Peace and Environment News* October 2000
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Peace and Environment News * October 2000 |
People Building Peace: 35 Inspiring Stories from Around the World
With contributions from Federico Mayor (Director-General of UNESCO), the Institute of Multi-Track Diplomacy, the Life and Peace Institute, and others
The European Centre for Conflict Prevention, The Netherlands, 1999
Reviewed by Chris Yurkoski
"Biology does not condemn humanity to war," writes Federico Mayor in his introduction to People Building Peace: 35 Inspiring Stories from Around the World (quoting from the 1986 Seville Statement on Violence). "The same species that invented war is capable of inventing peace."
People Building Peace studies the remarkable, and remarkably under-acknowledged, ways in which people take on this project—inventing peace in a world where, astoundingly, more attention, funding and energy are devoted to working on ways of destroying it.
The title of the book is slightly misleading. It's not exactly a series of uplifting, dramatic narratives so much as what Mayor suggests in his introduction, that People Building Peace "documents how, throughout the world, people are making progress on the various issues that—taken together—contribute to the coming culture of peace and non-violence."
People Building Peace begins with a practical and theoretical grounding in the practice and history of diplomacy, through a number of essays and articles produced by a variety of individuals and non-governmental organizations. There is discussion of traditional "Track One" types of diplomatic peace efforts favored by "men in suits" who pose "before squads of photographers before they disappear behind closed doors for discrete talks." "Track Two" efforts, on the other hand, are practiced by NGOs that try to be more inclusive and attempt to "make [an] impact...on...communities that share a certain ethnic, regional, national, socio-economic or other identity" and "to help all the people involved" in a conflict "change their way of thinking" by aiming for reconciliation between warring parties rather than hard-nosed bargaining that may create clear winners and losers, and thus, a continuing tension.
The book presents examples of Track Two successes, such as the Centre for Peace, Nonviolence and Human Rights, a non-governmental organization set up to "assist displaced persons in and around [the eastern Croatian city of] Osijek" and run by "social workers, psychologists and volunteers," some of whom are drawn from the ranks of the displaced themselves. And while the Track Two process seems favoured in this book, credit is given to Track One successes, such as the government of President Alpha Oumar Konar in the West African Republic of Mali that helped make peace in that nation through top-down methods. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is lauded for global diplomatic efforts undertaken by his "Carter Center."
People Building Peace recognizes a wide variety of organizations and institutions working outside the closed circles of "official" diplomats whose first interest might not be peace so much as a geopolitical stability that will help promote certain economic interests. Although organized religion has, historically, been responsible for creating a great deal of strife itself, the contribution of, for instance, Catholic priests who "frequently offered 'cover' to peasants and indigenous people when they took action in pursuit of justice" in Guatemala is recognized.
Educational institutes, such as the City Montessori School in India, where education is based on the promotion of "Universal Values," "Global Understanding," "Excellence in All Things" and "Service to Humanity," are important for teaching peace-making values to children at an early age, before the culture of war can be learned. Even competitive sports can be utilized to promote peace, such as in Rwanda, where "[s]ports has been assigned an important role in primary school education and village life" that may "help young people traumatized by the [genocide] of 1994 once again find enjoyment in their lives and promote friendship amongst children."
An excellent introduction to the idea of peace-making as a revolutionary philosophy, People Building Peace provides a solid, practical overview of ways in which such solutions are being employed in a number of flashpoints around the globe, and lays out the basic blueprints needed to continue building an international "culture of peace."
Converted January 22, 2001 - Lg
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