AFTER VIOLENCE: 3R, RECONSTRUCTION, RECONCILIATION ...

than a calculated, instrumental act for basic change. But it will
probably provoke a counter-violence, and the process unfolds,
downward in this image, until the curve turns upward, less
violence, passing zero=cease-fire, and then into peace.
But then comes the basic point: after the cease-fire the
situation may be worse than before the violence erupted, for the
reasons explored in the preceding chapters. The direct violence
may be the lesser evil, at least in the longer term, than the
structural and cultural damage wrought. It is like the way being
hospitalized is seen in some societies: like a market. The
patient offers one disease and gets two or three iatrogenic
diseases in return, one surgical error, one infection; and then
"hospitalitis" if only in the form of long-lasting back-sores.
Direct violence may have come to a celebrated end. The
direct suffering is over, but the structural and cultural violence
have increased in the process. Violence therapy has to learn from
disease therapy: include prevention--build cultural and structural
peace--and include rehabilitation, meaning build cultural and
structural peace again. And again. And again.
To repeat: conflict is over incompatible goals, violence is
to do harm. One source of violence is to harm the parties that
stand in the way if the culture justifies such violence/11/. Hence
the division of conflict life cycles into three phases, simple but
meaningful: before violence, violence, after violence.
Before violence,try to unblock the incompatibility, and to
prevent violence in general. This is so much more easy if the
level of structural and cultural peace is high: there is a high
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