 From 13 April session with Ilco and Elischia:
In today’s session, you can expect to:
- Learn about the vision of MasterPeace: how they envision the world after the 2015 deadline for the MDGs.
- The link between what EOTO World sees as strategies to tackle poverty after 2015 and women peace builders
- Examples of a culture of peace is in action with groups using non-violent strategies that you can pull inspiration from.
The Missing Links to Peace
MasterPeace believes the missing links in the discussion of peace is disarmament and conflict resolution.
What do you think the missing links are?
Much like MasterPeace, at EOTO World, we see a vision for eradicating poverty by way of peace, only our focus is that we must build peace as a culture. To paraphrase a saying of UNESCO (United Nations Educational Scientific Cultural Organization) since war starts in the hearts in minds of men, in the hearts and minds of men we must build a will toward peace.
More about UNESCO for your own education about what they do can be found here:
http://en.unesco.org/about-us/introducing-unesco
Primary Prevention is Key
We can have disarmament and conflict resolution, but we need to have a primary prevention angle to ensure a win-win outcome. For EOTO World, that means the full scope of a culture of peace as a way to not only build peace, but tackle poverty past the 2015 targets for the MDGs. In the last discussion, we talked about challenges for women peace builders, and a lot of those challenges had to do directly with poverty and violence within her environments. Poverty and violence creates a strain on women participating in formal negotiations for peace.
We must have both, the women on the ground that have always built the groundswell for peace and the women in formal negotiations. We learned in our last session that what happens to women do not just affect them, but their entire families.
Raise Your Voice for Peace by Way of Eradicating Poverty
There is a way that women peace builders can bring their voices to an international audience as well as each type of activist, peace builders and ordinary citizens.
The UN has been having consultations with different groups since the end of 2012 and will continue to as they begin the internal dialogue about what goals to have to improve on some of the gains made prior to 2015.
The UN and Beyond 2015 worked together to create an online platform where people can share their ideas about what should be done about poverty after 2015. Beyond 2015 believes strongly in focusing on the people and places most vulnerable to the effects of poverty, so we are all very interested in gaining diverse ideas and voices in the platform.
Here is more information about the purpose of the platform called the World We Want 2015 and a link that will take you there to sign up with a free account:
http://www.beyond2015.org/world-we-want-2015-web-platform
There is a valid concern that this type of platform would only reach people that can afford to have internet access. That is true, but this is a start. The UN did not start crowd sourcing information like this until the Rio+20 process, which is the UN Conference for Sustainable Development. Both EOTO World participated as an organization and Elischia participated as an individual in online discussions. The Rio+20 platform was successful and the World We Want platform is a way to replicate the same process to affect how governments will tackle poverty in their nation.
It is important to raise your voice and for those that do not have internet access, we encourage you to gather their thoughts! Work with an organization to gain access if you don’t have access already and literally go and have community talks to get a sense from them what they are hoping for. You must make sure that you get approval before speaking on behalf of others; review with them what you have understood what they said. Not assuming on behalf of others is living a culture of peace through solidarity, seeking to understand and respecting all life.
From 23 March Session with Elischia (continued):
- There is a multi-lingual publication online specifically related to women, war and peace (2002) from what is formerly known as UNIFEM, which is now known as UN Women. I pulled out a particular chapter from the publication that I think is good to read, it’s light- only one page and it has first hand accounts from women in different countries talking about their ways of processing information and some of the challenges they faced. Here is the link: http://www.unifem.org/attachments/products/221_chapter09.pdf
Take a look at the publication and let us know your impressions.
I also have another resource for you, this one is in English, it’s a discussion that involved 2 women peace builders, Leymah Gbowee from Liberia and Shoba Gautum from Nepal. This reading is about 20 pages, but it is great because it incorporates the questions that were asked of these women and detailed responses.
Here is the link to this talk: http://genderandsecurity.umb.edu/Leymah%20Gbowee%20and%20Shobha%20Gautam%203-8-06.pdf
WHAT WE CAN DO TO SUPPORT WOMEN PEACE BUILDERS
So let’s talk a bit about how we can support women peace builders, because I think it is one thing to say women can be, should be and are peace builders and another to provide the path for them to really make impact through all levels of society and be valued at the same time.
Do you agree? Feel free to share your thoughts on that with us.
- I think we can support women peace builders by making sure peace building processes are clearly open to them.
- We can start to teach peace building in a way that helps men support women and the work that can be done with them. I think a lot of the drawback has to do with fear and stigma. Men may fear that the focus becomes too much on women and then they feel like their manhood is taken away. I wonder what would happen if masculinity was re-framed so that men could see the benefits of working with women instead of one or the other?
- We can support women peace builders with funding for their projects. That means grant makers should look for projects run by women as well as projects that incorporate women as equal partners in the peace building process as well as the leadership of the project lead.
- For nations, it is important to promote the work of women that have made significant impact so that men can see that women are valuable partners in moving the dial forward. I think it gets tricky with customs where men are the ones that are the mouthpiece for a nation, however, things change all the time and the goal should be to inspire change that is more fair for everyone.
- Another way to support women peace builders is to record their histories and publish them!
- We can connect groups of women and people that support women peace builders. This can be from social networks to even community meetings. Do what is best for your place and make an effort to reach out to others.
These are just a few examples, can you think of any others? We’d love to hear from you, so send us a tweet, share this talk on your facebook timeline and join us next time as we will go into some challenges that women peace builders can face and explore some ways to overcome them.
 From 23 March Session with Elischia:
In today’s discussion, we will focus on the benefits of women as peace builders and what we can do to support more women as peace builders.
I like to start off by clarifying exactly what we are talking about so that everyone has the same understanding of definitions, so if you already are familiar with this terminology, you’re welcome to add anything I may miss!
For a clear understanding of peace building, I am referring to the prevention of conflict. Some people like to focus on looking at peace building right after a conflict, so say like the Iraq war for the USA. Peace building would be how to build a good relationship between Iraq and the USA, how to promote and maintain good relationships between Iraqis and how to promote and maintain good relationships between Iraq and the international community.
