447 - Peacemaker or Peacekeeper? - Virginia Prodan

0:00We all heard this question. What is the difference between peacekeeping and peacemaking? I receive a question like this and from different people, some of them will say, I want to teach my kids. But what is the best to be a peacemaker or a peacemaker? And others will say, I would like to know if I am a peacemaker or peacemaker. So today, welcome back to courageous leadership with you, Ginia Pradhan. I am your host, Ginia Pradhan. I am an international human rights attorney, speaker, writer. Tindal published my memoir, Savin My Assassin.

1:02And I will use some examples from my life of peacemaking and peacemaker. And I will be more than happy if you want to read the book, Savin My Assassin, My Memoir, my light and the communist in Romania and here in Freedom in America. You can find it at www.vizginiapradhanbooks.com. So let's start with the basics. When you hear the words, peacekeeping. What comes to your mind? So there were peacekeeping. Or peacekeeping is in general a person who keeps a temper to law, avoids conflict, prevents

2:02open conflict or open discussion if there is a conflict. Try to restore the calm because it fears the confrontation. It's ready to agree to anything in order not to make the situation worse. Lots of time is motivated by fear of consequences, of a conflict, desire to be liked or by fatty, fatty, like I can handle another fight, those kind of things. But what is a peacemaker? A peacemaker brings peace, reconciliation of parties, restore the conflict by addressing

3:03the root cause of the conflict. Peace is making it different, it's active, it's not avoiding the conflict. It moves towards truth instead avoiding the truth. It's willing to address the root cause of conflict, even if that makes things uncomfortable in a short term. So if peacemaking is, let's not talk about that, peacemaking is, we have to talk about that. Peacekeeping can sometimes prevent the reserve delusion of harmony. Peacemaking tries to build real peace, the kind that holds weight. It's interesting because peacemaking is often rewarding in our society.

4:08You are the easygoing one, the flexible one, the person who doesn't cause harm and peacemaking can look like trouble-making, at least initially, because the peacemaker surfaces what everyone else is trying to bury. Which brings us straight to how I learned about this. I was living in communist Romania, a place where the state wanting complacency from people. Violence, uniformity, waiting that anything that will keep control intact by the government. And if you zoom out, that's peacemaking as a system. That's what the system will do.

5:10No interface, peace, no justice, just control environment where the dissident is crushed. So the streets seem calm or the society seems calm. That's a strong point because a dictatorship can look peacefully from a distance unless you are the one being watched, threatened, pressure or punish. I became a lawyer to defend Christian and human rights cases because I had seen the root of the problem. Peacemaking gets costly because it's not just calming down things. It's challenging a false piece of the government that wants to keep people so massive not to speak.

6:17Peacemaking is a little bit more practical. Peacekeeping says don't draw attention. Peacemaking says if the system is wrong, it needs to be confronted. That's exactly what I did. And the questions become, what are you willing to risk for real peace? Peacemaking, comfort, safety. In my case, everything escalated to my life was in danger. My memoir saving my assassin shows, you know, step by step, day by day and describe exactly how the situation. How the government tried to force us to silence.

7:20But my anchor was fate, purpose and refusal to let fear depict the terms of my life or the government. Peacemaking isn't adrenaline. It's moral clarity. It's choosing truth even when fear is screaming and you don't know what tomorrow will bring. People think peacemaking means being nice. Like I was smoted over and we all going to be friends. But biblical and historical peacemaking often involves confronting evil. It's not polite. It's not passive. It's not sugarcoting. In fact, in Matthew 5.9 Christ told us, bless other people, peace makers, for they

8:27will be called children of God. Yes, peace makers can create tension because they present to the root of the cause and the things they need to be changed. That is the essence of the title's concept of the book, saving my assassin. I responded to violence not just with presenting the legal reasons for changes. But it was also spiritual and rational changes that I view that needed to be applied. Which is where peacemaking gets really uncomfortable for you or for all of us.

