NEIGHBOURLY RELATIONS AS A RESOURCE FOR VIOLENCE

"People who have lived next to each other peacefully as neighbours strike out abruptly at one another. Neighbours suddenly define themselves as members of different ethnic groups, races, or political camps, rather than as inhabitants of the same street. Neighbours become enemies, at times even mortal enemies. How can this be? Those who have analyzed the history of a conflict sometimes tell us that conflicts that we think have developed before our very eyes are, in fact, longstanding. Peaceful neighbourly relations have merely concealed them. But does that really reframe the problem? Why were the conflict and its parties not pacified by peaceful coexistence? Or if peace was pure camouflage, how can peace camouflage – for years or even decades – what is in fact a state of war"?