What does Peace in 2024 mean for you?

Like many, I have started the year full of intentions and ideas for how I wish the year to evolve – in my business and in my personal life. But I have also started it with dismay and heartbreak as I witness what is unfolding in Gaza. I worry too about the violence and bloodshed escalating and spreading to the West Bank, where I used to live, and where I am thinking often about the friends I have there.

?My wish for peace

And also, like many, my big wish for this year is peace in the Middle East. For the many innocent people in Israel, Palestine and surrounding countries who are bearing the brunt of violent political actions by their governments, or by the US and UK.

I wish for peace for the people in Gaza who are suffering bombings every day, for the people of the West Bank suffering from increased military raids, and for the people of Israel who have been displaced or whose loved ones were killed or abducted during the October 7 attacks.

I’m conscious that on both sides there are claims of their lived experiences and traumas being ignored or sidelined in the media. And ultimately no one person’s suffering should be more valid than another – particularly when we are talking about women and children who have nothing to do with the acts of brutality being inflicted by military forces and armed groups.

?No hierarchy of suffering

In my book I make the bold claim that there is no hierarchy of suffering – what we feel is what we feel, and deserves to be seen and heard equally to anyone else. Where there are differences is in the level of injustice one person may experience that leads to such suffering. Yet who of us, as individuals learning about each other, is to make the judgement of whether one person faces more injustice than another?

?We can easily form our opinions out of a particular affinity we may have. In my case, I feel a huge affinity and sense of solidarity with the Palestinians, because I worked alongside them for so many years. It is easy for me to judge the other side in ways that perhaps undermine the complexity of whom exactly this comprises, and their particular lived experience.

?And yet I also know that these ‘us and them’ tactics have largely failed. They don’t bring people closer together, they do not encourage dialogue and understanding; and instead lead to further polarisation and division.

Staying courageous and connected in conflict

Whilst many of us continue to be concerned with, and calling out, oppressive and violent behaviour (both of which are valid and very human responses) – can we also find opportunities to lean in and listen to opinions and points of view that we disagree with? Can we put ourselves in uncomfortable positions, to have courageous but also compassionate conversations with those who do not share our beliefs?

?The need for these sorts of conversations is more important than ever.

We start 2024 with multiple points of deep and often uncompromising division: whether this be about the Middle East, or gender, the refugee crisis, or vaccines or something else. We witness and experience these divisions on social media, in meeting rooms, at universities and at the family dinner table in ways that can feel threatening…even violent.

But in many of these incidents – particularly those in which we know we are not threatened with physical or psychological harm – we can remain curious, and courageous. We can seek to find connection, even whilst maintaining our point of view. It’s not easy, but I do believe it is essential – particularly if indeed our intentions for this year are for peace.

?This peace begins at home

This peace begins with how we engage with each other – not for point scoring and winning an argument, but for deepening our understanding of the other person and why they behave the way they do. This peace is a daily practice, which encourages us to come out of our heads – where intellect rather than human emotion drives our responses – and into our hearts, where we can be vulnerable and hold each other in all our human complexity.

I finish here with a question: where are the opportunities for you to practise courage, connection and peace in your daily life, even with those you disagree with? May those moments be great teachers for 2024. ?

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There is still time to join The Vulnerable Humanitarian Book Circle, starting the week of 12th February: an opportunity to show up courageously with others in the aid and charity sector, and find new ways of bringing peace into your daily routines and the way you engage with the colleagues and communities you work with. Register here.