What is the primary purpose of education?
Is there a relationship between education and civilization?
What is the main quality of a progressive civilization?
Does your school reflect the main qualities of a civilized environment?
What is the relationship between civilization and peace?
What is the relationship between peace and education?

Does your school offer a “peace-based education”?

Is your school conflicted? Violent? does it have bullies?
How about “peace-based education” for your school?

For details of courses on Education for Peace (EFP) see EFP Academy at http://www.efpinternational.org/efp-academy

Photo: P. Casier (CGIAR)

Social conflicts have always been with humanity. But, they seem to be more frequent and destructive in our highly populated, diverse, and technologically advanced world. Consequently many people are suffering. These disasters cause emotional, interpersonal, and social problems. Among emotional problems are sadness, anger, fear, guilt, depression, and discontent. Some interpersonal difficulties caused by violence are marital conflict, family breakdown, and mutual mistrust. Also, such problems as crime, racism, and drug and alcohol abuse, as well as gender inequality, extreme poverty, and disregard of universal human rights and responsibilities are often present in conditions of conflict and violence. Problems caused by human conflict and violence are so devastating because humans make choices and with choice comes responsibility.

In every act of violence there are perpetrators, primary victims, and secondary victims (bystanders, relatives, friends, etc.). Both perpetrators and victims of violence need healing and recovery. To prevent human violence effectively and fully, we must help perpetrators and victims alike. The act of killing another human being is fundamentally an un-human act. Among the main qualities of humanness is love and respect for life, in general, and for human life, in particular. Through our love of life, we have reverence for life and express our humanness. For this reason one of the main functions of the military establishment and leaders in acts of terrorism is to convince their soldiers and subordinates that “the enemy” is a dangerous subhuman species. Thus, they are “justified” and have the “responsibility” to kill such an enemy and by so doing, both protect their own and their kin’s lives and simultaneously reaffirm their own humanness.

Perpetrators of violence usually deal with the negative consequences of their own actions in three ways:

• Self-destruction through carelessness, neglect, alcohol and substance abuse, self-loathing, and other personal/interpersonal destructive behavior;
• Self-delusion, believing that they have committed no wrong and continue in their ways if not prevented; and
• Self-correction, through good deeds, repentance, acceptance of punishment, prayer, and begging for forgiveness.

All three groups would benefit from an appropriate healing and recovery program. To be continued in coming blogs.

(H.B. Danesh)

Image by Brad Montgomery

We live in a conflicted world and quite often we experience conflict ourselves. In fact, conflict is so universally present that we take it for granted and consider conflict as an inevitable part of life. This approach to conflict has significant consequences; among them is the fact that by taking conflict for granted, our efforts to resolve it often fails and conflict turn into violence. There is, however, another way of understanding conflict—conflict as absence of unity.

Unity is the primary law of existence. Life takes place in the context of unity and when the law of unity is violated, conflict and violence is the outcome. Everything that exists is the outcome of the operation of the law of unity. At the physical level, the law of unity ensures order and stability in the manner in which subatomic particles, atoms, molecules, stars, and galaxies cohere and operate in a harmonious and integrated manner. At the biological level, the very process of formation and continuation of life is dependent on the proper operation of the law of unity. The same is true at the social level. Families are happy, healthy, and stable when unity exists between all its members. Communities of people prosper and are safe in the context of unity, and nations advance in every area when peace is present. At all levels of human life—intrapersonal, interpersonal, intergroup, and international—unity, not conflict, is the fundamental operative and creative force.

What is unity? Unity is a conscious and purposeful condition of convergence of two or more diverse entities in a state of harmony, integration, and cooperation to create a new and evolving entity or entities, usually, of a same or higher nature.

What is conflict? Conflict is, simply, the absence of unity.

To create peace we need to learn the ways of unity. (H.B. Danesh)