Dr. Sharma's Paper

A. Introduction

1. As we enter the 21st century, one of the most disturbing facts is that military expenditures around the world are on the increase. In the mid-1990s, the known military expenditure was US$800 billion each year, or $145 per person worldwide, which has increased due to expanding conflicts in various parts of the world. Had there been global peace, during the same period, by the year 2000, the accumulated total in savings or what is termed peace dividends, could have been about $1,491 billion, which could have been diverted to reduce poverty or promote human development on a massive scale never imagined before.

2. The harsh reality is that while the 21st century has been heralded as a time for peace, today we are in a world thriving in a culture of violence. The everyday newspaper headlines reflect this frenzy: in an American state, disturbed children recently shot their fellow grade schoolers; in Tokyo, a crazed man slashed out at students and teachers; in Dhaka, a bomb blast killed dozens of innocent people in a public rally. This violence is not confined to communities—it also savages families: in Kathmandu, a whole royal family, including the King, were slaughtered by gunfire. Women have been repeated victims. In Bangladesh, incidents of throwing acid in faces of women are common; and in distant rural towns in India, burning of bride for failure in dowry arrangements. Worst, the most helpless poor and marginalized families, their women and children, suffer from acts of terrorism and civil war, which seem to mark the everyday affairs of various countries in our planet. In Mindanao as elsewhere, kidnapping for ransom and availability of modern weaponry have made terrorism so sophisticated that even national leaders and statesmen are no longer immune to these attacks.

3. The simple fact is that a child is born into a society in which all this savagery, to use a tough term, operates. What happens to a normal child born to a normal family? Naturally, the first reaction will be the child’s absorption of these factors, in his mindset, and instinct for violence. Yet this same child is taught religious and moral values—he goes to church or a temple or mosque. But these will have less impact on him compared to the impact of the environment of violence he/she is provided by newspaper stories and TV newscasts, and even marketed loudly in computer games, movies and cartoons. Relations of an organization (the individual) to its environment are sometimes satisfactory to the organization, sometimes unsatisfactory. However, the child spends most of his time in school, which today is quite different from the schools of our early days. There are cases of gangs and social classes and prejudices which children see and know are vastly contrary to the academic truths and principles pronounced in their textbooks and teachers’ lectures.

4. How do you make this transition from a culture of violence to a culture of peace? The issue therefore is how to address the threats of violence and how to start building a culture of peace. Frequently, peace treaties are signed between countries and governments—in the Middle East, between India and Pakistan. Yet we know that every year more funds are going to weaponry and armaments, so that democratic governance is at risk, adversely affecting people participation. This is no foundation for a culture of peace. Peace must have its roots at the bottom, with the people, not alone by people at the top. Terrorism grows at the bottom. Take the story of the Iranian, Bin Laden, who operates in Afghanistan. He trained young people who had no jobs, were idle, and frustrated, without any hope for the future. Bin Laden promised them a future. Like most guerrilla movements in China and Vietnam, whenever the rebels and terrorists were pursued and hunted down, they retreated to the villages where families protected them from the authorities that they viewed as abusive, inefficient and corrupt. It is therefore apparent that since children move mainly in and around families and schools, these are the focal points of reforms around which a culture of peace should be built.

B. Impact on Poverty and Democracy

5. Poverty and violence are never too far apart, although they are triggered by different reasons. Though there are developments in science and technology, health and economy in the world, poverty is on the increase and we are sitting on dozens of human landmines. It is difficult for ordinary people to find the basic minimum of economic and environmental necessities—a living wage, clean water, good soil. What is worst is that the world is at a virtual standstill. Development is not progressing commensurate with the investments and donor assistance given to these poor countries. However, the massive debt burdens continue to grow. Hundreds of thousands of refugees, old men, women and children, flee their villages to avoid the violence and death of wars in their homelands. Malnourished people grow by the millions. All of these stem from violence and conflict, and the absence of peace and democracy. The tragedy is that many of the frontline persons involved in these conflicts are young people, who have played into the hands of terrorists, rebels, dictatorships, and greedy militia.

