During the last few years, the term "a culture of peace" hasbecome increasingly popular-- thanks to the leadership of UNESCO--but thereis at present no clear consensus as to how the term should be interpreted.Should it be the culture of peace, or should it be a cultureof peace, or should we think in a more pluralistic fashion about culturesof peace, thus incorporating part of the United Nations Educational, Scientificand Cultural Organization's (UNESCO's) operational definition that a cultureof peace cannot be imported or imposed from outside, but must develop outof the culture of the people concerned? There are many different ways todefine the concept "cultures of peace, "and we will consider someof them in this article, but whichever definition is used, it is importantto recognize that culture has both micro or local aspects, as well as macroor global aspects--for example Western or Eastern-- and that there are manydifferent cultural traditions that need to be included in any "culturesof peace" concept. This also raises the issue of peace within culturesand peace between cultures. There are too many historical examples of anation or group cooperating and organizing internally in order to undertakeviolence or wage war on an external group--indeed inner cohesion and collaborationis often a necessary condition for such actions. From a systems point ofview, every "cultures of peace" concept needs to apply withinand between cultures, to be a property of both the local parts and the globalwhole. UNESCO recognizes this fact in their operational definition of cultureof peace when they stress "that local programmes are embedded in anational and perhaps sub-regional context, as well as the global contextof the United Nations and its specialized agencies."
The problem of deciding what we mean by the term "culture(s) ofpeace" is further complicated by the various interpretations of thetwo key elements "culture" and "peace," as noted below.After looking at different definitions of culture, and the evolution ofsix different perspectives on peace--largely within Western peace research,this paper will then discuss six perspectives on cultures of peace, sixperspectives on nonviolence as it relates to peace on each of these sixareas, on International Non Governmental Organizations (INGOS) and Non GovernmentalOrganizations (NGOS) active in each of these six peace areas, on possibleinternational and national early warning systems for detecting negativedevelopments in each of these six peace areas, and on the importance ofdeveloping positive, multicultural visions of the six types of peace thatwe want to create in the world (not only negative views of what we wantto eliminate in each of the six peace areas)--if peace is to be achievedfor the world in the coming century. This paper will include a section oneach of the above topics.
There are a number of different definitions of culture, a few of whichwill be explored here. First, it must be noted that there are both narrowand broad definitions of culture. Narrow definitions focus on the arts--includingliterature, poetry, music, theatre, painting, dance, etc. Broader definitions--whichare used in Anthropology and Intercultural Communication fields--includeall our socially-learned behavior. Thus one Anthropological definition ofculture is that it is "learned, shared, patterned behavior, as reflectedin technology/tools, social organizations (including economic, political,social, religious, educational, family, and other organizations) and ideas/beliefs." The key point is that culture is not something one is born with,but something that is learned after one is born; it is also passed downfrom one generation to the next. Culture is also shared by a group of peopletogether, and all the different aspects of one's culture must somehow fittogether into an overall pattern.
Another definition of culture is "what gives meaning to life."A third definition of culture looks at deeper, hidden levels of meaning,in addition to surface-level, more apparent meanings. Here culture is definedas "common symbols, rituals and hero figures (visible), shared by agroup of people, based on a set of values and underling assumptions aboutreality (hidden)." This definition is illustrated in Figure 1.
The term "peace," like "culture", has a wide rangeof interpretations. This section outlines six broad categories of peacethinking that have emerged historically within Western peace research--especiallyover the past fifty years (since the end of World War 11). These six categoriesroughly correspond to the evolution of peace thinking in Western peace research.This does not mean that all scholars once thought one way and now thinkanother, nor that the majority of peace researchers now adopt the sixthtype of peace thinking, the holistic inner-outer peace paradigm. Ratherit argues that overall there has been a trend in peace research away fromthe traditional idea that peace is simply the absence of war towards a moreholistic view, as seen in Figure 2:
These stages in the evolution of the peace concept include the following:
Peace as Absence of War
Figure 2 summarizes six perspectives on peace in terms of the levelsof analysis and theoretical focus that each includes. The first perspective,peace as the absence of war, is applied to violent conflict between andwithin states--war and civil war. This view of peace is still widely heldamong general populations and politicians. In certain situations, it canbe argued, this is still a legitimate objective, at least until the killingstops and it is possible to ask for more out of life than avoiding deathin war. Furthermore, all six definitions of peace discussed here requireabsence of war as a necessary precondition for peace.
Peace as Balance of Forces in the International System
Quincy Wright (1941) modified this absence of war idea to suggest thatpeace was a dynamic balance involving political, social, cultural and technologicalfactors, and that war occurred when this balance broke down. Wright arguedthat this balance of forces occurred in the international system--definedfor him in terms of the overall pattern of relationships between statesand International Governmental Organizations (IGOs)--as well as betweenand within states. Wright also discussed the role of domestic public opinionwithin a state--which involves the community level of analysis. His modelassumed that any significant change in one of the factors involved in thepeace balance would require corresponding changes in other factors to restorethe balance. For example, Robert Oppenheimer, the much misunderstood "fatherof the atomic bomb," adopted Wright's view when he insisted on continuingto develop the bomb so that a global political institution, the United Nations(U.N.), would have to be created to help control the new global militarytechnology.
Peace as Negative Peace (No War) and Positive Peace (No StructuralViolence)
Galtung (1969) further modified Wright's view, using the categories "negativepeace" and "positive peace" that Wright had first put forwardsome 28 years earlier. Galtung developed a third position and argued thatnegative peace was the absence of war and that positive peace was the absenceof "structural violence", a concept defmed in terms of the numbersof avoidable deaths caused simply by the way social, economic and otherstructures were organized. Thus if people starve to death when there isfood to feed them somewhere in the world, or die from sickness when thereis medicine to cure them, then structural violence exists since alternativestructures could, in theory, prevent such deaths. Peace under this rubricinvolves both positive peace and negative peace being present. Galtung'smodel (in addition to the community, within states, between states, andinternational levels of analysis) includes the global level of analysis,such as the global economy which is influenced by non-state actors, suchas INGOs and Multi National Corporations (MNCs).
Feminist Peace: Macro and Micro Levels of Peace
During the 1970s and 80s, a fourth perspective was ushered in by feministpeace researchers, who extended both negative peace and positive peace toinclude violence and structural violence down to the individual level. (Brock-Utne,1989) The new definition of peace then included not only the abolition ofmacro level organized violence, such as war, but also doing away with microlevel unorganized violence, such as rape in war or in the home. In addition,the concept of structural violence was similarly expanded to include personal,microand macro-level structures that hann or discriminate against particularindividuals or groups. This feminist peace model came to include all typesof violence, broadly defined, against people, from the individual to theglobal level, arguing that this is a necessary condition for a peacefulplanet.
Holistic Gaia-Peace: Peace With the Environment
The 1990's has seen the emergence of two types of holistic peace thinking.(Dreher, 1991; Macy,1991; Smoker, 1991) Here, as with the feminist model,peace between people applies across all levels of analysis--from the familyand individual level to the global level. In addition, Gaia-peace theoryplaces a very high value on the relationship of humans to bioenvirom-nentalsystems --the environmental level of analysis. Peace with the environmentis seen as central for this type of holistic peace theory, where human beingsare seen as one of many species inhabiting the earth, and the fate of theplanet is seen as the most important goal. This type of holistic peace thinkingdoes not have a spiritual dimension, peace being defined in terms of allforms of physical violence against people and the environment.
Holistic Inner and Outer Peace
This sixth view of peace sees inner, esoteric (spiritual) aspects ofpeace as essential. Spiritually based peace theory stresses the centralityof inner peace, believing that all aspects of outer peace, from the individualto the envirorunental levels, must be based on inner peace. In additionto the relationships of human beings with each other and the world--includingthe environment-- a spiritual dimension is added to Gaia-peace theory. Thisdimension is expressed in different ways by peace researchers, dependingon their cultural context. As in Fritjov Capra's The Tao of Physics,where new paradigms in physics resonate with worldviews found in Easternmysticism, this new paradigm in peace research resonates with much thinkingin world spiritual and religions traditions. Peace has truly become indivisible.
Summary on Evolution of the Peace Concept: From Single to MultifactoredDefinitions; From Single to Multiple (Macro & Micro) Levels; From Negativeto Positive Conceptions; and From Outer Peace Only to Both Inner and OuterPeace
The above discussion illustrates a number of important changes in thepeace concept in Western peace research during the last fifty years. Theidea that peace can be defined in terms of the single factor, "absenceof war, " has been replaced in subsequent peace theories by multifactoredtheories that include a number of other requirements, such as no structuralviolence or peace with the environment. While the absence of war remainsa necessary condition for all peace definitions, it is no longer a sufficientone in most formulations of peace. At the same time, there has been a shiftfrom including just the state level of analysis in absence of war definitions,to peace theories that include (for outer peace) multiple levels of analysisfrom the individual to the envirorunental. Multifactor, multilevel conceptsof peace are, as a consequence, considerably more complex than simple, absenceof war theories.
