All posts by CPNN Coordinator

About CPNN Coordinator

Dr David Adams is the coordinator of the Culture of Peace News Network. He retired in 2001 from UNESCO where he was the Director of the Unit for the International Year for the Culture of Peace, proclaimed for the Year 2000 by the United Nations General Assembly.

Building infrastructures for peace

. . DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION . .

An article by Saul Arbess and David Wick for the Ashland Tidings

Much in the way that we have a military, energy and financial infrastructure, we also need an infrastructure for peace, a critical oversight in virtually all governments in the world.

In nearly every state, military infrastructure exists, often the most heavily financed, resourced and comprehensive infrastructure of government. They are in a high level of readiness for both defense and potential aggression against other states or responding to internal conflict, typically by suppression, thus favoring war and a military view of security — that is, an armed, unstable peace.

The military approach relies on threat rather than the creation of an enduring culture of peace, based upon our common security as citizens of planet Earth and the human right to peace and security of the person and community.

A good definition of infrastructure for peace comes from the United Nations Development Program: “An infrastructure for peace is a network of interdependent systems, resources, values and skills held by government, civil society and community institutions that promote dialogue and consultation; prevent conflict and enable peaceful mediation when violence occurs in a society.”

One could see infrastructure for peace as a parallel structure to the generally highly developed and readily mobilized military infrastructure with its national, regional and local organization, except that an infrastructure for peace is not hierarchical, but most effective when organized from the bottom up — that is, intervention should occur at the level where conflict is manifest and utilize traditional peace-building methods with trusted leadership at each level, not necessarily politicians.

A principal strength of infrastructure for peace is that it develops a permanent peace-building structure on the ground at all levels, rather than an ad hoc system of responding to conflict as it arises and then disbanding until the next conflict event occurs. An infrastructure for peace would allow for early warning and intervention in potential conflict scenarios and timely responses when violent conflict has emerged.

At the local level, the Ashland Peace Commission can be seen in this light. At the state level, there is the Democratic Party of California’s resolution calling for the state to create a department of peace. At the national level, there is the U.S. Institute of Peace that unfortunately only has the powers of persuasion, and the current bill for a U.S. Department of Peacebuilding.

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Question related to this article:

How can we develop the institutional framework for a culture of peace?

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Canada has created the position of Ambassador for Women, Peace and Security with both domestic and international responsibilities, supporting the role of women in all aspects of peace work.

In every case and at every level, the goal is to transform conflict by peaceful means, with violence not seen as an option. This means that all parties to a conflict are represented — both those directly involved and external interests as well, and are adequately resourced to present and support their interests in the absence of coercion.

Restorative Justice is an excellent model for this approach, active in many countries, including the U.S.

To build an infrastructure for peace nationally, there is the movement for departments or ministries of peace promoted by the Global Alliance for Ministries and Infrastructures for Peace. Currently the Solomon Islands (2005), Nepal (2007), Costa Rica (2009), the Autonomous Region of Bougainville – Papua New Guinea (unknown date) and, most recently, Ethiopia (2018) have created such infrastructures for peace.

Afghanistan is moving in this direction. In Africa, following electoral violence, both Ghana and Kenya have formed peace-building programs without a formal department as such.

Here are some guidelines for the establishment of infrastructures for peace:

1. It works best when there is a comprehensive strategy in place involving the government and all stakeholders at the national, regional and local level.

2. Each level in the structure needs to have some autonomy so that responses to conflict can be made rapidly at the appropriate level. Local peace committees can often function where government cannot or may be regarded with suspicion. Local peace committees have been effective in defusing electoral violence by creating a dialogue between opposing sides and insuring free and fair elections, mediation and reconciliation between parties.

3. Local peace committees are encouraged to utilize traditional and culturally appropriate decision-making structures, where legitimacy exists among the parties to conflict and not necessarily rely on modern state ideas of formal organization.

Saul Arbess is co-founder of the Global Alliance for Ministries and Infrastructures for Peace and the Canadian Peace Initiative. Arbess will be one of the speakers at the Ashland Global Peace Conference Sept. 21. He will be presenting a talk on infrastructures for peace. Conference information can be found at ashlandglobalpeaceconference.com. David Wick is executive director of the Ashland Culture of Peace Commission.

DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION, global

Manifesto on diversity: the Land of Canaan

TOLERANCE AND SOLIDARITY .

An article by Mazin Qumsiyeh

At the Edinburgh International Festival I was asked to give a manifesto for the future. Thinking about it, I propose that briefly I address the issue of existential need to maintain biological diversity including human diversity. This resonates deeply with me due partly to my background in biology and medical genetics: the former helped understand better the evolution of diversity in nature and the latter (together with my social and political interests) the nature and importance of human diversity.

