the fighting population buy into and carry out by
killing—often even enthusiastically (Hatzfeld, 2006).9
The polarisation of civil society around the friend/enemy distinc-
tion is equally used to facilitate and justify the kind of mass killings
and genocide (often also simply referred to as ethnic cleansing or mass
murder especially when the occurrence of a genocide hasn’t been legally
established yet) occasioned by civil war. The former can be briefly under-
stood as ‘the intentional killing of a massive number of noncombatants’
(Valentino, 2005: 10) which can belong to various groups (Staub, 1989).
Mass killings don’t necessarily target a specific group; that is, a specific
enemy. The enemy is only loosely defined, it is some form of ‘the Other’.
This is different from genocide. The term genocide was first coined in
1943/1944 by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jewish lawyer who worked tire-
lessly on making genocide an international crime. Following his initiative
and various proposals the UN adopted the Convention on the Preven-
tion and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in 1948 which included
some of Lemkin’s ideas but not all by any means.10 Art II the Convention
reads: ‘In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following
acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national,
7 See Shesterinina (2016) who examines in the context of the Georgian-Abkhaz war
of 1992–1993 how information about threats is received by individuals and potentially
mobilises them. She (ibid.: 411) argues that ‘Abkhaz men and women relied on the
familiar social structures of family, friendship, local relation, and national authority for
essential information on how to understand the threat presented by the war and how to
act in response across a range of combatant, support, and nonfighter roles that existed at
the war’s onset’.
8 This is how the poet Seamus Harvey, in his poem Funeral Rites, pointedly refers to
civil war.
9 For a critical perspective on Hatzfeld’s work and an engagement with the question
to what extent perpetrators can be portrayed accurately and to what extent their testi-
monies can be seen as genuine especially when editors and translators are involved in the
production of these see Hron (2011).
10 On the development of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the
Crime of Genocide (1948) based on the work of Lemkin see Power (2013) and Waller
(2016).
20 S. PUKALLUS
ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the

group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the
group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated
to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing
measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly trans-
ferring children of the group to another group’; art. III lists the acts
related to genocide that are punishable by law and clarifies in art. IV that
those who can be punished for the acts listed in art. III includes rulers,
public officials and private individuals. To establish whether a genocide
is occurring or has occurred is legally laborious and often too slow—
the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar is a recent example, the recognition of
the Herero Nama genocide by Germany in 2021—113 years after it
occurred—is another. In non-legal terms, a genocide can be defined as
a deliberate ‘attempt to eliminate a whole group of people’ whether this
is ‘a racial, ethnic, religious, or political group’ (Staub, 2013b: 576).11
Recent genocides occurred for example in Rwanda, Myanmar, Darfur,
East Timor, Cambodia, Guatemala and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In all
of them the ‘enemy’—the whole group of people to be eliminated—
was clearly defined and targeted. In genocide, the ‘enemy’ is always
associated with specific characteristics which make its elimination ‘nec-
essary’ and ‘legitimate’. In this sense, genocide can be understood as an
action, as systematic and ‘deliberate extermination’ (Booker, 2008: 72)12
sometimes also referred to as ethnic cleansing. Both mass killings and
genocide occasioned by civil war thrive on the same kind of antagonism
11 In a similar vein, Drost (1959) understands genocide as ‘the deliberate destruction

of physical life of individual human beings by reason of their membership of any human
collectivity as such’ (cited in Jones, 2011: 16). Some authors understand destruction
more broadly to include starvation, forced deportation, rape and economic consequences
(Huttenbach, 1988; Porter, 1982). They are concerned with what Semelin (2013) and
Shaw (2007) refer to as civilian destruction. For further definitions of genocide see Jones
(2011: 16–20) and Feierstein (2014). On various genocides see Tatz (2003), on the
Bosnian genocide see Cigar (1995). On the psychology of genocide see Baum (2008)
and Morrock (2010).
12 For a comparison between the economic and political causes of genocide compared
to civil war see Stewart (2011).
between friend and enemy that civil war itself does and will henceforth be
subsumed under the term ‘civil war’.13
Overall civil wars use this polarisation between friend and enemy
to destroy the possibility of pluralism, solidarity, equality, civil values
and institutions as well as the dignity of the designated enemy. Society
becomes brutalised (see Mosse, 1991) and relationships with the enemy
become too dangerous as they are considered treason. Ultimately, what
civil wars attack and aim to destroy is what characterises the ‘civil’ in civil
society: a society’s potential for civil peace as peaceful cooperation.
Civil War: An Attack on Civil

Peace as Peaceful Cooperation
Defining Civil Peace as Peaceful Cooperation
Civil peace as peaceful cooperation can be understood as a civil setting in
‘the day-to-day, taken-for-granted, ordinary habits and routines of social
life’ (Brewer et al., 2018: 200)14 —everyday life15 —can be relied on.
Specifically, it is a setting where the normative nature of peaceful coop-
eration is manifest through a continuous expressive assent to civil peace,
13 See also Stanton (2016) who distinguishes between 10 stages of genocide which
show various stages that are visible in both civil war and the run up to genocide and as
such, support this broad definition of civil war.
14 In her study, Firchow (2018: 6) distinguishes between big-P Peacebuilding and
small-p peacebuilding in the following way: ‘Big-P Peacebuilding encompasses all commu-
nity-level interventions, from humanitarian assistance received immediately after war
to longer-term assistance in economic development, health and education, governance
reform, conflict resolution, rule of law, transitional justice and security – essentially, every-
thing that purports to work toward a normative goal of peace. In contrast to big-P
Peacebuilding, the small-p approach to peacebuilding is one that is focused, often at
a more local level, on agency and the transformation or building of relationships with
normative goals of peace’—the kind of civil peace I am referring to is peace within civil
society and can be seen as close to Firchow’s understanding of a small-p peace.
15 The ‘everyday’ is also an important feature of local peace as Mac Ginty and Rich-
mond (2013: 769) describe it: ‘this should reflect, not displace, localised peace or
reconciliation processes, which may be a by-product of other more prosaic processes
whereby individuals and communities get on with everyday economic, cultural or survival
tasks. The pursuit of everyday tasks may allow individuals and communities in villages,
valleys and city neighbourhoods to develop common bonds with members of other ethnic
or religious groups, to demystify “the other” and to reconstruct contextual legitimacy’. I
discuss local peacebuilding in the next chapter.
22 S. PUKALLUS
behaviour which displays substantive inter-personal civility and coopera-

tive endeavours that serve as expressions of building up civil capacity and
civil competencies (see below). It is an ordinary kind of peace; one which
ethnomethodologists would refer to as ‘taken for granted’. In essence
societies that enjoy civil peace are associative and cooperative in char-
acter.16 They exhibit ‘an approach to life, a way of carrying one’s self
and of relating to others’ (Carter, 1998: 15) and a ‘commitment to
the common goals of society’ (Kingwell, 1995: 227). Their way of life
shows ‘an appreciation or an attachment to the institutions which consti-
tute civil society’ (Shils, 2003: 297). Such civil peace further manifests
itself in a routinised ‘quest for commonalty despite honest differences,
for responsibility despite antagonism [and] the recognition of the other
despite divergent self-interests’ (Barber, 1999: 46)17 as well as an appre-
ciation of diversity and pluralism as a valuable societal resource (Caspary,
2000) rather than a reason for war. In this way, civilly peaceful soci-
eties represent what Deutsch et al. (1957: 5) call security communities
which are those that have ‘come to agreement on at least this one point:
that common social problems must and can be resolved by processes
of “peaceful change”’ which he, in turn, defined as ‘the resolution of
social problems, normally by institutionalized procedures, without resort
to large-scale physical force’ (ibid.). For Deutsch, ‘the goal of peace (…)
[is] an integration in thought (a sense of community) and action (creating
institutions and practices)’ (Davenport et al., 2018: 148). For Alexander
(2006), an ideal society that is at civil peace would express its sense of
community through solidarity which is enacted via specific interactional
practices such as civility, social criticism, reciprocity and mutual respect
in the face of differences, a commitment to the upholding of common
values as well as an institutional architecture designed to safeguard and
defend such common values and to abide by principles of justice. The
kind of values and principles a civil society endorses, the way in which it
envisages institutions and the manner in which members of civil society
interact with each other determines its civil norms.
16 See Sennett (2013) on (the politics of) cooperation and togetherness.

17 In a similar vein, Sen (2006: 7) argues that ‘the assertion of human commonality
has been a part of resistance to degrading attributions in different cultures at different
points in time’.
In their entirety and generality civil norms are what sustain civil society.
They are typically defined as rules governing specific associative situa-
tions, as regulatory or controlling guidelines and customary ways of going
about things. They manifest in accepted social practices and traditions
that are passed on; their ‘transmissible parts (…) are the patterns or
images of actions which they imply or present and the beliefs requiring,
recommending, regulating, permitting, or prohibiting the enactment of
those patterns’ (Shils, 1981: 12). More specifically the term civil norms
refers to a prescription of actual behaviour, skills, orientations, sensibili-
ties, habitual modes of acting and feeling (Weintraub, 1996) accompanied
by values that justify that behaviour and provide a reason for why some
actions are more approved of than others (Alexander & Thompson,
2008). The value and importance as well as force of civil norms has been
well and long understood. Tocqueville considered them so persuasive in
character that he believed that coercive laws were hardly needed to back
them up. He (1985: 294) was indeed ‘quite convinced that political soci-
eties are not what their laws make them, but what sentiments, beliefs,
ideas, habits of the heart and the spirit of men who form them (…) have
made them’ (also Maletz, 2005) while Jefferson (1999: 171) believed
it was ‘the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in
vigour’. Civil norms ‘are formed, in large part, by the practices in which
they engage and, thus, their everyday experiences’ (Weintraub, 1996).
As such, they are ‘creatures of social practices’ (Stout, 2004: 79) and
designate the collective18 rather than the individual level. Civil norms are
sustained when people adhere to them and support them in their daily
behaviour. They are also ‘sustained by the feelings of embarrassment,
anxiety, guilt and shame that a person suffers at the prospect of violating
them, or at least at the prospect of being caught violating them’ (Elster,
1989: 99f., also 1996). It is in this way, that norms have an affective ‘grip
on the mind’ (ibid.: 100) and help ‘define what is acceptable and what
is not’ (Dutton, 2007: 97).19 Correspondingly, civil norms can be insti-
tutionalised and when they are their upholding can be understood as ‘a
18 See also Sumner (1940 [1906]) on mores and folkways, see Gibbs (1965) on their
collective character, definitions and classifications as well as sanctions. Also Morris (1956).
19 According to Shils (1982: 5), ‘Durkheim gave much attention to the promulgation
of a code of civic morality which would reduce conflict and produce an integrated society’.
However, Durkheim (2019) is more concerned with the relationship between citizens and
the State than with civil society as such.
24 S. PUKALLUS
product of spontaneous interaction among individuals who act, respecting