Peace building is also using the same type of concepts that I just mentioned about good relationships to replicate from community to community. This means the responsibility lies with each person to build peace.
Bar none, there is rampant inequality throughout the world. Inequality, whether it be social or economic, makes it complicated to build peace. Peace will probably look different to each type of person, particularly if he or she has always held privilege that others have not.
I believe that an important strategy to peace building would have to include how to incorporate, value and honor the ideas of populations of people that have been oppressed WITHOUT tipping the scales again to then create another class of privileged people. In other words, you don’t want to get so caught up in leveling the playing field that you wind up making the formerly oppressed the new oppressors.
Here’s a question for you to think about: Do any examples of the oppressed becoming an oppressor come to mind?
I encourage you to think about whether or not it matters if there is oppression that is perceived verses what is closer to reality? How would that affect relations?
Your example does not have to be political, it could be a personal example in your life. If someone feels you have wronged them and you feel you have not, how do you build peace at that point? Each person’s opinion is valuable and their feelings are certainly real.
Try and keep your example handy to respond to as you move through these discussions.
In thinking about peace building and some things that are challenging,
Q: Can you guess why we are focusing on women peacebuilders?
One of the major inequalities in the world today has to do with the huge gaps of treatment of men verses women.
A: We are focusing on women because the field of peacebuilding has overwhelmingly highlighted male contributions. We know that poverty has a way of affecting women around the world as well as war, so to exclude women in major decision making processes that build and maintain peace means that the peace that is built is only half as strong as it could be.
I’d like to pause and break down how poverty and war particularly affect women for those that may not be familiar with how there are specific consequences for women.
Let us be clear, poverty and war affects all genders. I’m going to speak from one angle. It does not mean that another angle that is different is not important, it just means that we have to factor in this angle because without it, we can never fully reach lasting solutions to the suffering that poverty and war causes.
POVERTY
- According to FAO, which is an international organization that has a mandate to raise levels of nutrition, improve agricultural productivity, better the lives of rural populations and contribute to the growth of the world economy: If we look at developing countries around the world, almost 70 percent of women work in agriculture.
What is interesting about this information is that the type of work women do around the world typically involves hard labor like agriculture, which is the biggest source, if not one of the biggest, that women make money to provide for their families.
For peacebuilding, think about if access to land and resources were not taken from a perspective of women. Having men articulate what comes intuitive to women is not only not necessary, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that it will slow down the whole process toward peace.
WAR
- Women (and also girls, but we are sticking to women here so that we can cover the gamut of females) have been used as a tool to advance war and terrorize communities for decades. War is a very messy ordeal for anyone, but there are specific ways women are used as weapons in war:
1. Women have been raped as a way to shame their husbands. Around the world, rape is still highly regarded as shameful on the victim and her family. The remedy that some families can choose to take to cope with the stigma they face is to disown the woman. When a woman is disowned, it is most likely that she will not be re-married, which the idea then is that she will not conceive and therefore stop the bloodline of the ethnicity she is tied to.
2. Aside from rape, women have also been forcibly made to have babies by the opposing side in a war. The mentality there is that she will ruin the community she comes from because they will always have to face and fear their attacker.
3. Women are often kidnapped to provide services for rebels that include household chores, sex and birthing their children.
4. Women are also victims of mutilations, particularly to their sexual organs. Things like cutting the breasts and forcing objects inside her are meant to humiliate her, her family and community, isolate her from re-building a quality life, and destroy her ability to care for children.
Since there are a number of ways women are specifically affected and are the nucleus of the family, which is at the center of the community, clearly women must be included at all levels of peace building.
I would even go as far as to say that I think women should especially be given a greater voice at the higher levels where the final decisions are made. How can there be peace otherwise?
BENEFITS OF WOMEN AS PEACE BUILDERS
I like to look at women as a way to understand how to build peace. If you have ever seen the Girl Effect video, then this will be easy for you to understand. To give a gist of the video, which is in English, the video is pinpointing that a solution to eradicate poverty lies within empowering girls because girls invest in their families and then the family also gets lifted out of poverty.
From the video, we know that if we invest in girls, it brings back a return as they develop into women.
I think that as the girls become women, they have a greater opportunity to move from primarily influencing their family to influencing their nation, if they are further invested in as women. That means that peace building would have to incorporate females from the start!
From 16 Feb session with Okan:
In the last session, we spoke about perspectives of peace and how they relate to a culture of peace. We left off with examining the first 4 peace keys within a culture of peace in relation to our themes this year.
In today’s session, you can expect us to cover:
- The remaining 4 peace keys in relation to our themes
- 2 Perspectives of Non-violence
As a recap on our foundation of a culture of peace, a culture of peace is defined as: a set of values, attitudes, modes of behaviour and ways of life that reject violence and prevent conflicts by tackling their root causes to solve problems through dialogue and negotiation among individuals, groups and nations.
The first four peace keys we explored to see how they match up to our theme were:
- Foster a culture of peace through education
- Promote sustainable economic and social development
- Promote respect for all human rights
- Ensure equality between men and women
Based on the previous conversation, our POP Stars were challenged to think through their notions of peace. What are yours?
Let’s pick back up on the remaining 4 peace keys, shall we? To reiterate, I will be giving an example or two as to why the particular peace key relevant to our themes. I welcome your thoughts at any time in the submit question box and you can always feel free to share this discussion to your social networks to broaden the conversation!
- Foster democratic participation - Participation by everyone in making decisions. Indispensable foundations for the achievement and maintenance of peace and security are democratic principles, practices and participation in all sectors of society, a transparent and accountable governance and administration, the combat against terrorism, organized crime, corruption, illicit drugs and money laundering.
I see this peace key as relevant to non-violence because it really challenges that the way corruption, terrorism and the rest be stopped with resistance that is dignified, yet rooted in love. It would mean that to stop heinous crimes that the people doing the job still treat the offenders with respect and dignity while sternly opposing their behavior. I also see this as a way to identify that actions of people are bad but not persons. I see this because non-violence to me would have to require a basic belief that people are good and can change.
