Future Youth Group, Pakistan, unearths unique ways of Conflict Management for Peace in the Region

All living beings react differently in conflict. The reactions of human being are the most diverse when confronted with critical conflict situations. During a workshop of Future Youth Group by Liberal Youth South Asia (LYSA) the focus was on Systems Thinking Paradigm while dealing with the personal, communal, regional and other conflicts. The moderator, Ms. Gulmina Bilal made the participants ponder why and how people turn violent in various circumstances.

The participants of this exclusive workshop on “Peace & Liberalism” agreed that the pivotal issues need to be addressed with an open approach. Problems become more and more intricate if they are not tackled in time with the liberal methodology. The liberal methodology enables us to dissect the problem with an open mind without biases leading to possible liberal solutions or compromises. Liberalism has offered a certain paradigm of tolerance, peaceful coexistence through pluralism ensuring all basic rights with social responsibility that rejects any possibility of stern actions towards the opponents. Liberalism gives every one right to have one’s own point of view as far as it does not cause any threat to others.

Gulmina Bilal interacting with the participants The young participants from Future Youth Group (FYG) had gone through extensive exercises and intensive debates to find 'Democracy and Liberalism' as peace strategies to resolve local and regional conflicts. What Can We DO? What Role I Can Play? These were the questions that sounded out in the end. The main area of concern is that we all should be striving for peaceful liberal solutions at the individual and collective levels. The momentum build at this workshop was the driving force for the FYG representatives at the South Asia Summit 2008 held in Delhi in November as these areas were also touched upon in the program of the Summit titled “Towards Democracy, Peace and Open Borders”.

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