Two other important issues in the evolution of the Western peace conceptconcern the various interpretations of "positive peace" (which,following Galtung, was expressed in terms of absence of structural violence)and "nonviolence" (the verbal construction of which suggests an"absence of violence" framework, i.e. nonviolence--somewhat parallelto the peace as absence of war perspective). In this section of the paper,we would like to consider the evolution from negative to positive viewsof peace, including the evolution of the "positive peace" conceptit*elf.
Schmidt, in his critical.Marxist analysis, "Politics and Peace Research,"(1968) argued that value positive concepts of peace were doomed to failurewithin peace research, because it would not be possible for peace researchersto achieve a consensus on what constituted a positive view of peace. Heput forward the view that peace researchers could only agree on what theywere against--for example war, starvation, and poverty. Schmidt's articlewas arguably the main stimulus to Galtung's 1969 rejoinder, in which heredefined Quincy Wright's concept "positive peace" to mean theabsence of "structural violence"--hannful social, political andeconomic structures that are responsible for avoidable human deaths throughpreventable starvation or treatable illness. Galtung's positive peace concept--the absence of structural violence, like his negative peace concept --theabsence of war, did not include an inner or spiritual dimension. Peace ofboth sorts took place in the outer world and positive peace was a functionof human social structures.
Feminist theory, the fourth perspective defined above, broadened thepositive peace concept to include micro structures, such as the family,as well as Galtung's macro structures, but for the most part it still emphasizedelimination of the undesirable--such as war and wife beating. At the sametime, however, there was an increasing emphasis on value positive thinking(stressing desirable alternatives, such as visualizing alternative futuresas a part of the process of moving towards those futures--the work on imagingpositive futures by Elise Boulding in the peace research community beingan excellent example).
An earlier paper (Smoker, 1981) discussed the extent to which peace research--asreflected in the pages of a defining journal, such as the Joumal of PeaceResearch--had focused ahnost entirely on negative concerns, such ashow to avoid or control war, aggression, physical violence and structuralviolence. Since that article--which was part of a special issue of the Joumalof Peace Research on peace--the situation has not changed significantly.
This has not been true in Futures Studies, where a focus not only ontrends (negative and positive), but also on creating desirable, alternativefutures, has contributed towards the development of both negative and positiveconceptualizations. There is a sizable group of people within the Westernfutures community--but by no means all futurists--whose visioning of positivealternative futures is also based, at least in part, on a spiritual, holistic,perspective. The works of Barbara Marx Hubbard, Marilyn Ferguson, and JeanHouston--an outstanding group of women futurists--are particularly notableexamples.
The emergence of holistic peace paradigms in peace research--whetherspiritual and/or environmental--has included an increasing emphasis on positiveconceptions of peace. In part, this is because of our realization that,whatever our nationality, culture or religious tradition, we are all interconnectedand interdependent. Viewed from space, planet Earth is a blue-green sphere,we cannot see national boundaries, but we can see the land and the water,ice caps, deserts and forests. The Earth is clearly a whole complex system,a living being perhaps. We as individuals and groups are but a part of theplanet, as the planet itself is a part of the solar system, galaxy and universe.The new thinking, it can be argued, represents a return to wholeness, notin the sense of uniformity, but in the sense of complexity dynamically balancedin interaction, the whole as integrated synergy, syntigration. This mindsetenables an appreciation of the interdependence of species in the globalecosystem, of particular cultural meanings in the context of the total globalcultural system, and of particular faiths in the rich diversity of globalreligions. The whole is more than the sum of the parts, and the greaterthe variety of the parts, the richer the expression of the global whole.
Whereas "peace as absence of war" typifies the conceptual frameworkfor most popular "peace thinking," there are other aspects topeace. The answer to the question "if you think about peace, how wouldyou define it?" might, in the majority of cases, very well be "absenceof war" or "absence of violence". But the answer to the question"when you are at peace, what does it feel like?" will almost certainlydescribe some form of inner peace experience involving "being at onewith," or being "peaceful" or "calm". This is becausethe actual experiences of peace that most, if not all, of us have as humanbeings--in Western or Eastern culture--are related to inner peace. Innerpeace also involves an inner knowing or intuitive dimension-beyond the feelingdimension--where one suddenly understands patterns and relationships betweenthings which were not understood before. This is the classic "aha"type experience which is the basis for creativity, and tapping this sourcewould also do much to enrich peace researchers visions of a positive futureworld at peace.
Holistic peace paradigms that include spiritual and/or envirom-nentalconcerns resonate with our positive peace experiences and, as a result,are better able to add value positive images to their intellectual frameworks.Positive peace can therefore be seen as an evolving concept, a concept thatdoes not yet exist in the initial "peace as absence of war" definition,but a concept that subsequently takes on different meanings as the peaceconcept expands.
The term a "culture of peace" has recently become an importantfocus for UNESCO-both in academic terms, as witnessed by the 1993 and 1994Barcelona conferences on "Contributions of the World's Religions toa Culture of Peace," and in practical terms, as evidenced by the launchingof UNESCO field projects in the South around this concept. An importanttheoretical question concerns the possible meanings of the term "culturesof peace", particularly since the previous sections of this paper illustratedthe broad range of interpretations given to the words "culture"and "peace." Therefore this section of the paper is best seenas a contribution to a preliminary discussion of cultures of peace concepts,a discussion that is likely to continue for some time.
Earlier in this paper, we noted that culture can be defined as learned,shared, patterned behavior, as reflected in technology and tools; socialorganizations, including economics, politics, religion, media, education,and the family; and ideas. Under this view, socialization is the processthrough which culture is learned, including our religious beliefs and practices,and the agents of socialization include language, politics, economics, religion,education, family, and media. Culture under this view provides the mediumthrough which we interpret the world, context of meanings, small and large,that makes coherence possible. A culture of peace, therefore, would be aculture that made peace possible, and, as we have seen in the previous section,what is meant by a culture of peace will almost certainly vary accordingto the concept of peace that is used.
Culture of Peace for Peace as Absence of War
If peace is just the absence of war between and within states, then aculture of peace would be a culture that made war between or within statesincreasingly unlikely, until eventually interstate and intrastate war wouldcease. Such a culture of peace has long been established in certain partsof the world and between certain states, for example, between Canada andthe United States, the U.K. and France, or Australia and New Zealand. Ithas been argued elsewhere that there has been a worldwide trend towardssuch a culture of peace for some centuries. (Smoker, 1984) The steadilydecreasing frequency of interstate warfare in Europe, for example, has takenplace over a period of some hundreds of years, such that there is now thissort of culture of peace between all members of the European Community.Similarly, worldwide there has been a clear trend away from interstate warfarebeing the dominant mode, as was the case before 1938; through intrastatearmed conflict with foreign military intervention being the dominant mode,for example the Vietnam or Afghanistan wars, as was the case up to the middle1980s; to the present situation, where intrastate armed conflict--usuallybetween nations (as distinct from states) or culturally distinct ethic groups--withoutarmed foreign military intervention, is the dominant form of violent conflict,for example, in the former Yugoslavia, Myarunar and Rwanda.
So while at one level, that is between states, much progress towardsa culture of peace (as absence of war) has been made, the same is not truewithin states, particularly where culturally distinct nations or ethnicgroups are concerned. A consideration of culture of peace as balance offorces in the international system is necessary to explore this problem.
Culture of Peace for Peace as Balance of Forces in the InternationalSystem
The establishment of a balance of forces culture of peace has been explainedby various theorists in terms of increased economic, social and politicalinterdependencies between states in the international system, making violentconflict between states less likely. Thus the idea of a war between Franceand Germany is now unthinkable to either side, despite the fact that just50 years ago these two states provided a battlefield for the bloodiest warin human history. The same is probably not true for India and Pakistan,Argentina and Chile, or North and South Korea, although integration theoristswould, and do, argue that the danger of war between any of these stateshas in most cases lessened and will certainly diminish in future with increasedeconomic, social and political interdependencies. This functional integrationargument, which is closely related to the balance of forces point of view,suggests that if peace is seen as a balance of forces in the internationalsystem that enables change to be dealt with nonviolently at the state level,then the globalization process, in line with the integrationist argumentsdetailed above, should strengthen the culture of peace. This is particularlytrue for the period since the Second World War, following the establishmentof the United Nations and the dramatic expansion in International GovernmentalOrganizations (IGOs), International Non Governmental Organizations (INGOS)and multinational - (MNCS) and transnational corporations (TNCs). Duringthis period, a "balance of forces" culture of peace has grownsubstantially, as indexed by the dramatic fall in cross-border wars betweenstates. A culture of peace in this sense refers to the structures, nonnsand customs that have grown up in the international system, and within states,and that are increasingly accepted as appropriate, if not yet required,conditions to be an accepted member of the "community of states."
