Ali Gohar | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Ali Gohar Pakistan |
| Nationality | Pakistani |
| Education | MSc, International Relations, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan; MA in conflict transformation, Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, Virginia, USA |
| Known for | Just Peace Initiatives |
Ali Gohar is a Pakistani noted scholar and restorative justice expert and the founder and executive director of Just Peace Initiatives (formerly Just Peace International).
Ali Gohar was born in the village of "Kaala", district Swabi in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Ali Gohar has an MSc degree in international relations from Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan. He also holds a M.A. in conflict transformation from Eastern Mennonite University’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, in Harrisonburg, Virginia. [1]
For 13 years (until early 2001) Gohar worked as the Additional Commissioner Social Welfare Cell for Afghan refugees (a project of UNHCR) in northern Pakistan. His work covered 258 Afghan refugee camps with programs in HIV/AIDS awareness, peacebuilding, and community development. In 2001 Gohar was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to Eastern Mennonite University’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding to complete his Master’s Degree. While at CJP Gohar worked closely with Restorative Justice pioneer Howard Zehr. They would later collaborate on a revision of The Little Book of Restorative Justice specifically targeted at the Pakistan-Afghanistan context. [2] [1] Shortly after returning to Pakistan in 2003 Gohar founded Just Peace International (now Just Peace Initiatives), a non-profit aimed at working for peace and justice through conflict transformation practices. [3] As part of this work he received a United States Institute of Peace (USIP) grant to explore the principles of Jirga as peacebuilding. In 2006, Gohar began working as a campaign officer with Oxfam Great Britain to end honor killings and address violence against women in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province) of Pakistan. In December of that year he left Oxfam to return to Just Peace Initiatives as executive director.
In addition to his book Gohar has published a number of works on Restorative Justice practices and the Jirga practices. In June 2002 Gohar led a workshop in Peshawar, Pakistan titled, “Conflict transformation and peace building in Pakistan and Afghanistan in a 2002 world” highlighting efforts at community peace building and restorative justice. [4]
In 2007, as part of his work with JPI he produced a 13 episode TV program for Pakistani TV on violent conflict titled, “Why it’s happened”. As part of this program he interviewed police, religious experts, jirga practitioners, and psychologists in order to understand the root causes of ethnic, tribal, and political conflicts. [5]
Gohar has written several TV scripts for nationally broadcast programs aimed at combating drug use, preventing AIDS, reducing domestic violence, and honor killings. [6]
In order to be successful, peace efforts at the grassroots require that local, indigenous mechanisms work in partnership with both the government and community. The participation of both is necessary in order to reach the underlying causes of the conflict, resolve it according to the local indigenous law, and make it on a par with standards of human rights as enshrined in the UN charter. Such local and indigenous mechanisms empower communities to take on the responsibility of conflict prevention, resolution and transformation, and move forward with the socio-economic development of their respective societies. - Ali Gohar [7]
Pashtuns, also known as Pakhtuns, Pashteens or Pathans, are an Eastern Iranian ethnic group primarily residing in southern and eastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan. They historically were also referred to as Afghans until the 1970s, after the term's meaning had become a demonym for members of all ethnic groups in Afghanistan.
Restorative justice is an approach to justice that aims to get offenders to take responsibility for their actions, to understand the harm they have caused, to give them an opportunity to redeem themselves, and to discourage them from causing further harm. For victims, its goal is to give them an active role in the process and to reduce feelings of anxiety and powerlessness.
Abdul Ghaffār Khān BR, also known as Bacha Khan or Badshah Khan, and honourably addressed as Fakhr-e-Afghan, was a Pashtun independence activist, and founder of the Khudai Khidmatgar resistance movement against British colonial rule in India. He was a political and spiritual leader known for his nonviolent opposition and lifelong pacifism; he was a devout Muslim and an advocate for Hindu–Muslim unity in the subcontinent. Due to his similar ideologies and close friendship with Mahatma Gandhi, Khan was nicknamed Sarhadi Gandhi. In 1929, Khan founded the Khudai Khidmatgar, an anti-colonial nonviolent resistance movement. The Khudai Khidmatgar's success and popularity eventually prompted the colonial government to launch numerous crackdowns against Khan and his supporters; the Khudai Khidmatgar experienced some of the most severe repression of the entire Indian independence movement.
