LO6: What did I learn about this issue? Why is it a significant issue?

With IFP now on hold as a result of the “circuit breaker” announced, as well as the fact that the IFP conferences themselves will not be carried through, it seems to be a good time to pause and reflect on what new issues I was actually introduced to in IFP, and how these issues actually were significant. Having been registered for the Timor Leste conference, much of our preparation time before the actual conference planning was devoted to addressing extremely large questions regarding peace-building; questions that would force us to actually think about the impact we were having. We discussed questions such as “What is violence?” in the context of real-world instances of violence (e.g the Israeli-Palestinian conflict), and also applied a combination of theoretical knowledge (such as our study of Galtung’s pyramid of violence, that affirms that there are three types of violence; direct, cultural, and structural) to supplement our practical understanding of conflict in the world. This meant that, despite not actually being able to learn about the conflict in Timor Leste in IFP, I was still able to gain a profound and applicable perspective on the nature, manifestations of, and real-life impact of violence in the world, a skill that would help me not only in IFP (or, I suppose, would have helped me more if the conferences had not been called off), but also in general, in helping me gain a better understanding about the presence and manifestations of violence in the world. Overall, despite the lack of a conference, I feel that I can still walk away from IFP knowing that I have gained an invaluable and multi-faceted new perspective on the world; one that I can apply to a variety of other activities or subjects, and can be a useful future asset.