Theorists such as Kenneth Boulding have argued that the development ofzones of peace, in the peace as absence of war sense, has in part resultedfrom the "movement for peace". For Boudling the movement for peaceis an indirect consequence of increased economic and social interdependenciesbetween two states in the international system, while the "peace movement"is represented by individuals and groups who actively campaign against war,nuclear weapons and other undesirable features of the international system.Zones of peace are areas in which war between, or within, states has becomeincreasingly unlikely, because of the multiple interdependencies betweenboth states and nations within the zone.
Culture of Peace for Negative Peace (No War) and Positive Peace (NoStructural Violence)
If we turn to a culture of peace in the Galtungian framework, and wefocus on the issue of structural violence, then the world picture is lesspositive, but by no means entirely negative. At the nongovernmental level,large numbers of international citizen's groups have emerged who struggleto create the economic, social and political context to overcome the harshestmanifestations of structural violence, namely poverty, starvation and preventabledisease. In addition, many goverm-nents contribute to humanitarian missionsworldwide as a matter of duty, accepting some measure of shared responsibilityfor the human tragedies that daily appear on our television screens. Whileit can, with some legitimacy, be argued that the global economic and politicalstructures of the world continue to contribute substantially to global structuralviolence through the activities of multinational and transnational corporationsand the inevitable consequences of the current international economic system,it has to be recognized that a number of multimillion dollar private enterprises,and thousands of similar smaller groups, work to overcome "structuralviolence" using economic, social and political approaches. While thisinterpretation of the culture of peace has not yet succeeded in changingvalues or economic, political, and social structures sufficiently to createa world in which structural violence becomes progressively less likely,there is strong evidence to suggest the emergence of a culture of peaceof this sort. The actions of citizens and governments in humanitarian aid,while often inadequate, are nevertheless an established part of internationalrelations--they are the norm, rather than the exception.
Culture of Peace for Feminist Peace--on Macro and Micro Levels
If the concept culture of peace is interpreted in the feminist framework,then the cultural conditions necessary for peace do not exist in any country.Physical and structural violence at the micro level, in the community andfamily, on the streets and in the schools, are widespread, and the cultural,social, political and economic changes required to create a feminist cultureof peace represent a major challenge to every national society on Earth,as well as in most, if not all, institutions, including many religious institutions.While the three previously discussed models of peace have stressed peaceat macro levels of analysis, the feminist models are firmly rooted in personalexperience, and are based around how peace feels to individuals. The evolutionof the peace concept towards holistic peace, which includes both inner andouter aspects, required this shift which, it can be argued, representedthe biggest single contribution of feminist peace theory. Whereas the threeprevious models tended to conceptualize peace using abstract, general conceptsapplied towards the more global level, the feminist models turned theseconceptions upside down and clearly defmed peace from the personal, experientiallevel. Feminist notions of "structure" stress circular complexpatterns as opposed to the complex, hierarchical notions associated withGaltungian def@tions of structural violence. In this regard, the feministtheories also represent a shift towards value positive perceptions of peacewhich stress holistic, non-hierarchical interaction between human beings.
This is not to say that global problems cannot be addressed using sucha perspective: they can, as the following example illustrates. A recentarticle in the Los Angeles Times, entitled "Asia's Responseto AIDS Marked by Fear, Denial" (Los Angeles Times, 1994) describeshow, in 1993, more than one third of the estimated 1.4 million new AIDScases worldwide were women and how, by the end of the century, we mightexpect equal numbers of new cases from women and men each year. The article,reporting on an August 1994 global gathering of AIDS experts in Japan, pointedout that "women are subject to the whims of fathers, brothers, husbandsand pimps, with no divorce or inheritance rights of their own. Men oftenfeel no responsibility to the women--whom they view as little better thandisposable property--and thus are immune to exhortations to use condomsand adopt other safe sex practices. " The Los Angeles Timesquotes Dr. Jonathan Mann of Harvard University, who was the first headof the World Health Organization's Programme on AIDS, as saying that "evenif all the envisaged educational and control programs were implemented indeveloping countries, they would fail to halt the impending catastrophebecause they do not take into account human rights issues, especially therights of women. " This sentiment is further elaborated by the currentDirector of VMO's AIDS Programme, Dr. Michael Merson, who is quoted as saying:"Disempowered people are vulnerable, consider the untold numbers ofwomen who fear infection from their partner, but do not have the power toinsist on condom use or the economic power to leave the relationship. "Dr. Mann further argues that "No matter how hard we try, traditionalpublic health programs cannot make up for the negative impact of this differencein societal status and realization of rights. A group of women lawyers inUganda has convinced me that the first step in fighting AIDS must be torewrite the divorce and inheritance statutes. "
A feminist culture of peace, based on personal, experiential analyses,requires fundamental changes in societal values, in the North as well asthe South, if the conditions conducive to the creation of peace, in thefeminist sense, are to be achieved. The AIDS issue highlights the centralityof culture.in overcoming micro-level structural violence. Likewise, issuessuch as domestic violence and child abuse, which have been highlighted byfeminist scholars, will require similar fundamental changes in culturalvalues. While much feminist scholarship has stressed micro violence--suchas wife beating--there has also been a focus on macro structural questions--suchas the pervasive effects of patriarchal structures. As a consequence, feministconceptions of a culture of peace will also require societal wide changesin personal cultural values.
Culture of Peace for Holistic Gaia-Peace: Peace With the Enviromnent
A holistic Gaia-peace interpretation of a culture of peace presents aneven broader set of concerns that must be brought into play. Whereas theenvirom-nent was, until fairly recently in Western Civilization, seen asa resource to exploit, that was separate from human beings, it is now seenas connected to us. The extension of outer peace to include peace with theenvironment represents an important and necessary evolution of the peaceconcept, whether the environment is seen as just a tightly integrated biochemicalsystem, or as the Goddess Gaia, a living being, a whole system integratedboth in functional and meaningful (logico meaningful) terms. The shift invalues towards a concern for peace with the environment has not yet ledto widespread, radical changes in cultural values, but perhaps that processhas begun. In a period of less than twenty years, there has been a shifttowards environmentalism in most societies on the planet, green peace hasbecome more than the name of an important environmental pressure group,and there is now widespread verbal recognition of the need to live in harmonywith the environment-a need that for some may be purely functional, butwhich for many if not most, is based on a vision of planet earth as sacred.
Culture of Peace for Holistic Inner and Outer Peace
For Western peace research, this represents a shift from secular towardsspiritual peace paradigms, a realization that inner peace and outer peace--spiritual and material--are interconnected and interdependent. It is herethat the contributions of the world's religious and spiritual traditionscan help us better understand holistic peace. For example, the idea thatthe collective external world of outer peace is in some way a representationor image of the collective inner world of spiritual peace, may be of particularimportance in the creation of a holistic, inner and outer global cultureof peace. The variety and diversity of humanity's religious life, as celebratedin the ecumenical tradition, would then provide a dynamic link between theinner and outer worlds, such that inner-outer peace would be manifest inall aspects of a culture of peace--including macro and micro social andeconomic institutions, local and global values, art, literature, music,technology, meditation and prayer. The resulting culture of peace woulddisplay a Gaia-like global pattern, where the interacting local culturesare manifestations of the inner unity and outer diversity principle spreadthroughout the whole system. Definitions of reality would be fundamentallydifferent under such a paradigm. Whereas reality in Western Peace Theoryhas previously been defined in ten-ns of aspects of the material world,leading to a concentration on economic, military and political questions,"reality" under a holistic peace paradigm includes both materialand spiritual components. A holistic culture of peace (balancing inner andouter, feminine and masculine, material and spiritual in a both/and framework)will lead to a completely different outcome to peace theories that concentrateon changing the outer world, but do not balance such concerns with a paralleland interdependent exploration of the inner.
Conclusions on the Cultures of Peace
The previous sections describe various interpretations of the cultureof peace concept ranging from a narrow view that stresses the creation ofcultural conditions that make war between states impossible, to a broadview that requires the transformation of every culture to a state that makesholistic inner-outer peace achievable. If we use this framework then thereare, in practical terms, at least three strategies that can be followedto create global cultures of peace.
