Peace Studies – For Children Too
TMS PEACE JOURNALISM, 9 May 2011
Letter of Peace Addressed to the UN, Foundation – TRANSCEND Media Service
04 May 2011 – The sociologist Galtung wants to make peace a subject for the university syllabus. He said this upon being inducted as an Honorary Doctor by the University of Alicante. His aim is to create Faculties of Science for Peace, with the function of training specialists to resolve conflicts that threaten peace. He considers it necessary, for example, that the Basque Country should have a faculty of this type.
Galtung’s assertions lead me to think that maybe we should not only bring peace to universities as a subject but also to schools. Things would be much better if someone explained to children from a young age that peace is a valuable asset, that we must care for it, that we can only achieve it together, that we must avoid imposing the will of the all-powerful minority over the majority, we must strive to achieve peace and above all to appreciate it.
If generations had a new concept of peace, a conceptualisation integrated in life and society, it is likely that future citizens would see the world through different eyes. These open eyes might understand differences, appreciate diversity and love peace.
It would be nice if someone had told us that peace is not a pipe dream, nor the result of an agreement among the powerful, but rather a daily conquest. It would be nice if someone had told us that there are men and women who have dedicated their lives to peace and that others should thank them for it. It would be nice if someone had told us that peace is always the result of a combination of efforts, never the product of a will and a solo and unique effort.
In the classrooms of an imaginary Faculty of Peace, students would learn “to be” through difference. They would be the representatives of a different society, certainly less aggressive and less harsh, closer to dialogue and agreements. The capacity for dialogue and pacts of consensus with neighbours are ways that we can get closer to peace.
Go to Original – letterofpeace.org
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TMS PEACE JOURNALISM:
Yes, peace studies should not be only a university discipline (especially if dealing mostly about war).
The mother of all forms of violence is structural violence in daily life, the one only few of us have the courage to deal with.
Therefore: a) identifying structural violence in daily life, educating parents and teachers (short-term solutions), then offering children a completely different social environment (long-term solution), as kids learn by example.
Associate Professor Piero P. Giorgi, National Centre for Peace Studies, University of Otago and European Centre at Gargnano (BS, Italy)
pieropgiorgi@gmail.com
Indeed as nation states continue to grapple with issues of poverty, disease and high levels of unemployment as is the case in most African States it is prudent that Governments and the people urgently seek alternative sustainable solutions to alleviate these problems. The idea of educating children in peace oriented practices is vital as a way forward to enable for a culture of peace begin to take root and arrive at more creative peace-based solutions to the complex and multi-faceted challenges that we face in our daily undertakings. In order for this to happen we need a leadership and its people who are willing to vigilantly sow seeds for the promotion of peace in their societies.-Anne Muyupi Musunga (Peace Researcher – Zambia- annemmus@yahoo)