ABSTRACT
In post-colonial conditions of war and peace dialogue is not an uncontested act, nor is it inherently pacific in the ethical sense of the term. Dialogue is seen as mark of an attempt to resolve differences and found relations of harmony. Dialogue, therefore, in the contemporary world of contention is viewed as the way to peace. This chaper begins its account of the politics of dialogue by interrogating the supposedly unproblematic nature of peace. Peace has thus many visions, probably as many as life offers it in form of the way out of contentious politics. Honour, dignity, science, the technology of control, peace - are all to be understood as expressions of power. The argument of peace as security is premised on conflicts. The task of peace and dialogic studies thus lands itself in the deep, in the inner region of the problematic of formation state and particularly the formation of the modern polities.