The first strategy would emphasize the importance of the internationalsystem in creating global cultures of peace. In the short term, the existingtrends towards an international society in which war between states is nolonger seen as acceptable can be strengthened which, in the longer term,would make it possible to work for local cultural conditions to supportbroader definitions of peace, such as feminist ideas that include eliminatingmico level physical and structural violence against individuals as wellas against nations and states. The second strategy would stress the bottomup approach to creating global cultures of peace, arguing that we should,as individuals, work in the short term in our own cultural communities andcontexts to transform our own local cultures into cultures of peace, andin this way, in the longterm, build a global culture of peace. The thirdstrategy would combine both global and local initiatives, working with international,national and local organizations and groups to create appropriate culturalconditions for peace. At the global level, peace might be more appropriatelydefined, at least to begin with, in terms of eliminating large scale physicaland structural violence. At the local level peace might initially be defmedmore in terms of eliminating individual or small scale physical and structuralviolence, as well as in terms of creating inner and outer aspects of peace.
The concept "nonviolence", like the concept "peace",has various meanings in different cultural and political contexts. In thissection of the paper, we would like to briefly describe six different interpretationsof nonviolence, using the peace theories framework developed above.
Nonviolence as Any Action to Prevent War
During the period of the Cold War, the theory of nuclear deterrence adoptedby the United States and Soviet Union required each side to develop andmaintain substantial military forces--including nuclear weapons arsenalscapable of destroying the world several times over. Strategists on bothsides argued that the nuclear deterrent kept the peace in Europe and preventeda nuclear or conventional war between the then two military superpowers.Peace can be defined as a state of non-war, as we have discussed above,and actions that maintain such a peace can similarly be defmed as nonviolent--evenwhen they involve threatening to use military force. So nuclear deterrenceis an example of nonviolent action under this view of peace. The UnitedStates' Strategic Air Command--which helped the US implement nuclear deterrencethrough their state of constant readiness to launch a massive nuclear attackagainst the Soviet Union--adopted this view of nonviolent action, as illustratedin their motto: "Peace is Our Profession".. (The movie "Dr.Strangelove"was a spoof of this interpretation of peace. Nonetheless, many peopl,inthe military and politics in both countries and their allies--given thedynamics of the Cold War--sincerely believed that nuclear weapons were anecessary deterrent to war.)
Nonviolence as Actions to Maintain the Balance in the InternationalSystem
For Quincy Wright's "balance of forces" perspective, wherepublic opinion at the "within states" level is also seen as important,the idea of nonviolence as "war without weapons, " (Boserup andMack, 1975) based on Gene Sharp's functional interpretation of nonviolence,(Sharp, 1973) becomes appropriate for maintaining and adjusting the balanceof forces. Sharp's model of fragile power--as opposed to the monolith modelof power assumed in nuclear deterrence--argues that power is fragile becausethe balance of social forces that maintain it can be changed by concerted,group nonviolent action. Wright similarly assumed peace involved a dynamicbalance between various social, economic, political and technological forces,although he placed more emphasis on the international system level of analysis,and Sharp focused more on the community level of analysis.
Structural Nonviolence
Galtung's structural view added the idea that certain structures, bothin the international system and in the community, can be either violentor nonviolent, and that changing such structures was a fundamental taskfor peace research. Nonviolence under this rubric expands beyond Gene Sharp'soriginal conception, as Sharp himself did in his study of social power andpolitical freedom, (1980) to include not only group actions, but also thesocial, economic and political structures within which they occur. For example,the international system, which prior to Galtung's theory had been viewedby most peace researchers as a positive contribution to peace, was the focusof intense criticism from peace researchers after the theory was publishedin 1969. Previously it had been seen as evidence of increased cooperationbetween states, but after 1969 it was redefined as an oppressive, violent,macro structure that caused the deaths of millions of people per year throughthe starvation and inequalities it caused. For example, even though thereis enough food in the world to feed everyone, millions die from starvationevery year because of the structure of the international economic system.A nonviolent international (or domestic) economic system would ensure thatno one would starve as long as there was enough food in the world (or country)to feed them.
Feminist Nonviolence--on Macro and Micro Levels
The feminist perspective further extended the concept of nonviolence,in keeping with its extension of the concept of peace, to include nonviolentrelationships and structures on all levels of human society, both macroand micro. Feminist nonviolence is not limited to the behavior of statesor the structure of the international system; it includes nonviolent behaviorin the community and the home, and nonviolent political, economic and socialstructures at all levels of society. The feminist critique of patriarchyprovides a good illustration of the extension of the idea of nonviolenceto include all levels and institutions of society. Patriarchy is seen asa pervasive violent structure that acts against women in all of society'smajor institutions--including marriage, business institutions, churches,community organizations, and even peace movements. Feminist nonviolencealso involves peaceful behavior between individuals, as well as betweenstates.
Holistic Gaia Peace and Nonviolence
The Gaia Peace view of nonviolence is a natural extension of the originalfeminist position. Indeed, many feminists (following Rachel Carson's lead)have expanded their original ideas into ecofeminism, where a peaceful relationshipwith the environment is seen as paramount, embodying, as it does, the centralfeminist principle of "power with" rather than "power over."This view of nonviolence includes nonviolent actions at every level, nonviolentstructures at every level, and nonviolent processes and relationships betweenall living beings. Nonviolence of this sort is clearly visible in the West,where environmentalism, vegetarianism, and animal welfare issues are becomingincreasingly popular.
Holistic Inner and Outer Peace and Nonviolence
Holistic definitions of nonviolence have of course been present in theWestern literature for a considerable time, with Eastern traditions in general,and Gandhi in particular, having made the greatest contribution to our understandingof this spiritually-based type of nonviolence. The distinction between nonviolentaction as a technique of struggle versus nonviolence as a philosophy andway of life has provided the basis for discussing nonviolence in the West,thanks to the work of Gene Sharp in the West and Mahatma Gandhi in the Eastand their respective perspectives. Whereas Sharp has stressed the functionalityof nonviolent action and its value as a technique for waging conflicts--atechnique he believes to be superior in pragmatic terms to violence--theGandhian nonviolence as a way of life school has always adopted a deeperview of nonviolence, based on a centuries-old Eastern tradition that stressesan inner, spiritual peace component.
Gandhi's Spiritually-Based Nonviolence: Nonviolence as a Philosophyof Life: A Link Between Inner and Outer Forms of Peace
One of Mahatma Gandhi's most important statements was that "themeans are as important as the ends. " This is a central part of usingnonviolence as part of a whole philosophy of life, rather than as just atemporary tactic. There have been various practitioners of nonviolence asa philosophy of life, including Gandhi, and before him Izo Tolstoyin Russia and Henry David Thoreau in the United States, as well as afterhim Martin Luther King and Cesar Chavez in the United States. Whatdistinguishes all of these people--besides the fact that they each influencedthose who came after them in the use of nonviolence--is that their use ofnonviolence as a philosophy of life was grounded in deep spiritual principlesand practices. In short, all of these people tried to live a life basedon these spiritual principles, including the idea that how we live our liveseveryday is as important as the ends or goals that we seek via these means.In a nonviolent struggle, one therefore has the goal of not dehumanizingone's opponent and also trying to not let one's opponent dehumanize oneself,since it is this dehumanization which is part of the process that peoplego through before justifying using violence against other human beings inthe world.
Gandhi never took action in the world until he had first meditated andasked for inner guidance on what to do. When Gandhi's movement also becameviolent, he called off further action until people could be adequately trainedin nonviolence. Gandhi did not see nonviolence as passive, but rather asactive struggle against unjust laws or policies. Gandhi also believed thatone should not oppose all laws, only the unjust ones. Gandhi had fivestages in his nonviolent struggle, as noted below, and believed thatone must exhaust all possibilities of each stage before going on to thenext stage.
Stage I: Utilization of All Regular Constitutional Machinery.In this first stage, the existing legal constitutional machinery is usedto try to deal with the conflict within the system and achieve a satisfactoryresolution.
Stage II: Agitation Stage. If stage one was fruitless, a stageof agitation is undertaken to heighten the awareness and educate the peopleas to what the conflict is all about. In a totalitarian society, the networkof communication that is established to implement this phase is built outsidethe normal channels, and is thus more difficult, since it must be undertakenin secret.
Stage III: Ultimatum Stage. This stage involves the presentationto the establishment of a document listing the people's needs and statingthat continued opposition would produce some sort of direct action. If,however, this document fails to produce a favorable response, then membersof the movement begin their preparation for direct action.
Stage IV: Self-Purification Stage. This stage is used by thosepreparing for nonviolent action to develop ahisma (the spirit of ham-dessness),which is seen as a prerequisite to action that is untainted with self interest.During this time members question their inner strength, noting if they haveenough self respect to command the respect of the opposition. The abilityof each member to avoid the pitfall of reducing their opponent to an "enemy,"thereby dehumanizing them and allowing violence to occur as a result, isof the highest importance.
