Bring the Troops Home and Implement a Culture of Peace

‎Let's bring our troops home. Then, let's build a culture of peace, in which we honor the peacemakers above those who are behind the waging of war for profit. Let's build monuments to peace, rather than war. Let's require the addition of conflict resolution, mediation and negotiation to school curricula...worldwide. If you build it, they will come. When the perceived and real monetary value of peace and peacemakers becomes higher than that of war and warriors (no offense to veterans), peace will prevail over war in society. Conflict resolution, mediation and negotiation will prevail over violence, because those who follow non-violence will be the heroes, the most valued members of society, rather than just be considered misguided idealists.

The Human Rights Paradigm Shift to End Violence, Especially Against Women and Children

All humans and the societies in which they live are different, yet they all have beauty. When all people are valued equally in thought and deed, all people benefit. The impetus for implementing cultural education to end violence against women and girls is coming from honor killings committed in Western countries. Many cultures still consider killings based upon family honor as legally legimate. Honor killings, as these are known, are the murder of women because they have been raped, had sex outside of marriage, wanted to pursue a higher level of education, or refused an arranged marriage. Honor violence and killing is usually committed by fathers and brothers, and has generally been legally categorized under the umbrella of domestic violence in Western countries.

Women from Arabic and South Asian countries are the predominant victims of this form of gender-based violence. When people from these cultures immigrate to Western countries, they also bring their long-held cultural beliefs with them. Many of these women do not have access to the social services of their host countries. They are also trafficked against their will as "brides" back to their former countries. There is a need to be culturally sensitive towards immigrants, up until the point at which another human being's basic human rights are violated. At this point, the interactive acculturation of people from these societies must become a legal and educational priority in those host countries to which they immigrate.

Violence against women is not only found in the original countries from which immigrants bring their belief in honor killings, but in their host countries, as well. All countries have a high level of violence against women and girls, and boys, including murder. As reported in the Daily Telegraph, the UK has committed to an age-appropriate K-12 education program to teach gender equality in the wake of many honor killings. Police from EU member states have recently met with women's organizations, social groups and educators at Europol at the Hague to strategize, seek solutions and crack down on those committing honor killings and the trafficking of women.* No matter the impetus, the education of all people of all countries of the equality, value and rights of all people, especially women and children, is needed. It should also extend to adults, and become a real presence in the media and conversations of all people, in all countries.

Women, children and other marginalized people are often caught between a rock and a hard place, with very little room or the basic human rights with which they may move beyond to a path of freedom to pursue their lives.

In all societies, including Western, the value of women and children is still obviously less than that of men because their very safety and lives are continuously and disproportionately jeopardized by violence, domestic or otherwise. This is also evidenced by the continued devaluing of traditional "women's jobs" and the wage gaps between men and women found in all societies. During the current US recession, many people in higher paying jobs are unemployed, and most of those are men. Yet those workers in lower paid, necessary service industries have retained their jobs, and most of them are women. Obviously society cannot exist without these jobs. So, now, we see lower-paid women supporting their families on low wages that are often not high enough to support themselves and their families. Now, the economic impact of this wage gap is finally being felt by large numbers of men, although it has long been felt by women and children for centuries, in poverty.

What all members of our society are living and grappling with right now is not just an economic, political or legal phenomenon. It is the direct result of a social phenomenon based upon cultural attitudes of the lower value of women and children, whether or not they are as extreme as those in societies that legitimize honor killings. Economic, political, health care, educational, and legal systems don't define a society's cultural and religious beliefs; a society's cultural and religious beliefs defines its economic, political, health care, educational, and legal systems. What is valued is priced high, has high political power, better health care and education, and is well-legislated; what is not valued is priced low, has little political power, health care, and education, and is inadequately legislated.

Economic, political, health care, legal, and educational reform must take place to ensure the equal value of all people, including women and children, as equal members of human society. Legal reform must use a zero-tolerance approach to the marginalization of and violence against any human, especially women and children, in the laws and courts of all countries. Economic reform must also highly value those jobs that perform direct service to individual members of society and society in general, even though the results of that service are not directly and rapidly felt in the economy. This must include such jobs as home health aides and teachers. Political power must be equal for all, and seen and felt in political representation, rather than the marginalization currently found. Educational reform must include teaching all people, and must teach the value and rights of all, to all. This educational reform must also include mediation and conflict resolution training, so all members of humanity can learn more effective ways to solve any problem, rather than resort to violence. Health care reform must grant all people a high basic level of health care, especially women, whose ability to bear and birth healthy children is necessary for the very existence of the human species.