conventions, self-imposed codes of conduct and moral principles’ (Pata-
lano, 2007: 227). The civil norms a civil society adopts reflect its values,
rules, traditions and mores and it is these that civil society displays and
performs in daily interactions.
Civil peace as peaceful cooperation depends on the communicative
performance of three categories20 of civil norms21 : (1) Assent to civil
peace as peaceful cooperation, (2) Substantive civility and (3) Building
capacity and civil competencies. Each category has a domain of meaning
and a field of reference. They can be understood in the following way:
The first category is assent to civil peace as peaceful cooperation22
which requires an ongoing individual and collective23 commitment to
civil peace as peaceful cooperation. Assent manifests itself in both a
certain disposition and a practice.24 The disposition needed is a cognitive
(and/or affective) preference for peace over war and an open-mindedness
20 Category here is understood in Berlin’s (1999) way; that is, categories provide the
basic structure of thought for the way in which we think about something. They mould,
scope and shape how we think about ‘something’ (in this case peaceful cooperation)
and how we relate our experience to that something. They also define the concepts we
use to explain this ‘something’. Whenever I refer simply to the civil norms of peaceful
cooperation I mean the three categories of the civil norms of peaceful cooperation.
21 The three categories of civil norms are based on Harrison and Pukallus (2018a),
Pukallus (2019), Harrison and Pukallus (2021; forthcoming) but were developed further
in this book.
22 It is clear that assent to peace will not be given by all citizens of the affected
population as war will be preferable for some and peace too costly. Nevertheless, one
can consider a community to assent to peace when those assenting to peace are in the
majority—in the way Tocqueville in Democracy in America understands the majority; that
is, either in terms of number or perceived as the majority.
23 By individual I mean citizens and by collective, I mean citizens as part of and
forming civil society. Civil society here is understood in Alexander’s (2006) sense that
is comprised of individual citizens and both regulative and communicative institutions
including associations. As such, my understanding of civil society extends beyond equalling
civil society to non-governmental organisations, NGOs and advocacy groups.
24 This does not simply refer to the formal signing of a peace agreement (which might
serve certain sectorial interests and not necessarily the interest of all) but rather how
peace is practised and lived in everyday life and how elements of peace are being upheld
by individual citizens and civil society. Of course, peace agreements can be ignored and
post-conflict settings in general have to deal with a variety of peace spoilers (Stedman,
1997) as well as different kinds of violence (Brewer, 2010). On how civil wars end see
Licklieder (ed.) (1993) and on why peace agreements fail see Walter (2002) and Call
(2012).
for new ways of going about things as well as for pluralism25 and toler-
ance; that is, a disposition that allows for the acceptance and affirmation
of the existence of and the need for toleration of conflicted histories26 —
independently of whether forgiveness is a feasible possibility, whether
historical amnesia27 (not denial) is required and appropriate or whether
there needs to be an active engagement with the past and particularly
past atrocities. The latter often requires both perpetrators being held
legally accountable for their crimes as well as a communicative engage-
ment between perpetrators and victims in the form of, for example,
Truth and Reconciliation Commissions28 and memorialisation initiatives.
It also requires initiatives that are forward-looking and aim to find a path
towards civil peace as peaceful cooperation together. Assenting to civil
peace as peaceful cooperation (when it occurs after a civil war) comes with
an acknowledgement that everyone—perpetrators, victims, bystanders
or more generally the fighting and the non-fighting population—need
healing (Staub, 2008). This is necessary so that the dehumanisation of
either party is no longer and not ever again considered an acceptable way
of engaging with co-citizen and so that a society moves decisively (and
for good) beyond the friend/enemy polarisation. It is a commitment to
the reimagining of former enemies as co-citizens.
Sometimes, assent to civil peace as peaceful cooperation is sought
after atrocities of an unimaginable inhumanness have happened; situ-
ations where in fact ‘responsibility [is] infinitely greater than could
25 See Wenman (2003, 2013) on agonistic pluralism and agonistic democracy.

26 Levy and Dierkes (2002: 244) refer to this as ‘a contested terrain on which groups
with competing memories struggle to generalise their ideal conceptions of society’.
27 Historical amnesia or the whitewashing of history was something that was practised
by the European Commission (and before that High Authority) officials at the beginning
of European integration. It was a technique that allowed them to leave the past behind,
that made it possible for ‘perpetrators’ and ‘victims’ to be of equal civil standing and be
future-facing. This, I turn, was necessary in order to bring about the European integration
successfully (see Guisan, 2012; Pukallus, 2019; Seidel, 2010).
28 A Truth (and Reconciliation) Commissions (TRC) is (1) ‘focused in the past, rather
than ongoing events; investigates a pattern of events that took place over a period of time;
(3) engages directly and broadly with the affected population, gathering information on
their experience; (4) is a temporary body, with the aim of concluding with a final report;
and (5) is officially authorised or empowered by the state under review’ (Hayner, 2010:
11f.). TRC have been undertaken for example in South Africa, Guatemala, Timor-Leste
and Peru, Argentina, Chile, El Salvador and Colombia—some have been more successful
in contributing to reconciliation than others.
26 S. PUKALLUS
ever [be] assume[d]’ (Agamben, 1999: 21) through legal procedures

and judgements and where therefore moving towards sustainable civil
peace as peaceful cooperation requires that a society assume collective
forward-looking responsibility.
Collective forward-looking responsibility is not about legal respon-
sibility and doesn’t establish a causal relationship between event and
individual. It isn’t concerned with attribution of blame. It is in fact best
understood in the way Arendt (2003 [1968]: 149) speaks about it: ‘I
must be held responsible for something I have not done, and the reason
for my responsibility must be my membership in a group (a collective)
which no voluntary act of mine can dissolve (…) This kind of responsi-
bility (…) is always political, whether it appears in the older form, when
a whole community takes it upon itself to be responsible for whatever
one of its members has done, or whether a community is being held
responsible for what has been done in its name’. To this she (ibid.:
157f.) adds that ‘This vicarious responsibility for things we have not
done, this taking upon ourselves the consequences for things we are
entirely innocent of, is the price we pay for the fact that we live our lives
not by ourselves but among our fellowmen’. For Jaspers, such collective
forward-looking responsibility had no statute of limitation but required
an authentic, continuous and truthful engagement with the past through,
for example, the keeping of publicly available archives, the recording of
past crimes, the collecting of testimonies, the insistence on trials and
justice and the absolute rejection of the possibility of denial. Only then
can society work through its own past and own it, for Neiman (2019)
a process of Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung/-bewältigung, and by so doing
ultimately become free and self-determined.
Assent to civil peace as peaceful cooperation equally requires the accep-
tance that each member of the community is of equal civil standing
(independently of the role played in the civil war) as well as the commit-
ment to be future-facing; that is, to endorse the need for peace and to
agree to actively help the peace process or to at least passively assent to
it. Practically, assent to civil peace as peaceful cooperation requires three
main commitments: (a) to make an effort to solve conflict peacefully and
to learn the skills required and adopt a behaviour that helps do this; (b)
to show minimal solidarity and to make sacrifices in the way Allen (2006)
understands them—to accept reasonable losses.29 What this means is that

it is necessary to accept that peaceful cooperation will require ‘communal
decisions [which will] inevitably benefit some citizens for the benefit of
the others, even when the whole community generally benefits’ (ibid.:
28); and (c) to accept the obligations that come with such assent. Assent
is analogous to Locke’s version of consent which, as Kramnick (2005:
455) points out, is ‘readable’ in civil and associative behaviour; it is ‘what
we bring to relations with other people or abstract institutions and is
perceivable in what we do’ (ibid.: 454). Just as Locke’s version of consent
(both tacit and express) comes with obligations so too does assent since
ultimately, what is being assented to is in effect a new social contract or at
least a codicil to a pre-existing ‘contract’. This comes with the obligation
to conduct oneself in such a manner that is compatible with and reflects
substantive civility.
The second category of civil norms of peaceful cooperation is ‘sub-
stantive civility’. Substantive civility, a term coined by Shils (1997), is
essential to the functioning and the peaceful associative character of
civil society and its institutions. It has four particular functions: (a) it
expresses a concern for the common good. It can be understood as an
attitude, a disposition, an ethos and a way of conduct expressing a concern
for society as a whole (despite being aware of its different constitutive
parts) and correspondingly, an acknowledgement of the possibility of a
‘common good’ (Shils, 1997: 339). According to White (2006: 453),
‘Civility is the chief mechanism (…) through which good citizens are
cultivated’ and uses ‘its power in order to “pacify” specific groups with
the hope of cultivating a shared vision of the common good’. Directly
linked to this, substantive civility is (b) concerned with the standing of
members of civil society. More specifically, it ‘denotes a sense of standing
or membership in the political community with its attendant rights and
responsibility’ (Boyd, 2006: 864) and as such, should show a concern
29 The making of sacrifices is for Sennett (2013) a reflection on the depth of commit-
ment one has made. The commitment can be measured by the extent of a person’s
willingness to make sacrifices. In their joint work with Cobb and Sennett develop the
notion of a sacrificial contract. Though they mean by it the ‘sacrificial contract, in which
workers make what they consider to be sacrifice for others, especially family members,
with the implicit expectation that such sacrifice will be repaid with respect or gratitude’
(Barbalet, 1992: 158), it is a notion that resonates with the idea of assenting to civil peace
as a form of sacrificial contract. On sacrifice as transformation and renewal see Eagleton
(2018).
28 S. PUKALLUS
‘for the good of adversaries (…) [and that] of allies’ (Shils, 1997: 339).
Following on from this, (c) substantive civility regulates the relationships
between citizens. In fact, it governs public conduct between strangers
as members of a specific community (Allen, 2006; Billante & Saunders,
2002; Carter, 1998). To consciously and continuously uphold substan-
tive civility is vital especially in post-civil war settings as Carter (1998:
281) points out: ‘We will never be able to reconstruct community – we
will never even be able to follow (…) simple rules (…) unless we first
rethink the manner in which we approach others’. This kind of substan-
tive civility is supported by certain manners, customs, values and practices.
One of the important values underpinning the conduct between citizens
is the acknowledgement of the equal civil standing of members of civil
society (as required in the first category assent to peace) by granting
them equal dignity.30 As Shils (1997: 338) argues ‘Civility as a feature
of civil society considers others as fellow-citizens of equal dignity in their
rights and obligations as members of civil society’ and that accordingly, ‘it
would be antithetical to civility to refuse esteem or deference to another
person. Civility treats others as, at least, equal in dignity, never as infe-
rior in dignity’ (ibid.). In this sense, substantive civility is concerned with
the ‘deep rules’ (Allen, 2006: 10) that guide interactions in public life at
the level of daily routines and interactions; that is how such routines and
interactions meet common values and accepted standards of behaviour,
how action is designated, how common welfare is understood and perhaps
most importantly (in terms of the beginning of the peace process) with
the acceptance and tolerance of different viewpoints, agreed norms of
argument and dissent. And it is here that its fourth function (d) lies,
it equally governs disagreement between citizens thereby preventing the
creation of a friend/enemy divide or the dehumanisation of ‘the Other’.
Substantive civility requires of citizens ‘the readiness to moderate
particular, individual or parochial interests’ (Shils, 1997: 345), to ‘[limit]
the intensity of conflict’ (ibid.: 343) and to ‘[reduce] the distance
between conflicting demands’ (ibid.: 343). In this way, substantive civility
30 Others have emphasised the importance of respect for societies. See Arendt (1998
[1958]: 243) who defines respect as ‘a kind of friendship without intimacy and without
closeness’ and ‘a regard for the person (…) independent of qualities which we may admire
or achievements which we may highly esteem’ and see Sennett (2003) who points to the
complexity of the concept and concerns himself with the question of how respect can
actually be performed in such a way that can be noticed by the person we respect.
acts to ‘bridge the specific identities of different communities; (…) find

