Making Peace Visible

A mediator's story of making peace against the odds in Mozambique

"I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will."This aphorism from political philosopher and journalist Antonio Gramsci is one of our guest Neha Sanghrajka’s favorite quotes. When you learn her story, you’ll understand why. An attorney from Nairobi, Sanghrajka spent almost a decade in Mozambique mediating a peace process between the country’s president and a guerrilla leader stationed on a remote mountaintop. Sanghrajka and her colleague, Swiss Ambassador Mirko Manzoni, travelled back and forth between the capital of Maputo and the militant headquarters in the remote Garongosa Mountains 45 times – a journey of over 1000 km each way. And when she wasn’t hoofing it up the mountain, Sanghrajka spent many hours just listening to local people, without expectation. The peacebuilders walked a delicate line. Knowing that previous processes had failed when they were over-exposed to the media, they protected the negotiations from scrutiny. At the same time, they engaged journalists and civil society with the public implementation of the process. Neha’s story presents a fascinating example of how polarized groups can actually buy into a process of reconciliation, despite major setbacks along the way; and how journalists can report responsibly and critically, while still supporting the aspiration of peace. Before moving to Mozambique, Neha Sanghrajka worked with former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan during the 2007 election crisis in Kenya and helped facilitate election reform there. She’s now a fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University.Learn more about Neha SanghrajkaRead Sanghrajka and Mirko Manzoni’s report on the peace process in MozambiqueVisit the Maputo Accord website ABOUT THE SHOW The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin. Our associate producer is Faith McClure. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.orgSupport our work Connect on social:Instagram @makingpeacevisibleLinkedIn @makingpeacevisibleBluesky @makingpeacevisible.bsky.social We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show!

AI diplomacy: Can 'peace tech' make the world less violent?

Public funding for peace efforts took a massive hit with the gutting of USAID last year, and other donor countries have ramped down aid as well, in a world that feels increasingly less safe for many. That’s why our ears perked up when we heard about Brian Abrams, an American venture capitalist who is investing in technology to find solutions to violent conflict. In the new field of ‘peace tech,’ companies are using AI to predict the likelihood of major events – like military invasions or popular uprisings, and modeling how to prevent violence before it starts. With their ability to process massive data sets from intelligence, journalism and other sources, these tools can also quickly gain insights on what’s driving conflicts on a population level. Important tools for governments and mediators, they also appeal to corporations working around the world – customers who Abrams hopes will bring in revenue to sustain the peace tech sector. And as you’ll hear, he’s very optimistic. Brian Abrams founded B Ventures Group, a venture capital firm for peace tech, in 2023. Prior to that he was president of Ibex Investors and a managing partner at Row Capital. Connect with Brian Abrams on LinkedIn. Learn more about the peace tech companies discussed in this episode: Anadyr HorizonFrom Business Insider: Inside the Billion-Dollar War over Peace TechTranscend AICulturePulseodr.com ABOUT THE SHOW The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin. Our associate producer is Faith McClure. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.orgSupport our work Connect on social:Instagram @makingpeacevisibleLinkedIn @makingpeacevisibleBluesky @makingpeacevisible.bsky.social We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show!

Venezuela: Where's human rights in the narrative?

It’s hard to keep up with the number of unprecedented actions the second Trump administration has taken, but what happened on January 3 – when the US military extracted Venezuela’s president and first lady amidst an aerial assault on Caracas – is impossible to ignore. Also seemingly overnight the U.S. government’s narrative on why they were taking action against Venezuela changed – from interdicting the drug trade to restoring the country’s oil sector. In this special episode, we look at the many narratives surrounding the U.S. action in Venezuela, and separate fact from fiction. We also discuss what this power shift means for Venezuelans, who have been living under a repressive regime, and a longrunning economic crisis. Our guest is Enrique Roig, an international relations expert whose career has spanned government, NGOs and the private sector, and more than 40 countries. Roig has more than two decades of experience in diplomacy, development and human rights, including extensive experience in Central and South America. He’s testified before Congress about human rights abuses committed by the Maduro regime.Roig served in the State Department during the Biden administration, as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. Currently the Vice President for External Affairs at Human Rights First, he writes about Venezuela and U.S. foreign policy on Substack at Enrique Roig - Unleashed. LEARN MOREEnrique Roig’s SubstackOn human rights in Venezuela from Human Rights WatchOn journalism in Venezuela and the diaspora: How Venezuelan journalists broke the information blockade with a 10-hour broadcast of Maduro’s ousterListen: MPV’s episode with Caracas-based journalist Tony Frangie Mawad:Journalism under authoritarianism: An indie reporter persists in Venezuela ABOUT THE SHOW The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin. Our associate producer is Faith McClure. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.orgSupport our work Connect on social:Instagram @makingpeacevisibleLinkedIn @makingpeacevisibleBluesky @makingpeacevisible.bsky.social We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show!

