A Perspective on
Peace-building
We have for centuries been limited by our fears and
doubts in relation to whether peace could ever be possible. Our limited
thinking has helped keep us trapped and unable to create any real
changes or to work together to build sustainable, peaceful communities.
But at this time in history the voices seeking peace are louder and
stronger. It is time!
As
the sun rises in many different countries on each new day our world is
honoured and blessed with the birth of many children, all innately
bringing along with them a promise of peace. Each newborn child offers
its own unique gifts, its own spirit, its own individuality and its own
destiny. As the subsequent days unfold these children begin to grow up
in a world, presented by the media especially, as being one that is
unfortunately pained and tormented by the threat of war and terrorism, a
world constantly torn apart by famine, and disease and disasters, a
world not at peace with itself.
Tending to shiver when we
remember the Hiroshima catastrophe, the horror of Auschwitz
and the devastation of September 11,
and when current world events are vividly displayed upon our television
screens, the haunting memories of humanity’s past inability to act
humanely towards its fellow man linger and constantly stir many fears of
more violence, devastation and horror to yet to come. Perhaps we have
allowed ourselves to become trapped by our fears, believing we are
unable to break the terrible cycle. The present world crises again hint
at the violence never ending and of more inhumanity being repeated. That
promise of peace has seemingly become lost forever.
By
choosing to continually share tales of woe and perpetuate the old ways
of dealing with our fears, the ways that separate humanity that
constantly place us at war with each other, we will continue to be
disempowered and unable to make any lasting peaceful changes. The United
Nations plead to our governments to utilise peaceful and nonviolent
processes to resolve conflict. While pondering whether the world leaders
will choose any of their next actions wisely do we accept any personal
responsibility in relation to peace-building?
In order to live the dream
of peace, even daring to dream it as Dr Martin Luther King Jr
courageously did during the turbulent years of the American Civil Rights
campaigns, what steps can we personally take to affect positive change,
redirect thinking, educate our minds and hearts and create an enduring
peace consciousness? What can we personally do to instill peace as a
natural way of life and fulfill that birth promise of peace upon earth?
Like the newborn
children we also have brought gifts to the world and could choose to use
these gifts and contribute to the creation of peace on earth rather than
perpetuate the negative images of an unsettled world.
Existing peace
education thinking and peace-building
Traditionally peace
education has involved the exploration of issues related to peace by
highlighting the inequities and injustices that continue to prevail in
our world. Despite concerted efforts to present and skill governments,
communities and our children in social justice initiatives and
reconciliation procedures, even when good solutions and actions are
determined, such peace-building has not become an intrinsic and
automatic way of operating. Many people experiencing effective
peace-building programmes still remain powerless to make any sustainable
positive changes.
Contributing to this
malaise our television, radio and newspapers prefer to present the
sensational and violent images of our world therefore defining it as
unsafe and certainly not peaceful or able to sustain peace in any way.
The peace-building stories and activities presented in this book have
been created to counterbalance the prevailing helplessness that
especially children can feel. Implying that children should be protected
from the realities of the world is not the intention, but certainly the
instigation of more balanced, less violent presentations of real life
issues needs to be considered. The stories being presented need to help
communities heal the dis-ease in order that people can feel more
empowered to begin peace-building. By simply redirecting thinking and
creating images of a more peace-loving world, a world not continually
defined by negative media images or by stories that are not
peace-building, then perhaps the creation of a universal peace
consciousness is possible. It is very important, though, that there
exists a belief amongst all communities that such a creation is
feasible.
Patiently walking this
road, together, firstly in our own communities, remaining constantly
attentive to the need to be positive and value every peace-building step
forward is the message that will reverberate after sharing and creating
peace-building stories. Peace must begin primarily with each of us.
Finding ways to continually counterbalance the negative images and
restore a reasonable balance and perspective into our lives, for
everyone’s sake, especially for the children, in order to develop that
necessary momentum will be required. Otherwise sustaining the necessary
energies and commitment to building a peace consciousness will be
impossible.