a balance between conflicting norms; and (…) orient procedures for
handling conflicts of interests so that they do not escalate’ (Rucht, 2011:
387). These include principles of civilised and agonistic engagement with
conflicting viewpoints and disagreements. Substantive civility does not
reject disagreement and conflict, as long as it is handled in agonistic or
‘civil’ ways (Carter, 1998). In fact, substantive civility ‘can produce citi-
zens who are both critical and sensitive, both restraint and articulate’
(Kingwell, 1995: 234) and it does not ‘does not imply quiet, obedient
or even necessarily well-mannered. It means open and restrained (…)
in the interests of pragmatic social goals we all share and the vibrant
social debate necessary to keep them in play’ (ibid.: 48). Overall then,
this category is concerned with what kind of values, ordinary virtues (as
learned practices following Ignatieff, 2017), manners and customs make
a peaceful and cooperative civil society and how these can be practised
in daily life in support of civil peace. The respect of substantive civility
provides for the basis of trust and solidarity, necessary generally in civil
life and particularly in enabling the enactment of the third category.
The third category of civil norms of peaceful cooperation is building
capacity and civil competencies. This category operates at both the institu-
tional and individual levels. At the institutional level, it covers the building
of formal regulative (legal institutions including courts, constitutions and
laws; political parties) and communicative institutions (the factual and
fictional mass media, opinion polls, civil associations).31 In a post-civil war
setting this might include the establishment of transitional justice mecha-
nisms including Truth and Reconciliation Commissions as well as trials for
war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. It might also include
the writing of a new Constitution—‘self-consciously designed to articulate
general principles, to establish moral frameworks that will guide the subse-
quent individual and institutional life of entire communities’ (Alexander,
2006: 164)—and legal texts and subsequent rebuilding of the legal system
including traditional and local forms of justice. This needs to be accompa-
nied by the (re-)establishment of one form of citizenship for all thereby
reversing any legal discrimination32 established during civil war. This is
31 See Alexander (2006). On institutions see Smelser (1997), North (1994) and
Patalano (2007).
32 Staub (2008: 250) explains that ‘Discrimination is a matter of how institutions
operate. Laws often institutionalize discrimination. Discriminatory laws and institutions
30 S. PUKALLUS
where the law exercises its civil force, helps defend civil morality and
exercises ‘repressive power [not] for the sake of efficiency, but rather
to regulate individual and collective action in terms of the principles of
civil solidarity’ (ibid.: 163f.). However, and as Alexander (ibid.: 294f.)
warns ‘If legal changes are to take effect, they must be complemented by
changes in office obligations, by shifts in communicative institutions, and
by deep alterations of public opinion’. What this shows is that calls for
civil equality, the respect of civil rights within civil society but also their
protection from the state or the market for example need to be broadcast,
defended, amplified and endorsed by communicative institutions. There
exists a dependency and symbiosis between the law and the media—one
which has been abused during civil war to reinforce and justify exclu-
sion and discrimination but which in post-civil war settings needs to be
re-established as supporting inclusive civil solidarity and civil peace as
peaceful cooperation. Accordingly, and with regard to the communica-
tive institutions, building civil capacity could include the abolishment
or even outlawing of the kind of civil war communication conducted
and the closing or reform of those ‘news’ organisation that supported
discrimination and incited to violence, hate and possibly even genocide.
Politically, competition for power is organised through non-violent chan-
nels and the advocacy of opposing arguments is undertaken by political
parties and the strength of their arguments judged via elections. Ulti-
mately what is needed are institutions with a civil outlook and a sufficient
degree of resilience defined as ‘the ability of these social institutions to
absorb and adapt to the internal and external shocks and setbacks (…)
[and] to manage [society’s] own tensions, pressures, disputes, crises and
shocks without [re]lapsing into violent conflict’ (de Coning et al., 2015:
2). Such resilience develops slowly and can be encouraged in the initial
peacebuilding stage (and especially with regard to elections) through the
involvement of independent and monitoring organisations whether these
are national, international or attached to specific missions.
are, in turn, justified by increased devaluation. While devaluation between groups in a

society can be mutual, it is the more powerful group that can institutionalize devaluation
through discriminatory laws and practices, practices that progressively enhance devalua-
tion’. Such discrimination has happened in Rwanda and to a large extent also in Myanmar
where the Rohingya were in fact turned into non-citizens. See also Abdelkader (2014).
At the individual level, it refers to an empowerment of citizens to act

as civil and political actors. In political terms, this is mainly through elec-
tions (including understanding the value of them and one’s responsibility
make an informed choice) and other forms of local governance. In civil
terms, this often necessitates the learning of civil skills and beyond this,
often concerns taking on or endorsing civil actions, initiatives and duties
at the local, regional or national level, but also and where appropriate
to voice disagreement, join civil protest and exhibit civil disobedience.33
Often such actions concern calls for justice, equality in terms of rights,
socio-economic opportunities and education. And it is here that the
commitment to assent to civil peace as peaceful cooperation has to be
upheld and practised especially when experiencing a ‘reasonable loss’. At
an individual level, but collective in character, this category covers also
the inventive and creative capacity of individuals to come together as
members of civil society in associations to build civil institutions. The
ways in which citizens associate might vary as will the frequency of asso-
ciations. Clearly, not all societies will associate to the extent Tocqueville
(2010 [1840]: 896) thought Americans did: ‘Americans of all ages, all
conditions, all minds constantly unite. Not only do they have commer-
cial and industrial associations in which all take part, but they also have a
thousand other kinds: religious, moral [intellectual], serious ones, useless
ones, very general and very particular, immense and very small; Amer-
icans use associations to celebrate holidays, establish seminaries, build
33 The term was coined by Thoreau in 1848 when he refused to pay a newly introduced
state poll. Also see Shklar (2019) on civil disobedience in the nineteenth and twentieth
century. Rawls (1999: 320) defines civil disobedience as ‘a public, non-violent, consci-
entious yet political act contrary to law usually done with the aim of bringing about a
change in the law or policies of the government. By acting in this way one addresses the
sense of justice of the majority of the community and declares that in one’s considered
opinion the principles of social cooperation between free and equal men are not being
respected’. It is ‘a form of dissent at the boundary of fidelity to law’ (ibid.: 322). Civil
disobedience has the following features: conscientiousness, political motivation, desire for
change in law or policy, publicity expectation or acceptance of punishment which shows
fidelity to law. Müller (2019) extends the argument to uncivil and argues there ‘is nothing
wrong with being uncivil, as long as a number of conditions hold. First, the confrontation
is directly with the person involved in the unjust practices to which one seeks to draw
attention (…). Second, confrontations have to plausibly communicate the actual injustice
or flaw with the democratic process (…)’. Some of the most famous acts of civil disobe-
dience that led to the desired change in policy and law and thereby to social change were
Martin Luther’s actions against segregation and Rosa Parks’ refusal to vacate a seat on
the bus for a white passenger.
32 S. PUKALLUS
inns, erect churches, distribute books, send missionaries to the antipodes;