Making Peace “Possible” with William Ury

William Ury is one of the world’s most influential peacebuilders and experts on negotiation. He advised Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos in the lead up to that country's historic 2016 peace agreement with the FARC, and played a key role in de-escalating nuclear tensions between the U.S. and North Korea in 2017. Getting to Yes, which Ury co-wrote with Roger Fisher back in 1981, is the world’s best selling book on negotiation. Ury co-founded the Program on Negotiation at Harvard, as well as the Abraham Path Initiative, an NGO that builds walking trails connecting communities in the Middle East. His new book is called  Possible: How we Survive - and Thrive - in an Age of Conflict. It’s filled with incredible stories from Bill’s career. In this episode, Bill talks about how lessons from the failures and success of the past – in places like Northern Ireland, Colombia, and the Middle East – can be instructive when dealing with the conflicts of today.  He shares exciting ideas about how journalists can tell stories about peace. What’s more, his insights on managing conflict can be applied anywhere from the UN to the boardroom to your own family. William Ury’s ideas aren’t easy to implement –  in fact they’re incredibly challenging. Ury says conflicts don’t end, but they can be transformed, from fighting with weapons to hashing differences out in a democratic process. And if Northern Ireland, South Africa, and Colombia – places where people said violent conflict would go on forever – could transform their conflicts, then there’s hope for the seemingly “impossible” conflicts of today. Music in this episode by Joel Cummins, Podington Bear, Kevin MacLeod, Meavy Boy, and Faszo.This episode was originally published in May 2024. ABOUT THE SHOW The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin. Our associate producer is Faith McClure. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.orgSupport our work Connect on social:Instagram @makingpeacevisibleLinkedIn @makingpeacevisibleBluesky @makingpeacevisible.bsky.social We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show!

American UnExceptionalism: Resisting religious nationalism in Sri Lanka and Myanmar

This week we’re featuring an episode from American UnExceptionalism, a limited podcast series that examines the intersection of authoritarianism and religious fundamentalism around the world – looking for lessons that Americans can learn from to resist Christian nationalism and the threat it poses to our democracy. The series turns the idea of American exceptionalism on its head, asking: What can we learn from others about protecting democracy when the stakes are high? Co-hosts Susan Hayward and Matthew D. Taylor bring their expertise to bear as scholars of religion, religious extremism, and peace. In this episode, Taylor and Hayward explore Sri Lanka and Myanmar (Burma), two Buddhist-majority countries. In the words of one guest, a “minority complex” exists in both countries – the sense among members of the dominant group that they’re under threat from minority groups inlcuding Hindus, Muslims and Christians. Authoritarian leaders have exploited these fears, but religion has also been used in creative ways as a tool of resistance. And in Sri Lanka, a nonviolent uprising unseated an elected president who had become increasingly authoritarian, amidst an economic crisis in 2022. Guests are Geethika Dharmasinghe from Sri Lanka, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto, with a PhD in Asian Literature, Religion and Culture, and David Thang Moe from Myanmar, is a Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer in Southeast Asian Studies at Yale University.American UnExceptionalism is a project of Axis Mundi in collaboration with the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies. This episode was produced by Scott Gill and engineered by Scott Okamoto, with production help from Kari Onishi. The executive producer is Bradley Onishi. Additional producer by Andrea Muraskin and Jamil Simon at Making Peace Visible. ABOUT THE SHOW The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin. Our associate producer is Faith McClure. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.orgSupport our work Connect on social:Instagram @makingpeacevisibleLinkedIn @makingpeacevisibleBluesky @makingpeacevisible.bsky.social We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show!