Peace-building: a
working definition
There are many opinions
about the nature of peace-building, its purposes and its essential
elements. We can begin by exploring some of the essential ingredients in
successful peace-building suggested by Luc Reychler (date unknown) in
his paper Peace Building Architecture. He highlighted that:
|
“It has become clear
that proactive conflict prevention (that is, efforts made before a
conflict has escalated) is more cost effective than reactive conflict
prevention (that is, efforts made after a conflict has become violent to
contain and reduce the intensity, duration and the possibility of
geographic spill over). There is a growing perception that there are
limits to the level of violence the world can permit. It has become
clear that sustainable development is impossible without sustainable
peace building.” |
This paper presented
the challenges facing the international community in resolving conflict
peacefully, the financial impact of making the world safe from conflict
and creating a more effective system to prevent violence. His
definition, being primarily concerned with international levels of
conflict resolution, associated peace-building with the creation of
win-win situations or ones that mutually benefitted all parties and
instilled a sense of interdependence continuing between them. The
established peace-building processes, he also suggested, need to also be
embedded in institutions that reinforce and sustain peace. Believing
peace-building being not only about construction, but also about
deconstruction, must also involve a rebuilding process that redefined
and re-established new modes of operation. Other important inclusions in
an effective process involved seeking understandings in relation to the
parties’ respective expectations about the future, and ensuring the
inclusion or exclusion of all the owners and stakeholders in any
process. The peace-building terminologies and processes presented,
though as complicated as they seem, are not only pertinent to resolving
international issues but are relevant to everyday community and family
peace-building as well. Such processes are effectively instructed in
many existing peace-building programmes.
Just as peace is not an
antonym for war, neither is violence. One person’s definition of peace
may also not be another’s especially as peace-building doesn’t
necessarily involve attending to issues of unrest, violence or war. The
highlighted complexities involved make peace-building, especially at an
international level, a very difficult, often perplexing and time
consuming task. Peace-building is not something that can be simply
“taught”. Even simplifying the process for daily living is not easy. But
by identifying the truly important underpinning peace-building elements
could make peace-building manageable for our children to instill into
their everyday thinking and action. This is the point at which this book
attempts to present the beginning of peace-building experiences for
children.
The peace-building
definitions therefore used in the activities presented in this book
involve the following simplified universal understandings about the
nature of peace and peace-building.
Utilising storytelling
processes this book endeavours to explore peace-building possibilities
in many varied contexts for any person working with children to consider
using. Conflict management strategies and other peace-building
alternatives are intertwined amidst the magical and transformative
stories that have been chosen. Sustaining peace and building a peace
consciousness involve many elements that challenge and extend everyone’s
basic understandings about peace and how to create it. The ideas in this
book merely present some possibilities and perhaps a place to begin
exploring all levels of peace-building with children.
The language of
peace-building
The Tower of Babel is a
Bible Story that proposes a reason behind humanity’s inability to
understand others through language. Semantics can play a role in the
confusion that underlies communication problems as well but we do live
in a world in which different peoples speak thousands of different
languages. These language issues often prevent us clearly communicating
with each other about our peaceful intentions.
In Anita Remignanti’s (date unknown) article Language for Growing
Children of Peace she begins:
|
“One way children
learn about peace early in life is from their language environment.
World peace will depend largely upon the training and education of our
children. It is in the interest of world peace that our children are
taught the language of peace and enlightened communication early in
life.” |
Defining peace-building
language creates similar problems as were supposedly experienced in
Babel centuries ago. Language that contains some peace-building elements
is intrinsic to Montessori Educational Processes. The use of enabling
language with children simply involves communication with and between
them that is empowering and respectful and seeks to have each child
evaluate their own learning and determine the directions it should take.
This concept is valuable within an educational framework especially as
children learn to take responsibility for their own learning. Enabling
language focusses a child’s attention and verbalisings upon what they
can do rather than what they cannot. It also seeks to focus their
attention upon what they can do next to continually grow and expand
their learning. Peace-building language should be enabling and safely
support children, to carefully listen, to clearly define issues, accept
responsibility and determine future action. Peace-building language does
not focus upon comparison or evaluation about who is right or who is
wrong.