This peace key would also be relevant to women as peace builders because if all sectors of society are expected to participate in a democratic process with transparency and accountability, women cannot be left on the sidelines. Women peace builders then have a particular opportunity to represent traditionally marginalized voices in governance spaces and also serve as role models to girls.
- Advance understanding, tolerance and solidarity - Appreciating that people are different and that everyone has something to contribute to the community. To abolish war and violent conflicts we need to transcend and overcome enemy images with understanding, tolerance and solidarity among all peoples and cultures. Learning from our differences, through dialogue and the exchange of information, is an enriching process.
I can see the relevance of our themes throughout this particular key to peace. Perspectives of women that build peace would be accepted alongside other voices and there would also not be pressure for a woman who is a peace builder to solely think in the interests of women. Instead, I can see the individual personality differences and philosophies are highlighted in this peace key as it challenges us to think about seeking to understand and to raise our levels of tolerance.
I see non-violence fitting into this peace key as the active framework we would use to challenge our limits of understanding, tolerance and solidarity. Non-violence would require for us to see the humanity in the darkest spaces of our society and respond to that instead of violent acts.
This peace key can be pretty tough since we are so indoctrinated with violence. Last year in the program we explored the culture of peace through the lens of art and sustainability, and in one session, we discovered that peace needs to gain better language in our society because the way we even phrase things underscores a culture of war, which is the opposite of a culture of peace. It’s fascinating how we are reinforcing what we do not want in ways we are not even aware of. This peace key really challenges us to step back and examine our ways of interacting on an every day, moment to moment level.
Do you agree? Have you noticed any ways that we reinforce a culture of war in language, behavior and thoughts?
- Support participatory communication and the free flow of information and knowledge - Giving everyone a chance to learn and share through the free flow of information. Freedom of information and communication and the sharing of information and knowledge are indispensable for a culture of peace. However, measures need to be taken to address the issue of violence in the media, including new information and communication technologies.
Both of our themes are relevant within this peace key because the measures to counteract violence through communications and media must allow vulnerable populations a space to tell their stories and raise a call to action for society to use. Women are a vulnerable population in terms of what we know of tremendous violence that is committed specifically against them. Women peace builders have an opportunity to bridge gaps between gender relations as well as men in creating a space for both women and men to thrive under a different principle: and that principle would be non-violence.
- Promote international peace and security – rejecting violence, obtaining justice by convincing and understanding. The gains in human security and disarmament in recent years, including nuclear weapons treaties and the treaty banning land mines, should encourage us to increase our efforts in negotiation of peaceful settlements, elimination of production and traffic of arms and weapons, humanitarian solutions in conflict situations, post-conflict initiatives.
This peace key is interesting. It relates to both of our themes because certainly women have a stake in peace and security and non-violence would require for decision makers to imagine the best possible scenarios for all parties in conflict and carve out a peaceful existence among them.
I wonder though, if the ways international peace and security is perceived are effective? Do you think that it is? Does politics get in the way of practicing non-violence?
Let us examine some views on non-violence. We discovered in the last session that non-violence does not have a static definition. Some people may view it as passive, while others view it as deliberate resistance that demands actions done in a peaceful, non-violent manner.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. = Reverend of Christian faith, civil rights leader and was very much influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s vision of non-violence. Let’s listen to a short clip of Dr. King Jr. at his Nobel Prize acceptance in Oslo, Norway in 1964 about what non-violence. Note his reference to Gandhi:
http://www.nobelprize.org/mediaplayer/index.php?id=1579
There are key points to take away from King’s definition of non-violence that is borrowed from Gandhi:
1. He mentions Direct Action- This means active resistance taken against injustice in the form of protests.
2. King mentions that unjust laws will not be obeyed. This is a reference to what is coined as civil disobedience, the breaking of laws that are inherently unjust. The aim is to persuade decision makers to reject unjust laws and place proper ones fair for all on the books.
3. King is clear that the first line of defense is the use of words and then if that fails, to resort to non-violent acts. What I will add here is that implicit in what he is saying is that your use of words should also be non-violent in structure.
4. If actions are used to reinforce words, there is always room left for compromise. I see that as never letting the idea of talking to each other be blocked. Communication is always left open at any time.
5. King reinforces the integrity and gravity of the purpose of non-violence used to further a just cause. King highlighs that one is willing to risk his/her life and to suffer for the ideology that he/she believes.
II. Another perspective of non-violence is to use an acronym called CARA to live it. There is a resource online called Pace e Bene, which means, if my memory of Italian serves me correctly, “Peace and Good”.
Let’s take a look at their website and their acronym CARA, which in Spanish means “face”.
http://paceebene.org/nonviolent-change-101/tools-nonviolent-living/nonviolent-journey/four-steps
CARA = Center, Articulate, Receive, Agree
- Center= the key is to be like a mountain, this idea that comes from Thich Nhat Hanh, a buddist master and thought leader on peace, to get in touch with the center of your true self in order to respond to the world around you. The idea is to lead and respond from your heart, your center, where love and peace resides.
- Articulate & Sharing Piece of Truth= This requires you to assess what is happening around you, clarify your feelings on the situation, identifying needs and then sharing that information as your truth with others.
- Receive truth from others= Involves deeply listening to understand their feelings and what they need.
- Agree= Go over the needs of each party, eliminate what is not essential for both to move forward and plan to implement the agreement.
We’ll stop here and pick up on non-violence by way of examining how movements have used them to overcome injustice in the next session.
Feel free to extend the conversation with us through Twitter @EOTOWorld and our Facebook page. We’d love to hear from you.
Practice is a key word in understanding nonviolence. A nonviolent approach assumes that people take active roles, making choices and commitments and building on their experience. It also presents a constant challenge: to weave together the diversity of individual experiences into an ever-changing vision. There is no fixed, static "definition" of nonviolence.
Nonviolence is active. Although to some the word nonviolence implies passivity, nonviolence is actually an active form of resistance. It analyzes the sources of institutional violence and intervenes on a philosophical and political level through direct and persistent actions.
