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Founded in January 2009, PubliCola is a blog about Seattle written by journalists who are dedicated to non-partisan, original daily reporting that prioritizes a balanced approach to news. Started by longtime local editor and award-winning reporter Josh Feit, PubliCola is the first online-only news site in state history to get media credentials to cover the state capitol.

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The first online-only news site in state history to get media credentials to cover the state capitol and Seattle city hall, PubliCola has been called a “must-read” by the Seattle Post Intelligencer and a hot “New Media Mover and Shaker” by Seattle Magazine—which also cited our own Erica C. Barnett as the city's No. 1 news nerd.

"This is What Peace Looks Like … It's Not Doves All Over the Place."—Lesley Hazleton

News   October 27, 2009 at 10:51 am Josh Feit

Yesterday, Heidi (PubliCola’s smarty pants BookNerd), published—quite frankly—a brilliant interview with local author Lesley Hazleton.

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I don’t know if Heidi is brilliant or if Hazleton is brilliant, but their Q&A (about Hazleton’s new book on the split between Sunni and Shia in the Muslim world) is one of the best things we’ve ever published here at PubliCola.

It’s long. So, here’s a quote from Hazleton from late in the interview to tease you into reading the whole, amazing thing.

We seem to imagine—again, it’s a very Western idea, specifically a very American idea—that peace means brotherhood and sisterhood and everybody fawning over each other. The peace I always think of is the peace between Israel and Eqypt, which has lasted now for 30 years, and Israel and Egypt do not like each other. They are not hanging over each other’s necks and calling each other brothers and sisters and so on. It’s an entirely pragmatic arrangement. We will not fight each other. We will maintain the minimum amount necessary of diplomatic and trade relations. Coexistence.

But let’s not imagine that coexistence means any kind of love or anything like that. This is called Peace. This is what peace looks like. It’s not doves all over the place or balloons in the air (laughs). Peace is when you’re not killing each other, it’s a good thing. Peace is when those guns are not aimed at you. It’s even better when the guns are not there at all but that’s another level of peace. And for long periods of history, Sunnis and Shia have lived together in that kind of peace. Relative tolerance of difference. But anybody can come along at any time and manipulate this. They can call upon this wonderful 7th century saga. They can call up images from it, scenes from it, slogans from it, and so on, as Khomeini did and others did before him. As Muqtada did in Iraq.

P.S. And you’ll find Hazleton on the comments thread to Heidi’s post.


  • 40-year Seattleite

    Interesting. And as someone who lived throughout the entire cold war, came of age in the middle of it, this thinking makes some sense. Yes tensions were often high (Cuban Missle Crisis, U-2 crashes in USSR, etc.) but Russians and Americans weren’t shooting at each other. Mutual toleration and the world moved forward.

  • 40-year Seattleite

    Interesting. And as someone who lived throughout the entire cold war, came of age in the middle of it, this thinking makes some sense. Yes tensions were often high (Cuban Missle Crisis, U-2 crashes in USSR, etc.) but Russians and Americans weren’t shooting at each other. Mutual toleration and the world moved forward.

  • sarah68

    The cold war was, after all, the cold war, not active war. The missile crisis was almost a war; I and my ex-husband were working at Boeing at the time and this country was set for war at any minute. But each side respected the other’s power of destruction and stopped short of that. I don’t think any of this is mutual toleration, as in tolerating political views or religious views; it’s mutual respect for group power. On the other hand, Hamas, etc. engender no such respect so they have to keep fighting. Neither Egypt nor Israel pays them respect because they are a rogue bully.

  • sarah68

    The cold war was, after all, the cold war, not active war. The missile crisis was almost a war; I and my ex-husband were working at Boeing at the time and this country was set for war at any minute. But each side respected the other’s power of destruction and stopped short of that. I don’t think any of this is mutual toleration, as in tolerating political views or religious views; it’s mutual respect for group power. On the other hand, Hamas, etc. engender no such respect so they have to keep fighting. Neither Egypt nor Israel pays them respect because they are a rogue bully.

  • Commenter

    Given this has two omments, I’d say this is not big news to us.

    Obviously peace rests on many things, including justice, and including war…we are at peace with Germany and Japan because we fought them w valid moral grounds and then treated them pretty good after the war.

    We didn’t fight USSR becuase of balance of terror and eventually outlasting them. In the process we sort of sacrified E Europe for a few decades as we didn’t want to go liberate them.

    Sometimes you love; we certainly feel fine about Canada and UK and many nations. Sometimes you talk. Sometimes you fight. There’s isn’t any simplistic formula for peace as many situations are different. Had Israel not fought the surrounding states a few times, there would be peace for sure in the middle east, with no Jews in what is now Israel either.

  • Commenter

    Given this has two omments, I’d say this is not big news to us.

    Obviously peace rests on many things, including justice, and including war…we are at peace with Germany and Japan because we fought them w valid moral grounds and then treated them pretty good after the war.

    We didn’t fight USSR becuase of balance of terror and eventually outlasting them. In the process we sort of sacrified E Europe for a few decades as we didn’t want to go liberate them.

    Sometimes you love; we certainly feel fine about Canada and UK and many nations. Sometimes you talk. Sometimes you fight. There’s isn’t any simplistic formula for peace as many situations are different. Had Israel not fought the surrounding states a few times, there would be peace for sure in the middle east, with no Jews in what is now Israel either.