Essays

Alternative Definitions of Peace: Finland and Israel*

Introduction

            The following will be in large measure an exercise in moving from truism to truism in hopes of providing a stronger conceptual framework for what we probably all already believe.

Word denotations in different languages partition semantic space differently.  Word connotations in different languages form different networks of linkages spanning semantic space.  Whether we accept the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that these different partitions and linkage networks give rise to different perceptual organization of experience, we can scarcely doubt that cultural differences at least partially parallel language differences.  Therefore, if we are interested in promoting peace in places where English is not the dominant language and our Anglo-American heritage is not the dominant culture, it would seem worthwhile for us to pay attention to the denotations and connotations of words that purport to translate the English word “peace.”

            For purposes of illustration, I choose two triples of language, national identity, and conflict, using national identity as a stand-in for culture.  They are: (a) Finnish language, Finland, and Finnish-Russian conflict; and (b) Hebrew, Israel, and Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  I consider the Finish-Russian conflict as an example of a relatively successfully resolved long-standing conflict, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an instance of a thoroughly unresolved conflict.  A fuller analysis would consider both sides of each conflict.  Here, I focus mainly on one side.  However, I hope that noting some of the contrasting differences between these two conflicts may help us understand the conditions for successful resolution of national conflict.

            Of course, consideration of each of these triples requires taking note of its historical and geopolitical context, an important part of the connotations of “peace.”

Finland

            I shall spend more time on Finnish history than I do below on Israeli history because most Americans are much more familiar with the history of Israel than with the history of Finland.

Compared to Russia, which has been for several centuries a great power, Finland is a small country with a small population.  In the eighteenth century, Finland was twice temporarily overrun by Russia; finally, in 1809, it was decisively conquered, and Finland was ruled by Russia until 1917.

However, the Russian occupation was unusual: although the Tsar was an absolute despot in Russia, with respect to Finland he was a constitutional monarch.  Moreover, though Russian military forces controlled Finland, few Russians settled in Finland, not enough to alter the Finnish character of the land.  Russians never claimed that Finland was their ancestral home.  Not until 1899 did Russia challenge traditional Finnish culture and seriously attempt to Russify Finland.  It was this effort that led to the first intense Finnish efforts in almost a century to expel the Russians.

The 1917 Russian revolution precipitated a bitter, bloody civil war in Finland that ended in May 1918 with defeat of the Russians.  The treaty acknowledging Finnish independence was signed in 1920.

In 1939, the Russians unexpectedly and without provocation attacked Finland.  Despite enormous superiority in manpower and armament, because of general military incompetence the Russians were unable to subdue the Finns.  After three months, a peace treaty ceded to Russia a sixth of Finland, but Finland preserved its independence.  Under the terms of the peace treaty, the Finnish inhabitants of the ceded territory, about an eighth of the population of Finland, had the option of resettling in Finland or becoming Russian citizens.  Overwhelmingly, they chose to resettle in Finland and left the newly Russian occupied territory voluntarily in an orderly, peaceful withdrawal to Finland, where they settled throughout the land and did not have to live in resettlement camps.

Two years later, when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, Finland joined the war on the Nazi side.  At first, the war went well for Finland, and most of the Russian-occupied territory was recaptured and resettled by its former Finnish residents.  However, in 1944 the Russians launched their great final offensive.  By the end of the war, the battle lines were essentially at the pre-1941 border.  This border was confirmed in the subsequent peace settlement, and the resettled people again lost their homes and again resettled elsewhere in Finland.  In addition, Finland was forced to pay heavy reparations to Russia.  Unlike every other state that had war reparation payments imposed on it, Finland made all its reparation payments, paying off its debt in seven years.  This complete payment of their war debt was for the Finns a source of national pride.

