how were conflicts dealt with in the historical era? are we dealing with similar conflicts in the same way?

2015 was the centenary of the events in the Ottoman Empire in which up to a million and a half Armenians met their deaths. Historians on all sides are more or less in agreement on what took place, but present-day Turkey and Armenia continue to be in open disagreement on whether to call these events a genocide or not.

Even if this disagreement is highly unlikely to lead to any kind of armed conflict between Turkey and Armenia, it continues to prevent a rapprochement between them and a normalization of their relations.

This is merely one example of how different views and interpretations of history continue to play a role in creating and stoking conflicts and in hampering efforts for conflict resolution. And even when conflicts are resolved with peace agreements, the unaddressed history you think you have buried can return as zombies to haunt you and at worst lead to a renewal of the conflict.

Post-conflict work also entails writing the history of the conflict in a way that meets the approval of all parties to it. We can well imagine how challenging this is for example in writing a common history for Cyprus, not to mention how to write Middle Eastern history if and when a lasting peace can be made between Israel and Palestine.

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