6. It is clear that the process of transition towards democracy is one of the important factors conducive to the construction of a culture of peace. Democracies, as proved by historical experience, not only do not make war against each other, but also through their systems of governance—rule of law, participation, transparency, and accountability—diminish considerably the recourse to violence. The culture of peace should be understood as the creation of peaceful, non-violent behavioral patterns and skills. The main indispensable values on which a peace culture can be built may be grouped around such key notions as justice, human rights, democracy, development, non-violence, and peaceful resolution of conflicts.

C. Peace Development Education

7. The old assumption is that human beings are seminally hostile and normally it is said that wars start in the minds of people. But these are two different things: hostility starting from man’s mind and hostility as innate in the nature of man. These should be considered differently. We need to revise this basic assumption about the underlying nature of human beings from one of being hostile to the state of helpfulness, which can open new possibilities in the proper grooming of the child. All human beings are endowed with the seeds of compassion. When exposed to right conditions at home, school, in society at large, and later perhaps through our pointed efforts in schools (education or training), the seed will flourish. Aggressiveness (hostile behavior) is not essentially innate, and violent behavior is caused by a variety of biological, social, situational, and environmental factors. In fact, we have seen many examples in life and history that violent behavior is not inherited, and children of criminals turn out to be good human beings, and given a good environment, became useful citizens. For example, the granddaughter of Italian dictator Mussolini became a parliamentarian in the Italian Assembly. Even the daughter of Russian dictator Stalin turned out to be a creative professional.

8. The proper development of a child is greatly influenced by proper education and training. Education should not be equated with training. Education is a system—a self-adjusting combination of interacting people and things designed by man to accomplish some predetermined purpose. The purpose of education is to change people in terms of the way they think, act and feel; in short, to change their behavior. We want them to behave more knowledgeably, more skillfully, more confidently, more sympathetically, more rationally, more independently, and so on. The goals of education have been defined as development of cognitive, psychomotor, and affective skills. Cognitive and psychomotor skills related to the person’s professional and working life; whereas the affective domain directly relates to the person’s emotional, attitudinal and values systems. The purpose of education is democratization of culture by developing democratic mentality among the people, which could be done by working with the people to generate an authentic behavior (true learning as described by Aristotle). Education, if practiced in a democratic process, can become widespread; it becomes more and more difficult to permit the masses to remain in a state of ignorance. Ignorance by definition is not illiteracy, but would include the peoples’ lack of experience at participating and intervening in the historical process. It is lack or presence of the critical consciousness among people, which determines the richness, and appropriateness of the environment of the individual. According to John Dewey, human knowledge should be conceived as an organic whole, gradually growing in every part and not perfect in any part until the whole is perfect. This approach leads to “wholesome behavior” (as described by H. H. Dalai Lama) on the part of the individual, which leads to happiness, which is the goal of human beings.

9. Peace development education is the reclaiming of man’s innate state of happiness. This state of mind has been defined as “Buddha nature” in Buddhism, which is defined as a state of mind untainted by negative emotions and thoughts, present in human beings. Human affection or compassion, is an indispensable factor in developing the “Buddha nature.” When human intelligence and human goodness or affection are used together, all human actions become constructive. When we combine a warm heart with knowledge and education, we can learn to respect other’s views and rights. This becomes the basis of a spirit of reconciliation that can be used to overcome aggression and resolve our conflict. The gentle emotions and positive behaviors that go with them lead to a happier family and community life.

10. Peace development education is not new. It started with the history of man. As single individuals grew into families and families expanded, people started living together for protection, to breed more members into tribes, and to pull resources to hunt and develop basic resources and needs to survive and sustain themselves. In time, they realized the need to unite and respect each other. This allowed them to live together, to dream dreams, and share values, and act in unity for self-preservation. This togetherness nurtured the beginnings of social cohesion of envisioning dreams, sharing values, and living and respecting each other. Without togetherness there is no social cohesion. Peace development therefore is a process of strengthening social cohesion where all people, irrespective of their religion, color, sex, respect each other and the entire group moves towards togetherness.

