http://www.canadianmennonite.org/stories/peace-everyone%E2%80%99s-business
Love this article from Lowell Ewert for CM. Great summary of the value of peace education. Worth reading in full. 🙂
Here are a few highlights:
The political scientist Harold Lasswell once defined politics to be “who gets what, when and how.” If that is politics, peace studies in contrast can be seen as an attempt to answer the question “why” things are given to whom, when and how.
Work to achieve the goal of dignity for all requires creative thinking and mobilization of many resources. Imagine, for example, that the physical structure of a house symbolizes the laws, institutions and customs of society that are designed to regulate how we live with each other. These rigid and not easily changeable laws, institutions and systems—the floors, walls, roof, doors and windows—are set in place to protect the occupants from the arbitrary use of power or violence against them.
Figuratively, imagine the roof as protecting the occupants from the hail of persecution, the walls from the driving winds of hate, the floor from the seeping cold of discrimination, while the windows allow them to look at other options they may wish to explore safely, and the doors allow one to come and go yet be protected from interference from others.
Peace studies programs serve as one of many architects of a just society by helping to analyze the impact and design of the figurative house in two different ways.
First, peace studies architects analyze how a house may better serve its occupants and, through nonviolent conflict resolution, begin remodelling as needed.
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But a house, even a very nice one with a kitchen and pantry (adequate food), living room (place for people to meet) and a bedroom (safe place to sleep), does not create community for the occupants.
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Second, peace studies programs therefore complement structural analyses with an emphasis on what are referred to as soft skills—the study of mediation and negotiation, the appropriate use of rights and power, restorative justice, trauma healing, forgiveness, religious and cultural understanding—many of the same things that are central to our faith. These skills are an essential part of a vibrant civil society.
Constructing a house of peace that is inclusive, containing a healthy and safe environment in which the human soul can thrive, requires the involvement of all vocations and disciplines.