In many ways I think we can approach phenomena like racism, environmental destruction, colonization and wars via a diagnostic-therapeutic approach. As a student of science I was always keen in following this pragmatic approach with proposing rational testable hypothesis, collecting data, testing and retesting ideas with as little bias as is reasonably possible. With regards to the situation in Western Asia (aka “Middle East”), I wrote a book called Sharing the Land of Canaan, which talks about patient history, symptoms and underlying cause (etiology) as well  as prognostics.

I addressed in more detail the therapy in a book called “Popular Resistance in Palestine, History of Hope and Empowerment”. Here I do not want to go over these details and I want to just focus on one issue which is human diversity as a an imeprative – strengthening diversity as the most rational and obvious outcome even following colonial anti-colonial struggle.

I was professor at Yale University Medical School and when I was teaching my students I would say, you have to take a bit of patient history, understand what’s going on, and then you make the right diagnosis, and then you offer therapy and you look to prognosis. Taking the same approach is the logical way of looking at things, not emotional gut feeling kind of thing. Our subject or patient is a geographic region that is very significant, it’s at the nexus of continents and the cradle of civilizations. Due to geologic and geographic location, we have rich biodiversity including human diversity. A bottleneck for bird migration where >500 million birds pass on annual migrations from Eurasia to Africa. It was also a bottleneck for human migration where early humans spread out of Africa to the rest of the world.

This is the first area on planet earth that humans went from hunter-gatherers to agricultural and pastoral lifestyles. It is where we first domesticated plants like wheat, barley, and lentils and animals like goats and sheep. This is thus the fertile crescent. Jericho for example is the oldest continuously inhabited town on Earth; It has always had people. Of course these people acquired different religions, as religions come and go but the native/indigenous people stayed here for 12,000 years since that dawn of agriculture and animal husbandry.  It is what we call dawn of civilization because when people went from hunter-gatherers to agricultural communities their numbers went up so they lived in villages and towns and started to organize their lives and started to be more creative creative with the Iron and Bronze age. These people, our ancestors the Canaanites, are depicted in hieroglyphics and in Mesopotamian reliefs as rich people who had a fertile productive county (the land of milk and honey mentioned
in the Bible).

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Question for this article

Presenting the Palestinian side of the Middle East, Is it important for a culture of peace?

How can a culture of peace be established in the Middle East?

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Our Canaanitic ancestors evolved into various tribes: Nebateans (early Arab), Jebuisites, Hebrews, Ammonites, Phoenecians and Phyllistines among others. Towns and villages that they inhabited prospered and as they diversified and specialized they traded their goods. Cheese and butter of Nebateans for perfumes from Jericho and wood from cedars of Lebanon. For these 12,000 years we have had very little conflict here. Palestine having multiethahnic, multireligious, multicultural and even multilingual society for thousands of years. This may surprise some of you because you watch western media which is basically propaganda nonsense. This country is one of the least conflicted on Earth. We are just unlucky to be living in this era now. If you go back before this conflict between natives and Zionism you would go to the Crusaders, 1190 AD, another conflict that came from outside. So we’re talking about hundreds of years with no conflict in between short episodes imposed on us from outside.

So this is not a congenital problem, the patient is not hopeless, the patient has had episodes, once in a while, but these native people prospered developing religion, laws, music, and even the alphabet. The latin alphabet was invented and evolved by our Canaanite ancestors. The Aramaic language that Jesus spoke had significant influence as it evolved to Arabic, Assyrian, and Hebrew. Like languages, religious beliefs also evolved and diversified.  Our country has always been multi-ethnic, multicultural, multi-religious, and multilingual. Very rare episodes which came from outside attempted and failed (e.g. Crusaderism, Zionism) to change this. Settler colonialism is not uncommon diagnosis and it is a very destructive force for both the native humans and all other native fauna and flora. We can cite for example destruction of millions of endogenous treesand planting European pine trees to hide the places of the destroyed Palestinian villages. We  can cite draining the Hula wetlands, diversion of the Jordan valley waters (leading to desertification) and the politically motivated Red Sea-Dead Sea Canal.

