“Movement from potentiality toward actuality comes when you encounter a challenge” and respond
It was difficult to be a Catholic at that time because of a Marxist group, Frelimo, that had taken control - Frelimo (Frente De Liberacion de Mozambique)
“We will walk with you, seeking something better for you, we didn’t really have a sense of what that better could look like, we were not thinking about peace, we were not thinking about peacemaking, we were not thinking about anything, we were simply wanting to help a friend.”
“You have a community that becomes attentive to the needs of one person and through one person encounters a much larger human system, that is, everyone else in Mozambique”
“Peace is always possible. This must be repeated over and over in situations where you do not see the possibility of peace.”
“People need to hear that peace came to Mozambique because people started dancing. It didn’t come because the UN came; it didn’t come because you had a commission of inquiry, it came because there was a sudden restructuring, complete and profound and credible and genuine between the leadership and the people.”
“Every time I encounter anyone anywhere in the world that has any inclination toward peace, seeking what unites and what divides, I must strengthen that result, I must accompany that result.”
“I think that the human spirit is much stronger than war, much stronger than violence. I think that violence and war are mistakes, collective mistakes, they are mistakes of not applying yourself to the discipline of seeking what unites and not what divides. Being violent to others is a violation of your own humanity.”
“Peace must be learned, peace is not just something that happens. Peace is a choice, peace is a struggle.”
Dr. Andrea Bartoli, an international conflict resolution expert who has served in key academic and diplomatic positions for more than two decades, joined the School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University as Dean in July 2013. Prior to his appointment, Bartoli served as dean of George Mason University’s School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (S-CAR). Previously, he founded and directed the Center for International Conflict Resolution (CICR) at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) where he remains a Senior Research Scholar at the Saltzman Institute on War and Peace Studies. He also served as chair of the Columbia University Seminar on Conflict Resolution and launched its master’s program in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution. A highly collaborative scholar, Bartoli has a record of publishing with colleagues and students. His primary research endeavors have been related to genocide prevention and international conflict resolution.
Bartoli’s international portfolio spans more than two decades and four continents. He has served as the Permanent Representative of the Community of Sant’Egidio to the United Nations and the United States since 1992. In this role he has been involved in many successful diplomatic activities. He has served in numerous peacemaking processes including in Mozambique (1990–1992), Guatemala (1995), Algeria (1995), Kosovo (1998), Burundi (1999-2000), Democratic Republic of the Congo (1996-current) and Casamance (1994- current). Bartoli has also been a participant in the U.S. State Department’s testimony on Religious Persecution Abroad before Congress and was a member of the Department of State’s Religion and Foreign Policy Working Group in 2012.
Bartoli oversaw the development and implementation of CICR and S-CAR’s interventions in Burma/Myanmar, East Timor, Colombia, Iraq and the African Great Lakes Region. He has worked for and collaborated with both public- and private-sector partners such as the United Nations, the World Bank, the Global Coalition to Prevent Armed Conflicts, the Ford Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, the European Union, Parliamentarians for Global Action as well as for the governments of Norway, East Timor, Portugal, Sweden, Poland and Switzerland.
He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in anthropology from the University of Rome and his research doctorate degree from the University of Milan.
You can contact Andrea via his email at andrea.bartoli@shu.edu.