11. To ensure this, we need an education and training program anchored on a peace education curriculum. Peace development education could be conceived as a program to develop “Buddha nature” (wholesome behavior) among the participants of a program. This should start at kindergarten and in a graded way, it should move up from kindergarten to primary education, to secondary, to college and then the university. At each level, the basic curriculum and program must be directed at the learning capability of the student and taught in an innovative and interesting way. Wherever a student drops or falls out, still he/she carries the value of peace culture for the rest of his/her life. Schools should develop the people who go to college and become peace workers. Their mindsets should be veered from the culture of guns, drugs, and gold, into one of social cohesiveness, togetherness, values sharing, dream-envisioning and respecting each other. This is the education we need—an education which means values development among children for respecting each other, respecting each other’s religious beliefs and political convictions, contributing to each other’s welfare and development, thus diminishing the differences between people, no matter what their social caste heading towards stronger social cohesiveness.

Box 1

The Core Peace Development Curriculum

In a more meaningful way, peace development can also become essential curriculum content at all levels of education. The curriculum should teach, in an experiential and participatory manner using a variety of examples, community-based projects, the positive and non-violent resolution of conflict as opposed to current schools of thought. (For example, the Pentagon’s definition of peace is “a pre-hostility condition.”) For them, peace therefore is not the absence of conflict but the absence of violent resolution or conflict, for conflict is an ever-changing world in nature. Peace development education should focus on the emotional development of a human being, in particular the youth, to strengthen the individual’s attributes of compassion and a life for others with the goal to inculcate wholesome behavior and character on the part of the individual. A peace curriculum therefore should not be limited to the teaching about different levels of conflicts and crisis, including the levels of the personnel, interpersonal, family, community, national and international levels. It should first focus on behavioral modification on the part of the individual to equip the person with positive attitudes and authentic character. Toys, games and leisure products should move away from themes of war, violence, and conflict, and instead these mental and leisure exercises should focus on social cohesion, peace behavior, conflict resolution, and promotion of peace development. This will lead to collective consciousness, or the “awareness of awareness”, which can only be achieved through strong and vigorous peace development education involving all peoples, from leaders to the masses with inquiry as a methodology. Peace development should not be limited to curricular matters, but also to the development of community-based Peace Development Circles where students can directly interact with the community and can serve bridges between groups or sectors in conflict. This curriculum also should have action research so that lesson can be learnt and students can go and help solve family conflicts. This curriculum should also help develop skills in societal critiquing (skills of inquiry) so that positive criticisms can encourage improvements and reforms at all levels, especially in bureaucratic governance and management, even the military and business sector. These schools can also go out and conduct peace clinics where they talk and exchange with different parties and groups to equip the children with practical skills of political leadership and community work. This will ensure the right type of new generation with more positive attitudes, wholesome behavior, and skills in positive critical analysis. All of this will generate a stronger peace culture reducing violence, uncertainties and risks in the environment.

12. The basic four elements of a peace education curriculum—meaning its objectives, contents, methods, and evaluation, are closely inter-related and each element influences and is influenced by others. The objectives are dependent on such factors as the type of teacher, the level of financial resources, the characteristics of learners; whereas decisions about contents or subject matter are driven from an analysis of the characteristics of the knowledge represented by school knowledge, and of the characteristics of the learning process. In selecting and organizing the methodologies of achieving curriculum objectives, the primary consideration is how the people learn. Finally, the evaluation depends on the first element, i.e., objectives. Without a definition of objectives, evaluation is impossible. Effective curriculum design requires an iterative process where each question is consistently being reprocessed in the light of answers to subsequent questions. The more precisely the objectives are specified, the more completely is content selected. While developing the peace education development curriculum, the entry behavior of students into the school should be assessed, and developed in a participatory process in which community, youth and school representatives are involved. Inquiry is central to peace education. Skills of inquiry should be developed on the part of students. Inquiry is concerned with objective transformations of objective subject matter. Inquiry as conceived by John Dewey is part of the general process of attempting to make the world more organic (unified whole). Peace education should be implemented through group process rather than on an individual basis, so that after training the students can use their skills (including skills of inquiry) in conflict resolution since the community participated in its formulation.