Gandhi's vision of nonviolence is translated as "clinging to truth" or sometimes "truth force", which includes both determination to speak out even when one's truth is unpopular, and willingness to hear the truth of other people's experience. He also defined two other components of nonviolence: the refusal to harm others and willingness to suffer for one's beliefs.
 Over the next few weeks, we will be discussing non-violence as well as women as peace builders in an effort to challenge your ideas about peace, build your knowledge about the culture of peace and also to inspire you to connect a culture of peace to your daily life. You can also expect that we will be recommending resources to continue to feed your curiosity toward peace.
For today’s topic, we will explore:
-what a culture of peace is,
- think of ways that a culture of peace relates to our own lives
- and have a brief overview of how our themes this year of practicing non-violence and women as peace builders relate to a culture of peace.
I. Framework
Let’s have a working frame to know what a culture of peace is:
- a set of values, attitudes, modes of behavior and ways of life that reject violence and prevent conflicts by tackling their root causes to solve problems through dialogue and negotiation among individuals, groups and nations.
The concept of a culture of peace has a long history that led up to a declaration by the United Nations to establish a decade for a culture of peace in 2000.
The definition is pretty broad, with 8 keys (ways) to obtain peace, and they are called “peace keys”:
- Foster a culture of peace through education
- Promote sustainable economic and social development
- Promote respect for all human rights
- Ensure equality between men and women
- Foster democratic participation
- Advance understanding, tolerance and solidarity
- Support participatory communication and the free flow of information and knowledge
- Promote international peace and security
Each of the peace keys break down into more detail, but before we go into that, let’s set up an understanding of our themes and then weave them into the relevance of each description of the peace keys.
If we look at the theme of practicing non-violence, what we will discover is that there are a variety of definitions and opinions about what non-violence means to different populations. For the purposes of exploring the topic later on during the course of our entire POP series, review the explanation that a group called ACTUP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) uses for their civil disobedience training.
ACTUP Definition:
"Practice is a key word in understanding nonviolence. A nonviolent approach assumes that people take active roles, making choices and commitments and building on their experience. It also presents a constant challenge: to weave together the diversity of individual experiences into an ever-changing vision. There is no fixed, static "definition" of nonviolence.
Nonviolence is active. Although to some the word nonviolence implies passivity, nonviolence is actually an active form of resistance. It analyzes the sources of institutional violence and intervenes on a philosophical and political level through direct and persistent actions.
Gandhi's vision of nonviolence is translated as "clinging to truth" or sometimes "truth force", which includes both determination to speak out even when one's truth is unpopular, and willingness to hear the truth of other people's experience. He also defined two other components of nonviolence: the refusal to harm others and willingness to suffer for one's beliefs."
If we seek to explore our theme of women as peace builders, it can be observed that many times when peace is negotiated, men are the dominant, if not the only presence. Yet on the ground, women are often working behind the scenes to secure peaceable spaces and are actually also negotiating all the time, just perhaps not on a level in the spotlight. As an organization, EOTO World generally thinks it is important to highlight the contributions of those not often focused on, which for the theme of women peace builders, we must then focus on the contributions, challenges and strategies of women peace builders.
Q: What do you think about the themes?
Q: Can you see any connections between the two themes?
Let’s take a look at how our themes can be explored via the keys to peace, and please feel free to add anything that you feel may be missing, we are presenting short commentary.
Foster a culture of peace through education : Developing attitudes and skills for living together in harmony, putting an end to exclusion and oppression by revising the educational curricula to promote qualitative values, attitudes and behaviors of a culture of peace, including peaceful conflict-resolution, dialogue, consensus-building and active non-violence.
- This is interesting in that nonviolence is already defined within this peace key as active, which points to some of Ghandi’s definition of peace explained in the ACTUP training document.
- With this description of a COP through education, we can see that it is our responsibility to promote not only values, but the attitudes people should have and the behaviors they should exhibit. It is all encompassing. Can you see the connection to the label of women as “nurturers”, which is how one can also see the culture of peace in general: as a nurturing of society? It would then make sense for women to be included in peace building, would it not?
Promote sustainable economic and social development : Making sure that progress and development are good for everyone and for the environment by reducing economic and social inequalities, by eradicating poverty and by assuring sustainable food security , social justice, durable solutions to debt problems, empowerment of women, special measures for groups with special needs and environmental sustainability.
- Throughout this entire description, there is an urgency to actively resist poverty and all that contribute to it. That certainly fits into our theme of non-violence.
- There is also a direct mention of women in regards to empowerment, of which the main voice to carry a culture of peace on this aspect must be women. To that end, incorporating women peace builders in building peace is a logical step and a necessity.
Promote respect for all human rights : Respecting the rights and dignity of each human being, human rights and a culture of peace are complementary: whenever war and violence dominate, there is no possibility to ensure human rights; at the same time, without human rights, in all their dimensions, there can be no culture of peace
- This peace key touches on both of our themes in that it recognizes no peace without the cessation of violence and human rights that respects the dignity of each human being.
Ensure equality between women and men : Ensuring an equal place for women and men in building society through full participation of women in economic, social and political decision-making, elimination of all forms of discrimination and violence against women, support and assistance to women in need.
-- This peace key addresses women directly in relation to their access to power, decision making, social and economic mobility. Women peace builders become an extension of empowering women and nonviolence becomes the tool that provides a common ground for both men and women peace builders to build upon.
Q: Are there any examples that you can think of that incorporate the portions of the culture of peace that we have reviewed?
RESOURCE:
- Peace in Action, has a running archive of examples of nations around the world using a culture of peace.
Some countries reported on include the Philippines, Liberia, Colombia, Gambia, Spain- Basque country, Nepal, India, Peru, Kenya... and more. The publication even breaks down activities into categories like building a culture of peace in schools and student action.
Session Two—Friday, March 9th, 2012POP Challenge: Read the Earth Charter, and then identify a challenge, i.e. excess amount of garbage, lack of creative youth projects, etc. in your community and see which of the four main principles from the EC it relates to -- I. Respect and Care for the Community of Life, II. Ecological Integrity, III. Social and Economic Justice, or IV. Democracy, Nonviolence. After having a discussion about this, organize a day or a program to try and implement these activities!RESPECT AND CARE FOR THE COMMUNITY OF LIFEFoundation of the Earth Charter; the key principle
helps inspire us for a better future.