in this way they create hospitals, prisons, schools’. But what is impor-
tant is that there is a pronounced capacity for association34 accompanied
by a society’s ability to learn to collaborate and cooperate across a wide
range of diverging interests through forming coalitions, co-alignments
and associations. The art of association is to work with those one doesn’t
know, and who one doesn’t necessarily agree with and to do so across
a range of political and social perspectives and skills. It is the ability to
associate that makes citizenship dynamic and active and that allows for
self-determination, community formation and collective problem-solving.
This includes importantly the creation of communicative channels that
enable debate and dialogue on issues of common concern as well as
adjudication, judgement, dissent and civil scrutiny. It is the associative
character of a society that can give insights into the levels of trust between
members of civil society. According to Putnam (2000: 136f.), ‘people
who trust their fellow citizens volunteer more often, contribute more
to charity, participate more often in politics and community organiza-
tions [and] serve more readily on juries’. To this he (ibid.: 137) adds:
‘In short, people who trust others are all-around good citizens, and those
more engaged in community life are both more trusting and more trust-
worthy’.35 Ultimately, this category of civil norms refers to knowing how
to associate cooperatively and peacefully in order to achieve agreed civil
ends, of fulfilling self-imposed civil obligations and duties and of building
civil institutions. It is self-interest rightly understood (see Putnam, 2020;
Tocqueville, 2010 [1840]).
Importantly these three categories of civil norms of peaceful cooper-
ation are simply that: categories. They provide an ethical framework, a
justificatory arc and in essence a normative architecture for civil peace as
peaceful cooperation. They serve to underwrite the adoption and expres-
sion of local norms of peace in particular post-civil war settings, that is
34 Granovetter (1973: 1376) argues that weak ties can be of advantage for association
because they ‘are more likely to link members of different small groups than are strong
ones, which tend to be concentrated within particular groups’.
35 Nussbaum (2016: 173) sees both love and trust as ‘the willingness to place important
elements of one’s own good in the hands of others (…) rather than engaging in self-
protective and evasive actions’. She (ibid.: 212) also emphasises that trust is ‘a necessary
part of the stability, hence the legitimacy, of any society’.
the specific nature of the local adoption and interpretation of these cate-
gories in situ. They are manifest as a ‘meta topical space’, a universalistic
and universalising background to any particular foregrounded ‘topical
space’ (Taylor, 2007: 187). Accordingly, they lose their abstract, ideal
and uniform character when understood in their local expression and as a
product of history (Berger & Luckmann, 1991 [1966]). This is because
the three categories of civil norms of peaceful cooperation only come to
‘life’ when they are practised in situ; that is, locally and culturally through
rituals, symbols, traditions and importantly, when they are communica-
tively performed in civil institutions. Institutions understood, in Smelser’s
(1997: 46) sense, as consisting of ‘those complexes of roles, normative
systems and legitimising values that constitute a functionally defined set of
activities’ and are both simultaneously imagined and yet spoken about as if
they enjoyed a public ‘empirical existence’. The performance of the cate-
gories of civil norms and attendant institutions is culturally specific and
context-dependent and thereby gives each civil society its own particular
outlook, shows which values are prioritised over others, what civil norms
are deeply engrained in the fabric of a society’s everyday life and what
the sanctions are for not upholding them, to what extent and for what
causes citizens associate. Importantly, civil norms (including traditions)
‘are not independently self-reproductive or self-elaborating. Only living,
knowing and desiring human beings can enact them and reenact them
and modify them’ (Shils, 1981: 14f.). They have to be lived and commu-
nicatively performed and enacted in order to exist and to be meaningful
to civil life. Their communicative performance, though locally interpreted
and determined, has to abide by three principles which will be discussed
in Chapter 4. According to Burke, civil norms (though he referred to
manners) ‘are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase,
barbarise or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible opera-
tion (…) They give us the whole form and colour to our lives’ (cited in
Eagleton, 2016: 65) but they are ‘largely invisible’ and yet, ‘we follow
norms constantly. And we rarely recognise how much we need norms:
[civil] norms are the glue that keeps us together, they give us our iden-
tity and help us to coordinate and cooperate at such a remarkable level’
(Gelfand, 2019, cited in Putnam, 2020: 164). In peacebuilding it is
important to respect and build on existing pre-civil war civil norms (or
the remnants of them) as they represent the code of conduct of a partic-
ular collective social entity which have emerged in culturally specific ways
and which have their own way of being transmitted (Lapinski & Rimal,
34 S. PUKALLUS
2005). As Tocqueville points out, ‘To proceed with (…) foreign mores is
to invite failure’ (selected letters, p. 11).36 Indeed, each society has what
Shils (1982: 93) called a ‘centre’ and by which he meant ‘the realm of
values and beliefs (…) the center of the order of symbols, of values and
beliefs which govern [a particular] society. It is the centre because it is the
ultimate and irreducible; and it is felt to be such by many’.
Civil peace as peaceful cooperation based on the three categories of
civil norms can exist in civil societies where citizens are able to ‘imagine
themselves part of a “whole”’ (Allen, 2006: 17).37 The performance
of civil peace as peaceful cooperation has the function to secure and
protect ‘the wholeness of “the people” in the minds of (…) citizens’.
By wholeness is meant ‘an aspiration to the coherence and integrity of a
consolidated but complex, intricate, and differentiated body’. Once this
body ‘is imaginable, it also invents customs and practices of citizenly inter-
action’.38 This is where the vital importance of civil norms and their
practical performance lies. They make peaceful cooperative civil societies.
As summarised by Burke: ‘Men are not tied to one another by paper
and seals (…) Nothing is so strong a tie (…) as correspondence in laws,
customs, manners, and habits of life. They have more than the force of
treaties in themselves. They are obligations written in the heart’ (cited in
Eagleton, 2016: 59). It is the familiarity and reliability of civil norms in
everyday life that provides the members of civil society with the kind of
ontological security felt in peace times.
However, civil wars deliberately attack what is familiar and what
provides security. They overturn all certainties and replace these certain-
ties with areas of enmity (cf. Armitage, 2018: 51). In short: they attack all
the foundations for civil peace as peaceful cooperation in order to make
it impossible and undesired; they aim to damage them to such an extent
36 This is why local approaches to peacebuilding are vital. For local approaches to
peacebuilding see particularly the works of Roger Mac Ginty and Oliver Richmond. Also
see Thiranagama et al. (2018) on the question of ‘whose civility’—though the focus is
on understandings of civility and the colonial baggage that comes with the term ‘civility’
the problematic equally applies to the question of ‘whose civil norms’. It is vital that
peacebuilding does not impose a specific version of civil norms or a way of how the three
categories have to be interpreted but that it is guided by local mores and knowledge in
order to avoid any impression of neo-colonial peacebuilding.
37 Allen (2006) distinguishes wholeness from oneness, which she understands as
homogeneity.
38 Also see Hobsbawn and Ranger (eds.) (2012) on the invention of tradition.
that a preference for peace over war cannot be safely expressed let alone
exercised and they attempt to overturn established civil norms and any
kind of inclusive solidarity. This is done communicatively through the
use of a particular communicative weapon: discursive dehumanisation.
Attacking Civil Peace as Peaceful Cooperation Through Discursive

Dehumanisation
In civil wars, discursive dehumanisation (Savage, 2013) becomes a
communicative weapon for the systematic and intentional destruction of
civil peace as peaceful cooperation and with that the destruction of any
communicative and solidarising capacity necessary to enact and perform
civil peace as peaceful cooperation. Discursive dehumanisation can for
the purposes of clarity be analytically divided into two steps, though in
reality these two steps overlap and can (and frequently do) occur simul-
taneously. In the first step, the already existing antagonism and hostility
(whether historical in origin or completely fabricated) between different
groups in society are utilised to create an internal enemy. In a second
step, this enemy is discursively dehumanised so that it can subsequently
be legitimately killed.39 To take each in turn:
The Creation of an Internal Enemy

With regard to the first step, the creation of an internal enemy40 narra-
tives of identity and belonging, of inclusion and exclusion and ultimately,
as noted above, narratives of enmity are constructed and deployed. For
example, civil wars in Liberia, Eastern Congo and Ivory Coast were, in
part, triggered by the question of ‘who is a citizen and who is not’ (Bøas,
2012: 93). Civil wars escalate when the question of ‘who belongs and
who doesn’t’ appears to become a matter of survival for ‘either you or
39 Of course I am not suggesting that discourse is the sole reason for an outbreak of
violence, but I do believe, in agreement with Savage (2013), that civil war has to be discur-
sively prepared.See Valentino (2005) who argues that there is no quantitative evidence
for a causal link between propaganda/social cleavages and an outbreak of violence. On
roots of and influences on violence see Staub (2013a, 2013b) and Uvin (1999) who
compares the factors contributing to the onset of violence in Burundi and Rwanda. Also
see McDoom (2005).
40 On a smaller and less systematic scale we can see across the world how journalists
are turned into internal enemies by political power, enemies that can then be killed with
impunity. See Harrison and Pukallus (2018b) and Pukallus et al. (2020).
36 S. PUKALLUS
me’ and subsequently, turns deadly. However, as Keen (1986: 10) point-
edly remarks, ‘Before the weapon comes the image’, namely the image of
the enemy.41
The image of the enemy is artificially and deliberately created through
a process of dehumanisation. Dehumanisation consists of the ‘denial that
a certain group is “equally” human, no matter how that “humanity” is
defined’ (Savage, 2013: 144). It is ‘the removal of humanity of an indi-
vidual or group [which] occurs when people strip themselves and others
of other sources of identity besides the one in the conflict’ (Schirch,
2005: 125, also Ellis, 2006). In short, the denial of humanness (Haslam
et al., 2008) or a ‘complete disregard for the moral significance of the
victim’s human subjectivity’ (De Ruiter, 2021: 3). Dehumanisation is
supported by two things: (i) by stripping the enemy of its individuality
and corresponding identity. The enemy is no longer seen as a person—
a mother, a father, a child—neither is the enemy conceived any longer
as an individual with personality and character (also Halpern & Wein-
stein, 2004) or ‘perceived as feeling, thinking, or acting’ (Waller, 2007:
210). The enemy becomes a uniform, generalised and unchanging cate-
gory without the possibility of transformation or redemption. And as
such, the enemy falls victim to social death and concomitantly becomes
‘the permanent enemy’ who ‘did not and could not belong because
he was the product of a hostile, alien culture’ (Patterson, 1982: 39,
also Uvin, 1999). The attribution of characteristics (ii) that support
the dehumanised image—also called attribute-based dehumanisation (see
Vaes et al., 2012)42 —plays on individual and collective fears and ‘What-
ever a society considers bad, wrong, taboo, profane, dirty, desecrated,
inhumane, impure, will make up the epithets assigned to the enemy’
(Keen, 1986: 28). It is these attributes that justify that the enemy is
from then on openly considered ‘as [the] marginal and expendable (…)
“lower”, “less developed”, “inferior race”’ (Tully, 2003: 521); as ‘exis-
tentially something different and alien’ (Schmitt, 2007 [1932]: 26). And
accordingly, the dehumanised enemy is placed outside ‘the normative
41 On enemy images in warfare see Silverstein and Holt (1989), Oppenheimer (2006),
Bahador (2015) and the edited volume by Rieber (1991) and particularly the contributions
by White; and Szalay and Mir-Djalali.
42 On the relationship between attribute-based dehumanisation and metaphor-based
dehumanisation see Loughnan et al. (2009).
universe of moral protection, leaving them vulnerable to targeted [geno-