I’m optimistic because our subject, the Western part of the Fertile Crescent has been healthy and prosperous and strong (via diversity). Its current setback started with an idea called Zionism. Zionism is not a complicated idea, it says that European Jews are discriminated against in Europe, they should have their own state, so come and take this country that is called Palestine and make it the Jewish state of Israel. Most blacks in North America resisted discrimination but there was a minority who decided to go make their own state created a nation state in western Africa, Liberia, and the problem for them is the same problem that these European Jews faced, and Herzl also one of the founders of this movement faced, is that Liberia was not a land without a people for a people without a land. There were people there, natives, and what to do with the nativesis always a problem for people who come from abroad to try and create new realities on the ground.  Today 7.5 million of us Palestinians are refugees or displaced people (of a total 13 million Palestinians).  Settler colonialism has one of three possible outcomes: 1) Algerian model where 2-3 million Algerians were killed in the struggle and then one million French packed their bags and went to Europe, 2) Australia and the US model (genocide of natives), 3) The rest of the world model were descendants of the colonizers and descendants of the colonized live in one country and share it. There is no fourth scenario in the history of colonization.

The diagnosis and the prognosis (third scenario) is logical and attempts by colonizers are monolithic society fail (cf Crusaderism, Zionism).  They fail because diversity is strength. In biology when I look at the forest and I see one species dominate I don’t say this is a healthy forest. I say this is unhealthy, it’s going to decline. The strength comes from diversity, so we say that’s what will happen here and that’s another reason why I’m optimistic – we fight for equality and to maintain the country the way it was supposed to be: multi-ethnic multi-cultural and multi-religious.

Therapy in the form of popular resistance and a global joint struggle as we did against apartheid in South Africa is working. We just need to intensify it.

(Thank you to Phyllis Kotite, the CPNN reporter for this article which she received by email from Mazin.)

Mideast, TOLERANCE & SOLIDARITY

PAYNCoP Gabon and AFRICTIVITIES inform civil society organizations about the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR)

… . HUMAN RIGHTS … .

by Jerry Bibang, National Coordinator of PAYNCoP Gabon (translation by CPNN)

As part of the celebration of the African month of justice, the Citizen Movement for Good Governance in Gabon (MCB2G) and the Panafrican Youth Network for Peace Culture (PAYNCoP), in partnership with Africtivists, organized, Saturday, August 10, a public conference on the theme “African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and Access to Justice: Mechanism for this fundamental right.”


(click on photo to enlarge)

Hosted by Paulette Oyane Ondo, lawyer and human rights defender, the meeting at the Glass Cultural Center brought together several NGO leaders and associations working for the defense and promotion of human rights.

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(Click here for the original French version.)

Question(s) related to this article:

How can human rights be defended?

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In his remarks, Jerry Bibang, the MCB2G General Coordinator and National Coordinator of PAYNCoP Gabon emphasized the context of this meeting: “the activity that brings us together today is part of the implementation of the program entitled ‘Local Initiative for Justice’, which aims to set up a framework for dialogue, exchange, discussion and debate around human and peoples’ rights issues. The program, organized by Africtivistes, consists of 5 major sessions that will be held successively in Gabon, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Cameroon. ”

Through this program, “the Africtivists and all the stakeholders wish to publicize the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), which remains little known to the general public,” he added.

In her remarks, Maitre Paulette Oyane Ondo began with a historical reminder before addressing the composition, functioning, mechanisms and conditions of referral to the ACHPR. For the lawyer, the Commission, created in 1987 in Ethiopia, essentially promotes, protects, guarantees and respects human rights in Africa. Its basic tool is the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

The commission also acts as a jurisdiction between states or in case of a difference between a state and an individual or a group of people living in Africa. If the commission is accessible to all, there are, however, conditions for it to take up a case. The first condition is that the country involved has ratified the African Charter on Human Rights; and the second is that the complaint is related to a violation of the basic text. The lawyer took the opportunity to highlight the lack of involvement of Gabonese civil society with the ACHPR, before answering the many questions of the participants.

On the sidelines of this event, the public also was presented the Africtivistes platform by Boursier Tchibinda, one of the members of this pan-African organization as well as a presentation of the MCB2G, by Joanie Mahinou, the Deputy General Coordonatrice of this NGO.

Africa, HUMAN RIGHTS

Global Human Rights Movement Issues Travel Warning for the U.S. due to Rampant Gun Violence

… . HUMAN RIGHTS … .

An article from Amnesty International

Amnesty International today issued a travel warning calling for possible travelers and visitors to the United States to exercise extreme caution when traveling throughout the country due to rampant gun violence, which has become so prevalent in the United States that it amounts to a human rights crisis. It aims to hold up a mirror to the U.S. using the model of the United States Department of State’s travel advice for U.S. travelers to other countries.

“Travelers to the United States should remain cautious that the country does not adequately protect people’s right to be safe, regardless of who they might be. People in the United States cannot reasonably expect to be free from harm – a guarantee of not being shot is impossible,” said Ernest Coverson, campaign manager for the End Gun Violence Campaign at Amnesty International USA. “Once again, it is chillingly clear that the U.S. government is unwilling to ensure protection against gun violence.”

