I am grateful to the peace champions at the Berghof Foundation for inviting me to attend the Berlin Moot convened on 18 and 19 April 2024 in Berlin. I was glad to meet with some of the champions from across the world. It was happy to reconnect with my good friends Lukas Noah Drammah and Patrick Steiner-Hirth of the Robert Bosch Foundation. Thanks, friends, for supporting the peace movement. I was happy to connect with the Berghof team, Nura Detweiler, Victoria Cochrane and colleagues who are doing wonderful work on Insider Mediation in Africa.

The Moot was convened under the theme, ‘Reshaping Peace’.

This is an important reflection at this moment in time when our world is on fire. As a historian and an African human rights activist, the significance of this high level gathering happening in Berlin was not lost to me. It was the 1884 Berlin Conference, in the heat of the scramble for Africa, that mapped the current borders of Africa, creating a colonial legacy that has shaped and reshaped history forever.

I salute the courageous leadership of the Berghof Foundation for recalling the world to reflect on peace in the world. I will share some detailed reflections later.

What was key for me was the theme, ‘Reshaping Peace.’ As an activist and student of Johan Galtung, I know that we cannot address the current peace challenges without challenging the harmful power dynamics. During the opening panel, Alar Karis, the President of the Estonia reflected on the need for reform of the United Nations. Also on the panel was Anka Feldhusen, the Director for Crisis Prevention and Stabilisation at the German Foreign Office. And so I had a question for the panellists, especially the representative of the German government which wields significant power in the world.

Is Germany ready to lead or support the call for a UN Charter Review Conference?

I asked this question because there is a consensus that the United Nations is the world institution that has been established with a primary mandate to build world peace. According to Article 1 of the UN Charter, the purpose of the UN among other things is, “To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace.”

This for me means that any conversation on reshaping peace, especially high-level platforms like the Berlin Moot, cannot ignore the frustrations of the UN peacebuilding infrastructure, acknowledging that this is an institution that was established for that purpose.

There is consensus among peace activists that current UN System has outlived its usefulness and that a UN Charter Review Conference is due. Prof Tim Murithi is on record that the United Nations (UN), which was created to address the problems of the world in 1945, is no longer fit for purpose in the twenty-first century.

At the opening of the Berlin Moot, Andrew Gilmour, the Executive Director of the Berghof Foundation challenged the delegates that the Berlin Moot should not simply be another conference but should come up with some concrete actions.

I believe one concrete task for all of us who truly care about peace is to interrogate the current UN system and work towards reform, to ensure that the UN is fit for purpose. I see this as something concrete that will have a significant effect on reshaping peace. Thank you Berghof for getting us talking. Now, let’s move into action.

See video here https://www.facebook.com/dzikamaibere/videos/428032053301649