Stage V: Direct Action Stage. In this fifth stage, after exhaustingall regular constitutional machinery, heightening the awareness of the populationat large about the issue, and understanding intensive soul searching andinner preparedness, nonviolent action is undertaken. This action can takemany forms, including economic boycotts, sit-down strikes, non payment oftaxes, mass resignations from public office, and deliberate and organizeddisobedience to certain laws that are considered unjust. Gandhi, relyingheavily on his opponents' lack of preparation, felt that some combinationof these methods, coupled with sympathy from within the ranks of the authoritybeing challenged, could open channels for discussion. On the other hand,if resistance continued, the end result could be the complete collapse ofthe government's power, shifting power to the Satyagrahis, who could thenconstitute a new government.
Relevance of Gandhi Today
Having explored Gandhi's philosophy and practice of nonviolence above,as he used it against the British first in South Africa, and then in India,an interesting question is: what relevance do Gandhi's ideas have for today?The first obvious answer is that with the destructive potential of nuclearweapons today, the world can no longer afford to solve its conflicts viaviolence and weapons of mass destruction--if we want a future for ourselves,our children, and the earth. Gandhi was the first person to take ideas ofnonviolence and apply them in a mass movement for social and political change,that showed that a party to a conflict can win via nonviolent means againsta much stronger party, 'if' the former can appeal to the moral conscienceof their opponent, and the world, and convince them that they have a justcause which deserves to be listened to and addressed in a constructive manner.Certainly the world can use such an approach today. Being willing to listento inner spiritual guidance, and then to undergo purification (to be sureone's motives are pure) before embarking on political action in the worldare other characteristics of spiritually-based nonviolence, which distinguish*t from both temporary uses of nonviolence for functional purposes, andfrom violent efforts at socialpolitical change. Such-spiritually based nonviolencecarries a much bigger moral authority and influence because it is not undertakenfor personal power or ego reasons, and because it does not dehumanize one'sopponent, which is a necessary step before people can justify killing otherhuman beings in the world. All of these values, if adopted by the world'sdifferent peoples, cultures, and religions today would do much to createa more peaceful world in the 2 1 st century. It is also significant thatreligious leaders of many of the world's religions would agree today thatwhen violent actions are undertaken in the name of religion, the party concernedis not being true to the spirit or the letter of that religion. (Certainlyreligious cults today or fundamentalist religious factions that advocateand engage in violence against others with different perspectives than theirown are not being true to the spirit of the original founders of their professedreligions.)
There are both International Non-Govermnental Organizations (INGOs),as well as national Non-Govermnental Organizations (NGOS) that exist tosupport peace-building efforts in all six areas of peace outlined in thepaper above. These are all citizens' groups that are concerned about andactive in efforts towards peace in any one or more of the above peace perspectiveareas. As such, these INGOs and NGOs play a pivotally important role inthe international system and in their own respective countries, in mobilizingcitizens to work towards better conditions of life in each of these areasand in also lobbying their governmental representatives to adopt more responsiblepolicies to deal with issues in each of these areas.
It is also noteworthy that as the world has become more complex and movedfrom a bipolar world (characterizing the Cold War era) to a multipolar world(at least economically), that the number of different types of actors inthe international system has increased--including an increasingly importantrole for NGO's to influence the future direction of the international system.INGOs and NGO's are also, in many respects, the conscience of the internationalcommunity, since they are often the most progressive and concerned and activecitizens of the world, who are trying to educate goverrunent officials andthe broader public about important issues that the human community needsto address, if a better world is to be created for future generations. Ineach of the peace areas noted below, there are, in effect, hundreds, eventhousands of INGOs and NGOs that are active. A few prominent examples undereach peace area are noted below, to illustrate their activities.
Anti-War and Anti-Nuclear NGOs (Peace as Absence of War)
The anti-war movement has a long history in the West, where groups suchas the War Resistors International (WRI) and Peace Pledge Union (PPU) havetaken a consistently anti-war stance for many decades. These groups putforward an absolutist position on war, arguing that it is never justifiedand should never be used, even when faced with a totalitarian, fascist dictatorsuch as Hitler. - A few countries, such as Switzerland, Sweden and CostaRica also refrain from participation in war, while Japan still supportsa constitution which forever precludes the use of war by Japan. Other anti-wargroups oppose particular wars, for example, many citizens groups in Europe,North America and Asia opposed the Vietnam war and U.S. involvement. Unlikethe members of WRI or PPU, most of the citizens involved in anti-VietnamWar demonstrations were not pacifists and would have been in favor of WorldWar II against fascism in Germany, Italy and Japan.
Following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, many anti-nucleargroups have campaigned worldwide for the elimination of nuclear weapons.As in the case of citizens groups opposed to the Vietnam or Afghanistanwars, nuclear pacifists are not necessarily opposed to all wars, ratherthey oppose the use, or threat of use, of nuclear weapons. The discoveryof radioactive isotopes in mothers' milk and babies' teeth following extensivenuclear testing in the atmosphere prompted the formation of anti-atrnospherictesting groups during the 1950s. These were followed In Europe in the late1950s by groups such as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and thenby European Nuclear Disarmament (END) in the 1970s. These groups playedan important role in raising public awareness of the nuclear issue duringthe Cold War, as did SANE/FREEZE in the United States. In addition, variousscientific and social scientific INGOs contributed to anti-nuclear sentimentthrough the publication of research on issues such as the effects of nuclearweapons on people, the consequences of a nuclear war-including the nuclearwinter hypothesis, and the dangers of accidental nuclear war--the unintendedlaunching of thousands of missiles through a combination of human and computererror during periods of tension.
Some anti-nuclear groups have also campaigned against nuclear generationof electricity, basing their objections on a number of factors including:the potential link through the nuclear fuel cycle between civilian and militaryuses of nuclear technology, including various ways that nuclear power stationscan be used to help make nuclear weapons; the dangers of a Chernobyl, Windscaleor Three Mile Island type of accident in a nuclear power plant; the problemof safe longterm storage of nuclear waste for tens of thousands of years--periodsof time in excess of the life span of any human civilization; and the economiccost of nuclear power generation.
Some INGOS, such as Greenpeace, operate on a global basis against allof these aspects of nuclear technology as well as for environmental issues,using direct action to publicize the issues. Greenpeace has become a trulyglobal actor, with its own computer network for communication, a navy ofsmall boats, and offices and membership worldwide. For example, during theearly summer of 1995, the new Rainbow Warrior, part of the unarmed GreenpeaceNavy, sailed into the Pacific to try to prevent French nuclear testing andto highlight the issues involved. At the same time, Greenpeace activistson the other side of the world occupied an oil rig in the North Sea of theBritish coast in order to prevent the sinking of the obsolete rig by theoil company.
Friendship and United Nations Support Groups (Peace as Balance ofForces in the International System)
The United Nations. Association (UNA) and UNESCO clubs and associationsworldwide are good examples of citizens groups who are actively workingto strengthen the international system. The idea that a balance of forcesin the international system helps control war requires the development ofa strong international system that is able to control or balance the excessesof nationalism. While the U.N. system is an organization of States, NGOsand INGOs have had an increasing influence on the system during recent years.Agencies, such as UNESCO, have multiple linkages with NGOs and INGOS, whileannual U.N. Conferences, each on a different theme--such as the meetingon Environment and Development, and the upcoming meeting on Women--are invariablyinterfaced with a parallel NGO Forum that both supports and challenges theintergovernmental deliberations.
Citizen diplomacy has also been an important nongovernmental activityin this regard. During the Cold War, groups of U.S. and Soviet citizensworked to establish genuine friendships across the ideological divide thatseparated their countries. Exchanges between doctors, housewives, scientists,students and teachers provided a human link at a time when fear, mistrustand hostility dominated the normal relationships between the United Statesand the Soviet Union. It is difficult to estimate the contributions of theseexchanges to keeping the peace, that is avoiding war, but there is no doubtthat they served as one of the building blocks for the future and did helpcounterbalance the otherwise overwhelming negative mutual misperceptionsprevalent at that time.
On a more general level, there are numerous examples of friendship groupsbetween the citizens of different countries. In some cases, these groupstake the form of national friendship societies, for example, Japan and Koreaor the United States and Cuba. In other cases, they take the form of personto person links between towns or cities, for example the Sister City movement,whereby a city or town will establish a sister relationship with citiesin other countries in order to promote an international perspective amongits citizens and build friendship between the citizens of their city ortown and those of another city or town in one or more countries. Many thousandsof cities and towns are linked worldwide in the Sister City movement, andmany millions of citizens have had an international experience and madeinternational friends through this route. In addition, a number of countries,as well as large towns, have hosted international "expos", primarily--thoughnot exclusively-- for economic reasons.
All of the activities discussed in this section strengthen the internationalsystem at its roots and help build friendships and links between citizensof different countries. More recently, this person to person internationalinteraction has been broadened through the rapidly expanding use of theInternet. Whereas international pen friend organizations have been in existencefor many years, and have contributed much to increasing international understanding,the Internet has accelerated the communication process and made it easierfor some of the citizens of the world to freely communicate with each otheron a regular basis. Millions of individuals now interact with each otherthrough cyberspace, although many parts of the world are not yet connectedto computer networks. In the future, cyberspace will play an increasingrole in connecting people in an interactive way, worldwide.