The travel advisory addressed growing gun violence, mostly hate crimes, including racism and discrimination, highlighting that the traveler’s race, country of origin, ethnic background, sexual orientation or gender identity may place them at higher risk after recent attacks linked to white supremacist ideology.

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Question(s) related to this article:

What is the state of human rights in the world today?

Do you think handguns should be banned?, Why or why not?

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The action called attention to the extent to which all aspects of life in the United States have been compromised in some way by unfettered access to guns, without comprehensive and uniform regulation of their acquisition and use. By prioritizing gun ownership over basic human rights, the U.S. government is willfully and systematically failing on multiple levels and ignoring its international obligations to protect people’s rights and safety.

Amnesty International has been calling for common sense reform regarding the use and possession of firearms, including comprehensive background checks, national regulations for registering and licensing firearms, required training, a ban on high capacity magazines/assault weapons, and mandatory safe-storage laws. Amnesty International USA’s campaign to end gun violence has focused efforts on passing S.42., the Assault Weapons ban, and the Disarm Hate Act.

Background

A report by Amnesty International, “In the Line of Fire: Human Rights and the U.S. Gun Violence Crisis” examined how all aspects of American life have been compromised in some way by the unfettered access to guns, with no attempts at meaningful national regulation.

Last month, Amnesty International published a report examining how survivors of gun violence in the United States suffer years of trauma and pain due to a destructive combination of government policies which ignore their needs.

HUMAN RIGHTS, North America

Full text of Nagasaki Peace Declaration on the 74th A-bomb anniversary

DISARMAMENT AND SECURITY .

An article from The Mainichi

The following is the full text of the Peace Declaration read on Aug. 9 by Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue at a ceremony to mark the 74th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city.


A man bows at the hypocenter cenotaph in Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 2019, the 74th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of the southwestern Japan city. (Kyodo)

Close Your Eyes and Listen
While thousands of arms and legs were torn off
Intestines drooping out
Maggots swarming in bodies,
Those still breathing searched for loved ones
And cremated the dead they found.
The smoke of burning corpses rose into the sky
And innocent blood stained the water of Urakami River.

Leaving only keloid scars, the war finally came to an end.

But
My mother and father are gone.
My brothers and sisters will never return.

People are weak and quick to forget;
They repeat the same mistakes again and again.

But
This one thing must never be forgotten.
This one thing must never be repeated
Under any circumstances whatsoever…

This poem was written by a woman exposed to the Nagasaki atomic bombing at 11:02 a.m., August 9, 1945. Seventeen years old, she lost her family and suffered serious injuries. The poem expresses her fervent belief that no one else in the world should ever have to experience the same tragedy.

The atomic bombs were built by human hands and exploded over human heads. It follows that nuclear weapons can be eliminated by an act of human will and that the source of that will is, without question, the mind of each human being.

The present world situation involving nuclear weapons is extremely dangerous. The opinion that nuclear weapons are useful is once again gaining traction. The United States is developing smaller, more manageable nuclear weapons, and Russia has announced the development and deployment of new nuclear weaponry. Moreover, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty that ended the cold war arms race is facing dissolution, just as the continuation of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) is imperiled. The achievements of humankind and the results of our longstanding efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons are collapsing one after another, and the danger of a nuclear calamity is mounting.

Have the desperate appeals of the atomic bomb survivors, endeavoring to ensure that the living hell caused by nuclear weapons is “never repeated,” failed to reach the ears of the world?

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Question related to this article:

Can we abolish all nuclear weapons?

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The answer is no. There are many people in the United Nations, in governments and municipalities, and especially in civil society groups including the atomic bomb survivors who share the same opinion and are speaking out.

As a collection of small voices, civil society groups have shown the power time and again to change the world. The testing of hydrogen bombs in the Bikini Atoll in 1954 stirred up a wave of protests that swept across the globe and resulted in the conclusion of test ban treaties. Similarly, the power of citizens movements played an important role in the conclusion of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in 2017. The power of a single individual is small but by no means weak.

I call out to civil society throughout the world.

Let us continue to discuss our experiences of war and the atomic bombings and pass the information on to future generations. Knowledge of the horror of war is an important first step to peace.

Let us continue to promote trust between people across country borders. The bridges of trust built by individuals will help to prevent the outbreak of war due to national conflicts.

Let us inform our children about the importance of understanding the pain of others. That will sow the seeds of peace in children’s hearts.

There are many things that we can do in the cause of peace. Let us avoid despair and indifference and continue to cultivate a culture of peace. Let us raise our voices and insist that nuclear weapons are unnecessary.

This is the big role that all of us can play, however small we may seem.

Leaders of the world. Visit the atomic-bombed cities and see, hear and feel what happened under the mushroom cloud. Imprint in your minds the inhumanity of nuclear weapons.

