Peace Education and a Call for Social Dialogue on Nonviolence and Peace
EDUCATION, 10 Sep 2013
Surya Nath Prasad – TRANSCEND Media Service
Excerpt from the Guest Speech delivered by Professor Surya Nath Prasad at The Global Meet organized by World Forum of Spiritual Culture, Astana, Kazakhstan.
Mis-education and Non-education Cause the Violence
Mis-education for a few privileged well-to-do and non-education for many deprived have caused the problems of poverty, population, pollution, violence, war, terrorism, ethical crisis and ecological imbalance. Hence, in the world, there is brute culture, culture of silence or mute culture, masculine culture, sick culture, culture of war, violence and intolerance.
Man Is Missing from Us
Except education of man – what he or she is – we have all types of education, at least for a few privileged. And these educations make a few doctors, engineers, lawyers, teachers and other professionals minus man (human), and many are deprived of these educations. In this sense, the present education destroys both – those to whom it reaches, and those to whom it is denied. We are people of different nations, faiths (religions), relations, races, but we are not man (human). Man (humanity) is missing from us. Hence, we are exploiting, oppressing, fighting and killing each other, and sometimes we are killing ourselves also.
What is Peace Education?
Peace education is education of man (humanity). It is the manifestation of an integral culture of body, vitality, mind, intellect and spirit. These elements constitute every man and woman without any discrimination of race, caste, creed, language, nationality and other differences. And this education would continue perpetually until the end of life of every man and woman, unfolding the physical, vital, mental, intellectual and spiritual potential of cultures, leading them to be just, peaceful and nonviolent.
Peace Education against All Privileges
The idea of privilege is brutal and tyrannical. No man or woman is superior to another. No person is privileged to any one of elements – either physical or vital or mental or intellectual or spiritual – or a few or all. Hence, peace education based on five elements of man and woman is utterly against all privileges, as all men and women are equally endowed with these five elements.
Concept of Two-fold Peace Education
Peace education based on five elements of man and woman would be two-fold, viz., integral peace education and compensatory integral peace education. Integral peace education will be for the coming generation, whose five elements we may assume to be un-corrupt, un-crippled, raw, pure, and very prone to be unfolded. Compensatory peace education will be for today’s crippled generation. We are all crippled: some physically, some vitally, some mentally, some intellectually, some spiritually, and many are crippled in all parts of their body. Hence we all need compensatory peace education for recovery of our integral physical, vital, mental, intellectual and spiritual health.
Caution towards Prevalent Peace Education
I wish to caution the highly enlightened participants of the World Forum of Spiritual Culture towards prevalent peace education in light of its contents, and methodology of teaching as indoctrination and regimentation in the courses of peace education and other educations in universities and colleges of different nation-states (though this is in a very few nations). Existing peace education may be any other type of education, but it is not in any way peace education. A very few have access to what is known as peace education by paying very high fees, even though it fails to make them peaceful. It may help them in getting high salaries posts, that’s all.
A Clarion Call to Adopt Peace Education for Solution of Terrorism and Violence
I would like to give a clarion call to adopt the kind of peace education which can enable people to solve the problems of terrorism and other forms of violence, and can make them just and nonviolent. The leaders and heads of different societies and the nation-States must be aware of peace education based on the five elements of man and woman. Then they will be able to solve the violence of hunger, disease and ignorance by applying, planning, and executing distributive justice to meet the needs of all people, and to solve the problems of genocide, ethnic cleansing and global terrorism by replacing retributive justice of law (which is meant for punishing offenders) with restorative justice of law, which would create a more crime free local as well as global society.
Therefore all leaders of should be honourably invited for dialogue, including those who bear responsibility for genocide, ethnic cleansing and global terrorism. Other members in the dialogue should be heads of different nation-states and religious sects, global teachers, thinkers and creators of culture of peace, popular leaders among the masses and the heads of impartial NGOs. Among all these members of the dialogue group (committee), NGOs should take a leading role to coordinate them and to initiate the process for extending the invitation for dialogue on the issues as stated above for common acceptable solutions. And I personally propose the name of the World Forum of Spiritual Culture to take the leadership role to organizing The Novel, Global, and Unique Meeting of All Social Leaders for Dialogue for Nonviolence and Peace.
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Prasad is M. A. in Sociology, M. Ed., M. Phil. in Nonviolence and Peace Studies, and PhD. in Education. He is Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Peace Education: An International Journal. He is Former Visiting Professor of Peace Studies, Kyung Hee University, Republic of Korea. He is Former President and currently Executive Vice President of International Association of Educators for World Peace (IAEWP). He may be contacted at: 216, Laxminagar, NAGPUR-440 022, Maharashtra, India. Phone: +91-712-2232523, Mobile: 0-9823134698, e-mail: dr_suryanathprasad@yahoo.co.in
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 10 Sep 2013.
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