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provide opportunities for people on all sides to work together to make an event happen and gradually develop understanding and trust. Such networks or ‘webs’ of relationships, if they cut across problematic social divisions and grow and strengthen, contribute to social stability (Kidd and MacDonnell, 2007). But even with peace-building, sports pro- grams must proceed with great caution. Sport programs cannot achieve peace-building by themselves, but must be carefully linked to other interventions, especially those directed at truth and reconciliation, disarmament, pov- erty reduction and other forms of develop- ment. Here, too, leadership is key. Given that the idealized culture of ‘fair play’ and respect for one’s opponent as co-players is far from universal, and that sport has been used to de- monize as well as affirm difference, it is essen- tial that the leaders of any program aimed at reconciliation and re-integration be explicit about its purposes, and the values of inclusion and fair play on which activities are based. Sporting competition need not be conflict-pro- ducing, but that distinction needs to be care- fully drawn in the day-to-day experiences of sport, as Jim Parry (2012) has written. In post- conflict societies, it is especially important that participants and supporters accept the values of fair play and respect for one’s opponents as a condition of participation, and see them- selves in the intended activities. Given the gen- der violence so deeply intertwined with many current conflicts, it is also essential that sport for peace-building includes specific programs

for gender equality. Above all, as Brian Wilson (2012, p. 199) argues, ‘the complexity of social problems in and around sport must be account- ed for. If responses to such problems are over- simplified, it is unlikely that responses to these problems will be effective or lasting.’ Conclusion Sports have always had a contradictory rela- tionship to social conflict and the struggle for a share of human resources that usually un- derlies it. In some societies and periods of his- tory, sports have helped advance the interests of some groups over others, while on other occasions they have helped mitigate the most harmful effects of such conflicts. In our own times, sports both accentuate difference and exclusion and provide a site for the dramatic affirmation of the aspirations of the most marginalized. Two recent initiatives—the modern Olympic Truce and Sport for Develop- ment and Peace—seek to marshal the power of sport to reduce military conflict, global in- equality and the related poverty, disease and despair that drives and results from conflict. Both need to be strengthened, both need to critically address the social conditions in which sport takes place, and both need to be much more effectively linked to similar inter- ventions in other spheres of society. But both are highly commendable. The workers’ sport movement, which has shared many of the goals of peace-building and conflict resolu- tion over its long and distinguished history, would do well to support them.

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