1. Respect Earth and life in all its diversity.
a. Recognize that all beings are interdependent and every form of life has value regardless of its worth to human beings.
b. Affirm faith in the inherent dignity of all human beings and in the intellectual, artistic, ethical, and spiritual potential of humanity.
2. Care for the community of life with understanding, compassion, and love.a. Accept that with the right to own, manage, and use natural resources comes the duty to prevent environmental harm and to protect the rights of people.
b. Affirm that with increased freedom, knowledge, and power comes increased responsibility to promote the common good.
3. Build democratic societies that are just, participatory, sustainable, and peaceful.a. Ensure that communities at all levels guarantee human rights and fundamental freedoms and provide everyone an opportunity to realize his or her full potential.
b. Promote social and economic justice, enabling all to achieve a secure and meaningful livelihood that is ecologically responsible.
4. Secure Earth's bounty and beauty for present and future generations.a. Recognize that the freedom of action of each generation is qualified by the needs of future generations.
b. Transmit to future generations values, traditions, and institutions that support the long-term flourishing of Earth's human and ecological communities.
Poll Question:
If you had the power to improve one aspect of the society in which you live would it be:
a. Freedom of speech
b. Children’s rights
c. Hunger eradication
d. Wealth distribution
e. Other (aspects your would like to change in your society)
-Need to try and advocate and build awareness by building dialogue about these issues, it is the only way to help create a more peaceful world and to help bring about a change.
Once everyone has had a chance to respond and reflect on their answers, they will all be able to understand that everything is interconnected, and that we cannot only tackle one global problem in an isolated manner, but at all levels of society.
Additional Challenges:#1- EC Spider Web#2- It Starts With One + Video
Session One on Sustainable Development --Tuesday, March 7th, 2012 Introduction:Hello everybody! My name is Nora Mahmoud and I am the International Youth Coordinator at the Earth Charter International Secretariat at the University for Peace campus in Costa Rica. Throughout March, I will be talking about sustainability as it relates to building a culture of peace, and will use the Earth Charter as a means to achieve that aim.
Today, I am going to introduce to you what the Earth Charter is and Sustainable Development and explore how the EC can be used as an ethical framework towards building a more sustainable, just and peaceful world. To demonstrate this we are going to explore the importance of values and ethics and how they inform us individually and in society as a whole. I will also provide you with some concrete activities you can easily replicate in any context (throughout March).
- What are Values? Ethics? How do values inform us individually? Can you think of a values-based decision you made recently? Do you make value-based decisions when you buy something or when you throw something away?
- You can think about this when you are for example going to buy something.
- Your decision will be influenced by your own unique set of values.
What is the difference between values and ethics? Ethics provide more of the social dimension of values.
- Ethics are something that society provides of with.
- They are a set of norms
Why do you think ethics are important? What questions do you think they help us address? How should we, as members of society treat ourselves and each other? Do ethics always remain the same or do you think they change with the times?
- Ethics can influence how we co-exist together peacefully.
- Ethics can influence how we as members of a society treat eachother and ourselves.
- Ethics can change with time, through evolution causing us to adapt.
- There is a mix of values and ethics in how we choose to live our everyday lives.
Ethical Dilemma:
“You wake up in the middle of the night because you’re thirsty, you go to the kitchen to get a glass of water and there you see it, a big cockroach! What do you do?” - Kill it
- Try to sweep it away, because you feel bad about killing a living being
- Not sure what to do
Brief Introduction about the Earth Charter and SD and how it can be used as a framework towards the transition to a more peaceful, just and sustainable world (a culture of peace!)
- The Earth Charter provides us with an ethical framework for our present time.
- The Earth Charter is a declaration of fundamental ethical principles for building a just, sustainable and peaceful global society in the 21st century.
- It represents a global consensus on shared values and ethics towards trying to cultivate a culture of peace.
- Provides us with a blueprint on how we can live in more sustainable peaceful ways.
- Four main principles:
- Respect and care for the community of life. (The heart of the charter)
- Ecological integrity.
- Social and economic justice.
- Democracy, nonviolence, and peace.
- “We stand at a critical moment in Earth's history, a time when humanity must choose its future. As the world becomes increasingly interdependent and fragile, the future at once holds great peril and great promise. To move forward we must recognize that in the midst of a magnificent diversity of cultures and life forms we are one human family and one Earth community with a common destiny. We must join together to bring forth a sustainable global society founded on respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice, and a culture of peace. Towards this end, it is imperative that we, the peoples of Earth, declare our responsibility to one another, to the greater community of life, and to future generations.”
How can you use the Earth Charter in your everyday life?
- Inspiration to change your lifestyle to a more sustainable one.
- Use it as a values framework for creating policies and plans.
- Use it as an educational tool to teach what sustainability is, as well as use it as a framework for national curriculum.
- It can be used as a foundation for companies and their codes of ethics, and assessment tool for how sustainable your business is, and also can be used to create dialogue.
Sustainable development- The term has become commonplace.
- There is no fixed definition.
What do you think sustainable development is?- It is more then just caring about the environment or generating money through economic growth
- It is the intersection of those three pillars: Environment, Economy, and Society.
- Once you can combine these three pillars together you then have sustainable development.
- To get there you have to take a systems approach.
- The issues we face are multiple and complex. We need a holistic vision, which looks at the well being of man and the planet together.
How do we keep track of everything economically and environmentally?- If we all understand the principles behind sustainable development it’s easy to reach some sort of agreement about what sustainable development truly is and what conditions are necessary to achieve it.
Example: Tearing down all the trees to create a factory. What do you think will happen?
Today’s discussion will wrap up examples of art used to spread messages of peace that align with the principles of the peace keys. If you’re joining us for the first time, the POP series for 2012 is exploring the theme of peace through the lens of art and sustainability. You can catch up with the topics of peace and how it is defined, analyzing recent events according to its impact along the peace keys and things you can do to cultivate peace in your life.
