A CULTURE OF PEACE

Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world

seems upset.

– Saint Francis de Sales

In the early 1980s, the great scholar of democracy, Robert Dahl, observed that “in much of the world, the conditions most favourable to the development and maintenance of democracy are nonexistent, or at best only weakly present.” Barely had Dahl penned these pessimistic words when it became clear that democracy was on the verge of its most significant historical efflorescence. During the late twentieth century, a democratic wave engulfed the globe, toppling dictator­ships in Africa, Asia, Latin America, southern and eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union. By the beginning of the present century, the world had more democracies than ever.This new phenomena laid the culture of peace.

There have been great champions of both war and peace among devoted members of every religion. The patrons of war, peace, tolerance, and intolerance belong to the same beliefs and may remain true believers without feeling remorse. The mystery is as baffling today in the space age as it was in the past millennia. However spiritual their aspirations may be, religious people have to seek God or the sacred in the world. They feel they must bring their ideas to the larger society. Even if the rabbis lock themselves away, they are inescapably men and women of their time and affected by what goes on outside the precincts of their spiritual havens. Wars, strife, conflicts, economic recession, nations’ internal politics, and massive public corruption often intrude upon their cloistered existence and qualify their religious vision.

Peace is not understood only in terms of avoiding war; peace establishes an active culture of living in harmony. Making peace is never a single action. Making peace is a process. For ages, we have found excuses to fight. Narcissists and megalomaniacs have existed in every generation. National leaders who are losing wars sometimes resort to desperate gambles. Defeat or lack of victory might threaten their hold on power, and they are occasionally willing to take daring or outside-the-box moves to try to turn things around.

If we do not work for individual transformation, talking about world peace is another form of entertainment. Trying to bring about any change in the world without attending to individual human beings always leads to more problems. If there are no peaceful human beings, there is no peaceful world. Deep in our hearts, peace is like a seed waiting in the desert to grow, to blossom. When we allow this seed to blossom inside, then peace is possible outside. We have to give peace a chance.

If people just learned how to live in peace, they would see all violence evaporate from the planet. It is not slogans and statements that will bring peace to the world but a lifelong striving to produce peaceful human beings. Everyone can profit from seeing the truth of Shakespeare’s lines, “A peace is of the nature of a conquest; for then both parties nobly are subdued, and neither party loser.”

Peace is the essence of spirituality. It is integral to creation. Dante wrote, “In God’s will is our peace.” Peace has a cost. We are willing to make enormous sacrifices for war and the people dying are deemed glorious. But if one fails for the cause of peace, he is considered abnormal. He is not glorified in the same way as the war hero.

Like most commonplaces, the blessings of peace are usually forgotten in peacetime, yet they remain profoundly true. Peace provides conditions we can think of and promote arts, education, and culture. Peace gives society time for reflection, where most good things start.

The Constitution of (UNESCO) begins with a declaration: “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed.” In 1995 UNESCOpostulated “a culture of peace,” defining it as “a culture of friendliness and sharing based on the principles of freedom, justice and democracy, tolerance and solidarity. A culture that rejects violence seeks to prevent conflicts at source and solve problems by dialogue and negotiation.”

Nothing is worth so much as education for ensuring lasting peace. At least, Leon Blum told the London conference at UNESCO when it was established in 1945: “Education, resolutely geared to peace, must be at the heart of what we do.”

In our hearts, peace is like a seed waiting to grow, to blossom. When we allow this seed to bloom, peace will be possible outside. Looking around us today, we will find a world shattered by conflict and strife. The tragedy is that we are not giving peace a chance. Life is concise, and only when you are at peace with yourself and the world can you commune serenely with God and contemplate the realm of the cosmic powers.