We must try to avoid totalizing the violence in order to understand the positive peace. Interview with Juan Gutierrez

Abstract

Juan Gutierrez was invited to share the experience of "Peace Strands Project" in Mexico by the Universidad Autónoma de Puebla and the Tecnológico de Monterrey. This particular project and the long-winded reflection of the interviewee about a strong concept of peace are particularly inspiring and relevant in the actual crisis context of human rights related to the "war on drugs" in Mexico. Why? From his perspective, embodied in the Peace Strands Project, this gives visibility and adds value to resistance and life gestures that deconstruct the logic of the sides of the war and the figure of the enemy. It is about not "totalizing violence", that is, not seeing it as a complete, all-powerful absolute and for it, that for that,  to focus on gestures of positive peace crossing the sides and that place value on the traverse humanity always underlying open conflict situations. Juan Gutierrez and the interviewers maintain a live dialogue about these issues for years now and, in the context of his trip to Mexico, they thought that it might be valuable to share some thoughts, experiences, and stories to think otherwise the violence in Mexico.