Promoting a Culture of Peace

I recently attended a conference held by the Movimiento por la Paz (MPDL). The fifth annual 2-day conference was entitled Rights Toward a Culture of Peace (unfortunately, I was only able to attend the first day) and had a great motto: "Because peace is more than the absence of war".

This is a very important message to transmit since many believe there is peace as long as there is no physical violence. True positive peace however is much more than that. As John Galtung and many other peace scholars point out, there are are several layers to obtaining a violence-free society.  This conference discussed four of these themes in particular which have to do with human rights:

1. Sexual and Reproductive Rights
2. Right to Education
3. Protection of Human Rights (case of Palestine)
4. Right to Freedom and Security (case of Colombia and the peasant farmers)

I found it encouraging to hear that in the province of Catalunya, in the north of Spain, they are making progress teaching kids peace.  Others have had many challenges doing this, but it seems that one of the main problems is the lack of implementation and resources of peace-related material for teachers.  Granted, this is a relatively new field and not many schools worldwide are teaching kids how to handle their problems peacefully. The expert from Catalunya mentioned that as a result of large-scale waves of immigration they have had to adapt their lessons to emphasize more on learning how co-existence. The themes they have identified as important to work on with students have been: 1) Self-esteem 2) Dignity 3) Empathy and 4) Responsibility.

It's a shame that teaching a culture of peace hasn't yet become a priority in schools just as math, science and language have. It must be a part of any school curriculum, helping kids (and of course not excluding by default the parents and eventually the community at large) learn how to deal with their problems and turn into healthy functioning adults later in life. This would help us work on prevention rather than resolution only, something that Catalunya has been doing as well.

The day ended with a rather alarming comment from a young university student (19) studying International Relations in Spain. He commended the motto, claiming that surprisingly his professors do teach them that peace is the absence of war.  Maybe we need to start re-teaching our teachers...