13. Curriculum development should reflect the values of society—but not only mirror the present but also envision a desired future. This means in reality that curriculum should not be left to educators alone—it should involve the beneficiaries themselves, peace workers, development managers, and other sectors of society. Technocrats alone will present only one side of the picture. A cold and neutral side, without heart and commitment nor will power to face the risks of their actions. In fact, the advertising, movie and TV industries should project messages of peace development instead of sex, savage fury, and lawlessness. The root of human relationships should be respect for each other as a basis for common goals, shared visions, and unity of policies and actions. Love, respect, vision, shared values, and entrepreneurship skills—this is the basic formula for a culture of peace. This should be the focus of peace development education curriculum. Peace education development should be a universal and permanent feature of personality and mind of graduates of school system. When a firm foundation in the schooling system has been established, then the movement can go further to include nonformal education and other education modalities.

D. Policy Development

14. The programs of peace development education cannot operate in a vacuum. We know that dozens of peace resolutions have been passed by world bodies and institutions. But what has happened? In Africa, war still reigns in many countries. What is wrong with peace resolutions? Nothing except that these are framed in international forums and at the highest bodies—not on the ground, with, by and for the people. It is participants, beneficiaries, and learners who should be actively involved—from which there would emerge national policies. National policies of, by, and for the people should therefore come first before the United Nations produces a world peace resolution. Then the participating countries will feel a sense of ownership of these resolutions. With national peace policies in place, then we can develop action plans to achieve desired results. Then we can move to the global stage.

15. There is therefore a need for each government to adopt a National Peace Policy; and parallel with this, a National Peace Policy for Youth begun and adopted at the grassroots level. This can be achieved by setting up institutional infrastructures such as by setting Youth Peace Development Forums in schools, Peace Development Circles at Village Level, and training of Peace Workers, then proceeding to the state level. Similarly, there should be state infrastructure for supporting this activity through proper policy framework, which should be prepared through participation by all representatives of these grassroots fora. Annually, there should be a Youth Peace Parliament where outstanding youths can be given prizes and recognition by communities. This should then contribute to the adoption of a National Peace Policy. This will ensure ownership of Peace Development Policies at all levels. Once such National Policies are adopted, then a global effort should be made to develop global policies, programs, and mechanisms. This will inject credibility and authenticity in these resolutions, and UN resolutions will then be implemented. Sound policy stems from multisectoral strategic planning. In this sense therefore a National Peace Policy will put into proper perspective a concrete framework arrived at jointly by the government, the representatives of the youth population aged 15 to 25, and society’s various socioeconomic sectors. This should be done keeping in view the country’s cultural fabric and constraints, the status of development of peace and democratic institutions as well as youth’s aspirations and the prospects for future action. The objective is to set on course a strategic policy for peace development and implementation process to identify the thrust of peace development education activities. Its foundation will be tolerance in every sphere of human activity—religious, moral, ethnic, political, socioeconomic, cultural, political/government, military, and international.

Box No. 2

UN Resolutions

Several resolutions, including the following, have been passed by UN General Assemblies and ratified by several countries:

Declaration on the promotion among youth of the ideals of peace, mutual respect, and understanding between people (1965);
UN guidelines for further planning and suitable follow-up in the field of year 1985;
World Program of Action to Year 2000 and Beyond (1995); and
At the World Conference of Ministers Responsible for Youth held in August 1998 at Lisbon. The Lisbon Declaration of Youth Polices and Programs (1998).

But the experience since 1965 indicates that governments and their Ministers sign these documents as a matter of routine, and with little commitment. However, at the Lisbon Declaration, the Ministries of Youth Services from the UN member-countries agreed to avoid lip service, and declared: “We will therefore agree on the following: to invite all relevant UN programs, funds and specialized agencies and other bodies within the UN system, in particular the UN Development Program, UN Population Fund, UN Children’s’ Fund, UNESCO, World Health Organization, International Labor Organization, World Bank, and intergovernmental organizations and regional financial institutions to give greater support to national youth pollicies and programs within their country programs.”

