There is an evolution in human affairs spreading gradually over the planet, one might say since the time of Homer, which reaches now into the struggles in the Caucasus. In our time it is seen as the challenge of the post-Soviet period and is framed by talk about creation of a civil society.
Civil society is no small objective.
Indeed, if one thinks of a civil society in broad terms, namely as society based upon equal dignity for those without political or military power, peacemakers today participate in one of the major paradigm shifts of human history. Nothing in ancient history or under the empires of the Khanates or the Turks, or the Czars, or in the Soviet experience, prepared the Caucasus for politics in which openness or truthtelling is the norm. They are part of a web that holds a peaceful society together, or keeps it peaceful. Nothing, either, in these regions riven by ethnic conflict lays the groundwork for sharing power with such politically weaker members of society as women, Jews, or ethnic minorities. And that, if perhaps too simply stated, is also near the heart of what we mean by civil society.