STWR - Share The World's Resources

Dr. Charles Mercieca ~ STWR Member

President of International Association of Educators for World Peace NGO,
United Nations (ECOSOC), UNDPI, UNICEF, UNCED & UNESCO
Professor Emeritus of Alabama A&M University

Peace Education and Voluntary Service

If there is one element that all people would rather have by all means is peace. Yet, people in general do hardly anything to secure this priceless gift. It is an element that we cannot purchase with all the money and wealth of our earthly planet. However, this element is at our disposal at any moment. It all boils down as to whether we seriously want it or not. Peace is the source of our joy and happiness, of our tranquility of mind, and of the secret of success in our spiritual sphere especially.

Concept of Peace

If peace is viewed as the treasure or crowning achievement of our life, we need to promote it and to cultivate it in the heart of everyone beginning from early childhood. Above all, we need to implement it as a primary objective in our school curricula. This kind of promotion and implementation is commonly known as peace education. Because peace is spiritual in nature, we need to follow certain criteria that are based mostly on some fundamental principles that are furnished by ascetical writers.

We need to go to some of the gigantic figures of spirituality that appeared throughout the past several centuries. Among these we find Buddha, Lao Tse, Confucius, Jesus of Nazareth, Mahatma Gandhi, Francis of Assisi, and Mother Teresa of Calcutta, among numerous others. These great advocates of peace all resorted to detachment from the material things that surround us. When we become attached to a variety of objects, our spirit becomes a slave of such items to the extent that we lose our peace automatically.

To this end, it would be appropriate if every now and then we were to go through everything we have at home and start getting rid of anything that we do not need, that is superfluous, and that cannot be viewed as a matter of life and death. We are all familiar with the proverb: The art of giving is the art of living – the more we give the more we get.

Peace comes to our soul when our soul feels free of the burden of material things. The freer our soul is from these material elements the more peace we feel permeating throughout our entire self. Peace has many advantages. It enables to generate in us a greater power of concentration. It let us experience the joy of tranquility in our heart. It instills in us a tremendous amount of courage to move forward in life gallantly and with perseverance. It implants in us a large dosage of wisdom, which allows us to see things into truer perspective. Besides, it develops in us a sense of perception relative to anything around us.

Role of Education

Education plays a big role in the promotion of peace at both the individual and collective level. In fact, every teacher should develop the ability to use its subject matter as a means to promote peace in the heart of each of his/her students. This way, students could become an instrument of peace in the community and nation where they happen to be. For example, teachers of history may demonstrate how history tends to repeat itself, how we may learn from history to retain anything positive and constructive we have inherited and how to avoid repeating anything negative and destructive that took place.

The teacher of geography may demonstrate the unimportance of political boundaries and how our pride should not be linked to the flag of our nation but rather to the individual character and personality. The teacher of biology may demonstrate how the longevity of our life depends on the kind of food we eat and the kind of air we breathe. This would amount to the importance of keeping our environment free from air and water pollution that comes from deadly toxic wastes emitted from big corporations headed by the weapons industry. In other words, teachers could use their subject matter as a means to promote awareness in students of the importance of peace.

One of the greatest problems we face in our wholehearted effort to promote peace lies in most of our governmental priorities. It is ironic that most of the governments speak of peace while they proceed to promote war! Besides, several governments tend to put the bulk of expenditure not on the health care and the education of their people, but on the manufacture, sales and purchase of weapons of mass destruction! The United States is a typical example in this regard. This nation criticizes countries that have weapons of mass destruction. Then, this same nation continues to manufacture such weapons and sells them to any nation that is ready to give the right price, friends and enemies alike.

Fortunately, many more humanitarian organizations are now becoming increasingly concerned about the indispensable need for a permanent peace. The alternative to peace is war, which we have been witnessing almost without interruption for a very long time. Here we are faced with a problem that the vast majority of the world’s population seem not to be fully aware of. The weapons industry is determined to remain in business. This satanic corporation views peace as the enemy of its lethal and deadly product. Hence, as long as we allow the continued existence of this cursed corporation, the world is going to have a very hard time in witnessing a long period of peace.

