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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Our reponsibility for peace education. Printable Version PRINTABLE VERSION
by Janet Hudgins, Canada Aug 3, 2008
Peace & Conflict   Opinions
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Colleges and universities all over the world are offering some form of Peace and Conflict Studies because we need research in peace and conflict, links between resource scarcities and violence, the sources and nature of ethno-nationalist conflict, social adaptation to complex stresses, disposal of weapons-grade nuclear materials, worldwide partnerships, policy recommendations to governmental and non-governmental groups, and practical involvement in the development of peace. We have never discovered how to share the planet, or to save it from ourselves.

If the "science" of war can be taught and researched, it follows that the same can be applied to peace. Education is the place to begin, to overcome ignorance and intolerance. Indeed, it is virtually the only source of a foundation for peace. Peace studies should be an apolitical league of like-minded people whose vision is entirely trained on world peace. It would offer post-graduate studies and encourage other countries to be part of co-operative distance learning or a virtual-university, to exchange students, to establish a relationship with as many institutions of learning in the world as possible, and to make peace studies available to everyone, everywhere. If every action has a reaction, it is up to us to find the correct one, to find other solutions than the madness of war.

We need to educate in International Relations until we understand the political, economic, cultural, and conflictual systems of the world; Humanities until we understand why nearly all the wars in the world today are religious; and History to understand why there ever were wars and what they have done. In recent history, university students have successfully deposed despots peacefully, and affected dramatic, long-term change in establishing equitable and fair governance.

Peace works even if you don’t believe in it. Henry Kissinger says that "power is the ultimate aphrodisiac;" Henry ought to know that power is an insidious prize. War breeds war in a world where greed and power make fools of men, and where they welcome war as if it were the main event due and payable their generation. From being a means to an end, war adroitly becomes an end in itself. Spurred on not only by ambition and avarice, but by the fear of being overcome and conquered. Peace is certainly the absence of war, but first, there must be the absence of ignorance; we fear what we do not understand. As the lack of perception, insight, and understanding of each other deepens, the demand for lethal weapons spreads like an epidemic, each gaining speed and momentum as they expand.

To expect people like me and millions of people like me, to believe that repeatedly coercing, bullying recruits into killing a real or constructed enemy, political or sectarian, to put such obscene amounts of money into war but not in peace, well, we all know what Einstein said about insanity. The hyper-competitive values of politics, of taking something from someone else is still viewed, even here, as good sport. Politicians, leaders, statesmen and stateswomen, have a responsibility for peace that transcends what they perceive to be their obligation for war. They must put war in focus, expose its reality to their constituents, do away with the rhetoric:"War is good for the economy—and over-population,” the euphemisms: the ‘glory’ of war, fought brilliantly, operations, theatre, casualties, campaigns, collateral damage, "something to be proud of,” and to no longer excitedly indulge in war after war, as if it were right in some way, as if it worked, as if it were the logical conclusion, this pathetic, abject, insanity of war.

Stop the rhetoric, treat the great unwashed with their due respect, tell the truth, and make that an objective to reach in our lifetime, and show young people that their life and intellect are worth something and to allow them to be interested in, and able to become good legislators. Children are learning a great deal about violence now, the likes of which no veteran of the worst atrocities would suggest, but they are not learning anything about peace. That’s our job. In countries where civilization is very fragile, where decaying governments mismanage resources into war rather than administering a healthy society into peace; in an environment where human rights are the last consideration in the factoring of community; where life and limb are so cheap they are free for the taking; where firebrands discharge revolvers in the air—and hubris is confused with heroism. Indeed, it would behoove us to pay attention to the deed we call heroic, whom we call a hero and pin medals on, to be careful that our policies are not molded more to comply with those who possess the most power in the world than those without any power; and it’s not good enough. There has never been a good war or a bad peace.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but the positive Movement to Affirmation of Peace. We must see that peace represents a sweeter music, a cosmic melody, that is far from . . . the dis-chords of war." The peace tradition has been undergoing change, adaptation and refinement forever. It has been kept alive, essentially by women, since long before we were persons, even in the most brutal environment, and in the most violent times.





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