Bannu District is a district in the Bannu Division of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. Its status as a district was formally recorded in 1861 during the British Raj. This district constitutes one of the 26 districts that collectively form the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. It borders North Waziristan to the northwest, Karak to the northeast, Lakki Marwat and Bettani to the southeast, and South Waziristan to the southwest. It is represented in the provincial assembly by four MPAs.
A jirga is an assembly of leaders that makes decisions by consensus according to Pashtunwali, the Pashtun social code. It is conducted in order to settle disputes among the Pashtuns, but also by members of other ethnic groups who are influenced by them in present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) is a private Mennonite university in Harrisonburg, Virginia. The university also operates a satellite campus in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which primarily caters to working adults. EMU's bachelor-degree holders traditionally engage in service-oriented work such as health care, education, social work, and the ministry. EMU is especially known for its Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP), particularly its graduate program in conflict transformation.
Parachinar is a large town which is the capital of Kurram District in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. It is mainly inhabited by Pashtun.
John Paul Lederach is an American Professor of International Peacebuilding at the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, and concurrently Distinguished Scholar at Eastern Mennonite University. He has written widely on conflict resolution and mediation. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Colorado. In 1994 he became the founding director for the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University where he was a professor. He currently works for the foundation Humanity United.
Swabi District is a district in the Mardan Division of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan. It lies between the Indus and Kabul Rivers. Before becoming a district in 1988, it was a tehsil within the Mardan District. 96% of the population speaks Pashto as their first language.
The Pashtun diaspora comprises all ethnic Pashtuns and their descendants who are living outside of their traditional homeland of Pashtunistan, a historic region that is today situated over parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. While the (erstwhile) Pashtunistan is home to the majority of Pashtun people, there are significant local Pashtun diaspora communities scattered across the neighbouring Pakistani provinces of Sindh and Punjab, particularly in their respective provincial capital cities of Karachi and Lahore. Additionally, people with Pashtun ancestry are also found across India; particularly in Rohilkhand, a region in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh; and in the Indian states of Gujarat and Rajasthan. Outside of South Asia, significant Pashtun diaspora communities are found in the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Iran, Australia, Canada, and Russia.
Peacebuilding is an activity that aims to resolve injustice in nonviolent ways and to transform the cultural and structural conditions that generate deadly or destructive conflict. It revolves around developing constructive personal, group, and political relationships across ethnic, religious, class, national, and racial boundaries. The process includes violence prevention; conflict management, resolution, or transformation; and post-conflict reconciliation or trauma healing before, during, and after any given case of violence.
Howard J. Zehr is an American criminologist. Zehr is considered to be a pioneer of the modern concept of restorative justice.
Gohar and Gauhar are given names and surnames. Gawhar is a given name. Bearers of the name include:
Leymah Roberta Gbowee is a Liberian peace activist responsible for leading a women's nonviolent peace movement, Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace that helped bring an end to the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003. Her efforts to end the war, along with her collaborator Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, helped usher in a period of peace and enabled a free election in 2005 that Sirleaf won. Gbowee and Sirleaf, along with Tawakkul Karman, were awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work."
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Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP) is an accredited graduate-level program founded in 1994. It also offers non-credit training. The program specializes in conflict transformation, restorative justice, trauma healing, equitable development, and addressing organizational conflict. CJP is housed at Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) in Harrisonburg, Virginia, which describes itself as "a leader among faith-based universities" in emphasizing "peacebuilding, creation care, experiential learning, and cross-cultural engagement." One of the three 2011 Nobel Peace Laureates, Leymah Gbowee of Liberia, earned a master's degree in conflict transformation from CJP in 2007.
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Syed Pir Gohar Ali Shah, also known as Shaer-i-Aman, was a Pakistani poet, songwriter, critic and freedom activist who primarily wrote poems in Pashto language. He is also credited with contributing to the independence movement of Pakistan. He sometimes wrote articles and essays under pen names such as Shilmani and Silani.
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