9:36Because we are fine with the idea of finding injustice. But what about loving your enemies? What about refusing to become the kind of person the oppressor expects you to become? Peacekeeping says just survive. Peacemaker says I will not let this term me into someone ruled by hatred. And that's a powerful distinction. Peacekeeping often tries to manage external condition. Peacemaking focuses on internal integrity while still acting externally. Peacekeeping avoid hard conversation. Peacemaking or peacemaker initiate them with courage and care.

10:39Peacekeeping is often motivated by fear. Fear of conflict, fear of loss, fear of retaliation. But peacemaker is often motivated by love, love of truth, love of people, love of freedom and love of God. And that is how it supports them. That's what supported me in communist Romania. And in every circumstances that I am dealing with that I have to choose to be a peacemaker or a peacekeeper. Now I can really hear an objection. Isn't peacekeeping something necessary? Like not every conflict should be escalating. That's when you're right, not everything. But there is a difference between wisdom and avoidance. Peacemaker doesn't make picking fight.

11:42It means refusing to lie with a silence or it's silent. But take a stand. In my case I wasn't silent or neutral when the government put in jail Christians, the Mollish churches, put me on the house arrest or arrested me for defending them. I expose the government and I ask the government to respect our rights. In families, workplace churches or communities here in America, silence can protect the person doing harm and isolate the person being harm. So peacemaking can look like speaking up for co-workers or everyone else or reporting

12:46wrong to air even when you will be unpopular or establishing boundaries where you used to wear, used to set them. That's a risky factor. Peacekeeping is law risk. Peacemaking often costs you something. In my case I was under surveillance, intimidating, threatened, placed under house arrest. The government sent an assassin to kill me and finally I was forced to leave Romania. People imagine courage as one big moment. But usually it's a daily practice and you have to do it all over tomorrow no matter how courageous you are today or yesterday.

13:53Through peace it's there where you have to include justice too. It will have to include people being able to worship free. Speak freely. Leave without fear that the state will take their property or take their life or punish for their belief. In my memoir, the faith proves an anchor that was so powerful the government could not move it at all. When external freedom is threatened, internal freedom becomes an act of resistance under dictatorial regime. That's peacemaking too because if the system can force you to hate, to despair, to become

14:59cruel, then they win twice, once because they make you like them and then you just don't see the difference anymore. I also want to talk about forgiveness here because forgiveness is the same as many people say forgiveness is the same like big keeping. But the real forgiveness is not pretending. It's not avoiding conflict. So forgiveness can be a peacemaking act because it tells the truth about wrongdoing and still refuses to revenge as the final word. In another words for forgiveness, it's not denial.

16:01It's a decision not to carry that hurt and it doesn't cancel justice. In my life as a lawyer, I was seeking legal justice for my clients. I was in front of judges and prosecutors even in front of the person who wanted to kill me because I wanted to reach, change and redeem what was wrong. And the dictatorship in Romania. Let's make this even more concrete. Consider a conflict that you have right now. Maybe in your family, maybe it's work, maybe it's in your community and ask yourself those questions.

17:04Am I keeping peace or am I making peace? It's a big difference. Here are a few diagnostic questions. One, am I avoiding this because I'm afraid? Two, is my silence protecting someone's comfort at the expense of someone else's safety? Three, if I spoke honestly with something I have a chance to heal someone or something. Number four, what's the smallest piece making step I could make this week? It's interesting. Not an heroic type one, just a realistic one. Like requesting a meeting instead of avoiding the meeting.

18:13Like apologizing for your part instead of waiting for the other party to apologize or to come to you to apologize. Like establishing a boundaries and sticking to it. Another thing is telling the truth once calmly without exaggeration. All my life in Romania over here, I learned that being a peacemaker involves establishing a strategy. I was a reckless, I used the law as a lawyer, I built cases against the dictator, I found ways to navigate a hostile system without surrendering my principle, keeping my faith

19:19and God's principle intact and by the grace of God I'm alive and the traitor is dead. So peacemaking or being a peacemaker is not just moral, it's practical, it's biblical. It asks what action actually moves us towards freedom and justice. Again, what action actually moves us towards freedom and justice? Not just what makes me feel virtuous today or important today. I want also to talk about another piece that is important in this strategy and that is community.