Stuart Rees (2003) in Passion for Peace: exercising power creatively he
stated:
|
“Literacy about
human rights and non-violence provides the values to succour and the
language to explain an inhumane basis for sovereignty. The media may
have to learn this language as much as ordinary citizens, otherwise the
priorities of politicians and the realities served up for public
consumption will be dominated by exhortations about wars on terrorism
and about the priority of defending a civilisation.” (Rees, 2003
p285) |
His expressed passion
for peace acknowledged the importance of raising the awareness of the
need for peace-building in communities. He viewed peace-building as
being a process that must include a justice element and highlighted
again the role individual responsibility should play. Yet more
importantly he focussed attention upon the role the media and our
politicians play in perpetuating the language that limits peace-building
and feeds a separation consciousness rather than a feeling of
connectedness. It is a language of comparison and evaluation intent upon
determining who is right and who is wrong. It is this language that the
media immerse our children in constantly and it is the language they
imitate. The language modelled by many of our politicians and promoted
by the media is often aggressive and judgemental not enabling
peace-building language.
In an enlightening
dialogue about peace in the Middle East in 1998 that occurred between an
Arab woman, by Diana Abu-Jaber and her friend and colleague David Frank,
a Jewish man talking some pertinent points about the role of
peace-building language were raised.
Diana: “Do you see a
possibility of reframing that artistic language and perhaps achieving a
real global change through artistic vision?”
David: “I think this
is where art comes in because we need to craft a story and a narrative
that allows Israelis to be proud of what they've achieved while at the
same time acknowledging the great tragedy that beset the Palestinians in
1948. In the same way, Palestinians need to craft a narrative in a way
that allows them to recognize the existence of Israel and some of the
legitimate claims made by Jews to the land.”
And later in the
dialogue Diana stated:
“It is finally in the connections between ourselves and others--the
people we love and the people we must learn how to love--that we learn
how to be human again.”
Being human again may
be more appropriately interpreted, relative to Diana’s context, as
people possessing a peace-building consciousness. The dialogue
emphasised the importance of not only of creating new peace-building
stories that respectfully and empathetically address issues, but to
honour these stories as well by sharing them. Another significant point
raised was David’s reference to the reframing of language,
reconstructing it to become enabling, and presenting it in new
narratives that may then entice humanity to rediscover its innate peace
loving sensibilities.
John Hagelin (date
unknown) in his article Transcendental Consciousness Defined stated:
| “In the Vedic
science of consciousness, the experience of Transcendental Consciousness
is said to be profound. It allows the mind to experience the deepest
level of its own intelligence, which is described as the deepest level
of the intelligence displayed everywhere in nature—the unified field of
all the laws of nature. The technology of transcending thus allows the
individual mind to align itself with all the laws of nature at their
source.” |
His comments hinted at
an even more significant reason to nurture the growth of a peace
consciousness, one that will produce more profound results than peace,
one that does not rely totally upon language but merely upon a
connection with nature and the universal intelligence. Peace-building
stories do connect us with the source of life via the universal peace
consciousness. Now do we have the chicken and the egg conundrum to
solve? Does peace-building language construct a peace consciousness or
is peace-building language consequential to a peace-building
consciousness being developed?
The telling and sharing
of well crafted stories, ones that use the language of peace-building
and that explore peace-building elements may be the simpler and easier
way to approach any peace-building with children. We can avoid any time
wasting involving the analysis of language that can complicate and
confuse the issues. Transformative peace-building stories do magically
connect children to the universal consciousness, John Hagelin referred
to, simply by sharing them with children.
Story not only provides
a simple context but the imagery that can construct clear images of
peace in any of its contexts, incorporating its many colours, its
possible associations, its various moods and emotions. All are
graphically imprinted upon the listener’s imagination. Story can take
the listener beyond the limitations of language by simply utilising the
power of imagination, creating a magical transformative space, the place
the listener, reader or viewer, whether adult or child, become totally
immersed and begin imagining peace. It is in this place peace is
possible. Peace will then be known, at the very least, as an option to
be considered. Or perhaps, as we pass that threshold number, peace can
become instilled into everyday thinking and become a conscious way of
being and everyday living.
The healing molimo
Colin Turnbill (1993),
in his book The Forest People, referred to the healing music or molimo
that was sung and played by the pygmies of the Ituri Forest in
north-east Zaire. Believing their music healed their beloved forest,
which in turn healed its people, ensured their forest was better and
kinder than the encroaching outside world threatening to destroy both
the forest and its inhabitants. Metaphorically speaking the sharing of
peace-building stories can create similar healing or molimo. Indigenous
peoples for centuries have believed in the transformative power of
simple healing experiences that honoured and nurtured their being.
Perhaps the emergence of our innate peace loving spirits in the stories
shared can similarly heal our mother earth as the pygmies believed their
molimo healed the earth that was then able to heal and sustain them.