E. Youth and Peace Development: An Action Plan

16. An infrastructure for peace development must be designed and implemented in the context of the societal environment in which it is to be nurtured and operated. In any country, the schooling system should be the starting point. The curriculum and its support materials and methodologies should begin at the primary grades, then move up to secondary, college, and university. The logic is inexorable. To be meaningful, the concept and practice of peace must permeate the five layers of social units. First is the individual, then the family, followed by the community; the nation and finally the international community. They all intervene and relate with each other and thus this interconnectedness.

17. To put peace development education in practice an operative system of youth peace development forums beginning at the school/community level then upwards in a participatory manner to the national forum needs to be developed. Their planning, membership, policy framework, programs and activities shall be initiated, led, and implemented by the youth, supported by adults and community leaders.

1.		Secondary Schools.
		It will be useful to establish at the school level, the school/community youth peace council for peace development, which will discuss and address community peace-related issues and prepare students in terms of attitudinal formation in which they are given a good understanding of why peace should be the first preference, not conflict and how to help the community in resolving conflict situations. Such councils should be led by senior students under the guidance of teachers. Community should be represented on youth peace development council.
2.		Village and Municipal Level.
		The school community/peace development councils should send their representatives to local bodies as active full members, not observers. They should engage youth in the development of strategies on how to develop the culture of peace and development of pro-peace initiatives. This will provide the youth with the opportunity to participate in community governance and development activities.
3.		District level.
		Development and implementation of action plans based on state and national peace policy, should be supported by setting up a District Youth Peace Development Fund. District funds can finance activities of district youth peace councils and youth activities at lower levels (municipal/village and school). It then moves upward to the provincial and national level.
4.		State or provincial level assemblies.
		There should be participation of youth and appropriate policy should be developed to bring youth from youth councils to these legislatures as active members. Representatives from Youth Peace Development Councils in colleges and universities, who are age 18+ and can vote should be allowed to participate there. They should prepare policy for youth participation in peace development. There should be a special department of youth and peace development at the state level responsible for supporting and monitoring activities of District Youth Peace Development Funds and State Youth Peace Development Forum. At this level they prepare policy frameworks for setting up forums for youth at different levels and peace development activities developed by majority participation by youth.
5.		National level.
		The national government, having developed the National Policy on Peace and the National Peace Development Policy for Youth, must now be the guiding light in extensive awareness building and implementation of these policies at the ground level through peace development fora at lower levels. This will further be advanced through social marketing in which traditional media (such as radio, TV, movies, print publications, posters, direct mail, etc.), and nontraditional media (such as street dramas, poetry and song festivals, youth assemblies during festivals, setup of the Speakers’ Bureau, etc.) will be used. Modern electronic media such as Internet be used to support such activities.

6. These fora will start life training for the youth and provide appropriate skills on how to participate in decision making and conflict-resolution effectively. Our obligation, as adults who want to empower young people, is to help define realistic objectives and devise workable plans for achieving them. Adults should be in committees not to lead but to participate and enable—teachers and social leaders must commit themselves to letting the youth lead, otherwise the forum will not achieve objective of youth empowerment. Leadership among the adults and youth leaders available in communities should be identified and used to help youth, at the lowest level. They can help, not just guiding, in running peace development forums. All the forums from the school and village to the national level, should be directed to the building of an institutionalized infrastructure of information sharing, consultation, in decision making with youth possibly exercising the right to veto such decisions that run contrary to their generational interest. This concept is hardly practiced anywhere or even contemplated.

