"I", the "World" and the "Relationship"

Professor Wolfgang Dietrich was a visiting professor from Innsbruck University/ Austria who came to give us lectures on conflict prevention at UPeace in September 2007. Born in Austria, he has been engaging himself in numbers of peace building projects both as a practitioner as well as a scholar in Central America, East Africa and South East Asia.

With his distinct Austrian accent and deep voice, he was extremely elegant in the classroom even in jeans. However, what captured our mind most was not his charismatic dandy aura but the lectures themselves that were unforgettably inspiring, provocative and fascinating.

“Make sure you make it clear who you are and especially the relationship with you and the topic you chose when you write a paper.”

Whenever we get a writing assignment from Wolfgang, he repeatedly emphasized this point, which made me puzzled.

According to my limited academic experiences back in Japan as well as in the U.S., it is always strongly recommended that you avoid using “I” as much as possible in writing a paper. I don’t know whether it is because it makes your paper look somehow unprofessional or it is because objectivity is more appreciated than subjectivity-- or something else. Whatever the reason is, at least in academia (it may be the same in the business world), I had always tried to make myself be an invisible, faceless observer. However, what Wolfgang kept telling us was surprisingly opposite from what I had been doing.

“I don’t know what other professors have told you--”

said Wolfgang.

“But, in my class, what I want to know is about the connection between you and the subject. Without a voice of “I”, listeners would never grasp the real meaning of the words they hear.”

To be honest, when Wolfgang told us these things, I didn’t understand how this what he calls “relationship” or “connection” has to do with our peace studies. It sounded a way too philosophical and seemed to have nothing to do with the real world. However, looking back, what he wanted to tells us might be that you would never be able to make yourself fully understood by the others if you do not provide them with a context; and the context can only be explained in relation to the “relationship” between you and the subject. Hence, you should never face the subject without thoroughly extending your consciousness to the subject.

Once I came to understand the Wolfgang’s message, I realized that it partially solved my inner-struggle that had secretly nested ever since I joined this peace program. The struggle was about how I could justify my motivation to be in the field of peace studies. If you pay a little attention to the backgrounds of students in UPeace, you’ll easily notice that about half of them are from the countries where they have long severely suffered from various forms of violence such as: war, ethnic conflict, genocide, circulation of small arms, chronic poverty and HIV.

There were times I felt that I wasn’t entitled to speak out things that I had never exposed to in my life when I had a discussion with my classmates from those areas. The burning anger, hope and passion I saw in their eyes made me scared and ashamed about myself. While I could easily picture their beautiful future in which they dedicate their lives for the betterment of their mother countries, I could not really think about any for myself because I have been always happy in Japan without facing any serious issues in my life. That made me wonder: in the world where myriads of serious problems abound, on what ground should I set my lifetime objective as a peace maker? What brought me to this field first of all? Was I just so curious to know about the other side of the world?
I felt lost. I got scared if I was just a hypocrite.

A student from France raised his hand, asking a question to Wolfgang. He said that he was interested in writing about a conflict in East Africa but he could not find any connection between the subject and himself because he had never visited there. Wolfgang answered, revealing his dandy grin.

“I was born and raised in Austria without facing any serious issues in my life. My family was well-off and I received good education. It’s been more than twenty years since I started my career as a peace maker in the conflicts at Central America. And I’ve spent exactly the same amount of years in searching for the reason why I am here. If you really think that you cannot see any connection between you and the subject, you’d better change your topic. BUT, do you think the connection is really absent at all?”

Now, I think that the connection between the subject and “I” is not as obvious as people may think to be. The real essence of the connection may not exist in the connection per se. Rather, it lies in the will of the person and the process to figure out something that connects the subject and him/herself.

For example, what do you think is the connection between you and millions of people who live on less than one dollar a day? Once you start asking the question to yourself, the process of building relationship between you and　them is actually starting. Of course, fortunately or unfortunately, it is totally up to you how you face and deal with that relationship that was once born. In other words, you can simply choose to say that “it is nothing to do with me!” and pretend that there is no such connection ever existed between the two. Or, you can also start nurturing and develop the relationship by knowing more about their difficult situation, giving donation, talking about it with your friends, or even starting up your own NGO, for example.

In my understanding, peace studies involve lots of compassion—although it does not mean that it is an emotional or idealistic field-- it simply requires both science and feelings just by nature. What brings such feelings into the study is the “connection” between the subject and you. And that is exactly what brings the meanings to the actions and thoughts of “I”, who wants to do something to change the situation.

Try imagining the face of the farmers in a plantation in the Philippines or Costa Rica whenever you buy bananas or Nescafe at your neighbor supermarket. With a little change in attitudes and behaviors, you can actually see the whole dynamic structure of this world from what is surrounding you. The “connection” between the world and you may be just there.