20:20Peas making or peacemaker, peacekeeping and keepers usually found themselves isolated. Why? Because they are trying to manage everything alone. Peas making or peacemakers often requires lies or a community. You will see in my book, Saviomai Assassin, how God brought around me many Christians from my church or from the churches that I defended or even for other churches that I didn't defend, but they were touched by my actions. People will come around you as a peacemaker and will support you.

21:21Yes, in a positive system, in a dictatorial system, one of the tactics was of the government to make people feel alone, to separate them, to make resistance things like impossible. But a peacemaker will never be alone. Peas maker rebuild trust in people. I had seen that in Romania, even as the government tried to destroy our trust in everyone around where people, even in our family, will be spies. Peas maker connects people. It says we are not going to pretend this darkness is normal. We are going to change this. My life isn't that dramatic.

22:23On the other side it says the peacemaker, the peacemaker, just keeping like this, that will be okay. But I'm the light dynamic, it's everywhere. Do we cooperate with what's wrong to keep things easy or do we risk discomfort to make things right? Even in everyday settings, peacemaker can become a habit of self-insured. You keep the peace at any cost. You swallow your needs, your conviction, your voice, and all the time, resentment, growth and relationship goes and you are alone.

23:23Peas maker on the other hand is honest sooner. It brings oxygen into the room. So stop for a moment and reflect to the world making. Peace making implies peace doesn't just happen. It builds. It's like a bridge. Do you understand that? And bridges require structure. They require strong material. Building that to start construction while the gap is still there. In my memoir I show the peace that God helped me to build on fear. The peace that God helped me to build made the fear collapse.

24:26This build on truth can endure even if it takes time and costs you something. Peace making is exhaustion. I'm tired. Everything is a failure. I try again. I try before. It's human. But more important than anything is to ask the question. Why? Why are you a peacemaker or a peacemaker? My why was trying to keep my fate and my calling, defending people and refusing to let lies, lies of a government ruling me. Peace keeping often asked the victim to do emotional labor to lower their standards.

25:33Peace maker shifts the burden back to where it belongs. It says we can have reconciliation but not without truth. We can have unity but not without accountability. That's maturity. That's study point of peace. Not for age. Not fake. We can learn from my life that peace making or being a peacemaker is courageous, courageously truth for telling, rooted in love, aim at freedom and peace keeper. At the worst is nothing but silence in the face of evil, dress up like politeness.

26:37Keeping the peace has been used to keep people oppressed. So be careful and watch your doing. And who do you want to be? My memoir, the very premise of my memoir is an enemy becomes someone you fight for, rather than simply fight against. Not just I want you to stop, but I want you to be changed from a killer to a brother in Christ, which doesn't mean your truth, your trust that person immediately. It doesn't mean there are no consequences. It doesn't mean you refuse to reduce a human being to the worst assignment.

27:40But you can practice this week, those steps. Pick up one relationship in a situation where you are peace keeper or peace making and ask yourself. Pick up one action that moves you to the direction, one honest conversation, one boundary, one act of courage. And if the cause feels scary, you're not alone. That's the difference between being a peacemaker and a peace keeper. Peace keeper tries to escape fear to avoid conflict. Peace maker face fear and build something truer on the other side of reach. I hope that you will keep your courage, close your conscious, your faithfulness, and you

28:45will be reminded that God asked us and finally surely in Mark 5.9 said, bless the peace keeper. Bless the peace maker because they will be called children of God and just to make you aware of something. Peace keeper avoid conflict. Ignore, sin protects fragile status quo to keep everyone happy. The one in power happy. Peace maker confronts stations with grace and truth to build genuine lasting reconciliation. So now you know. And I hope you will send us more questions. Tell us how God helped you to be a peacemaker and to bring changes in his power.

29:53Until next time. Please go to VirginiaProtonbooks.com. You can buy the books, save me my assassin. You can also put your questions. We are here to help you. May God bless you and be a peacemaker in God's power and change the world. Until next time. Bye bye. And don't forget you are love and you can be a peacemaker. Bye.