Research has shown it takes three generations to make such major changes in a society. The very lives of billions of women and children are at risk, as well as the basic well-being and rights of all members of humanity, so the current generation must quickly implement these changes now. When all people are highly valued members of humanity, the myriad benefits of this reform will create a win-win situation. This will lessen the need for violence to demand basic human rights and social services. People will abhor the use of violence by one group of people against another, which will decrease violence, war and genocide. When people realize all humans are of value and utilize mediation and conflict resolution to resolve differences, we will see increased political and economic stability because we will work together to find win-win solutions, rather than compete for resources and power. When all governments adjust their legal, political, economic, health care, and educational systems to honor in thought and deed the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, they will respect the value and equality of people, while at the same time, retain what is unique and beautiful within all of their independent cultures. Empowerment creates positive change through cooperation, rather than the will to compete, which creates violence and war. This is a win-win solution to a win-lose problem. When all people are valued equally in thought and deed, all people benefit. All we have to do is step into the light of human rights.



*http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/6655561/Honour-based-violence-is-biggest-problem-facing-women.html

Open Dialogue and Mediation Could Change the State of the Nation

I recently viewed the PBS POV (Point of View) program documentary "The Fire Next Time," about how extremists with an open mike can incite hatred and hate-crimes in an American town in which people used to agree to disagree. The film also shows the process that conflict resolution expert Melinda Smith used to bring both sides back into open dialogue, the necessary beginning to any possibility of a future resolution to the conflict. There is now hope that this conflict may be resolved. The Q & A on the website about Resolving Community Conflicts is excellent and a must-read for anyone interested in resolving conflicts of any kind.

I posted what follows on their site. I agree that open dialogue and mediation are extremely important in resolving conflicts. The United States could most certainly use this on a national level at this time, due to the divisiveness and hate engendered by some national talk radio hosts and news reporters. As Americans, we used to come together to resolve our differences, to help each other and build our communities and country. Now, it seems like vocal people on the outer extremes of both the left and right are bent on using media outlets to incite hate, instead, which is beginning to tear apart the fabric of our society. Perhaps the majority of moderates who have been drowned out by the few, can come together, find common ground, and speak up to lend a more balanced and cohesive central core through which we can weave a more peaceful resolution to the conflicts in which we currently find ourselves. We could all benefit from learning mediation and conflict resolution strategies.

Here are the links, the first to the documentary, the second to the Q & A:
http://video.pbs.org/video/1239783069/program/1154485580
http://www.pbs.org/pov/thefirenexttime/special_resolving.php

Conflict Resolution and Mediation Training Should Be Required for All People

People aren't born into this world knowing how to solve conflicts. Most of our parents weren't trained either, so they were unable to teach us what they didn't know. We all do the best we can with what we know. As children, we learned how to solve our problems by watching how the adults in our lives solved theirs. We watched everybody: our parents, siblings, other relatives, neighbors, friends, teachers, and our political and business leaders. So, as we matured, we began to randomly use different strategies out of the different problem-solving tools we saw and copied. We continued to use those that worked best, and discarded others that may actually have escalated the problem.

As we approached adulthood, we found there were times when nothing we tried worked to peacefully resolve the dispute. However, we continued doing the best we could, having no idea there could possibly be other methods that could have more peacefully and successfully resolved our disputes. Then, we grow up, are now adults and the stakes are much higher. We get into a relationship, begin a job or career, even lead a corporation or a country, and we continue to use the same conflict resolution and mediation strategies we learned as we grew up.

We all, at some time in our lives, may disagree with someone over something. This often results in arguments and intense verbal battles that may escalate to physical violence, enter the cycle of revenge, go to war, or simply kill all of our enemies in a mass genocide. We can even go to war with ourselves when we are overly self-critical and denigrate ourselves, and constantly feed ourselves negative self-talk. I know this personally, because I have used the same conflict reslution methods most of my life and watched others, even government leaders, do the same, without much consistent success. I never knew that such things as conflict resolution and mediation existed and were something that could be taught, studied and practiced. What a revelation! Many other people go through their lives without this revelation, and so the cycle continues. This war against ourselves and others, at whatever level of escalation in which we find ourselves, removes the dignity, respect, compassion, and sense of humanity and human rights that belong to ourselves and others. It's no wonder there's such a pandemic of bullying, domestic violence, abuse, litigation, violence, and war in the world!

I can't help but think, can we do better? Should people have to wait most of their lives to learn how to better solve disputes, simply by accident? Removing this huge deficit of knowledge on how to use mediation and conflict resolution strategies through widespread training and review would help in so many areas. At home, people would be better equipped to peacefully solve family disputes before they escalate into domestic violence or divorce. At school, students would know how to peacefully solve their own problems rather than resort to bullying or playground violence. This could be applied even in elementary schools when there is a simple disagreement on the playground or in the classroom over a ball or pencil. At work, we may have disputes with co-workers, management, contractors, or clients. In government, we may have disputes with other departments, branches of government, or other governments. If we were all taught, and consistently reviewed over time, how to peacefully resolve our conflicts, at any level of escalation, I honestly believe we would live in a very different, more peaceful world than we do now.