Anti-Poverty, Social Justice, and Human..Rights NGOs (Peace as NegativePeace--No War and Positive Peace--No Structural Violence)
Global telecommunications have also helped infonn the citizens of theworld about structural violence issues. With the spread of television andglobal communications, not only wars, but also major tragedies--such asfamines, homelessness, the plight of refugees and human rights abuses--aregraphically portrayed on our television screens. Citizens groups, such asAmnesty International, OXFAM, and Save the Children, have as a result beenable to reach millions of citizens throughout the world.
Amnesty International is perhaps the best known of the global INGOs workingin the area of human rights. With its worldwide membership and clearly defmedgoals, it has been able to intervene in thousands of cases where a nonviolentindividual was being imprisoned or persecuted because of their beliefs.Like Greenpeace, Amnesty has developed national branches in many countriesthroughout the world and has its own computer networks that are used tolink its members and share information worldwide. While Amnesty tends towork through letter writing campaigns and publicity in national and internationalmedia, some groups, such as Peace Brigades International (PBI) concentrateon nonviolent intervention to help protect activists working nonviolentlyfor political or social change in dangerous, often life-threatening, situations.PBI sends specially trained observers to accompany nonviolent social activists,observers who are linked to national media outlets and politicians in leadingcountries, such as the United States. If an activist is killed or unjustlytreated by local authorities, PBI can act as "whistle blowers"and ensure that the general population and political elites in all majordemocratic countries are informed.
At different times, national and international citizens groups, suchas the Anti-Apartheid Campaign, have campaigned against structural violencedirected at particular minority, or majority, ethnic or racial groups. Therecent radical changes in South Africa have come about in part as a consequenceof prolonged, intensive actions by a broad range of citizen and businessgroups opposed to Apartheid.
When we consider issues related to poverty and homelessness, internationaland national citizens' groups have played an increasingly important roleduring recent years, partly at least because of the increased awarenessamong general populations in developed countries about current crises throughwatching television. Groups such as OXFAM and Save the Children, often workinghand in hand with local, governmental and United Nations relief and peacekeepingoperations, have helped distribute millions of dollars worth of aid to peoplein need throughout the South. In addition, they have increasingly workedto help local populations establish longer term viable support systems.
Feminist and Women's Issues NGOs (Feminist Peace)
It is a historical fact that -women have traditionally played a leadingrole in peace movements, as illustrated in the historical analyses of feministscholars such as Elise Boulding. (1992) In this century, groups such asthe Women's International I-eague for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) have campaignedand educated around a broad range of issues from women's suffrage to violenceagainst women in war or in the home. In recent years, with the rise of feministscholarship and the associated increase in social and political activismby women worldwide, national and international groups of women have increasinglyimpacted local, national, regional, and global policies of both governmentsand international organizations.
Given the person-centered analysis of feminist scholarship, it is notsurprising that large numbers of local women's' groups are now active throughoutthe world. The Manila-based Batis Center for Women is in many ways a typicalexample. This center, in collaboration with the International Center forRights of the Child, is working to reunite Japanese-Filipino children withtheir Japanese fathers. About 10,000 Japanese-Filipino children have beenabandoned by their Japanese fathers--most of whom have Japanese families--andso far about 20 of the 50 fathers contacted by the center have agreed tosee their children and provide some financial support. Like many womens'organizations, the Batis Center is working to overcome some of the negativeeffects of exploitative behavior by many men.
The United Nations is organizing a conference on women in Beijing inSeptember 1995 and womens' groups and organizations from around the worldare participating in the parallel NGO Forum. The womens' NGO gathering willundoubtedly receive significant media coverage and will provide an opportunityfor a whole range of groups to raise womens' issues in a global fonim. Thenow well established tradition of parallel NGO meetings, whenever a majorglobal U.N. or Goverrunental conference takes place, illustrates the degreeto which NGOs are now directly impacting on the policy process and on internationalpublic opinion.
Environmental Groups (Holistic Gaia-Peace)
While the activities of Greenpeace have been mentioned above, it is importantto stress that the concepts "green" and "peace" havebecome interconnected for many millions of people, regardless of whetheror not they are members of the organization. Environmental consciousnesshas increased dramatically in many countries, in part at least through theactivities of concerned citizens in groups such as Greenpeace, Friends ofthe Earth, the Sierra Club or the World Wildlife Fund. Again the growthin envirorunental activism is a worldwide phenomenon, whether it is directedtowards saving the rain forest, protecting whales, controlling the emissionsof greenhouse gases, or promoting the development of alternative technologiesfor using renewable resources.
As was the case with opposition to nuclear weapons, NGOs and INGOs havebeen a major factor in developing an informed public opinion on environmentalissues. New academic concepts like the Gaia Hypothesis (which defines theplanet as a single living system) have helped provide environmentalistswith a framework for action, as have the teachings of traditional indigenouscultures, where environmental values are often highly developed. The growingpressure from citizens throughout the world has impacted on governmentalpolicy, while the input from scientific environmental INGOs has influencedthe United Nations System as well as other International Governmental Organizations.As with womens' groups, holistic Gaiapeace groups have often arisen at thelocal level to deal with local issues. The catch phrase "think globally,act locally" has become a guiding principle for such groups.
Computer networks, such as Green Net and Environet are now enhancinginterconnections between local environmental groups. By exchanging informationand experiences, a considerable body of quickly available material is nowavailable through the Internet, and an ongoing dialogue between groups allover the world has become possible. It is likely that this will in the nottoo distant future make it possible for coordinated local environmentalactions involving many different groups throughout the world. On some issues,such as the transportation of nuclear waste, there is already global coordinationbetween local environmental groups such as the Plutonium Action Networkin Kyoto and various anti-nuclear groups in countries along the route ofships transporting radio-active waste from France or the LTK to Japan. Inthe future this coordination of plans and actions is likely to increaseand to become more effective. Such a worldwide citizens watch on the transportationof radioactive materials could also at a later date become a part of a globalinspection system to prevent the illegal manufacture of nuclear weapons.The networks of anti-nuclear and envirorunental groups, if properly connectedthrough modem computer technology, can become an important part of socialinspection and nuclear whistle blowing worldwide.
Nonviolent Religious Groups (Holistic Inner and Outer Peace)
Throughout the world there are spiritually based groups from all theworld's religious traditions who are working for peace. Some groups, suchas Pax Christi or the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, come from particular religioustraditions and base their peace work on the spiritual practices and beliefsof those traditions. Others, such as the International Fellowship of Reconciliation(IFOR) and interdenominational and interreligious peace organizations, workacross religious traditions. In both cases, nonviolent religious groupswho base their peace testimony on spiritual principles, have throughouthistory been an essential component of the peace movement.
Religious peace groups and individuals have often been able to work inextremely difficult conditions, for example, the Quaker ambulance teamswho tended the wounded at the front lines in the First World War, or MotherTheresa who tends the poor and sick in India. Sometimes, though not always,their purity of purpose can make it possible for such groups to go whereothers could not, for example the nonviolent interventions of IFOR in theongoing war in Myamnar and of the Buddhist monks in Vietnam. Much attentionis given in peace research to the role of religion and religious groupsin conflict, particularly ethnic conflict where leaders from different religiousbackgrounds often use religion as a basis for war. Far less attention hasbeen given to the moderating influence of religions and of religious peacegroups in controlling war, though also significant.
The Movement for Peace
A previous study (Smoker, 1965) explored the relationship between theformation of INGOs and changes in the international system using empiricaldata from the Yearbook of Intemational Associations, whichclassified INGOs into the following 19 categories.
1. Health
2. Science
3. Sport and Recreation
4. International Relations
5. Transport and Travel
6. Technology
7. Social Science
8. Arts and Literature
9. Education and Youth
10. Religion and Ethics
11. Law and Administration
12. Agriculture
13. Commerce and Industry
14. Bibliography, Documentation and Press
15. Professions and Employers
16. Social Welfare
17. Trade Union Organizations
18. Economics
19. Politics
The results of that study are consistent with the "movement forpeace" hypothesis suggested by Kenneth Boulding. As mentioned earlierin this paper, Boulding made an important distinction between "thepeace movement" (organizations which overtly and consciously existto promote peace activities in any of the above or other six broad peaceareas) and "the movement for peace" (including any type of internationalcooperative activities that lead to the functional integration of the internationalsystem and which therefore indirectly support the creation of peace in theworld, even though that is not their overt or conscious purpose). Thus eventhose INGOs who are not concerned with promotion of peace in any of thesix senses discussed above do, indirectly, contribute to strengthening theinternational system and maintaining peace, in terms of absence of war.In addition, some types of INGOS, such as those involved in sports or politics,appear to be particularly vulnerable to increased tension in the internationalsystem, while others, such as agriculture or health, are particularly resistantto increased tension.
