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Building cultures of peace in the world: one peace center at a time.

Article Excerpt
The world has become "out of balance," according to sociologist and peace researcher Elise Boulding (2002). Many societies throughout the world today presume that war and violent confrontation are necessary in order to resolve conflict. This is simply not true. We need not allow the warring and violent nature of our societies to supersede their peaceableness. To do this, the world is in need of institutions and environments that elevate and explicitly address qualities of peaceableness. Such overtly designed spaces, which advocate and instill peaceful approaches to conflict and concern for humanity, need to be less exceptional and more pervasive in our lives. These spaces are essential in helping to build the cultures of peace which will lead to a world in balance.

CULTURES OF PEACE

If cultures of peace are the essence of societies living in balance, it is necessary to understand what cultures of peace are, how they can be identified, how societies and governments can develop cultures of peace, and what the benefits are to having a society and government that embody cultures of peace.

In the early 1980s, the United Nations declared that 1986 would be the International Year of Peace. In support of this agenda and to empower humanity and counter the myth that biological determinism is responsible for violence and warring actions, a group of scientists created and adopted the Seville Statement on violence. The scientists concluded that humanity could be "freed from the bondage of biological pessimism and empowered with confidence to undertake the transformative tasks needed" (Seville, 1986). Furthermore, using the Preamble of the UNESCO Constitution, their statement said, "just as 'wars begin in the minds of men,' peace also begins in our minds." Thus it was that a new consciousness concerning our capacity for peace and responsibility in engaging in peace was begun.

It is from the Seville Statement and an educational initiative in Peru that the term "culture of peace" derived. The idea was expanded and developed throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, and then in 1995, UNESCO formally introduced the concept of "Culture of Peace." The United Nations General Assembly went on to declare 2000 as the "International Year of the Culture of Peace," and then declared that 2001-2010 would be the "International Decade of Peace and Non-Violence for Children of the World" (UNESCO-mainstreaming, 2002). Though the phrase was coined by the authors of the Seville Statement and UNESCO, the issue of cultural peace has been addressed widely in peace research and peace studies.

Embodied in the concept of cultures of peace (1) is cultural peace, structural peace and direct peace. When these three facets of peace come together, we have a culture (i.e., community, state, or world) of peace. Johan Galtung (1985, 1996), the man whom many consider to be the father of peace studies, created this terminology. He explained that a culture of violence is composed of cultural violence, structural violence and direct violence. Direct violence is clear, identifiable violence--violence in which the incident and the victim are apparent. Its violence ranges from the global to the personal, thus including both military war and physical abuse of a spouse or child. Structural violence is the equivalent to indirect violence; it is shown usually not in specific incidences, but rather in the reduced quality of life for certain groups of people. It refers to the limits which social structures within societies place on human life and rights. Structural violence often goes unnoticed, but includes policies related to but not limited to capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism. Violence resulting from these policies can contribute to the growing division between the "haves" and the "have nots." A specific example might be US trade policies, such as NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), which tends to favor US markets by giving them generous subsidies, which in turn undermine the ability of poor countries to export to American markets, thus perpetuating their life conditions (Spieldoch, 2004). It could also include allowing an entire segment of society to go without healthcare, or not providing a living minimal wage for all workers. Cultural violence is the attitudes and ideas that allow unjust patterns and structures to exist in society. It is the "violent" morals and "violent" values related to race, religion, gender, ethnicity imbedded in a culture, and perpetuated through such mediums as music, television, literature and national holidays.

An example of cultural violence in the US which American children grow up hearing is the myth that is told every year during the celebration of Thanksgiving. In this myth, children are told that the pilgrims peacefully dined and interacted with the Native American Indians, when in fact there was fear and distrust amongst them, and the eventual degradation and massacre--genocide according to some--of much of the native population. Another example could be the attitude related to the low wages paid to one's migrant laborers or domestic help, the argument that states that, "It's their choice to be here" and "They are...