Feature

Global Education for Peace

By Michael Nobel

Adapted from an address by Dr. Michael Nobel upon accepting the Gandhi-King-Ikeda Community Builders' Prize, at Morehouse College, Atlanta, Georgia, on April 8, 2002.


Pervasive Violence 

It was suggested that I might share my perspectives on the world since September 11. I doubt that Europeans can truly appreciate the terrible impact of that day. We gasped in horror. We shared your terrible pain. But Europeans also rediscovered solidarity. If there were ever a time to focus on the priceless value of community, that time is now. 

The devastation of September 11 captured the world's attention. But we cannot overlook the near-epidemic levels of other forms of violence plaguing our societies every day. 

There is the violence of injustice; there is structural, institutional and cultural violence; violence in the enormous chasms that divide the world in terms of wealth, health and knowledge; and there is the ultimate violence of the million lives lost this and every week around the world due to poverty, disease and war. 

Ten years ago the Cold War between the two superpowers ended. If the specter of nuclear holocaust--and the appropriately named Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)--did not disappear, it at least dwindled into insignificance. Many people thought that peace had come at last. We were deceived, however, and found that when you manage to cut off one head of the hydra of war, several more rear up elsewhere. 

We found that war, genocide and violence between people and nations continued unabated; it merely changed character. It became terrorism, ethnic conflicts, religious wars and guerrilla uprisings. The need for peace education, for spiritual awakening and for conflict reduction is greater today than ever. 


The Causes of Violence 

Violence is, of course, caused by many factors--social, political, ethnic and psychological--but the propensity to resort to violence is most frequently instilled in people during childhood or youth. It is usually during these crucial formative years that lack of parental love and guidance, powerful negative peer pressures, keenly-felt deprivation of social privilege or material possessions, the baleful influence of older wrongdoers and lack of mature judgment can cause the greatest damage to self-esteem and self-control. 

Violence is not restricted to any one country. It exists to a greater or lesser extent in all modern societies. The growth of the global drug trade; far too easy access to firearms; a breakdown in traditional family and community life; a huge and growing gap between the "haves" and "have-nots," and the anxieties occasioned by congested big-city life are some of the factors. Religious and racial differences are still powerful incitements for violent behavior; the numbing effects of violence in movies and on TV are other potential contributing factors. 

And yet, there are very many truly good men and women in the world whose existence disputes the horrendous view of humanity, too many examples of kindness and selflessness to simply accept violence as a natural human characteristic. 

One only has to think of the millions of people whose lives are devoted to teaching children life skills, to fighting pain, disease and poverty, to protecting lives and property and promoting ideals of morality and truth. We can also think of the millions of ordinary men and women bringing up their children to be good citizens and of those many singular individuals who set glittering examples of tolerance and understanding for others to follow. 

One has only to think of the remarkable changes in Europe, where two World Wars and a Cold War divided the continent; yet before the 20th century was over, a new democratic union had been formed with open borders and a common currency. Today former mortal enemies live together in peace and harmony. 

Surely these peaceful citizens, rather than the barbaric exceptions, reflect the truth of human nature. These are our hope and salvation, even if the good they do is so often overshadowed in the media by the evil done by a comparatively few others. 

This does not mean that we can be complacent about our persistent culture of violence. In the United States alone, the cost of violent crime is near a half trillion dollars per year. Around the world, annual expenditures on arms and munitions total more than 800 billion dollars. Against this figure, the annual budget of the United Nations, whose ultimate mission is world peace, is a mere four billion dollars. 

It simply doesn't add up. Our priorities must change.


A Time for Action 

In 1997 all living Nobel Peace Laureates signed an Appeal for the Children of the World and called for an international decade for peace. The United Nations heeded the appeal, and the General Assembly declared the years 2001-2010 the International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World. 

I like the term "Community Building." It sounds dynamic and makes one think of nonviolence and peace in terms of action. As chairman of the Non-Violence Project initiative since 1995, I have seen the value of such community-based action on four continents. We have engaged more than one and a half million young people with applications of conflict resolution and community outreach. Our "Talk It Out" program and tours, along with our Non-Violence Ambassadors, have given young people the motivation to help shape and determine their own lives. 