F. What Donors Should and Can Do

7. There is a direct relationship between peace and development, particularly if we factor in the huge military expenditures. It is dismal to note that some, of foreign exchange being provided to developing countries tend to be diverted to the payment of military procurement bills—the procurement of armaments and weaponry in the name of national sovereignty and security. If we tally these military expenditures, their worth would amount to huge peace dividends equivalent to thousands of new classrooms, new hospital wards, new housing units, as well as miles of highways and farm roads, which would have led to more rapid and larger national development.

8. To begin with, at individual level, the MFIs including MDBs and IMF, should implement the policy of linking concessional assistance with military expenditures, and there should be a covenant in all forms of assistance that any increase in military expenditure will result in reduced assistance or its cancellation. This should be rigorously monitored and evaluated every year and its results disclosed to the public. In addition, the MFIs may consider contributing at least 1% of their annual profits to the setting up of Regional Peace Development and Conflict Resolution Funds (such as Asian Peace Development and Conflict Resolution Fund (the Fund) which can be used to help victims of conflicts, civil war, or in bringing stability to government as well as rehabilitation of the victims. These funds can also be used to support conflict-resolution efforts. For this matter, some form of cooperation among the financial institutions and the institutions involved in peace research or peace-related activities could facilitate implementation of such policies and setting up of appropriate mechanisms. Large corporations like insurance and banking firms should set up foundations devoted to funding peace development programs such as in training, research, and community extension services. There should be multi-donor interventions at the regional level to help establish regional mechanisms (such as Asian Peace Institute) which can facilitate the efforts of national governments in the formulation of National Peace Development Policies, strengthening regional capacity in conflict resolution, enhancing skills in peace research and peace development programs such as peace development education or training of peace workers. This technical assistance or grant financing can be used as a catalyst to start these activities and support such programs.

9. As stated, peace development directly contributes to poverty reduction and social cohesiveness therefore the peace development interventions should be introduced in social sector projects particularly rehabilitation, including education, health and housing—all of this will provide a strong foundation to peace development. There could be technical assistance to help countries develop peace education curriculum, training of teachers in designing and implementing peace development activities at community level, development of instructional materials, and youth peace development forums.

10. Donors can consider starting multi-donor activities as part of their development program to help countries initiate peace policy development to support their exchange programs and in aid of action research and studies on conflict resolutions, training programs, research programs, etc. This will gain public awareness and acceptance. It will encourage people to visit and exchange ideas and experiences with institutions engaged in peace development education. A passion for conflict resolution, for peace and stability, should prevail as a societal value, in stark contrast to the culture of violence. A simple calculation can demonstrate the possible impact of coordinated Donors’ assistance: if only one percent of foreign aid is devoted to peace development education, this should result, properly managed and invested, into savings of millions of dollars since no funds will be needed to finance anti-peace and pro-military activities, and in fact make obsolete the annual military exercises done by two or three countries annually which only glamorize the image of violence and the military lifestyle at the cost of peace culture and provision of basic services for the disadvantaged groups.

11. In conclusion, I would say that the youth are important assets of any nation, making up 800 million of Asia’s population. Investment in youth for peace development will certainly improve productivity, the quality of labor force directly contributing to economic growth, addressing the issue of poverty, developing new value systems responsive to the movements of globalization and information communication technology (ICT). The youth can contribute creative and refreshing ideas, therefore they should be involved in development of peace- and development-related policies — in the development and implementation of policies, and governance to impress upon this vast number that they have inherited the future. They already own the future, the nation and its resources. In line with youth’s value system, the National government should prepare and translate the UN declarations into National Peace Policies and Action Programs. These policies, I propose, should be practiced and backed up by resources, infrastructure, trained peace workers, and such policies should be prepared with active involvement of youth and implemented by youth. Learning from the violent events which happened in various countries but led to peace and democracy, such Indonesia, China, East Timor, Yugoslavia, Philippines, and now in the Middle East. It is high time for developing countries to prepare national peace policies supported by action programs for their implementation. The donors’ support to peace development activities should be high priority, We all have a common future and to ensure the safety of our common future, there is need for education systems around the globe to focus on developing the “Buddha nature” in students to nurture wholesome behavior rich in compassion and authentic character which are the foundations for world peace.