Leaders of the nuclear states. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) will reach its fifty-year milestone next year. All the nuclear states should recall the meaning of the treaty, which promises to eliminate nuclear weapons and compels each country to fulfill that duty. I appeal to the United States and Russia, in particular, to assume responsibility as nuclear superpowers by demonstrating to the world concrete ways to drastically reduce nuclear stockpiles.

I also appeal to the Japanese government. Japan has turned its back on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. As the only country in the world to have experienced the devastation caused by nuclear weapons, Japan must sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons as soon as possible. As a means to that end, I ask Japan to seize the trend toward denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula and to initiate efforts to make northeast Asia a nuclear-free zone where all countries coexist under, not a “nuclear umbrella,” but a “non-nuclear umbrella.” And above all, I ask the Japanese government to uphold the spirit of “never resort to war” enshrined in the Japanese Constitution and to take the lead in disseminating that spirit around the world.

The average age of the atomic bomb survivors has exceeded 82. I ask the Japanese government to adopt further measures to support the aging survivors and take steps to assist the people who were exposed to the atomic bombings but are yet to be recognized as survivors.

As a city exposed to nuclear devastation, Nagasaki will continue to support the people of Fukushima, who are still struggling with radioactive contamination eight years after the nuclear power plant disaster.

My heartfelt thoughts go out to the people who perished in the atomic bombing, and I declare Nagasaki’s determination, along with Hiroshima and people everywhere committed to peace, to strive relentlessly for the abolition of nuclear weapons and the realization of lasting world peace.

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, East Asia

Colombia: Rigoberta Menchú asks the Government to strengthen the peace agreement

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION .

An article from RCN Televisión (translation by CPNN)

Guatemalan peace nobel laureate Rigoberta Menchú has asked the government of President Iván Duque to strengthen the peace agreement, which was signed with the FARC guerrillas in November 2016.

“There must be much more investment in building a culture of peace, an education for peace,” said Menchu, who participates in Cartagena in the Women Economic Forum (WEF) that began on Thursday [August 1] and concludes on Saturday.


PHOTO: Rigoberta Menchur

Menchu ​​said that this is vital because “surely all common citizens recognize not only the historical importance of the peace agreement but also the importance of its implementation.”

In that sense, she stressed the importance that both former guerrillas and state actors “really have the guarantee of building a new perspective without war and with the possibility of a better life, that is, a decent life from the economic, political, social and cultural point of view. ”

The winner of the Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation in 1998 also highlighted the need to make visible the achievements made in the implementation of the agreement because she believes that this is essential in order to “take stock”.

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(Click here for the original Spanish version of this article.)

Question related to this article:

What is happening in Colombia, Is peace possible?

Where in the world can we find good leadership today?

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“Humanity would like to see those achievements.”

Menchu ​​also referred to the murder of social leaders and former FARC guerrillas and said that as long as there is impunity “it is very difficult to achieve absolute respect for a peace process.”

“A tremendous effort must be made not only to enforce peace agreements but also to enforce criminal justice,” she said.

In Colombia at least 462 social leaders and human rights defenders were murdered between January 1, 2016 and February 28 of this year, according to data from the Ombudsman’s Office.

Likewise, a study by the NGO Institute for Peace and Development Studies (Indepaz) and the political movement Patriotic March maintains that more than 700 social leaders and 135 ex-combatants of the FARC have been killed since 2016, the year in which the peace agreement was signed.

In addition, the NGO Somos Defensores has reported that the murders of defenders increased almost 50% in 2018, and the crimes were not punished, since in three out of four cases the authorship of the crime was not even established.

Menchú recalled that in Guatemala after signing a peace agreement in December 1996 between the Government of the then President Álvaro Arzú and the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unit, “an enormous effort was made to persuade the courts to file complaints.”

“We were aware that the subsequent violence had to be prevented, persecution had to be prevented and many times the state security forces or the war actors themselves do it,” he said.

In a press conference prior to her speech at the Cartagena forum, Menchú also said that women should have specific courts to try crimes and aggressions suffered by women.

“We women should consider ourselves as powerful. If that becomes our way of thinking, it will strengthen the actions we do and our actions will be transformative,” concluded Menchu.

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION, Latin America

Colombia: Barranquilla will host the first Ibero-American Education Congress

… EDUCATION FOR PEACE …

An article in El Heraldo (translation by CPNN)

Within the framework of the celebration of the 70 years of the Organization of Ibero-American States (OIE), the first Ibero-American Congress on Education, Citizenship and Democracy will be held on August 29 and 30. In the event, whose details were released Thursday in a press conference, topics will include education for global citizenship, ethics and democracy for sustainable development.


