by Elena Passerini
“We invite this Congress, and through it the scientists of the world and the general public, to subscribe to the following resolution:
“In view of the fact that in any future world war nuclear weapons will certainly be employed, and that such weapons threaten the continued existence of mankind, we urge the governments of the world to realize, and to acknowledge publicly, that their purpose cannot be furthered by a world war, and we urge them, consequently, to find peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of dispute between them.”
Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell and several Nobel laureates in physics and chemistry addressed us with the 1955 Manifesto. They tried to convince governments and public opinion to acknowledge the need to abolish war, i.e. to organize peaceful means to settle (not resolve!) all disputes between states. After 69 years, we can say that the scientists’ urgent call has been rejected by many governments and not understood by public opinion.
The new Italian translation shows that there is a problem with the interpretation of the Manifesto’s call because the text is profoundly innovative, different both from Kant’s proposal for perpetual peace and from diplomatic techniques (including Nonviolent Communication).
Several Italian translations contain inaccuracies, so I have proposed a new one, published in the Italian News, that highlights the key words. I remind that we are talking about Albert Einstein, the scientist who revolutionized the classical view of physics by opening up horizons difficult to understand, and Bertrand Russell, the philosopher who, in 1902, sent the whole world of mathematical logicians into a crisis with just a line that revealed a fundamental but unseen contradiction.
The Resolution proposed by Russell and Einstein, reproduced above, is based upon the concept of settlement and not the one of solution.
‘Resolution’ means a shared decision, binding on the basis of those who must implement the decision, who choose to implement it because they share those objectives and are committed to building the necessary means. Resolution is a choice, not an imposition. States should find methods, systems, for the settlement of disputes. The noun settlement has no direct correspondence in Italian, so I propose to translate it with five verbs: dirimere, comporre, patteggiare, sistemare and regolare, i.e. straighten out, compose, negotiate, settle, regulate.
A historical fact that occurred in times of ‘peace’ is the starting point for the new perspective opened up by the Manifesto: the Bikini Test.
Given the functioning of the laws of nature, physical and biological, correctly interpreted by the Nobel laureates, the logical and practical consequence should be that all conflicts should find ‘settlements’, characterized by the absence of the threat of war, i.e. its abolition. The key word they have chosen is settlement, they have not written ‘solution’. (To solve all matters of disputes would be impossible). The German version does not say ‘Lösung’ either, but ‘Schlichten’, which means to settle, to iron out the conflict, not to resolve it. They are not synonyms, they are two different words.
But what is the difference between them?
The first meaning of settlement refers to materiality of the life of human groups who, exploring an uninhabited area, need to organise themselves, to settle as best they can, before they can build a village. These authors are telling us that states must find, that is to say create, peaceful means of settling all disputes between them. They do not say that all conflicts must (or could) be resolved. That may be the wish of the reader or the translator, but there is something else in the text, not the word ‘solution’.
The settlement is an innovative situation, a first concrete arrangement, the possible organisation of a new, unexplored environment. The old structures already built, i.e. those of the war, can no longer be used and must be abolished. It is necessary to build completely new systems where you are, here and now, in the atomic age. The objective is pragmatic, not utopian: it is certainly not a matter of ‘solving problems’, but of addressing controversial issues of a practical and political nature.
The settlement is the goal and also the operational, not ideal, not perfect, not final, tool of the peaceful means that States should find or create with the collaboration of scientists and citizens. The goal is to be able to start ‘settling’ disputes, with the participation of the parties concerned, in such a way as to allow for ‘adjustments’, if not outright ‘agreements’, i.e. ‘arrangements’, ‘adaptations’, ‘compensations’, ‘assurances’ or ‘understandings’ of various kinds and durations. Indeed, the word ‘settlement’ is found in the dictionary in expressions such as ‘life settlement’, ‘settlement hearing’, ‘wage settlements’, ‘marriage settlement’ and the like. What is important in this context is that such a settlement excludes the preparation and threat of military force, i.e. it excludes a priori that any decision can be entrusted to the fate of arms, since war has been definitively abolished, it is no longer permitted.
The abolition of war is the logical precondition for the possibility of taking the first step, in the present, i.e. the construction of ‘settlements’ aimed at ‘settling’ all conflicts between states: both those that can be resolved and those whose resolution does not exist and is not possible.
The ‘solution’ is, in fact, logically the last step, in the future, in a path of conflict management or settlement, and certainly not the first. This seems to be the reason why, after the Bikini breakthrough (not Hiroshima!), Russell, Einstein and their colleagues called for something other than the diplomatic ‘solution’ of disputes, which is in many cases impossible.
A solution puts an end to a conflict and can be achieved by various means, even violent ones. Rather, settlement, the ‘settling of the conflict’, is the beginning of paths that can also be walked by different means.
This beginning is often blocked because the path of imposing ‘a solution’ that somebody else has chosen is taken. But for ‘the others’ this solution means defeat and thus preparation for the next revenge. This leads to chains of wars, interrupted by periods of ‘peace’ full of fear, resentment and preparation for propaganda and the next war.
This confusion between the first and the last step of a path of conflict elaboration is very common: for decades there has been far too much talk and teach about ‘solution’, while the word ‘settlement’ seems to me to be confined to certain sectors like banking or insurance.
After the Bikini test, the logic of war mors tua vita mea is no longer applicable, the nuclear situation leads to mors tua mors mea, as extensively explained by Franco Fornari in the 1960s and accepted by 122 states (TPNW).
The demand of the Russell-Einstein Resolution is to create a politics that functions in a new way, in a direction other than the hegemony of the most armed, to create the capacities and conditions to be able to deal with all conflicts, without eliminating them and without ‘resolving’ them with violence.
The choice of the word ‘settlement’ aims to overcome the perfectionist concept of ‘solution’.
The scholars write ‘all’. All disputes between states, without exception, must find places, times and appropriate ‘settlements’ to enter into a system that is unarmed, but loaded with skills, awareness, means and methods to take a new path to settle, regulate and compensate disputes, even if the solution does not exist.
Settlement is constructive, rational, contextual, pioneering work. It is about observing, listening, describing, knowing, understanding, exploring, assuring, verifying, settling all contentious issues.
The concept of peace and ‘peaceful means’ mentioned by scientists is not what most dream of, a future utopian situation. Given that what is at stake is the preservation of the biological conditions for the survival of human life on earth, the abolition of war is the precondition that leads to the need to find new ways of dealing with political disputes here and now.
The aim is not the future victory of one or another ‘solution’, but to live in the present a more complex and better organised system that seeks and finds settlements in which all conflicts must be unravelled and transformed in ways that are possible, not only without bombs, which would only be a first step and certainly not an ‘ultimate solution’, but without the permission national sovereignties give themselves to threaten war.
When Russell wrote all, he really meant ∀.
Difficult?
Indeed. In fact, at the moment it seems that both states and public opinion continue to insist on the old path of dangerous illusions, based on the refusal to choose the abolition of war and a sentimental attachment to unlimited and armed national sovereignties.
The question of the difference between wars and conflicts, words which are wrongly used as synonyms, is therefore in need of further study.