cidal] victimization’ (Hagan & Rymond-Richmond, 2008: 876). They
are ‘put outside the law [vogelfrei] and [become] automatically the object
of an arbitrary execution’ (Schmitt, 2014 [1921]: 152). Examples of
such created enemies are multiple and span all types of war: the Jews
(Nazi Germany), kulaks (Soviet Union), ‘new people’ (Cambodia), Tutsi
(Rwanda), Muslim Rohingya (Myanmar), black African people (Darfur),
Bosnian Male Muslims (Bosnia) as well as the Communist Party and
its sympathisers (Indonesia) to name only few. Being designated the
dehumanised enemy is for all means and purposes sadly lethal.
As Semelin (2013: 9) points out, ‘massacres are mainly born out of a
mental process, a way of seeing some “Other” being, of stigmatising him,
debasing him, and obliterating him before actually killing him’. Enemies
become ‘nonentities, expendable, or undeserving’ (Opotow, 1990: 1) and
‘the existential negation of the enemy’ (Schmitt, 2007 [1932]: 33) is
to kill him. Importantly and frequently, ‘when groups of people dehu-
manise one another, the concept of good versus evil dominates people’s
understanding of identity’ (Schirch, 2005: 125) and the enemy becomes
the imagined evil (see Wieringa & Katjasungkana, 2019).43 This imag-
ined evil, ‘the universal evil image of the enemy is [then] reinforced
in posters, cartoons, and magazine illustrations depicting the enemy as
a crazed killer, sadistic torturer, greedy conspirator, rapist, barbarian,
gorilla, saber-toothed monster, reptile, rat, insect, or demonic enemy of
43 On the political struggles between good and evil see Harle (2000). Whereas Neiman
(2002: 7) argues that the problem of evil ‘is fundamentally a problem about the intelli-
gibility of the world as whole’ and that ‘morality demands that we make it intelligible’
(ibid.: 8), for Eagleton (2010: 16) evil ‘is indeed metaphysical, in the sense that it takes
up an attitude toward being as such, not just toward this or that bit of it. Fundamen-
tally, it wants to annihilate the lot of it. But this is not to suggest that it is necessarily
supernatural, or that it lacks all human causality’. For both Neiman and Eagleton evil can
be understood as something explicable (not ineffable) and something that demands our
attention. On evil see also Waller (2007: 13) who defines human evil as ‘the deliberate
harming of humans by other humans’; that is, ‘deliberate harm inflicted against a defense-
less and helpless group targeted by a political, social, or religious authority’ (ibid.: 14).
Also see Bernstein (2008), Calder (2003), Card (2010), Staub (2010), Singer (2004) and
Snow (2016).
38 S. PUKALLUS
God, or even as death’ (Waller, 2007: 210). And when such dehuman-
isation is accompanied by an eliminationist discourse (Bernard, 2009)44
then the destruction of the ‘enemy that has been defined as essentially evil
will soon appear rational, legitimate, and even honourable’ (Vuorinen,
2012: 4). It might even become a ‘democratic duty’,45 an act of self-
defence or a preventative measure to a perceived (often imagined and
fabricated) threat. According to Freeman (1991: 190), ‘Self-defence is
the most powerful motivation and justification for killing’ as it is seen
as ‘necessary to survival and/or as an act of purification (…) [and] mass
murder can be presented as heroic’ (also Kimani, 2007). To this Clark
(2009: 7) adds that for example in the case of Rwanda, ‘the genocide
was not the product of pre-existing, deep-seated ethnic hatreds. Rather,
it was the result of manufactured hatred, in which the Hutus were taught
to believe that the Tutsis posed a fundamental threat and were thus to
be viewed as a dangerous enemy’ (also Chrétien, 1995; Hatzfeld, 2006;
Hintjens, 1999; Straus, 2004, 2013). Concomitantly, the decision that
perpetrators believe to be faced with is ‘kill or be killed’. Once the enemy
has been designated the dehumanisation is carried out discursively—
this is the second analytical step and constituent feature of discursive
dehumanisation.
44 Neilsen (2015) speaks about ‘toxification’ as being a more appropriate indicator or