Press conference to give details of the meeting. Mery Granados

During the press conference, organized by the Simón Bolívar University, the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI) and the Foundation for Quality Education, it was reported that the congress is framed in the Educational Agenda to 2030.

Carlos Zuluaga Pardo, Deputy Director of the OEI, said that this congress is an opportunity for the Caribbean region to open the doors to the world and contribute to the discussion on issues of coexistence, peace, inclusion, global citizenship and diversity. He said the event will be held at the José Consuegra Higgins Theater.

Lilia Campo Ternera, director of the José Consuegra Higgins Social Research and Innovation Center (CIISO) of the Simón Bolívar University, said that Unisimón seeks to open spaces to disseminate knowledge generated by researchers from CIISO, who have made different studies and analysis about inclusion, democracy, citizenship, development and cognitive processes.

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(Click here for the original article in Spanish.)

Questions for this article:

What is the relation between peace and education?

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About the congress

This meeting will be key considering that the world’s educational systems, especially in Latin America, face the challenge of training children and young people as citizens who recognize and value the importance of democracy, solidarity, mutual respect, coexistence , the peaceful resolution of conflicts, respect for differences, especially their most vulnerable partners, social learning, cooperation and rejection of all forms of exclusion, segregation and violence.

The International Study on Civic and Citizen Education (ICCS 2016) showed worrying results, in the sense that half of the students from Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and the Dominican Republic fail to demonstrate any specific knowledge and understanding about institutions, systems and civic and citizenship concepts. These five countries are the lowest performing within 24 educational systems analyzed.

The Congress works with the framework of action of the Sustainable Development Goal No. 4, which specifies the need to guarantee inclusive, equitable and quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. In addition, in the framework of the Educational Agenda 2030, which incorporates an important component related to education for democratic citizenship, especially in goal 4.7 (Knowledge and skills for sustainable development)

The main purpose is that in 2030 all students acquire theoretical and practical knowledge necessary to promote sustainable development, among other things, through education and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, the promotion of a culture of peace and nonviolence, world citizenship and the valuation of cultural diversity and the contribution of culture to sustainable development.

The congress will feature the participation of renowned international and national speakers, experts in the field such as Alicia Cabezudo (Argentina), Marita Copes (Uruguay), Enrique Rentería (Mexico), Julián De Zubiria (Colombia), Francisco Cajiao (Colombia), Alejo Vargas (Colombia), and Abel Rodríguez (Colombia), among others. It will be addressed to educators, teachers and administrative managers of all levels, from preschool to postgraduate; as well as researchers, academics, civil society organizations, governments, businessmen and students.

EDUCATION FOR PEACE, Latin America

Mexico: Congress for Peace and Youth 2019

TOLERANCE & SOLIDARITY .

An article from El Sol de Cuernavaca (translation by CPNN)

In the framework of August youth month, Diego Alcázar Pérez, director of Impajoven, announced the call for the 1st edition of the Congress for Peace and Youth 2019 that will aim to raise awareness among participants about the importance of peace for community development.


Photo: Froylán Trujillo

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(Click here for the original Spanish article)

Question related to this article:
 
Youth initiatives for a culture of peace, How can we ensure they get the attention and funding they deserve?

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The event to be held in September is sponsored by the State System of Policies with and by youth participation. They will create a manifesto of the youth 2019 where they will make demands on the government. The governor Cuauhtémoc Blanco Bravo has recognized them as agents of peace, promoting political participation and the culture of peace.

The Congress will be held at the Cultural Center “Los Chocolates” along with six activities: political rehearsal; artistic and digital poster contest; Impamun United Nations model; resistance workshops and non-violent actions; as well as the culture of peace workshop. The Congress seeks young people to be agents of change in their locality.

Latin America, TOLERANCE & SOLIDARITY

Done with violence?

EDUCATION FOR PEACE .

A blog by KEN BUTIGAN for Pace e Bene

In 1989, a handful of friends found themselves mulling on how they could promote a culture of nonviolence – a culture where people everywhere could let go of a deep-seated belief in violence and, instead, could live the power of nonviolent options. Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service was the result. Taking its name from a greeting St. Francis of Assisi used in his own time meaning “peace and all good,” Pace e Bene set out to contribute to a growing movement for nonviolent alternatives. I joined a year later.

In the wake of the horrific mass shootings this past weekend in Texas and Ohio, I’ve been reflecting on what Pace e Bene has learned over these three decades, and how these lessons are needed now more than ever. Thirty years of experience, action, reflection, writing, publishing, and programming – including leading a thousand trainings – have increasingly convinced us of the liberating power of creative nonviolence.

