I watched some interactions at my local supermarket yesterday which really highlighted for me a relatively simple but important aspect of peace and conflict.
I usually go to a check-out person, but yesterday I queued at the machines. It was a busy time and the queue for the machines was relatively short. There were 3 people in front of me.
And then a man came swiftly by, ignored the queue and went straight to a machine.
The woman at the top of the queue said in defeatist sort of way – just to us in the queue not out loudly – ‘thanks mate’.
The man in front of me was not so shy about having his views heard – he called over to the man ‘thanks mate… that’s right, just ignore the queue… we’re a community here, we look out for each other…’ This man had a little earlier allowed a woman to go ahead of him in the queue. I think he rather fancied himself as a pillar of the community.
I wondered whether the ‘skipping-the-queue-man’ had actually seen the queue. We were standing a bit back from the machines and in the busyness it would have been easy to miss us.
By the time the ‘skipping-the-queue-man’ realised what was going on I was at the top of the queue (this all happened rather quickly). I saw that it suddenly dawned on him that there had been a queue. He waved over to me, smiled and apologised that he hadn’t seen the queue.
I don’t know if the other woman and man saw this or if they just took their frustration and annoyance and conclusions out into the word with them to share with others.
I’m not really into moralistic tales, but this little interaction really made me see how much we negatively presume about others and then take out into the world with us. Not jumping to such conclusions about people is a small action for peace with huge potential for conflict prevention in our everyday lives.
Peace and Politics 
Interesting story, I had the opposite experience while standing in line a man walked up and asked if he could go first because he was in a hurry. I replied that my time ( life ) was just has valuable as his and said no. He was startled that I said no having learned that by asking, most people would say yes to avoid conflict or to avoid being thought of as rude. I asked him if he asked people this often and he became visibly angry stating that he has the right to ask and I have the right to refuse. I disagreed and stated that his request was an insult and no different than if he had asked me for sex. You could have heard a pin drop in the store and the staff could barely keep from laughing.