You can also gather more information about our previous sessions this month pertaining to art, starting from an overview and its significance in spreading peace to examining art that align with the first four peace keys.
We’ve so far examined paintings, music and an example of dance that interprets peace.
Let’s stop for a moment and think about peace authors.
- What makes someone an author for peace? Is it just he/she using peace rhetoric/words?
- Consider that a peace author must walk the talk- so how far in his/her walk of living peaceably does one have to be in order to start influencing peace for others?
- The key to cultivate peace is having a mix of inner and outer peace. You have to have peace on the inside. If not, eventually, it will show up. Little by little in the way you perceive things and treat others.
What do you think?
Peace Keys 5-8 examined through peace authors/writings5. Foster democratic participation - Participation by everyone in making decisions
- Howard Zinn - USA, peace activist well know for his stance against war and the support for the Civil Rights Movement of the late 50’s into the 60’s in America.
- The Zinn Reader: Writings on Disobedience and Democracy
Think about the implications of civil disobedience in order to create a better working or freshly establish a democracy.
- requires special training to know how to handle violence
- presents a strong contrast between the opposing parties. Usually, the side that wants to keep things as they are use tactics to keep the other side in line. Those tactics include violence along a spectrum, from violent language that become a part of the culture, violent laws that are reinforced by the violent culture language and physical violence that is reinforced by the other tactics. Over time each level of violence becomes normalized, so that the next generations will be born into it and accept it as a way of life. Well, how do you combat violence? With more violence? You could, but any gains, if at all, would be temporary. Civil disobedience forces the oppressor to confront what they believe as norms by reacting strategically in defiance to their customs.
- Ex outside of America is India and the movement for independence from the British. Civil disobedience was strategic because one of the stereotypes of Indians was their inability to control themselves. It takes a lot of energy to deal with hatred and the violence that can come from it, systematically while staging counter-culture protest.
6. Advance understanding, tolerance and solidarity - Appreciating that people are different and that everyone has something to contribute to the community
- International Museum of Peace and Solidarity in Samarkand, Republic of Uzbekistan
- 1986
- Mission and Objectives
"The Samarkand-based International Museum of Peace and Solidarity is a non-profit, non-governmental institution committed to the universal human values, dedicated to the promotion of peace through citizen diplomacy, culture and arts; to the development of public awareness, concern and a sense of personal responsibility for the global challenges man faces here and now; to the empowerment of people to get practically involved into the process of creation of the better future for humanity."
- Houses an estimated 20,000 exhibit pieces from over 100 countries. Items include fragments of the Berlin Wall, Soviet and US nuclear missiles from the Cold War, a part of an A-bombed roof tile from Nagasaki (nuclear attack from USA on Japan), soil from Auschwitz (well known concentration camp for Jews during Nazi Germany).
- The museum emphasizes universal human values, and the costs of war, atomic bombardment, the mission of the UN and the Red Cross and Crescent societies, racism, poverty, human rights.
- Interesting about the museum is that there is no suggestion of peace without tackling oppressive systems like poverty and racism, which can impede the advance of human rights and certainly make obtaining peace more complicated.
-What do you think about the idea that peace cannot be detached from human rights and things like racism and poverty?
7. Support participatory communication and the free flow of information and knowledge
- In this category, art in the broad sense of the definition was found, art as in what we use to indicate perfecting a skill. People are just getting into understanding the role that technology can play in advocating for and actually being effective in creating peace.
A short read is an article by Brian Martin, published in 2010. It has a pretty good simplified overview of how technology can be used for peace. Check that out if you’d like, it will also give you additional readings and tools you can look up to learn more how to do that in the bibliography.
8. Promote international peace and security – rejecting violence, obtaining justice by convincing and understanding
- Japanese peace newspaper called Peace Seeds that is produced by teenagers from Hiroshima, one of the two places the USA used the horrible Atomic bomb during WWII. The atomic bomb or a-bomb still has horrible effects years later on the health of people and the planet, as does other weaponry, but especially nuclear ones.
- Has stories from teens and letters from other teens around the world that write in all to discuss peace. Items include feature stories on a world where all peoples with disabilities are provided with an opportunity to work, messages on how to be a global citizen as well as thoughts on eradicating poverty and more. Check them out, they are also on facebook. Support for things like this is a small but crucial step in advancing the peace we want to see one step at a time.
Now that we have all of this information about peace and art, what can we do with it?
Tips to challenge you:
Tip: Make sure to do your homework. There is nothing sexy about an uninformed peace builder. Start seeing yourself as a person with opportunities to create peace in every day circumstances. We talked alot about art and its different forms that can be used for peace. What is your talent? Start with that, learn about what others are doing and then put your spin on it for your community.
Tip: To learn what others are doing, you have to network. How to network varies from region to region. Trust yourself to know the things that will keep you safe but still challenge you enough to take the opportunity to create and/or enhance change.
Tip: Surround yourself with the things you want to learn more about. This is deeper than doing your homework to learn, this is more about just absorbing without analyzing, seeking to just be still and intake the message coming from what you are learning.
Tip: Commit to taking a stand against oppressive institutions: racism, sexism, classism, ableism, etc. The idea here is to challenge how you treat and respond to people. Peace cannot be detached from practicing human rights!
- use art to portray your message of peace. Either find existing art and share with your comments or create your own. Each one of us has influence in our worlds and we choose to use that influence in a positive or negative way. Become more conscious of how you use yours.
These tips may sound a bit pie in the sky for some, but the reality is if we do not compliment the work we do externally, as in, what we present to others, along with the work that needs to happen within ourselves, the peace we seek in the world will continue to pass us by. In March, our partner Nora at the Earth Charter Initiative will be hosting discussions to help us all think about how peace and sustainability are linked and what we can do to live more sustainable.
Last time we focused on paintings related to peace. Today, we look at peace and art as it relates to music.
What do you think it is about music that gets people going?
- gets your blood pumping
- stirs the senses
- can set or change your mood
- can set or change your mind - lyrics, sound, repetition and formula of flow
- Different interpretations of peace art: Anti-war songs
Example: Wikipedia has a long list of anti-war songs that touch upon some major events in history. Some are related to calls to action against a particular conflict and others broadly promote peace.