warning sign for genocide that dehumanisation. She (2015: 86) argues that ‘dehumaniza-
tion says nothing to the perception of killing a certain group being a necessity’ and that
it ‘does not necessitate an individual’s mistreatment, abuse, or murder, but simply renders
it more tolerable in the eyes of the dehumanizer’. Accordingly, she (ibid.: 87) claims that
looking for toxication as a warning sign for genocidal intent is more insightful as ‘a toxic
presence that must be cauterized and destroyed’. I don’t find this very convincing as toxi-
fication is difficult to distinguish from pollution/disease which is dehumanising but unless
accompanied by an eliminationist discourse cannot be taken as genocidal intent either.
Accordingly, to look for an eliminationist discourse in Bernard’s (2009) sense is probably
more reliable than signs of ‘toxification’ and makes another helpful distinction. She (ibid.:
184) argues that calling something eliminationist discourse is a useful ‘to distinguish it
from standard political content or even hate speech’.
45 See e.g. Chrétien (2007) and Kimani (2007).
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a grocery store when we got to Newfield, and were told that a widow
near by accommodated travelers. We found her very willing if we
could take care of the horse ourselves, for she had no “men folks.”
Despite our fatigue, as necessity compelled, we unharnessed
Charlie and gave him some corn—she had no oats. We went into the
little sitting-room to wait, but not to rest, for our hostess was very
social. After being entertained for an hour and a half, we carried a
pail of water to the barn for Charlie, and harnessed him. We asked
the amount of our indebtedness, when her ladyship mentioned a
sum exceeding what we often pay at first-class hotels, where our
horse is well groomed and grained—not by ourselves—blandly
remarking at the same time that she “did not believe in high prices.”
Our map is not much help when traveling bias, and we wondered
next where we should sleep. It was only a few miles to the little
village of West Newfield, and again we went to a grocery store for
information. Our many inquiries were very courteously answered,
and one or two hotels within a few miles were mentioned. At this
point a young man came forward, commenting on the modesty of the
storekeeper, whom he said was the hotel proprietor as well, and
advised us to stay where we were sure of good care, as we should
be no nearer Wolfeboro at either of the places suggested. We were
directed to a modest house, one-story front, which we had just
passed, where the wife of the gentlemanly storekeeper, hotel
proprietor and farmer also, we afterward learned, kindly received us
and gave us a cosy front room on the first floor. We soon felt we
were in a home, as well as a hotel, and we sat on the front doorstep
writing letters till dark, then talked of our friends in Hollis. How long
ago it all seemed! And yet we only left there that morning.
There was not a sound to disturb our slumbers that night, and we
awoke fresh for our drive of twenty-five miles to Wolfeboro. It was
still hot, but the drive was a striking contrast to that of the day
previous. We were approaching the rough country which borders
Lake Winnipiseogee, and more than once fancied ourselves among
the Berkshire hills. We stopped at a farmhouse for a pitcher of milk,
and took a little lunch sitting on a stone wall under a large tree. The
good old people begged us to go into the house, but we assured
them we preferred the wall, and when we returned the pitcher, they
had come to the conclusion that it might be pleasant to eat out of
doors once in a while. We knew they had watched us through the
curtain cracks in the front room.
Every mile now, the country was more and more delightful, so wild
and hilly. Up and down we went, getting glimpses of the lake from
the top of a high hill, then wending our way into the valley only to go
up again. It sometimes seemed as if nothing but a plunge would ever
bring us to the lake, but after much twisting and turning, we reached
Wolfeboro and drove up to The Pavilion at two o’clock. We left our
horse and traveling equipments in charge until called for, and in an
hour went on board the Lady of the Lake. Now we felt really at home,
but the charms of Lake Winnipiseogee are only increased by
familiarity, and we never enjoyed it more. At Weirs Landing a friendly
face greeted us, one always present at the Grove meetings. We
secured at Hotel Weirs the room we had last year, and then went out
in search of friends, and found them from the East, West, North and
South. We surprised them all, for they had heard indirectly only the
day before that we had started on our journey with usual
indefiniteness, except that we were not going to Weirs.
The two or three days we spent there were interspersed with
sermons, friendly reunions, rowing, and a trip to Wolfeboro on The
Gracie, with a party of twenty. The talented company, the glories of
the lake and shore scenery by daylight, the sunset tints, the moon in
its full beauty, and the lightning darting through the black clouds in
the distant north, with now and then a far-away rumbling of thunder,
made a rare combination.
The next day, Saturday, was very bright, and we made sure of one
more pleasant sail. The Lady of the Lake landed us at Wolfeboro at
four o’clock, and we immediately ordered our horse, and made
inquiries about hotels, roads and distances. We learned that hills
abounded and that hotels were few and poor, and that Alton Bay was
the only place where we would be sure of good accommodations;
that the distance was twelve miles, and the road the roughest in the
vicinity. We did not care to go to Alton Bay, as we had been there on
a previous journey, but it seemed our wisest course. At different
times we had driven entirely around the lake, except this twelve
miles, and we knew what to expect without the emphatic assurance
of the clerk. We started off full of enthusiasm to surmount all
difficulties, drew forth the revolver from the bottom of the bag, where
it had been stowed away during our stay at Weirs, and amused
ourselves by keeping tally of the hills, fifteen by actual count! They
were long and high, too, but the fine views fully compensated us,
and we knew Charlie was equal to the effort, for we had not forgotten
the Canada hills he took us over last year. It was dark when we
reached Alton Bay, and we were quite ready to enjoy the comforts
that awaited us.
While our friends we had left at Weirs were preaching and being
preached to, we quietly enjoyed the Sunday hours in our pleasant
parlor overlooking the lake, reading and resting from our rough drive.
At sunset we strolled to the water’s edge, sat down in an anchored
row-boat and watched the clouds, which were grandly beautiful,
looking at first like an immense conflagration, then resolving into
black, smoky clouds as the last rosy tint faded.
Monday was a perfect day and Charlie was as fresh for the twenty-
eight miles to Dover as we were. The road was familiar, but seemed
none the less pleasant. At Rochester we looked for the hotel, with
beautiful hanging baskets all around the piazza, where we spent a
night two years ago on our homeward drive from the mountains. Just
after supper at Dover we heard a great chorus of bells, whistles and
puffing engines. There was a fire just across the street, and we
watched the devouring flames and the feather beds and bundles as
they were thrown from the second story window into the drenched
street, until the excitement was over, then went out for a walk. That
night we packed up a little more than usual and planned what to do
in case of fire, for our baggage is necessarily so limited on these
journeys we should miss even the smallest article. Our precaution
insured us sweet sleep and we took an early leave of Dover for
Exeter, where we rested two hours, then started for Epping.
Suddenly we changed our minds, faced about and went to Kingston.
We had never been in Kingston. If we had, we never should have
faced that way again; for the best hotel was the poorest we had yet
found, and the drive to Haverhill the next day very uninteresting. We
fully appreciated the dry retort of a chatty old man, who gave us
some directions, then asked where we came from that morning
—“Kingston Plains! Good Lord!”
The drive from Haverhill to Andover was quite pleasant. We arrived
there at three o’clock in the afternoon, and although we had driven
but twenty miles, at once decided to go no farther that day. The heat
was still oppressive, and no rain had fallen since we left home,
except the shower at the Isles of Shoals. We made ourselves as
comfortable as possible with books and lemonade. “Another
pleasant day!” we said with a sigh, next morning. We were really
longing for one of our cosy rainy-day drives.
Lowell and Lawrence were in our direct homeward route, but to
avoid those places we had full directions to Littleton, and started in
good faith for that place, but came across a guideboard which said,
“Boston, twenty miles,” in the opposite direction. The temptation was
too great, and once more we faced about. We called on friends as
we drove through Reading and Maplewood, and finally found
ourselves at Point of Pines. The heat and discomfort we had
experienced were all forgotten there. The brilliant illuminations and
the music made the evening hours delightful. The cool night was a
luxury indeed. We spent the morning on the piazza with friends, and,
after an early luncheon, drove into Boston via Chelsea Ferry. Oh!
how hot it was! We thought there had been a change in the weather,
but concluded we had been told truly, that it is always cool at the
“Point.”
The crowded city streets distract Charlie, but we succeeded in
wending our way to Devonshire street, where we got the latest news
from home from a friend. Our last mail we had received at Weirs. We
did a little shopping on Winter street, and then left the busy city for
Cambridge, and on through Arlington and Lexington to Concord, a
drive one cannot take too often, so full is it of historic interest. As we
near the home of Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and the Alcotts,
and the monuments of Revolutionary interest, the very atmosphere
seems full of recollections and reminiscences. The noble words of
Emerson, the hermit life of Thoreau, the fascinating writings of
Hawthorne, transcendental people, “Little Women” and cousins just
like other people, are all confused with skirmishes with the English,
and the effort to realize it is all true. We have experienced this
ecstasy more than once before, and it has faded away naturally as
we drove on, but this time the spell was broken suddenly. We
stopped at the hotel and found it just like a hundred other country
taverns, not a suggestion of anything transcendental, and we felt as
if dropped from the heights into the abyss of commonplaceness. We
tried to rise again by watching from our window the passers-by and
selecting those who looked as if they had been to the Summer
School of Philosophy, but all in vain, and by the time we were ready
to leave in the morning our enthusiasm had sunk to the Kingston
level.
We had ordered our mails reforwarded from Weirs to Fitchburg, and
now we were perplexed to know how to get them on our way home,
when Leominster comes first. We studied our map and finally asked
directions to Littleton again, and this time saw no enticing
guideboard. We lunched at Ayer, lost our way trying to go from
Shirley to Lunenburg (we rarely take a wrong road except when near
home, where we are so sure we know we do not ask), and were
ready for our two-hours’ rest when we arrived. The dust we shook off
there was more than replaced before we reached Fitchburg. So
many people were driving it was like a trip through the clouds; and
the heat was so great, with the sun in our faces all the way, we set
that little drive apart as the most uncomfortable of our whole journey.
We forgot all our dusty zigzagging, however, as we drove leisurely
towards Leominster, reading our letters, which were none the less
interesting for having been a week in the Fitchburg post office.
Curious friends questioned our knowledge of geography, as they
always do when we come from Boston through Fitchburg, and go our
roundabout ways, but many years’ experience has convinced us
there is more beauty in a curved than a straight line. We have taken
longer journeys, and had better weather, but we shall always
remember the journey of last summer as one of the pleasantest.
CHAPTER IV.
MOOSILAUKE AND FRANCONIA NOTCH.
“You did not take your drive this year, did you? I have seen nothing
of it in the papers.” This oft-repeated query, and many similar hints,
suggest that we have kept the pleasant incidents of our last
summer’s drive to ourselves long enough; and the kindly interest of
friends we know, and some we do not know, should be sufficient
incentive to prompt our pen to tell you all about it.
Only those who have traveled by carriage nearly four thousand
miles, within a radius of two hundred miles, in twelve successive
summers, can appreciate the difficulty which increases each year in
deciding which way to go. Railway travelers escape that difficulty, for
they can only go where the rails are laid; but we belong to the great
company of tramps who wander aimlessly, and rarely know in the
morning where they will rest at night. We had only one definite idea
when we decided to go somewhere, and that was, not to go to the
seashore, because it was hot there last year; we believe in having a
reason, however senseless it may be.
During the small hours of the morning of July 13th we found
ourselves packing. Packing for a carriage journey means looking
over once more the “must haves” which have been carefully
selected, to see how many can be dispensed with in order to reduce
the quantity to the amount of “baggage allowed” in a phaeton. This
allowance is so small that, however limited one’s wardrobe may be,
it looks plentiful after a month’s absence from it. This fact may well
be mentioned as one of the decided advantages which a journey by
carriage has over almost every other kind of summer traveling. The
fewest things possible having been condensed into the smallest
space possible, we were ready for a start at eight o’clock; but the
clouds hung heavy, and we waited awhile for the sun to find its way
through them; then said “good morning” to friends and were off. We
drove to Fitchburg because we like to start north, and from there we
went to Ashburnham. Before we left Fitchburg the sun forgot all
about us and hid behind the clouds, which had no consideration for
our desire not to get wet the first day, and poured their contents on
us unsparingly until we got to Ashburnham, where we stopped an
hour or two. With seeming maliciousness the rain ceased during our
stay, and began with renewed energy directly we were on our way
again; and as we drove on through Winchendon the thunder and
lightning rapidly increased. We had quite enjoyed the distant
rumbling, but it was getting unpleasantly near. The freshness of all
our equipments was decidedly marred when we drove to the hotel in
Fitzwilliam, and waterproofs and blankets were despatched to the
kitchen fire to dry.
We devoted the evening to an earnest debate on “Why did we come
to Fitzwilliam?” We had not even the reason we had for going to
Fitchburg, and wherever we might drive, it did not seem as if
Fitzwilliam was likely to be on our way. We do not know yet how it
happened, unless the thunder and lightning so diverted us that we
did not look on the map to see that Fitzwilliam was not on the way to
anywhere. It is indeed delightful enough to be a terminus, and we
were well cared for and ready for an early start when the bright
morning greeted us. We faced toward Jaffrey, but were not out of
sight of the hotel when we noticed our horse was lame. We drove
on, thinking he might have stepped on a stone, and would soon be
all right; but instead he grew worse, and, as we could not discover
the cause after careful examination, we settled into a walk, and
decided to stop at the first hotel we came to.
This was a new experience, and it looked serious. We found such
slow traveling tiresome, and stopped for an hour in a very inviting
spot by the wayside, where the rocks, under the shade of a large
tree, seemed to be arranged for our especial comfort. We had
luncheon from our basket, and read aloud, and watched between
times the movements of a little green snake that evidently
considered us intruders and was not disposed to give us absolute
possession of the place.
We were refreshed, but Charlie was no better, and we were glad
when we came to a hotel so pleasantly located that we felt we could
spend Sunday there very comfortably, and hoped Charlie would be
well by that time. Of course our limping condition interested the
bystanders, and their wise opinions were freely volunteered. One
said it was a sprain; another, strained cords of the right foot; a third
thought the difficulty was in the left foot; when the landlord removed
his pipe from his mouth and wisely declared he did not know, and as
he resumed his smoking his manner indicated that the horse was as
well as he ever would be. The best of care was promised, and to
make sure of hitting the right place, the faithful hostler compressed
both legs.
We established ourselves comfortably in a large front room facing
Monadnock, a mountain we never tire of, and tried to enjoy as much
as other people do who go to places to stay, instead of being always
on the wing as we are. The afternoon and evening passed
pleasantly, although we occasionally grew retrospective and thought
of our usual good time and how some people would say, “That
comes of starting on Friday.” Should we have to go home? and
where would we be if Charlie had not been lame? Sunday morning
we went quietly into the back pew of the little church across the
green; then we read and read, and after that we read some more.
Charlie seemed a little better at night, and Monday morning the
landlord said he thought it would be well to drive him. (We think he
expected parties to take our room.)
We started towards East Jaffrey, and tried to think he was better, but
it was of no use. There was serious trouble somewhere. Having the
day before us, we concluded to try to get to Peterboro, an easy drive
if a man had not carelessly given us a wrong direction, which took us
a long way over hard hills instead of along the pretty river road. Poor
Charlie! he did his best; and so did we, for, despite the heat, we
walked much of the way and dragged him. We looked and felt forlorn
as lost children, but our wits were sharpened by our
discouragements, and we concluded he had sand or gravel under
his shoe. We did wish we had had a blacksmith instead of a
compress at Jaffrey!
We hobbled into Peterboro in course of time, and asked to have
Charlie taken directly to a blacksmith, who said we were right, but he
feared the trouble was not discovered in season for immediate relief.
We again settled down to await our fate. The hotel was very nice, but
the outlook was a poor exchange for Monadnock; nothing but stores,
the signs on which we read until it seemed as if we could never
forget them, as our eyes wandered up and down the street in search
of something restful. All things have an end, so had this
unsatisfactory day. We made an early call, next morning, on the
blacksmith, who said we had better let Charlie rest that day, and take
him down to the shop Wednesday morning.
Another day! Our diary record for that day is, “We do not like this
way of taking a carriage journey.” Before the sun set we were driven
to an extremity never reached before, in all our journeyings—an
afternoon nap to kill time. After breakfast Wednesday morning, in
desperation, we took matters into our own hands, went to the stable,
led Charlie out, and trotted him about the yard. He was certainly
better, and as we were determined not to act upon any advice, we
asked none, but paid our bill and packed our traps before we drove
to the blacksmith’s shop—a model establishment, by the way. The
humblest one has a charm; but this shop was the most luxurious one
we had ever seen, and everything was in harmony, from the fair,
genial face of the proprietor to the speck of a boy who earned two
cents a horse, or twelve cents a day, for brushing flies while the
horses were being shod. We watched anxiously while the
examination went on, and when the man looked up with a face
worthy a second Collyer and said it was all right, we felt like having a
jubilee. He carefully protected the injured spot, reset the shoes, and
pronounced the horse ready for use. We added this Boston-born
blacksmith to our list of never-to-be-forgotten friends and began our
journey anew.
Was this an inspired creature we were driving? On he sped, and his
eyes were in every direction, looking for some adequate excuse to
jump. Surely, the limping Charlie was a myth! Bennington and Antrim
were left behind, and night found us at Hillsboro Bridge, twenty miles
from our good blacksmith, the pleasantest remembrance we had of
Peterboro.
Now we were really going somewhere, we must fix upon some place
to meet letters from home. We took the map and cast our eyes up
and down New Hampshire, but whether we fled to the borders or
zigzagged through the interior, there was no escaping familiar
routes. Being unanimously persistent in facing north, we bethought
ourselves of the transformed “Flume,” and immediately fixed upon
Plymouth for a mail centre. Charlie’s spirits were unabated the next
day, and we rested him at Warren. It was useless to ask directions,
for everybody was determined we must take the great highway to the
mountains, through Concord. This we were not going to do, and as a
first digression we drove around Mt. Kearsarge in Warner and spent
a night at the Winslow House, a very attractive hotel half way up the
mountain. A slight repentance may have come over us as we left the
main road and attacked the hills that lay between us and the house
on the mountain, especially as we felt compelled to walk, lest the
hard pull prove too much for Charlie. Just before we reached the
Mountain House we got into our phaeton, and all signs of repentance
must have fled, for a lady on the piazza exclaimed, as we drove up,
that we must be the ladies she had read of in the Transcript, for we
looked as if we were having such a good time!
Once there, no one could have any regrets. The night was perfect.
We asked leave to change our seats at the supper table, in order to
add the sunset to our bill of fare; and in the evening we were
cordially welcomed by the guests, who gathered around the open fire
in the large parlor. At ten o’clock we all went out to see the moon rise
over the mountain. A gentleman coming up the mountain saw it rise
several times, and we got the effect of these repetitions by walking
down a little way.
The morning was as lovely as the night, and the view simply
beautiful, satisfying in all moods. There was no sensation of awe or
isolation, but a feeling that one could be content forever. Kearsarge
is about three thousand feet high. We were already fifteen hundred
feet up, and directly after breakfast we started for the summit. No
