Most of causes of conflict and most of the challenges facing the country, as well as some of the solutions have origin in its history. People must be led to scan their past, scratch through the ashes and ruins left behind by the violence, and examine the painful socio-economic and political wounds as well as scars to determine what went wrong, what conflicts existed and what triggered off the violence. In order to fully appreciate what aspects of the past are not congruent with their future aspirations, the

people and their leadership must be involved in clarifying and juxtaposing the past and

the future and select what aspects of the past must be abandoned and which ones can be purposefully used for building the future. If the past is not critically analyzed, there is the danger that past mistakes will be repeated and the violent conflict will erupt again.

 

For instance in the case of Sri Lanka’s vision development it was mentioned: “Any vision for sustainable peace in Sri Lanka must first acknowledge fully the complexity of the conflicts and their historical roots. It must also acknowledge the human and material consequences of the two decades of armed conflict, and hence the multi-faceted multi-layered causes of the war.” History can also help to uncover and identify traditional institutions or systems that may execute specific functions in the post-conflict era. The case of the Gacaca court system is a very good example of how tapping into history the government of Rwanda has been able to rely on past practices to solve present burning issues of justice and social reconciliation (see table below).