Some of the contents of the list are songs related to the Cold War, Vietnam War, Mexican-American war, war in the Falklands, and the Contras in Latin America, among many others.
What is your perspective of songs related to these conflicts?
Some things to think about when identifying songs for peace in your own searches is to consider the author of the song. One of the things we talked about in the first session for peace and art was that it is important to seek to understand the artist behind the piece, because the concept for peace is related to how that person is influenced by the world around him or her.
When you look at any of the songs listed in the link, take note how you feel- does the title give you a sense of what to expect? If you listen to the song or read the lyrics, do you walk away with a greater desire toward peace? These kinds of observations are crucial so we are able to start discerning what peace sounds and feels like so we can take action to spread that message in our communities.
Example: La Tierra Misma (The same ball of clay)
La Tierra Misma is a song on the project web-page endorsed by UNESCO to, in the words of the website about us page “encourage people to think about peace, talk about peace, and write a new song that we will collect and self-publish in a book. These songs will promote peace, cultural acceptance and understanding for those who work towards peace throughout the world.”
A bit of wording:
Vivimos en la tierra misma
Estrellas en la noche
Sol durante el dia
Vivimos en la tierra misma
Y todos son uno
We're all living on the same ball of clay
Same stars at night
Same sun in the day
We're all living on the same ball of clay
And all the world is one
This planet is home to six billion or so
It turns around and around kind of slow
Through the deserts, the prairies
And the mountains we go
And all the world is one
Vivimos en la tierra misma
Estrellas en la noche
Sol durante el dia
Vivimos en la tierra misma
Y todos son uno
You can subscribe and get notifications of new songs and even submit a song or sign the guestbook.
Other things you can find on the site are peace CDs you can buy, links to peace websites, including music and an archive of peace events & peace news- those are outdated, but you can get an idea on how you may choose to write about peace or put on events to spread the message of peace.
- Does art in the form of music really make a difference in matters of peace?
- Consider the idea of a global anthem, what would it be, or would there be one?
Author Steve McCardell has a project he calls the Global Anthem project. The project grew out of a science fiction novel that he wrote. The novel is set in 2045, where he envisions that the world has merged into one government and have a single anthem like how each nation has its own anthem.
- When you think about anthems, they unite people with a common sense of identity, and purpose. Steve McCardell has incorporated ideas of peace within the global anthem and his lyrics are worth taking a look at.
- What is cool about McCardell’s anthem project is that he has it open for people to take and transform it in ways that will be more inclusive. You can check out his global anthem project and challenge your own thoughts here.
- Examine art along the 8 Peace Keys, it may give us some things to think about differently
1. Foster a culture of peace through education - Developing attitudes and skills for living together in harmony, putting an end to exclusion and oppression.
Music can shed light on a population that is oppressed, have the opportunity to paint a mental picture with the melody and even the video, which can introduce new ideas that the artist either hints at within the music or can be assumed from the music.
- Internationally acclaimed is Milyamba by Sister Fa. Sister Fa is from Senegal and her song Milyamba tells of the hardship of women in the countryside of Senegal.
- The video brings to light the contrast for people who live in cities and experience life differently. The lyrics and video forces us to think about peace in connection to social factors and the dignity of those that are still waiting for better opportunities that also provide the backbone to the success of the rest of us.
2. Promote sustainable economic and social development - Making sure that progress and development are good for everyone and for the environment.
- Art can break down complex ideas like sustainable development, which requires for us to deal with the economy, social structure and environment to create peace that is lasting for our world systems and us within it. Something that takes years of study to fully grasp can be portrayed in a few minutes with stronger images to people than if they were to learn about it in a classroom.
- Example: Sustainablility song by EEProject
- Famous song that got the world to think about the destruction happening around the planet from environmental abuse is Michael Jackson’s Earth Song.
3. Promote respect for all human rights - Respecting the rights and dignity of each human being
- Music can make us think about the huge task of creating human rights for all in ways that make sense for our every day lives.
- UNICEF (United Nations Childrens Fund) has a song that was created by one of their ambassadors a few years ago to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The song is called Lullaby and it’s a powerful message through a simple concept.
Think of lullabies - soothing, stir up feelings of safety, security, provision, trust as they are associated with people the child trust like a family care-giver (mother, father, etc) or extended care-giver like a teacher or baby sitter.
4. Ensure equality between women and men - Ensuring an equal place for women and men in building society
- Music combined with movement can be a powerful message to bridge gaps between genders. Although this particular peace key identifies men and women only, let us remember that gender, whether we acknowledge it or not, is fluid, and the key here is inclusivity in having equal footing for everyone in society to start off with. It does not mean that everyone will use the same opportunities, but it does mean that everyone should have access to those opportunities without any prejudiced barriers to achieving them. For example, some women want to have traditional relationships where they stay at home and men work. There is nothing wrong with that, if it works for your relationship, then great. However, if that woman decides she wants to work, she should have access to the job market in the same way that a man does and should earn equal pay.Video interpretation of peace through equality - Video is just under 9 minutes and starts with the concept that there is a bird with 2 wings, one wing being the man, the other being a woman. Without both wings equally developed, the bird cannot fly.
Dance is Choreographed and performed by Reza and Laura Mostmand. Quote used in the beginning comes from one of the principles of the Baha'i Faith. Inspired by the quote by Abdul-Bahá:
"...The world of humanity has two wings—one is women and the other men. Not until both wings are equally developed can the bird fly. Should one wing remain weak, flight is impossible. Not until the world of women becomes equal to the world of men in the acquisition of virtues and perfections, can success and prosperity be attained as they ought to be."
(Selections from the Writings of Abdul-Bahá', sec. 227, p. 302)
Bahai information community page that explains the religion as having a single God called Bahaullah. “The central theme of Bahá'u'lláh's message is that humanity is one single race and that the day has come for its unification in one global society. - The page is multi-lingual if you’re interested in understanding more about this religion and how it relates to the artists that created the dance to give us a profound message about the need for equality between men and women.