other parties were ready for a climb that morning, so full directions
for the bridle path and walking sticks were given us, and with maps,
drinking cup and revolver strapped about us, we were ready for any
emergency.
There is nothing more bewitching than an old bridle path, and we
enjoyed every moment of the hour it took us to reach the summit. If
the lovely, woodsy ascent and final scramble over the rocks had not
fully rewarded us, the view itself must have more than repaid our
efforts. With the aid of a little book we studied out the various
mountain peaks and traced our route along the country to
Moosilauke. We drank our fill of the beauty, then leisurely
descended, and reached the Winslow House just in season to
prepare for dinner, which means to people traveling without their
wardrobe, a dash of water, a touch of the whisk broom and a little
rub on the dusty boots.
We were just tired enough to enjoy a drive of twenty miles to Bristol
in the afternoon—twelve miles up and down hills, and eight miles by
a beautiful river. Our remembrance of Bristol is that we slept in one
hotel and ate in another, that the moon rose two hours earlier than
on Kearsarge, and that by some unaccountable mistake we arose an
hour earlier than we thought, hastened to the office with our letters
on the way to our refreshment hotel, where we supposed we had the
dining-room to ourselves because we were last instead of first,
wondered what could have happened to our watch, and did not
discover that the watch was all right and we all wrong until we
stopped, as we drove out of the village, to inquire the way to
Plymouth, which would take us seven miles by the shore of
Newfound Lake. It happened very well, however, for if we had been
an hour later we should have missed the guardianship of that kindly
couple who chanced to come along just in season to accompany us
in passing a large company of gypsies, whom we had been following
for some time, dreading to pass them in such a lonely place, lest
they should think we had something they might like.
We had a “way” now, if we were going to Moosilauke, and Plymouth
was eight miles out of our way, but we had to go there to get our
letters. One or two we expected had not arrived, and we requested
the postmaster to keep them until we called or sent for them. The
good words we got from home shortened the eight miles extra to
Rumney, which proved to be the loveliest part of our day’s drive.
Rumney is quiet and just the place we wanted for Sunday. We were
the only guests at the little hotel, and everything was cosy as
possible. We watched the people going to church, and after the last
straggler had disappeared we put on our hats and followed, taking
seats in the back pew of the smallest of the three small churches in
that small place, where we heard a thrilling discourse on the
atonement.
Sunday night there was a heavy shower, and Monday was just the
day for Moosilauke, so bright and clear. Before we left Rumney we
learned the gypsies had traveled while we rested, and were again in
our path. We drove on, looking for them at every turn, and when we
finally overtook them no guardian couple came along, and we tucked
our wraps and bags out of sight, looked at the revolver’s hiding-
place, and decided to brave it. They were scattered all along the
road with their lumbering wagons, and Charlie pricked up his ears
and refused to pass them. Immediately a brawny woman appeared,
and saying, “Is your horse afraid?” took him by the bit and led him by
the long procession. We kept her talking all the way, and when she
left us we thought, surely this is the way with half the anticipated
troubles in life; they are only imaginary. At another point, a large tree
had fallen across the road during the rain and gale of the night. An
old man was hard at work upon it, and had just got to the last limb
which obstructed our way as we drove up; with a cheery word he
drew it aside, and as neither gypsies nor gales had succeeded in
detaining us, we now looked hopefully towards the summit of
Moosilauke.
It is twelve miles from Rumney to Warren, and five miles from
Warren to the Breezy Point House, on the slope of the mountain.
This hotel was burned a few weeks after we were there; indeed, it
has happened to so many hotels where we have been in our
journeyings, that one would not wonder we never sleep when we
travel, until we have packed “in case of fire,” and when we are up
very high, we plan our escape; then rest as peacefully as if
warranted not to burn.
The drive to Breezy Point House was very like that to the Winslow
House on Kearsarge—partly walking. We got there before noon, and
again we were the only persons to go to the top. As it takes three
hours for the drive to the summit, we had no time to wait for dinner,
so had a lunch, and a buckboard and driver were ordered for us. We
had been warned to take plenty of wraps, and before we went to
lunch had laid them aside, leaving the things we did not wish to take
in the office. Everybody was waiting to see us off as we came from
the dining-room, and the clerk said, “Your wraps are all right, under
the seat.” We always envy everybody on a buckboard, and now we
had one all to ourselves, a pair of horses equal to two mountain trips
a day, and a chatty little driver ready to answer all our questions. It
was a perfect summer afternoon, and we were delighted at every
turn until we reached the “Ridge,” when a cold blast struck us, and
the soft breezes suddenly changed to wind that threatened to take
our hats off, if not our heads. Now for the wraps; and will you believe
it? the man had put in the things we did not want, and those we did
want were probably on the chair in the parlor, where we had left
them. Between us we had one veil and one neckhandkerchief, with
which we secured our hats and heads. There were one or two light
sacques and a basque! Thinking of our warm wraps at the hotel did
no good, so we dressed up in what we had, and with a little
imagination, were comfortable.
The narrow and comparatively level stretch, sloping on either side,
and the sudden ascent to the highest point on the mountain, suggest
a ride upon the ridgepole of a house and final leap to the top of the
chimney; once there, we went into the cosy house, something like
the old one on Mt. Washington, and tied everything a little tighter
before we dared face the gale. We then started out, and, actually in
danger of being blown away, we united our forces by taking hold of
hands, and ran along the daisy-carpeted plateau to what looked like
the jumping-off place to the north. There is a similarity in mountain
views, but each has at least one feature peculiar to itself. Mt.
Washington has not even a suggestion of the beautiful meadows
seen from Mt. Holyoke; and from one point on Moosilauke there is a
view of mountain tops unlike any we have seen; just billows of
mountains, nothing else, and the hazy, bluish tint was only varied by
the recent land slides on Mt. Liberty and Flume Mountain, which
looked like silver cascades. Charming pictures meet the eye in every
direction, but none more lovely than that along the Connecticut River
near the Ox Bow.
We took mental possession of the whole scene in a very few
minutes, and, with a last look at the “billows,” sought shelter under
some rocks long enough to recover our breath and gather our
pockets full of daisies; then returned to the house. A very frail-
looking elderly lady was sitting by the fire, and we wondered how
she ever lived through the jolting ride up the mountain, and how she
could ever get down again. But our own transportation was the next
thing for us, and we found some impatient parties had started off
with our driver and left us to the mercy of another. We were
disappointed at first, but when we found the new driver was just as
good and wise as the other, and that his was “the best team on the
mountain,” we were reconciled.
As we drove along the Ridge, he said he did not often trot his horses
there, but when the wind blew so hard he wanted to get over it as
soon as possible. We held on to each other and the buckboard, and
believed him when he told us that, a few days before, he took a
young man up in a single team, and the horse and buckboard were
blown off the road, and the breath of the young man nearly forsook
him forever. We enjoyed even that part of the ride, and when we got
down a little way the frightful wind subsided into gentle zephyrs, so
warm and soft that not a wrap was needed. Our driver was in no
haste, and we stopped to gather ferns and flowers by the way. The
knotted spruce sticks he cut and peeled for us now have bright
ribbon bows, and adorn our parlor. We lost all fear as we watched
the horses step down the very steep pitches with as much ease as
Charlie takes a level road, and wished the ride was longer.
After a half-hour at the Breezy Point House, we packed our unused
wraps into the phaeton and prepared for our return drive to Warren,
where we spent the night. Practical people again advised us to
return to Plymouth if we wished to visit the Flume; but, remembering
what happened to Lot’s wife for turning back, we proposed to keep
straight on. The first time we stopped to make an inquiry, an old lady
looked sorrowfully at us and said, “There are gypsies ahead of you;”
but we borrowed no trouble that time, and wisely, for we did not see
them. We drove thirty-one miles that day, and for some distance
followed the Connecticut River and looked across into Vermont,
where we could follow the road we drove along on our way to
Canada two years ago. After leaving the river, we followed the
railroad very closely. We were once asked if our horse is afraid of the
“track.” He is not, even when there is an express train on it, under
ordinary circumstances; but a wooden horse might be expected to
twinge, when one minute you are over the railroad, and the next the
railroad is over you, and again you are alongside, almost within
arm’s reach. In one of the very worst places we heard the rumbling
of a train, and as there was no escape from our close proximity, we
considered a moment, and decided we would rather be out of the
carriage; “just like women,” I can hear many a man say. But never
mind; our good Charlie had expelled us unceremoniously from the
carriage once since our last journey, and we did not care to risk a
repetition nearly two hundred miles from home. He rested while we
jolted up and down Moosilauke the day before, and all the morning
his ears had been active. A broken-down carriage with an umbrella
awning by the side of the road was an object of so great interest to
him that we had to close the umbrella, before he was even willing to
be led by. A boy said it belonged to a man who had met with an
accident, and we thought how much he might have escaped if he
had “got out” as we did.
As the heavy train came thundering along almost over our heads, so
close is the road to the high embankment, controlling our horse
seemed uncertain; but to moral suasion and a strong hold on the
curb he peacefully submitted, and in a few minutes we were on our
way again, the carriage road, railroad and river intertwining like a
three-strand braid. Night found us at Lisbon, and a small boy
admitted us to a very new-looking hotel, and told us we could stay,
before the proprietor appeared, with a surprised look at us and our
baggage, and said the house was not yet open. That was of little
consequence to us, as he allowed us to remain; and, after being in
so many old hotels, the newness of everything, from bedding to
teaspoons, was very refreshing.
We took the next day very leisurely, read awhile in the morning, then
drove Charlie to the blacksmith’s to have his shoes reset before
starting for Franconia via Sugar Hill, which commands as fine a view
of the Franconia Mountains as Jefferson affords of the Presidential
range. We remembered very pleasantly the house in Franconia
where we were cared for two years ago, when night overtook us on
our way from Littleton, and by two o’clock we were quite at home
there again. It is away from the village, and directly opposite the
house is an old wooden bridge. Sheltered by the high wooden side
of the bridge is an old bench, where one can sit hours, rocked by the
jar of the bridge to the music of horses’ feet, reveling in day dreams,
inspired by the lovely view of the mountains, peaceful rather than
grand, and the pretty winding stream in the foreground. We did not
leave the charmed spot until the last sunset-cloud had faded, and
darkness had veiled the mountain tops. We retired early, full of
anticipation for the morning drive from Franconia to Campton, which
has such a rare combination of grandeur and beauty, and is ever
new. We drove up through the “Notch” several years ago, but the
drive down would be new to us, for when we drove down two years
ago, we might have fancied ourselves on a prairie, were it not for the
ups and downs in the road. Not even an outline of the mountains
was visible; everything was lost in the hazy atmosphere which
preceded the “yellow day.”
We took an early start, and passing the cheery hotels and boarding-
houses of Franconia, were soon in the Notch, of which Harriet
Martineau says, “I certainly think the Franconia Notch the noblest
mountain pass I saw in the United States.” However familiar it may
be, one cannot pass Echo Lake without stopping. We did not hear
the cannon which is said to be echoed by a “whole park of artillery,”
but a whole orchestra seemed to respond to a few bugle notes. At
Profile Lake we left the carriage again, to see how the “Old Man”
looked when joined to earth. He hung in mid-air when we saw him
last—enveloped in mist. We were too impatient to explore the new
Flume to spare half an hour for the Pool, which was still fresh in our
minds; and leaving Charlie to rest we started at once, with eyes
opened wide to catch the first change in the famed spot. For some
distance all was as we remembered it; but the scene of devastation
was not far off, and we were soon in the midst of it. We had heard it
said, “The Flume is spoiled,” and again, “It is more wonderful than
ever.” Both are true in a measure; before it suggested a miracle, and
now it looked as if there had been a “big freshet.” Huge, prostrate
trees were lodged along the side of the gorge high above our heads,
and the mighty torrent had forced its way, first one side, then the
other, sweeping everything in its course, and leaving marks of its
power. Nothing looked natural until we got to the narrow gorge where
the boulder once hung, as Starr King said, “Held by a grasp out of
which it will not slip for centuries,” and now it has rolled far down
stream like a pebble, and is lost in a crowd of companion boulders.
The place where it hung is marked by the driftwood which caught
around it and still clings to the ledges. A long way below we saw a
board marked “Boulder” placed against an innocent-looking rock,
which everybody was gazing at with wonder and admiration, but we
also noticed a mischievous “A” above the inscription, which gave it
its probable rank. A workman told us he thought he had identified the
real boulder farther down amidst the debris; but it matters little, for it
was not the boulder which was so wonderful, but how it came to be
suspended so mysteriously. After seeing the Flume in its present
condition, the charm which always clings to mystery is lost, but one
is almost overpowered with the thought of the resistless force of
Nature’s elements.
After climbing over the rocks till tired, we found a cosy place away
from the many parties who were there, and in our little nook
discovered a new boulder more mysteriously hung than the old one.
It was a little larger than a man’s head, and firmly held between two
larger rocks by two small pebbles which corresponded to ears. A flat
rock had lodged like a shelf across the larger rocks, half concealing
the miniature boulder. The old boulder was no longer a mystery to
us, for we could easily imagine how, no one knows whether years or
ages ago, a mountain slide like the one in June rolled the old rock
along until it lodged in the gap simply because it was too large to go
through. But for a time this little one baffled us. When the mighty
torrent was rushing along, how could Nature stop to select two little
pebbles just the right size and put them in just the right place to hold
the little boulder firmly? We puzzled over it, however, until to our
minds it was scientifically, therefore satisfactorily solved; but we are
not going to tell Nature’s secret to the public. We call it “our boulder,”
for we doubt if any one else saw it, or if we could find it again among
the millions of rocks all looking alike. We longed to follow the rocky
bed to the mountain where the slide started, a distance of two miles,
we were told, but prudence protested, and we left that till next time.
We stopped to take breath many times on our way back to the Flume
House, and after a good look at the slides from the upper piazza, we
sought rest in our phaeton once more.
We forgot all about Lot’s wife this time, and looked back until it
seemed as if our necks would refuse to twist. The ever-changing
views as you approach Campton exhaust all the expressions of
enthusiastic admiration, but the old stage road through the
Pemigewasset Valley has lost much of its charm by the railroad,
which in several places has taken possession of the pretty old road
along the valley, and sent the stage road up on to a sand bank, and
at the time we were there the roads were in a shocking condition.
The many washouts on the stage and rail roads had been made
barely passable, and there was a look of devastation at every turn.
We spent the night at Sanborn’s, always alive with young people,
and were off in the morning with a pleasant word from some who
remembered our staying there over night two years ago.
From Campton to Plymouth is an interesting drive. We had a nice
luncheon by the wayside, as we often do, but, instead of washing our
dishes in a brook or at a spring as usual, we thought we would make
further acquaintance with the woman who supplied us with milk. We
went again to the house and asked her to fill our pail with water that
we might wash our dishes; she invited us into the kitchen, and
insisted on washing them for us—it was dish-washing time—which
was just what we hoped she would do to give us a chance to talk
with her. She told us about the freshets as she leisurely washed the
tin pail, cups and spoons, and laid them on the stove to dry. Our
mothers had not taught us to dry silver in that way, and we were a
little anxious for the fate of our only two spoons, and hastened our
departure, with many thanks for her kindness.
As soon as we reached Plymouth we went to the post office, eager
for our letters. The deaf old gentleman was at his post, and we
asked for letters and papers. He glanced up and down something,
we do not know what, then indifferently said, “There are none.”
Usually there is nothing more to be said; but not so in our case, for
we were too sure there ought to be letters, if there were not, to
submit to such a disappointment without protest. Perhaps he had not
understood the names. We spoke a little louder, and asked if he
would please look once more. He looked from top to bottom of
something again, and with no apology or the least change of
countenance, handed out a letter. This encouraged us, and we
resolved not to leave until we got at least one more. “Now,” we said
very pleasantly, “haven’t you another hidden away up there,
somewhere?” He looked over a list of names and shook his head.
We told him our mails were of great importance to us as we were
traveling and could not hear from home often, and we were sure our
friends had not forgotten us, and there must be one more
somewhere. His patience held out, for the reason, perhaps, that ours
did, and he looked up and down that mysterious place once more
and the letter was forthcoming! The one or two witnesses to our
conversation showed manifest amusement, but there was no
apparent chagrin on the part of the obliging postmaster. We thought
of the scripture text about “importunity,” and went to the carriage to
read our letters which had barely escaped the dead-letter office. We
were amused when we read that a package had been mailed with
one of the letters, and went to the postmaster with this information.
He declared there was no package, and knowing that packages are
frequently delayed a mail, we did not insist on having one, but
requested it forwarded to Weirs.
The annual question, “Shall we go to Weirs?” had been decided
several days before; and we now set forth on the zigzag drive which
we cannot make twice alike, and which always gives us the feeling of
being on the road to nowhere. The day was bright, and we did not
need ginger cookies to keep us warm, as we did the last time we
took this drive, but there was no less discussion as to whether we
ought to go, and whether the last turn was wrong or right. We always
feel as if we had got home and our journey was ended, when we get
to Weirs. As usual, many familiar faces greeted us, and it was
particularly pleasant, for until we got there we had not seen a face
we knew since the day after we left home. Even our minister was
there to preach to us, as if we were stray sheep and had been sent
for. Lake Winnipiseogee was never more beautiful, but looked upon
with sadness because of the bright young man who had given his life
to it, and whose body it refused to give up. Although we always feel
our journey at an end, there is really one hundred miles of delightful
driving left us, and Monday morning, after the adjournment of the
grove meeting, we ordered our horse, and while waiting walked to
the station to have a few last words with our friends who were going
by rail and boat.
Directly we leave Weirs we go up a long hill, and are rewarded by a
very fine view of the lake and surrounding mountains. We drove into
a pasture to gain the highest point, saw all there was to be seen,
then down the familiar road to Lake Village and Laconia. At a point
where the road divided, two bright girls were reclining in the shade,
and we asked them the way to Tilton; one answered, “The right, I
think,” and in the same breath said, “We don’t know. Are you from
Smith’s? We are staying at ——’s, but we thought you might be
staying at Smith’s, and we want to know if that is any nicer than our
place.” Their bright faces interested us, and we encouraged their
acquaintance by telling them we were not staying anywhere, but
traveling through the country. This was sufficient to fully arouse their
curiosity, and a flood of questions and exclamations were showered
upon us. “Just you two? Oh, how nice! That’s just what I like about
you New England ladies; now, we could not do that in Washington.
Do you drive more than ten miles a day? Is it expensive? Where do
you stay nights? Do you sketch? Why don’t you give an illustrated
account of your journey for some magazine? Oh! how I wish I could
sketch you just as you are, so I could show you to our friends when
we go back to Washington!” and so on until we bade them good
morning.
We crossed a very long bridge, and afterwards learned that it was to
be closed the next day and taken down, being unsafe. We found a
man at a little village store who would give Charlie his dinner. We