By sharing
peace-building stories and challenged to move beyond the language of
debating and arguing about who is right and who is wrong we can choose
to work with this transformative healing imagery instead. This simple
process relies upon our incredible and limitless imaginations and not on
the effectiveness of expanding nuclear arsenals or equitable laws or
peace keeping forces or even the latest information or medical
technology to establish peace. The thinking involved is free, is
something everyone, especially our children can do, and everyone can
actively participate in. The transformational and healing peace-building
stories shared would reflect our heartfelt desire for peace. Wayne Dyer
(2001) in There’s a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem expressed his
belief that intention is significant. Our collective positive intentions
could provide the necessary momentum or energy to create the kind of
world we all want to share.
By utilising our
extraordinary and unlimited imaginations and exploring and creating
peace-building stories to share perhaps a peace-building consciousness
could become a universal consciousness. Our imaginations cannot create
peace alone but provide the vital first step in any peace-building
process because once peace-building understandings and processes are
created in our imaginations they can then be actioned in the real world.
Not only can visions of the new peaceful communities and a peaceful
world be created but our imaginations can explore different ways of
working towards these objectives. Beginning with our imaginations many
new understandings and possibilities can be developed showcasing all
possibilities in any stories that are created. Sharing these
understandings in stories across cultural, geographical and
socio-economic boundaries means these understandings could also become
universal. The miraculous Silicon Valley was initially created by
powerful imaginations so perhaps a new peaceful and peace loving world
can be as well. Deepak Chopra ( 2000) in How to Know God also elaborated
on the importance of our co-creative abilities and believed that by
appreciating this fact we can by working together powerfully transform
our world. We are at the ‘ripe’ time in our evolution to understand the
impact of our thinking upon our physical world. Our children do deserve
our efforts. It is time for peace to prevail.
Resolving any issues
nonviolently and using peaceful processes throughout every minute of
every day are essential constituents to any peaceful transformation.
Nonviolent resolution to conflict also involves using peace-building
language that is enabling and will help sustain a belief that peaceful
resolutions to issues are possible. These are just some of the essential
elements peace-building stories need to explore. The inherent
understandings in peace-building stories are also ones that allow for
peace becoming a natural way of life, and can provide the required
healing molimo.
It makes a
difference
The parable entitled:
It Makes a Difference
implies that every effort made by an individual
towards building a peace consciousness does matter. There are millions
of human starfish but maybe it needs to be only the next one which is
‘tossed back into the sea’ that will be the one that takes humanity over
the threshold.
|
It Makes A
Difference
As an old man
walked the beach at dawn, he noticed a young man ahead of him
picking up starfish and flinging them into the sea. Finally
catching up with the youth, the old man asked him why he was doing
this.
The answer was
that the stranded starfish would die if left in the morning sun.
"But the beach
goes on for miles and there are millions of starfish," countered
the old man. "How can your efforts make a difference?"
The young man
looked at the starfish in his hand and then threw it safely in the
waves. "It makes a difference to this one," he said. |
John Lennon
invited us to imagine peace in his
enduring lyrics of the song Imagine but his following words resonate
with an even more powerful message.
"Give peace a chance. Remember love. The only hope for any of us is
peace.
Violence begets violence. You're all geniuses and you're all beautiful.
You
don't need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are. You are what
you
are. Go out there and get peace. Think peace. Live peace and breathe
peace.
You'll get it as soon as you like. "
Ensuring in the
everyday world we choose to walk along roads that will lead humanity
safely to a place of peace does involve the development of our own and
others’ peace-building consciousness.
"Verily, never will
Allah change the condition of a people until they change what is in
themselves."
[The
Quran {11:13)]
Endnotes
Martin Luther King Jr (1929 – 1968) was an
African American
clergyman,
activist and prominent leader in
the American Civil Rights Movement. Retrieved November 28, 2008 from
http://www.thekingcenter.org/
It Makes A Difference (parable) retrieved
October 12, 2006 from http://www.wscribe.com/parables/difference.html
John Winston Ono Lennon, MBE (1940 – 1980) was an English rock musician,
singer, writer, songwriter, artist, actor and peace activist who gained
worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles. Retrieved
November 28, 2008 from
http://www.johnlennon.com/html/history.aspx