As a teacher, I just happened, by chance, to volunteer for my school's Peer Mediation Team to be trained to train others in how to guide people through the mediation process to peacefully solve their own disputes. All members of the team then trained a group of student volunteers to become peer mediators on the school playground during recess. Prior to the introduction of this program we, like many other schools, experienced problems on the playground ranging from disputes over turn-taking or possession of a ball, to outright bullying and the rare occasion of minor violence (shoving, pushing, etc.). These disputes would then follow the students into the classroom and sometimes off school premises after the school day had ended, growing into a much larger, angrier dispute that often now involved many other students, and sometimes their parents. Over the many years that I was a part of this team, we saw a significant decrease in playground disputes, as more and more untrained students were trained by their peer mediators. This program has also decreased problems in the classroom and after school incidents because students are resolving their disputes immediately. As a classroom teacher, I also model and teach the very same strategies to my students, as well as model this to their parents in meetings and phone conversations.

While I firmly believe that conflict resolution and mediation strategies should be taught to all people, I also know that this will not solve all disputes. If, at the same time, people also reflected more about themselves, learned the physical, emotional and experiential origins of their triggers for anger and other emotions, and then truly worked through these to resolve these internal wars, we could end all wars before they could begin. All members of humanity would finally be able to live in peace with themselves, each other, and our environment.

Looking for Humane, Peaceful Solutions in Gaza and Around the World

Israel and Hamas are both complicit in the current state of war. They both violated the cease-fire agreement. However, Israel is NOT using proportional force. On the one hand, 30 Israeli soldiers are reported to be injured, 2 seriously, and all are receiving medical care. On the other hand, over 460 Palestinians are reported dead and over 2,700 injured, one quarter of them civilians. Many casualties are now without adequate medical care due to the blockade and the inabililty of aide workers to enter due to the Israeli offensive.

The problem with all reports about Gaza is that they cannot be independently verified, as the Israelis are still not allowing foreign media inside Gaza. Hamas is also preventing access to any media already inside Gaza. Expecting journalists to play the childhood game of Telephone is both disingenuous and unconscionable. Journalists should neither be used nor expected to create propoganda as if they're public relations employees. Both sides should allow journalists the freedom to do their job. When independent observers are absent, there is also the danger that atrocities may be committed with impunity. The world should demand accurate, independent information be allowed to be reported. If Israel and Hamas are worried about what people think, they should both be worried about how all of this looks to the outside world.

The UN Security Council should demand an immediate cease fire to allow humanitarian aide workers into Gaza to assist the population. Diplomatic solutions should be sought to immediately lift the blockade allowing basic food and medical supplies to flow to these refugees. Diplomacy should also be utilized to seek a lasting and durable resolution to the homeless status of the Palestinians. Leaving people to live an internment of permanent refugee status is not a peaceful solution that respects their basic human rights.

Terrorism is generally defined as the use of violence, coercion or the threat of violence against civilians for political, religious or other ideological reasons. By this definition, both Hamas and Israel are terrorists. Consistant use of military force against innocent people only breeds anger, contempt and extremism. Our world needs, instead, a more concerted, humane, peaceful, and diplomatic course to mediate these long-term disputes. Gandhi showed that meeting violence with peace creates more sustainable, humane solutions. Both sides in this dispute could learn from his example, as could many other countries, including my own.

Perhaps countries should spend most of their budgets on peace education, instead of defense. I know that I, for one, am sick of seeing a disproportionate percentage of my country's budget spent on defense and war-mongering, instead of education, health care and maintenance of our infrastructure. Countries should require peace education as part of the curriculum, so that by the time children become adults, they would be well-educated in ways to solve their own conflicts peacefully, learn to control their own anger, and would be more likely to require their politicians to use mediation instead of force. As the old saying goes, "you get what you pay for."

Maybe it's our expectations for great leadership that should change. Leading people to death, killing others, and bullying others on the playground of international relations are not what I consider to be the qualities of a great leader. This type of leader should be castigated and impeached. A combination of intelligence, compromise, and use of mediation/diplomacy for peaceful conflict resolution are the hallmark qualities of an exceptional leader. You get what you expect.

EDIT 1/3/09, 11:50pm
I just found a broadcast series about life on both sides of the Gaza Strip entitled Gaza Sderot, Life in Spite of Everything. Here's a link:
http://gaza-sderot.arte.tv/