A second empirical simulation study (Smoker, 1969) also supported the"movement for peace" hypothesis. In this study conflict patternsfor two types of world were compared. The first world had a small internationalsystem and states were the main actors. The second world had a much strongerinternational system that included many actors --multinational corporations,international governmental organizations and international nongovernmentalorganizations. In the state dominated world, wars were frequent, but whenthe international system was strengthened, wars between states became muchless frequent, while micro level conflict within states increased. A similartrend has in fact occurred in the real world during the last fiftyyears, as discussed earlier in this paper.
NGOs and INGOs thus contribute to peace in two ways: directly throughthe activities of peace movements of various sorts as detailed above, andindirectly through the movement for peace which strengthens the fabric ofthe international system.
The terms "negative peace" and "positive peace" havenow become associated with Galtung's structural violence model--negativepeace being the absence of physical violence, and positive peace being theabsence of structural violence. In the fmal two sections of the article,we will be focusing on the negative conditions (that need to be eliminatedif peace is to occur, Section VII) and the positive conditions (that needto be created if peace is to occur, Section VIII). Whenever we use the termsnegative and positive in this section, it is important to remember thisdistinction and our focus on negative conditions that need to be eliminatedand positive conditions that need to be created, and the importance of creatingsome kind of global monitoring system to track both types of developments,negative and positive, in each of the six areas of peace. The term "earlywarning system" is traditionally used to refer to the tracking of negativedevelopments, but we feel the tracking of positive developments is equallyimportant for world peace. Such a combined system we are calling a "globalmonitoring system" here.
The final section of this paper deals with positive multiculturalvisions for each of the six perspectives on peace. Any effective globalmonitoring system would have to include not only negative developments,but also positive ones in its' mandate. There has been a tendency in Westernpeace research to focus on negative aspects of peace. Even Galtung's definitionof positive peace is framed in terms of absence of undesirable factors,and there is a similar tendency in newspapers and on radio and televisionto highlight negative events. Cultivating cultures of peace requires a greaterbalance between the negative and positive aspects of peace, and any globalmonitoring system needs to include such a balanced perspective.
One of the interesting possibilities for helping to create a more peacefulworld would be the creation internationally, as well as nationally withincountries, of an effective worldwide monitoring system--most probably underU.N. auspices--that would develop indicators of negative conditions forpeace, as well as indicators of movements towards positive conditions forpeace, in each of the six areas of peace noted above. Then a permanent groupcould be assigned to monitor events in the world and within countries aroundthe world that would tell humanity as a whole where peace was endangered--andin what areas, as well as where progress was being made towards establishingfirm foundations for peace in the world. These assessments, and the indicators(of both negative and -positive developments) on which these assessmentswere based, could also be regularly supplied to the world's media to informworld public opinion on these issues, and where necessary, to mobilize worldsupport for U.N. or other action to prevent a worsening of negative conditionsof peace--where they emerged, as well as to support continuing improvementsin positive conditions of peace--where they emerged. International prizesand recognition could also be given for groups and individuals doing outstandingwork for peace in any area, which could help educate others on models ofpeacemaking and peacebuilding that are working around the world.
The global monitoring system would be based on a number of interactingparts, and would use information and expertise from the United Nations,governmental and private research institutes, NGOs and INGOs of the varioussorts discussed above, and private citizens worldwide. The system wouldalso make extensive use of the Internet as a vehicle for sharing informationquickly and in a decentralized way. The Internet has spread rapidly fromNorth America and Western Europe, where it is now widely available to millionsof people, to other North countries such as Japan and Australia, where accessis now rapidly increasing. Every country in South America, as well as themajority of countries in Asia and Africa, are now on line, and within afew years, there is little doubt that at a minimum all but a handful ofcountries will have a significant number of access points to the Internet,and at best some form of complete global interconnectivity will have beenachieved.
At the same time, the technical capabilities of the Internet will continueto improve. During the last two years, Internet software, such as Mosaicand Netscape, has been developed to exploit the advantages of the WorldWide Web, an Internet protocol that allows easy access to text, picturesand sound. The rapid spread of this software across the net has resultedin a dramatic increase in the quality of information available and the easewith which it can be obtained. The Internet, which began as a technicallyawkward communications device between mainframe computers for specialistresearchers, is now becoming a user-friendly, interactive, multimedia toolfor millions of people around the world. This trend, like the geographicspread trend towards global inter-connectivity, is technologically drivenand will continue into the next century when additional features, such asautomatic translation between languages and interactive, person to persontelevision on the net, will become standard. In the shorter term, globalmonitoring systems should use the Internet as one way to collect and shareinformation. The United Nations can play a leadership role in facilitatingthis development.
This section of the paper discusses some of the indicators of negativedevelopments associated with each of the six areas of peace. These indicatorscould all be included in any early warning system and would allow the detectionof crises early in their development, so appropriate actions and interventionscould be devised and implemented before full blown crises occurred.
Peace as Absence of War
If we defme a nation as a people who have their own history, shared experiencestogether, customs and traditions, and often their own religion and languagethat further holds them together, then, at the present time, internal warsbetween nations or ethnic groups are by far the most common type of warin the world. In 1993, for example, only one of the more than forty warswas not an internal war. An important part of early warning systems forthose who view peace as absence of war will concentrate on monitoring tensionsbetween national and ethnic groups throughout the world. In addition, abroadened view of peacekeeping could emerge that involved teams of mediatorsand specialists in cross cultural conflict resolution being dispatched topotential conflict areas, preferably under U.N. auspices with the full cooperationof the states within whose territory the latent conflict exists. These peacekeepers might better be called peacebuilders or conflict mediators. In addition,NGOs and INGOs with appropriate skills, for example in cross cultural conflictresolution or nonviolent action, would work with the U.N. personnel andthe national or ethic communities in seeking constructive ways forward intheir disputes.
The peacebuilders would also work with the states in the region to developpolitical, economic and social institutions that contribute to nonviolentresolution of national and ethnic conflicts. The longterm role of educationalinstitutions in both equipping students with nonviolent conflict resolutionskills and fostering positive multicultural frameworks that honor and celebratenational and cultural diversity should also be stressed in such situations.If educational institutions, including schools, colleges and religious organizations,lack such perspectives in situations of national or ethnic tension, thenthis is an indicator of potential conflict in the future.
Other indicators of potential conflict include a lack of interchangebetween the two or more national or ethnic groups involved. For example,in Northern Ireland at various historical periods, violence has broken outbetween the Catholic and Protestant communities. Shortly before the latest"troubles", various surveys of attitudes and interactions betweenthe two communities demonstrated a deeply polarized situation in which,for the most part, Catholics and Protestants lived in separate enclaves,went to separate schools where they learned the history of their own communitybut not the other's, worked in separate places, did not intermarry, andgenerally received a broad socialization that stressed the rightness oftheir own group and the wrongness of the other. Peace researchers warned,before the event, that this was a dangerous situation that could easilybecome violent, but there was no mechanism, no institution that could intervenein the situation and attempt to mediate. While the violence in NorthernIreland began in 1969 and has only recently ended after more than 25 years,many much more recent internal wars have displayed a number of similar characteristics.The experience that has been gained by peace researchers and others in understandingsuch internal conflicts could be applied to early warning,if the sort ofearly warning system outlined above could be put into place.
Peace as Balance of Forces in the International System
This view of peace requires constant strengthening of the internationalsystem, particularly in regions of the world where international interconnectionsare weak or underdeveloped. For example, if two or more potentially hostilestates, such as India and Pakistan, Brazil and Argentina, Israel and herArab neighbors, or North and South Korea, have relatively few connectionsthrough links such as trade, INGOs or IGOS, or if such linkages show signsof weakening, then there is serious cause for concern, since such interconnectionsprovide a kind of global or regional infrastructure for peace. An earlierstudy (Smoker, 1965) demonstrated how INGO linkages between states provideda good indicator of connectivity, and how uneven this social fabric of theinternational system can be. There are in fact numerous indicators of interconnectivitybetween states, and research institutes could construct various measurescovering economic, social and political links. These might include indicatorsof tourism, sister cities, joint projects, trade flow, airline patterns,telephone calls, mail, electronic mail, mutual investment, joint membershipsin governmental and nongovernmental organizations, and joint membershipsin bilateral and multilateral treaties and conventions.
At the same time a range of negative empirical indicators have been usedby social scientists to study tension between states. Some of these indicatorsconcentrate on what are called international events, such as threats , protestsand accusations between governments, troop movements, diplomatic events--includingexpelling or recalling ambassadors, and anti-foreign demonstrations. Othersconcentrate on macro indicators, such as the proportion of the nationalbudget or GNP spent on defense--an indicator that has in the past been usedto predict eventual hostilities between two or more states.