Importance of Voluntary Organizations

We are all familiar with the proverb: When there is a will there is a way. This means that we can eventually do something substantial about bringing the weapons industry under full control. We cannot expect the government to do this job, since the government seems to be an integral part of the problem in this regard. However, we may rely on voluntary organizations to take over where the governments left off. Such organizations may become the foundation of a permanent peace all people would love to see. Among other steps that could be taken in the direction of peace, voluntary organization may do the following:

1. Get hold of several videotapes, which were made by the Center for Defense Information in Washington, DC that show how we can bring the weapons industry under full control. As Retired Admiral Gene R. LaRoque said in some of these videotapes, the aim of the weapons industry is not the defense of the United States, or any nation as a matter of fact, but the making of profit.
   
2. Approach those who work for the weapons industry and convince them to quite their job by all means, trying to show them that the money they make from this lethal industry is merely blood money, which carries with it a curse. Let them see that in the sphere of morality, not only those that use such weapons are viewed as murderers, but also those who produced them.
   
3. Persuade those who are seeking for a job never to consider getting one with the weapons industry. Agencies should be created to provide alternative jobs that are oriented toward being positive and constructive instead of being negative and destructive. If the weapons industry becomes short of manpower, it will have either to change its product or simply proceed to dismantle.
   
4. Bring into the open on a periodical basis the negative and destructive aspects of the weapons industry. People must be fully aware of this fact and to begin to realize that, after all, this industry is not there to defend them but to destroy them literally in the long run. In fact, the toxic waste this industry emits is already killing some two millions Americans alone every year.
   
5. Device an effective plan that would replace all those members of the government that are putting the bulk of the money on this deadly industry. Such government officials should be replaced by those who view the machinery of weapons as the source of world wars, instability, widespread of epidemics, terror, suffering and death of numerous innocent people.

Role of NGOs in the World

The Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) of the United Nations could serve as a gigantic step in the promotion of peace and the elimination of war. The hope of the world lies in volunteer organizations, which do not have to become hostages of big business that is determined to control the economy of the whole world. Such organizations have the potential and capability to whip things into order. They may take an active part to prevent fanatic and ferocious fundamentalists from implementing their biased will in the name of God.

Fundamentalists at this stage of history have emerged to become the most dangerous people on earth to the security of our global community. No one is able to dialogue with them. Whatever they think, whatever they say, it’s always final since they believe they are directly inspired and guided by God! Surely this God of theirs is not that God of Abraham found in the Old Testament or the God that Jesus brought to our attention in the New Testament. It is a different brand of God: a God of love and mercy when friends are concerned and a God of cruelty and revenge when assumed enemies are involved.

Whereas the God that Jesus presented has warned Peter to put the sword away because “he who kills by the sword will die by the sword,” the God presented by the fundamentalists advocate the continued manufacture of devastating weapons and the constant military build up to solve all world problems through wars that take off the lives of countless millions of innocent people brutally and mercilessly. Fundamentalists are for war and not for peace, they are for death and not for life, they are for the inflicting of enormous pain and suffering and not for the healing of such unfortunate maladies.

This is not a matter of an opinion. If it is true that actions speak louder than words, then we may safely conclude that what it has been stated is a tangible and undeniable fact. As we might have heard over and over again, the best way to deal with fundamentalists and extremists is simply to expose them day in and day out. Once they are exposed, people will begin to see things in true and clear perspective. This way people could draw the line and once this is done the whole world would be on its way to permanent safety and security.

Elements to Keep in Mind

To this end, peace education may have a good role to play in the creation of a new generation that is capable to take over the reign of government whose peace philosophy would bring the present culture of war under full control. We need to keep in mind that not all that glitters is gold, that actions speak louder than words, that politicians, unlike statesmen, cannot be trusted, that the future of the world depends on us individually and collectively, and that peace education is the best instrument we have at our disposal to replace the present culture of war with a culture of peace.

1. Not all that glitters is gold: Ascetical writers tell us that when the devil comes to deceive us, he comes to us generally disguised as an angel.
   
2. Action speaks louder than words: It is easier said than done. We may safely judge people by their records rather than by their promises.
   
3. Politicians cannot be trusted: This means we need to replace politicians, who are concerned with the welfare of one group to the exclusion of others, by statesmen, who are concerned with the welfare of all people without exception.
   
4. The future depends on us: We as people are the foundation of the nation. As such, we have the power to replace government officials who are determined to promote the culture of war and to suppress the culture of peace.
   
5. Peace education is the key to world stability: Peace generates stability, progress, prosperity, tranquility and serenity that everyone years to have.

It is obvious that peace education and voluntary organizations go hand in hand in helping create a new generation capable of replacing the culture of war with the culture of peace in the best interest of all people without exception.

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