This was a slow process, in which we gradually came to see how nonviolence is a powerful force, an active method for change, and a thoroughgoing way of life. We slowly saw that nonviolence is not a “non-word” but a path with heart confronting violence without using violence and, at the same time, fostering transformation, justice, and the well-being of all. Step by step we realized that, what started out for most of us as a tactic of protest, was in fact a universal ethic. The paradigm of violence is harsh and pervasive, but there is a qualitatively different operating system available to us, one on which our survival depends.

The killings this past weekend (compounding the tsunami of violence – direct, cultural and structural – that washes over the world daily) are the consequence of the uncritical allegiance to the violence paradigm, a system of domination and threat that projects itself as reality. “This is how the world is,” it teaches us in countless ways from the moment we are born. But it is not reality. It is a highly sophisticated script that weaves together our worst tendencies —our fear, our anger, our greed, our small self—and creates a culture of violence and oppression in which we are conscripted and for which we are expected to live and die.

Fortunately, there is an alternative. We know this from a long lineage of sages who have tipped us off to the nonviolent option, but also from commonsense. If violence were the default, the human species would have destroyed itself long ago, with the retaliatory and escalatory logic of violence spinning out of control and into extinction. It is the secret history of nonviolence that has – hour by hour, day by day, year by year, century by century – kept this from happening. As Gandhi said, “Nonviolence is as old as the hills,” but he also stressed that this history has largely been ignored and undocumented. Over the last century – largely sparked by Gandhi’s modern adaptation and application of the ancient Hindu term ahimsa [“nonviolence”] in leading movements for freedom in South Africa and India – people throughout the world have explicitly excavated and applied this “third way” beyond violence and passivity.

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Question for this article:

Can peace be guaranteed through nonviolent means?

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Nonviolence is an intrinsic tendency that all human beings have – and this latent power of love in action can be tapped to deal with conflict and violence more effectively than the other options at our disposal: retreat, accommodation, or counter-violence. But if this power is trivialized or suppressed, we won’t access it. We will go on tapping the power of violence – and reinforcing the self-fulfilling prophecy of violence. We will continue to be caught in the violence trap.

Sometimes, though, there are moments where the search for the alternative beyond violence and passivity becomes so urgent that nonviolence—as a paradigm of the fullness of life, as a universal ethic—can suddenly be glimpsed as an option. The stereotypes that have long dogged nonviolence (that it is ineffective, passive, weak, utopian, naïve, unpatriotic, marginal, simplistic, and impractical) can peel away long enough to see that a nonviolent culture in its most robust and comprehensive sense is the only practical solution.

This may be a moment for just such a new direction.

The mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton (number 27 and 28 in the US this year, according to one count) demonstrate the bankruptcy of the violence paradigm. But, ironically, they also illuminate that the nonviolent operating system is also present, as seen in the reaction to these horrendous events. The public has recoiled against the “normalization” of such slaughter. Between the lines of this outcry is the bedrock assumption that violence is anti-human and that a culture free of violence should be the default.

What’s largely missing, though, is the way to get there. That’s where active, creative and relentless nonviolence comes in.

Nonviolence is not an end goal – it is a process. It is a process of envisioning an alternative, re-framing our thinking to foster this alternative, and living our way into this alternative. It is a way of being – but also a way of building a culture where, in effect, it is easier to be nonviolent. It is both what we can call “soul work” and “society work.”

What would our “soul work” entail in light of massive gun violence, for example?

First, we must once and for all tell ourselves that we are done with violence. Enough is enough. If we have been trained in violence, then we must get “un-trained.” This begins with making a solemn pledge in the secrecy of our heart that we are letting go of all the ways we support violence. This fundamental re-orientation can lead us to learning, healing, taking stock and taking action. A long process of secret confession and transformation may await, but it can start today.

And what of our “society work”? We must join grassroots movements laboring to create laws, policies, structures, and cultures where the lives of human beings have priority over the absolutization of guns. The sanctity of existence takes precedent over unrestricted access to guns. As we saw this weekend, guns were used to enforce and perpetuate the violence system (and, in these cases, its preeminent value of white supremacy). Our long-term “society work” will not only lessen the threat that guns represent, it will transform the cultural assumptions on which they rest.

To do both our soul work and our society work, we encourage you to go public with a call for a society free from violence and everything that feeds it. One option is to join Campaign Nonviolence in taking action in cities and towns across the US September 14-22, where we will mobilize for a culture of active and liberating nonviolence. Currently over 2800 nonviolent actions are planned.

But you don’t have to wait. You can do something today.

We’re done with violence. Together we can plunge into the difficult but powerful work of mainstreaming nonviolence for a more just and peaceful world.