In 1948, Finland and Russia signed a pact of friendship and cooperation.  Thereafter, Russia used its “good relations” with Finland to showcase the possibility of coexistence and even friendship between Communist and Capitalist nations.  It was thus in Russia’s interest that Finland continue independent and thriving.  In recent years, Finns and Russians have each tended to see themselves as long-term winners in the centuries-long conflict between them.  The Russians feel they have won the territory they most coveted, and have in neighboring Finland a “friendly” society that provides a pleasant vacation haven and convenient money-laundering connections.  The Finns feel that they have beaten long odds by preserving their independence and prosperity.  Their resettled inhabitants are generally satisfied with their situation after resettlement.  They have not felt excluded from the mainstream of Finnish society.  In general, the Finns today feel prosperous and lucky.  They feel that they have a great deal to lose if the conflict with Russia flares up again.

            The Finnish word for peace, rauha, connotes rest or calm.  In Finnish, the word for “restlessness” is literally “un-peace.”  Thus, for Finns, war is linked to activity, peace to inactivity.  They associate their present peaceful relations with Russia with tranquility, and view the past conflict as a time of unwholesome turbulence.

Israel

            In contrast, the Hebrew word for “peace” is linked etymologically and by pronunciation with the Hebrew words for completion and for making a final payment on a debt.  Thus, absence of peace, in Hebrew, connotes incompleteness and imbalance, like a sequence of notes that ends without resolution on the tonic.  It also connotes an unfulfilled obligation.  Thus, in the Hebrew-Israeli culture, peace suggests a relaxation of tension.  Attaining peace is like assuaging a persistent itch.  Through its association with the settling of a debt, it suggests that without peace an obligation continues unfulfilled, that someone owes someone, and that therefore attaining peace means moving from a situation where one party has a temporary unfair advantage over another to fairness in the relation between the two parties.  Thus, before peace is achieved, implicitly there is lingering injustice.

            The Israelis have inherited a long tradition of injustice collection.  They can cite generation after generation of debt accumulation.  Their language favors their seeing peace as achievable only by the resolution of that historic debt.

            However, such a view makes achieving peace like the carrying out of a long overdue contractual obligation.  But if the Israelis feel that carrying out the contract requires they be compensated for past injustices, then how can they ever be satisfied if their opponents, the Palestinians, feel that they, not the Israelis, are the historically injured party?

            Both the Palestinians and the Israelis feel that they are the historically weaker party.  The Israelis feel that their nation is surrounded by stronger, vastly more populous, hostile states whose regimes thrive by fostering hatred of Israel to divert popular dissatisfaction with the absence of economic or political democracy.  This reminds Israelis of how Russian despots used to use pogroms as safety valves for popular resentment of their brutal, corrupt, and inefficient regimes.

            However, the Palestinians see the Israelis as stronger, as an occupying power that seeks to expel them from their land, and to a considerable extent has succeeded in doing so.  Those Palestinians who did leave Palestine did not generally leave voluntarily in a relatively orderly retreat.  Rather, they felt driven out.  Moreover, they did not find welcome, resettlement, and integration into the daily life of the countries to which they fled.  Rather, they were generally confined to crowded, economically moribund refugee camps, and they did not generally feel a sense of integration into the countries where they resettled.

            People who feel they oppose a stronger enemy tend to feel justified in what they tend to consider desperate measures, which are often measures that others consider unfair or uncivilized.

Moreover, contracts are generally valid only if each party anticipates a quid pro quo, i.e., a benefit from the carrying out of the contract.  If both parties expect the other side to compensate them for past injustices, then a mutually satisfactory resolution is possible only if the two parties have sufficiently different value systems that each can consider as of little value what the other party receives.  For example, if there were territory that the Israelis considered undesirable that their opponents valued highly, and vice versa, then an exchange of territory might be possible that would leave both parties satisfied.  Without such a possibility, any so-called quid pro quo would not resolve the tension implicit in lack of shalom, and hence true peace would not be achieved.  Consider, in this light, the great value that, for religious and historical reasons, both Israelis and Palestinians assign to Jerusalem.

Conclusions

            Peace calls for willingness of both sides of a conflict to cease from further conflict.  If each side feels itself in some sense a victor, peace is far easier to achieve than if each side considers that it has lost unfairly.  It also helps if both sides do not consider the same turf theirs.  Feeling that they are presently prosperous discourages people from stirring up conflict.  Feeling that they are impoverished encourages people to do extreme acts.

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*Copyright Ó 2001 by Herbert G. Gerjuoy.  All rights reserved