Resolving Conflicts

Louis

MYP5

07/09/2011
The French revolution started upon a conflict between the King Louis the XVIth. The French people had just realized how their king was cheating them be it by spending all the tax's money or by not giving them enough freedom or food. Although the revolution started very fast and with no thinking behind it, the fights could have been avoided by having a non-violent leader that would have lead the French people to a peaceful resolution. In 1789, a period of darkness and death made its way troughout the French country. The peasants were ploting against the monarchy in place at this time. A revolution started. Many of the dukes and counts as well as the king and all his underlings were executed. These atrocious events could have been avoided by non violent acts like a treaty. Non violent acts are hard to believe in, but between two parties, if there is a "treaty" option, most of the people would consider it to be the right answer. Killing people and burning castles down has never been a good thing for a country. To most people, fighting and killing is not a "good" way of resolving a conflict. But when a "hotheaded" leader comes in the play and makes people want to fight to resolve their problems, the individual often lets the mass control his thoughts and everyone is lead on one samepath, violence. But a violent act brings to another violent act. Eschyde:"violence only leads to violence."1, Jean-Paul Sartre:"Violence always has a couter violence, which means an answer to the other's violnece."2. As Eschyde and Sartre say: violence is never the good answer because it only leads to more violence. As example to this, their is the Afganistan-Irak conflict. It lasted so long that no one remembers who started it. As Paolo Coelho said "We are always at war. We are always struggling with death, and we know that in the end death will win. In the armed conflicts it is more visible, but in everyday life, it's the same. We can not have the luxury of being unhappy all the time."3 It means that people would fight so often because things go wrong or because of their unhappy behavior that wars would just follow each other. Coelho also says that If people don't find a way to solve conflicts by non-violence, the world will be at war "non-stop". The only way that people can work together with the goal of doing a non-violent action is to all have positive or "happy" behavior and leader. Like Ghandi or Martin Luther King Jr showed it, we can solve conflicts by non-violence if we want it. Even if it takes a long time, it is better then fighting. The opposite of this is what happenned during the French revolution. People reacted very fast and negativly towards the power in place at this time, and this reaction started a very bloody and deadly fight between the French people and the noblesmen that ruled the French country. The blood bath that took place in France during the revolution would have been avoided by a better reaction coming from the King and from the people. Unfortunatelly, it did not happen this way and the French revolution has changed the country's fate. Nowdays, we would have hoped that people Ghandi or Martin Luther King Jr could have been an example for the next generations. Unfortunatelly, the wars and blood bath continue and are not going to stop soon. Sources: 1. http://www.evene.fr/citations/mot.php?mot=violence 2. http://www.evene.fr/citations/mot.php?mot=violence 3. Citations conflits - Citation et proverbe sur conflits - citation

2.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_revolution

outline: 1.Intro 2.Thesis 3.Explain the facts 4.Take position with argument 5.Explain why it did not work 6.Conclude

Thesis statement: The French revolution started upon a conflict between the King Louis the XVIth. The French people had just realized how their king was cheating them be it by spending all the tax's money or by not giving them enough freedom. The revolutionary movement could have been avoided however, not only the King would have played a part in this.