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Communication in Peacebuilding: Civil

Wars, Civility and Safe Spaces 1st ed.

ISBN 978-3-030-86189-6 ISBN 978-3-030-86190-2 (eBook)

1 Introduction: Civil Wars and Communicative

Introduction: Civil Wars and Communicative

Civil Wars: A Global Challenge

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

feature of the past but a persistent feature of the contemporary globalised

are experiencing civil war) have made a commitment to contribute to the

Civil Society, Communication

2 By post-civil war peacebuilding I mean peacebuilding after a peace agreement.

3 Lederach (2005) speaks of moral imagination.

civil society is always fragmented and contradictory and conceptions of

building of a school, the planting of a community vegetable garden or

Mapping the Argument

and redress the damage done by discursive dehumanisation and atten-

• Principle 1: Participants have to make a commitment to manage their

• Principle 2: Participants have to make a commitment to both listen

These three principles can be locally and culturally interpreted in different

(Connaughton et al., 2017).7 The success of this communicative process,

Final Introductory Remark

to a dynamic and progressive society but rather to help societies move

kind of local peacebuilding; locally led peacebuilding. This kind of local

Jenkins, R. (2013). Peacebuilding: From concept to commission. Routledge.

Civil War as Discursive Dehumanisation

Towards a Definition of the ‘Civil’ in Civil War

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 15

in the State, or when a large portion of a State rises in arms against

In such a scenario, citizens are pitched against each other to the

way of self-protection.7 ‘Neighbourly murders’8 do not only become

ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the

11 In a similar vein, Drost (1959) understands genocide as ‘the deliberate destruction

Civil War: An Attack on Civil

behaviour which displays substantive inter-personal civility and coopera-

16 See Sennett (2013) on (the politics of) cooperation and togetherness.

product of spontaneous interaction among individuals who act, respecting

25 See Wenman (2003, 2013) on agonistic pluralism and agonistic democracy.

ever [be] assume[d]’ (Agamben, 1999: 21) through legal procedures

understands them—to accept reasonable losses.29 What this means is that

acts to ‘bridge the specific identities of different communities; (…) find

are, in turn, justified by increased devaluation. While devaluation between groups in a

At the individual level, it refers to an empowerment of citizens to act

inns, erect churches, distribute books, send missionaries to the antipodes;

Attacking Civil Peace as Peaceful Cooperation Through Discursive

The Creation of an Internal Enemy

universe of moral protection, leaving them vulnerable to targeted [geno-

44 Neilsen (2015) speaks about ‘toxification’ as being a more appropriate indicator or

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