The dance gives us an image that makes it easy for us to understand why equality between men and women is important. Without both men and women allowed to develop equally in our societies, we are only a shell of what we could be and wellness first starts with a woman as the nucleus of the family.
Peace and Art
- Definition we used for culture of peace
is a set of values, attitudes, modes of behavior and ways of life that reject violence and prevent conflicts by tackling their root causes to solve problems through dialogue and negotiation among individuals, groups and nations
- How does art fit into the scope of peace?
Definition of art:
- Wikipedia: Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items (often with symbolic significance) in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect. It encompasses a diverse range of human activities, creations, and modes of expression, including music, literature, film, photography, sculpture, and paintings. The meaning of art is explored in a branch of philosophy known as aesthetics, whereas disciplines such as anthropology, sociology and psychology analyze its relationship with humans and generations.Traditionally, the term art was used to refer to any skill or mastery. This conception changed during the Romantic period, when art came to be seen as "a special faculty of the human mind to be classified with religion and science".[1] Generally, art is made with the intention of stimulating thoughts and emotions.
We can imagine that art can effect peace as we’ve been examining it in a number of ways:
- Promote dialogue - think of a controversial piece of art work or an artwork that becomes a symbol of pride. Artwork can portray the message of an widespread idea visually.
- Art can reject violence through visual defiance. Such examples is when you see the fist that can mean for solidarity, people can think to stand-up for what is right it can be associated with non-violence, but it can be misused too.
Artwork would have to be well thought out to minimize the change that people could misuse it for something negative.
Artwork can challenge root causes to problems with bold or subtle statements on how to resolve it.
Example: 1985 - Golden Rule Mosaic, United Nations, New York City, New York (USA). Presented by first lady Nancy Reagan for the UN's 40th anniversary. A creation of Venetian artists based on a painting by American artist Norman Rockwell [1894-1978]. Depicts people of all races, religions, creeds & hues. Imparts the message of the Golden Rule ("Do unto others as you would have them do unto you")
http://www.unmultimedia.org/s/photo/detail/313/0031379.html
Question- When you see this painting, how does it make you feel? There are people of all ages, colors, cultures and gender. How does the inscription make you feel when compared with the image? Does the message come across strongly? Why/why not?
Example: 2002 oil painting by Austrian Werner Horvath called the Garden of Peace. Depicts Hannah Arendt, Mahatma Gandhi, Bertha von Suttner and Immanuel Kant.
http://horvath.members.1012.at/02w.htm
A bit about each person to give an idea of each figure’s significance:- Hanna Arendt- American Political professor and philosopher that wrote such literature as On Revolution and On Violence. Talked a lot about the connections between structured violence that includes language and politics. - Mahatma Ghandi- Leader for peace, lead the peaceful revolution for India’s independence from the British. One of his legacies is the idea to “be the change you want to see in the world.”- Bertha von Suttner- 1st female Nobel peace prize winner, Austrian Countess that wrote a book called Lay Down your Arms about the effects of war, founded the Austrian Peace Society and influenced Alfred Nobel to start what we now know as the Nobel Peace Prize- Immanuel Kant - German Philosopher, well known for a number of western philosophical contributions, including his thoughts on perpetual peace, which we know it as world peace. The idea that peace can be permanently established.
Observation: Each person represents a “flower” in the garden of peace, and the person actually stands for a type of peace necessary: Arendt represents the need to eliminate violence structures; Ghandi representes non-violent resistance, Bertha von Sutter represents the cessation of war and Immanuel Kant represents permanent peace.
What do you see when you look at the painting? Would you have done something different? What? Why?
Artwork that you know...
Are there any examples of art work you can think of that when people see it, they become motivated to think differently and/or to change their actions?
- How does the brain understand art? May be helpful to know so that when we attempt to know why certain images move and inspire us to make change? It is also helpful so that when we make art work in any form we can be effective in spreading our message.
- Read a wired science article where some researchers tried to understand why some art gets sold at greater value than others, what made people feel that one type of art was more valuable?
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/12/how-does-the-brain-perceive-art/
- 14 volunteers to look at 50 different Rembrandt paintings with only 15 seconds to look, while a machine measured the waves in the part of their brains that is responsible for how we see and make sense of the world. The machine that would show the paintings would tell the person if it was a copy or an original version. - Made it interesting to tell half of the people that what was a real painting was a copy so they can tell different brain responses. - They found that people didn’t have a difference in what they understood about the art visually in general, but when something was perceived as an original, it was perceived as valuable.- Many areas of the brain come together to make a judgment about art and its value. The judgment your brain makes is based on your own values, and ideas on how the world works. The article says at the end “we only see the beauty because we are looking for it.”
What’s interesting about the article, which is very technical with science terms, is that for us, we can begin to understand that artwork that resembles peace can only be fully appreciated if you look for the message according to the view of the artist. This means we cannot stay in our own path of thinking because we will not be able to fully connect with the artist and message given in the artwork.
Certainly the way you view the world is valuable, but so is the way someone else does. When we talk about peace, which is undeniably linked with the practice of human rights, we have to make up our minds and commit our actions to seeking to understand the way other people view the world. If that becomes a habit, we can then extend that understanding to understand many ideas about peace and can then interpret art that expresses that with more clarity.
What are your thoughts, do you think that the research is really representative of how you have experienced or think you would experience art? - Have you been challenged to view peace through the eyes of art that changed your view of that place, person, population?
Facilitator Example: Watched a documentary on Jaffa, which is arguably the birthplace of the modern day source of tension within the Israel-Palestinian challenges toward peace. The documentary is called Jaffa- The Orange’s Clockwork, an excellent film that is available to watch on LinkTV: http://www.linktv.org/programs/jaffa-the-oranges-clockwork
- What was interesting was the art that depicted the oranges of Jaffa, which the land is known for. I began to understand while watching the film that the orange can be a symbol of loss, destruction, violation of rights, stealing and gross injustice.
- But what if the orange became a symbol of peace? How would that work?
Next time, we’ll examine art as it relates to the peace keys and explore some different ways artists have brought peace into the discussion of their communities.
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