Building peace requires both sides

Question from the Internet:

“Do you believe that it takes two sides to end a war?”

Well, technically “ending a war” can happen one-sidedly, when one comprehensively defeats the other.

But building true peace — not simple “ceasefire” agreements that are temporary — requires both sides.

We can build true peace only when we realize that we are drastically different, we instinctively distrust, even hate one another and we also accept that we can never suppress, erase our differences, not even the distrust and the animosity.

But we also learn — and the education is the most important part — that we can build something common, mutually beneficial above everything that separates us, especially in today’s globally integrated, interdependent world where boundaries, personal, national identities become secondary to the crucially necessary, positive, constructive, mutually responsible and mutually complementing cooperation our problem-solving and collective survival depends on.