Peace education: Need of the hour

Sri Lanka an international centre of peace studies:

Sri Lanka has from ancient times been an outstanding centre from which messages of harmony, justice and sustainable development have radiated through and illuminated the entire region.

First part of this article was published yesterday

Justice C G Weeramantry

Peace education consists of three main facets. These are the generation of

a) the necessary knowledge an awareness

b) the necessary attitudes

c) the necessary skills

These three areas have been much researched internationally and there is a vast amount of accumulated experience which can be used by our teaching profession. In the area of knowledge, children must be taught how conflicts and problems arise, how they can be solved, what institutions and human rights principles can be invoked and what each individual can contribute. We must have knowledge of the successes and failures of the past, how obstacles to peace were overcome and how

the seemingly impossible was achieved by great figures such as Wilberforce, Gandhi and Martin Luther King. All of this would be highly inspirational material.

Human dignity

In the field of attitudes, children should be imbued with a duty of care, a sense of responsibility, a resolve not to cause harm, an instinctive affirmation of human rights and a sense of respect for human dignity of every individual.

The necessary attitudes to be generated are concern for others, a desire to help and be of service, concepts of honesty, trustworthiness and fairness, tolerance, generosity and compassion and a respect for other cultures and religions. They should be asked to recall and appreciate ‘the little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love’ which they have received from people of all communities at various times, thus imposing on themselves a duty to act similarly towards others.

In the field of skills, they should be trained to understand how problems and conflicts arise in their neighbourhood and to consider positive ways in which they could help to avoid them before they occur and resolve them when they have occurred. They must also be shown ways in which they can transform anger into understanding, conflict into cooperation, social indifference into assistance to those in need and inactivity into active participation in whatever way one can. All these can be the subject of essays, discussions, debates and workshops in the classroom.

Social indifference

Children should be taught that the process of establishing peace is a process to which each individual can and indeed has a duty to contribute something everyday. An important route to all these ends is cross-cultural education, for it is imperative in this day and age for every child not to be boxed in within the culture to which he or she is born, but to have some awareness of other religions and cultures as well. While every child needs to be exposed in depth to his or her religion, this does not mean that they should grow up in total ignorance of all others.

Consequently, it is imperative in very school that some perspectives be imparted of the teachings of the major religions. In Sri Lanka this means Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. Everyone of them teaches peace, understanding, human dignity, peaceful settlement of disputes, protection of the environment, care for future generations and other basic principles essential to a sustainable peace.

Many children under our educational system grow up with an implied understanding that other religions are different from one’s own in their teachings on these aspects. The converse is the truth and each child’s desire for peace and contribution towards it would be enormously increased by an awareness of the congruence of all religious teachings on these fundamental aspects so vital to the preservation of peace.

The Hague Appeal for Peace has worked out programs for peace education at all levels ranging from the kindergarten to the highest schools levels and has produced the documentation necessary for teachers. Likewise, UNESCO has produced a range of materials on this topic and all these need to be brought together for the benefit of the teaching profession in Sri Lanka. Much work has also been done on this by such institutions as the Peace Foundation of New Zealand.

There has also been great educational peace projects such as that conducted by the City Montessori School, Lucknow, the biggest secondary school in the world and one whose peace programs have won for it the UNESCO Prize for Peace Education. This institution has produced practical studies showing how peace perspectives can be drawn into practically every subject taught in the curriculum.

All this knowledge and experience needs to be brought together and made available to the teaching profession in Sri Lanka.

International law

This points to the need for a training course to be established immediately for teachers in relation to peace studies, ranging from historical and philosophical perspectives to the lives of great historical, literary and spiritual personalities connected with peace. The subjects taught should also enter the area of practical activities such as studying the causes of conflict and devising ways of solving them.

There should also be some references to the history and current standing of international law and human rights, which are all too often an area totally unknown to the average citizen. It is for lack of this knowledge on the part of citizens that rulers are sometimes able to violate international law and human rights with impunity.

All of these resources need to be harnessed into one central repository of knowledge and teaching which needs to be established immediately. Indeed, this can prove the foundation eventually for a university of peace which can collect and diffuse this knowledge, not only in Sri Lanka, but in the region and throughout the world. We have the capacity to give global leadership in this project and we can use this opportunity to initiate the moves necessary towards this end, which can establish Sri Lanka as an international centre of peace studies.

The establishment of a peace university in Sri Lanka can make this country a foremost resource for cross cultural and inter-religious perspectives and understanding and the time is perhaps opportune for the establishment of such an institution.

Another aspect that needs to be cultivated is the generation of practical awareness of each other’s conditions and lifestyles and to this end, it is essential that all students in Sri Lanka be required as part of their education to live for even a month or two in different geographical, areas acquiring an understanding of how similar the problems, aspirations and attitudes of people are, whatever their cultural or geographical background.

Putting students of all levels from schoolchildren to undergraduates, drawn from all parts of the country to live together for a few days has invariably resulted in seeing them emerge from such residential workshops with a resolve to be friends for life. This is the way in which we can make Sri Lanka one country with one people, sharing a set of common aspirations and values and taking a pride in their nation.

Global campaign

An important suggestion which may be implemented in Sri Lanka is to institute a week designed as ‘Peace Week’ during which various peace-related activities can be intensively conducted in every school. They include the production of a peace newsletter, the performance of peace related plays, class and inter-class debates on peace-related subjects, invitations to local members of Parliament, lawyers, town councillors and others to speak on relevant topics, organizing peace concerts, contacting peace organizations overseas, watching peace related videos, holding a model UN General Assembly and having speech contests and peace essays.

There is a vast amount of material that can be gathered on these matters from bodies such as the Global Campaign for Peace Education, the Peace Foundation of New Zealand, the International Peace Bureau, UNESCO and other organizations.

Let us take some action now and not lose this opportunity for establishing beyond the shadow of a doubt that Sri Lanka intends to make this a lasting peace which will be an example and an inspiration for all.

This way we can once again attain an honoured place among the community of nations and be worthy successors of our past traditions which enabled us, in ancient times, to have ambassadors in the imperial courts of Rome and China.

‘Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war.’ So have the poets written and so have the thinkers philosophised from the beginnings of recorded history. This is a thought that must be uppermost in our minds in these critical days when war is ended and peace begins. Concluded