EDUCATION FOR PEACE, North America

U.S. students walk out again to protest gun violence

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article by Keith Coffman in Reuters (reprinted by permission)

Demanding an end to gun violence and tougher restrictions on firearm sales, thousands of students again walked out of classes across the United States on Friday in hopes of putting pressure on politicians ahead of November’s midterm elections.

Timed to coincide with the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre, students left classes at midmorning, many waving placards with slogans including “I should be worried about grades, not guns,” and “Enough is enough.”


Students gather for a rally in Washington Square Park, as part of a nationwide walk-out of classes to mark the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School mass shooting, in New York City, U.S., April 20, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Organizers said students from more than 2,600 schools and institutions were scheduled to take part, but that was fewer than participated in a similar walkout last month. In some places, demonstrators even met with resistance from school administrators.

“Today is about being proactive and being empowered and really funneling all that energy and anger we have as young people into some productive change,” one of the student organizers, Lane Murdock of Connecticut, told Reuters.

Olivia Pfeil, a 16-year-old sophomore from a high school in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, held a sign bearing the names of mass shooting victims. “We’re expecting change or come next election cycle we will support politicians who are listening to the voices of the youth,” she said.

It was the second student walkout since the Feb. 14 massacre of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and the emergence of a national student movement to end gun violence and toughen restrictions on firearms sales.

Many of the demonstrators wore orange, a color that has come to represent the movement against gun violence. A 13-second silence was observed in honor of the 13 killed at Columbine.

At the Texas statehouse in Austin, about 1,000 students, many waving signs and chanting anti-NRA slogans, demanded stricter gun control measures.

“Because we can’t vote, this is the only way we can make our voices heard,” said Graeclyn Garza, a second-year student at McCallum High School in Austin, who waved a sign reading “Enough.”

Outside the White House, protesters sat in silence while they listened to the names of gun violence victims read aloud.

“It happened like 20 years ago,” said Ayanna Rhodes, 14, a student at Washington International School, referring to Columbine, “And we are still getting mass shootings in schools.”

Two gunman went on a shooting rampage at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999, leaving 12 students and a teacher dead before killing themselves in a massacre that stunned the nation. But since then, school shootings have become commonplace.

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Question related to this article:

Do you think handguns should be banned?, Why or why not?

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Even as students prepared for their protest on Friday morning, news broke that a 17-year-old student had been wounded in a shooting at a high school near Ocala, Florida. A suspect was arrested soon afterward, police said.

The latest gun violence unfolded about 225 miles (360 km)northwest of the Parkland high school, where two months ago a former student killed 17 people in the deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history.

Despite widespread revulsion over the school shootings, the issue of gun control remains sensitive in Colorado and across the country, where the Second Amendment of the Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms.

‘OPPOSE THEM AT EVERY STEP’

Dudley Brown, president of the Colorado-based National Association for Gun Rights, said the gun-control movement seeks to have the government take away constitutional rights.
“The main objective of these students is to ban firearms completely, and confiscate the firearms of law-abiding Americans,” Brown said. “We will oppose them at every step.”

In some conservative school districts, administrators told students they could face disciplinary steps if they walked out.

In suburban Dallas, a dozen students dressed in orange chanted “End gun violence!” as they huddled in a parking lot across the street from North Garland High School.

Freshman Victoria Fierro, 14, said school administrators blocked the doors when about 50 students tried to leave, so a small group exited through a side door.

“They told us we would get in trouble if we walk out, and we told them it was a peaceful protest, we’re not causing any damage,” Fierro said. “This is over a serious topic that people are pushing aside.”

The principal declined to answer questions from Reuters.

It was not immediately clear whether Friday’s turnout matched those of earlier protests. More than a month ago, tens of thousands of students from some 3,000 schools participated in the #ENOUGH National School Walkout to demand tighter gun control regulations.

On March 24, “March For Our Lives” rallies in cities across the United States were some of the biggest U.S. youth demonstrations in decades, with hundreds of thousands of young Americans and their supporters taking to the streets.

On the evening before the walk-outs, Colorado gun control activists rallied near Columbine High School.

Carlos Rodriguez, a 17-year-old junior from Marjory Stoneman, traveled to Columbine for the anniversary and said he found a sense of solidarity in the outpouring of support.

“That’s the only thing that’s keeping us Douglas students alive right now: the distraction of fighting for our rights and advocating for our lives,” Rodriguez told Reuters.

There was no walkout on Friday at Columbine, which has not held classes on April 20 since the massacre. Students were encouraged to take part in community service instead.

Additional reporting by Lacey Johnson and Ian Simpson in Washington, Zach Fagenson in Miami, Lisa Maria Garza in Garland, Texas, Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas, and Edgar Mendez in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Dan Grebler

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, North America