Wherever the Non-Violence Project is at work, whether in Dade County, Florida, or Soweto, South Africa, we remind young people of Dr. Martin Luther King's words: "It is not the violence of the few that scares me, but the silence of the many." 

The Non-Violence Project is an effort to reach out to young people. As such it represents community-level engagement with the ideals of the International Decade. But a global movement demands thousands of such efforts and the engagement of millions of people. The cornerstone of this global movement is the six-point commitment composed by the Nobel Peace Laureates for the United Nations. Their aim was to put peace into an everyday context for everyday use. 

We must put these principles into action. We must apply the lessons learned through community building; we must share with others. 

We must try, as Mahatma Gandhi instructed, "to understand violence." We must revisit Dr. King's profound remark: "Violence is the language of the unheard." We must learn to listen to understand. We will no doubt learn things we would rather not hear. But if we are to reject violence in the resolution of conflicts, we must think in new ways about alternatives to violence. Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire says it best: "Nonviolence demands creativity." 

Sustainability of peace issues is a great challenge. Peace is a greenhouse flower that needs constant care if it is not to wither. There are profound linkages between peace and the critical issues of the environment and sustainability. To preserve the planet means to sustain peace. 

If September 11 has taught us anything, it is that the issues of any one region cannot be ignored. We are all becoming global citizens, and as such, we must respect all life. 


Nonviolence Education 

Last year I was asked to chair the Appeal's newly established foundation in the U.S.A. Since then we have developed a plan of action to generate widespread awareness and connection through diverse projects, programs and community-based efforts from around the world, all working from the consensus reflected in the six-point commitment. 

Our focus is the objective set forth in the UN resolution: The teaching and practice of peace and nonviolence at every level in every school on Earth by the year 2010. Our goal is to reach 300 million young people over the next three years. 

Therefore, beginning this September 11, we will launch the greatest outreach to young people in history, starting in the United States. 

The objective of the Decade is not to develop "peace education" as a single curriculum or a single program. Rather, it is to create and sustain a symphony of diverse teachings across all cultures, available to all, encompassing all faiths, all voices who share the same basic values. Imagine using these new tools of communication to speed up the transfer of cross-cultural knowledge through dialogues of learning. 

Now you may wonder if, with such a "high-tech" strategy, this will be a campaign for the developed world only? The answer is no, absolutely not. 

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has urged us all to make a special effort to "reach the unreached" and to help close the knowledge and digital divides as part of the effort to foster a culture of peace. 

To that end, we will launch a global peace channel for education in partnership with WorldSpace Corporation, whose digital satellite radio service reaches literally around the world. A single digital radio in a school can reach hundreds of young people. The service can also be expanded to provide multimedia downloads of content. Schools across Kenya are already integrating these radios into their programs. 

By distributing these radios to schools in developing regions of the world, we are able to help narrow the wide gaps in basic knowledge. Through specially created joint projects we will encourage cross-cultural dialogues by and for the young people of the world, so that they may share their words and dreams with each other. 

The potential impact of this outreach campaign is limited only by our imagination. 


Measuring Success 

How will we know that what we do is worthwhile, given the ambitious nature of the UN objective and the sheer scale involved? Since our efforts are about building community, we cannot be guided solely by the need to quantify the results of our actions. 

Dee Hock, the visionary business leader, put it this way: 

"Community is composed of that which we don't attempt to measure, for which we keep no record and ask no recompense. Most are things we cannot measure no matter how hard we try. Since they cannot be measured, they can't be denominated in dollars, or barrels of oil, or bushels of corn--such things as respect, tolerance, love, trust, beauty, the supply of which is unbounded and unlimited." 

On September 11, the world changed. Our deepest sense of community has been challenged. But what this change will mean, how we meet this challenge, and how it will play out in history--this is in our hands. 

If we choose to mark that date in memory with a solemn vow to the children of the world to build a better community, driven by a culture of peace and nonviolence, then we will have helped to change the course of history. 

The objective to reach and connect the vast majority of schools on Earth with peace education is no longer a dream, but a feasible endeavor requiring only the commitment of our energies, passions and resources.

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