The United Nations is unquestionably an appropriate institution for facilitatingmediation between potentially hostile states when early warning indicatorssuggest relations may be deteriorating. The Secretary General's office,or the Security Council, could attempt preconflict mediation based uponevidence from early warning indicators. In addition, a number of globalor regional governmental organizations now exist in North America, SouthAmerica, Europe, Africa and Asia, many of which could participate in earlywarning activities. For example, the Group of Seven (G-7) major industrialcountries at its June 1995 meeting in Halifax, Nova Scotia recommended theestablishment of an early warning system for violent conflict between actorsin the international system.
Peace as Negative Peace (No War) and Positive Peace (No StructuralViolence)
In addition to the indicators and proposed interventions suggested above,a range of indicators exists for structural violence concerns. In the areaof human rights, groups such as Amnesty International have developed humanrights profiles for every country in the world. This information, whichis already available on the Internet, is published in the world's newspapersand on television, and is frequently referred to in television documentariesand other programs. Similarly for poverty and famine issues, INGOs suchas OXFAM constantly monitor developments worldwide through their field workers,and through cooperation with research institutes, and governmental and UnitedNations relief efforts. The global network of poverty and famine reliefa*gencies that now exists-could act as.an effective vehicle for early warning,if greater connectivity between the groups could be established. In futurethis would be possible through the Internet based early warning informationsystem discussed above.
Death through preventable disease is an everyday occurrence in many partsof the world. United Nations agencies such as the World Health Organization(WUO), and nongovernmental agencies , such as the Save the Children Fund,face enormous global health problems, primarily in the South, where issuessuch as infant mortality and infectious disease present an enormous challenge,but also in the North, where cancer and heart attacks are common killers.In addition, new challenges such as AIDS, the spread of which can be lessenedby social and cultural changes as discussed previously in this paper, arestretching global health resources to the limit. Monitoring health trends,and the associated economic, social and cultural contexts, can continueto provide early warning of potential tragedies. Prevention requires variousinterventions, including the provision of appropriate medical facilities,therapies and technologies; the establislunent of a local economy that providesa livelihood for all members of the community and does not force women intoprostitution; and the changing of local cultures away from a culture ofstructural violence--for example when AIDS is spread because establishedsocial and cultural norms support male participation in the sex trade whileat the same time preventing the use of condoms--towards a culture of structuralpeace.
Multinational Companies (MNCS) are key actors when issues of large scalestructural violence are concerned and monitoring the activities of MNCswould be another aspect of any early warning system concerned with Galtungianpositive peace. MNCs have had a major impact on local economic systems throughoutthe world, sometimes displacing poor people from their traditional landsand homes, and often transforming local agriculture away from a self sufficiencyfocus towards a cash crop for export perspective. If the longterm relationshipsbetween global MNCs and local communities is to become less structurallyviolent, then social, cultural and ethical concerns must become a part ofMNC agendas. Indicators that measure the positive and negative impacts ofMNCs on local communities should be an integral part of positive peace earlywarning systems.
In the political arena, the degree of democratization of a society isan indicator of the extent to which individuals have access to the politicalprocess. In dictatorships and pre democratic societies, unequal access tothe political process represents a political form of structural violence.Early warning systems need to develop indicators of the degree of democraticparticipation that is possible in societies. Similarly structural discriminationagainst minority or majority groups needs to be continually monitored inorder to gauge the extent to which basic political, social and economicrights are being eroded or enhanced in any society.
Feminist Peace--on Macro and Micro Levels
Womens' groups in IGOs and Governmental agencies, together with INGOsand NGOs that deal with women's issues, have broadened social and politicalagendas to include both physical and structural violence against women.These groups have a wealth of information and experience that can be usedto construct early warning indicators. Feminist peace does not yet existin any country, although the situation is improving in some parts of theworld, but womens' groups can provide a broad range of indicators to helpprovide early warning of increasing or decreasing violence or discriminationagainst women and children. These indicators would include rape, wife beating,prostitution, and child molestation on the one hand and structural inequalities,such as unequal pay, fewer job opportunities, and discrimination againstmothers on the other.
Discrimination against women is deeply embedded in many cultural traditions,and the creation of a feminist culture of peace is a significantly greaterchallenge than for the other models of peace we have so far discussed. Forthis reason the educational component of an early warning program is likelyto be significant for a feminist culture of peace. Groups such as UNESCOhave placed a high priority on educating women, partly because of the currentdiscrimination that exists in many cultures and partly because it is oneof the most powerful mechanisms there is in dealing with global problemssuch as birth control, infant mortality, health issues and emancipationof women in the political process. Given the fact that feminist peace doesnot exist in any country, early warning principles require expanded educationalprograms and opportunities for women throughout the world. Similar educationalopportunities are also necessary for minorities within any society. Suchprograms are a necessary, but by no means sufficient condition, to establishfeminist cultures of peace. As with Galtungian structural violence, feministpeace also challenges the past roles of MNCs in the countries of the South,where women workers often form the bulk of the work force. Special considerationshould be given to monitoring the conditions of women factory workers inthe South.
Holistic Gaia Peace: Peace With the Environment
The environmental movement has arisen in part at least because of accumulateddata on global warming, deforestation, desertification, pollution and envirorunentaldegradation. While there is not universal agreement on how to interpretthe global environmental data that has been collected during the last 50years, most people accept, at least in principle, that industrialized societycannot continue indefinitely on its present path. In fact, early warningdata has been used by NGOS, INGOs and others to put pressure on governments,IGOs and the U.N., and in a relatively short space of time, environmentalconcerns have become central to issues of development. As with the feministmodel of peace, envirorunental peace does not exist in any country in theworld, and there is a great need for sustained education and discussionon environmental issues.
Another area in which early warning for gaia-peace can be establishedrelates to the degree to which significant problems, such as starvation,war and war preparation, and poverty are seen as separate. Holistic peacetheories are based on the interconnections between different aspects ofreality, and as a consequence holistic peace does not exist when major issuesare treated as if they are unconnected. In the educational area, holisticpeace requires that at least as much emphasis is laid on cross disciplinaryand interdisciplinary work as on traditional disciplines such as physics,mathematics, economics or history. In cultural terms the current shift inWestern culture towards paradigms that stress interdependence and interconnectivityrepresent a move.in the right direction.
Holistic Inner and Outer Peace
While holistic inner and outer peace requires all the early warning elementsoutlined above, it also requires a shift towards the inter faith perspectivein which the outer cultural manifestations of all religions are recognizedas representations of an underlying spiritual unity. Tendencies such asfundamentalism in the Christian tradition or extremism in the Islamic traditionare not compatible with holistic inner and outer peace that involves manydifferent outer forms of religion being expressed through a variety of differentcultural forms. Indicators of interreligious intolerance and of inteffeligiousharmony would be essential to monitor peace, or its absence, in this area.
In educational terms, religious education can no longer concentrate onthe teachings of one particular tradition or faith as the embodiment ofall truth. Instead, the validity of all traditions can be celebrated withinthe context of a broader view of humanity's multifaceted religious life.The Barcelona Declaration (UNESCO, 1994) provides a basis for establishinginner-outer peace, stressing as it does the fundamental importance of innerpeace and the need for nonviolent, interreligious harmony. Groups such asthe World Council of Churches and UNESCO could play an important leadershiprole in this regard.
Summary on Early Warning Systems for Negative Developments MovingAway From Peace
The brief discussion above sketches some of the ways in which an earlywarning system could work to combat negative movements for various definitionsof peace. The early warning system would involve both the development ofindicators, the sharing of information worldwide-including the use of theInternet to facilitate this process, and direct intervention by appropriategroups.
Earlier in this paper we have described how peace research, as it hasdeveloped in the West, has often had a tendency to focus primarily on thenegative factors that it wants to eliminate, but less on the positive alternativevisions that it would like to create, in order for a more peaceful worldto be established. Yet it can be argued that "a civilization withoutpositive images of itself is doomed, " as Fred Polak noted in his famousstudy on the importance of positive visioning of the kind of future thatwe want to create. (Polak, 1973) Indeed, it can argued that knowing whatyou don't want is not sufficient to get people to change their behavior.People also need positive visions of the alternatives they want to create,and these alternatives must also seem viable--if most people aregoing to be willing to give up their old, familiar ways of doing thingsin favor of. some alternative, even when the -old ways are clearly dysfunctional.
The Institute for World Order, in its World Order Models Project (WOMP),has always been concerned with articulating normative values on which tocreate alternative, more desirable futures. They were thus astute in statingfour core value areas for creating a desirable world future, not only innegative terms (what they would like to eliminate), but also in positiveterms (what they would like to create as an altemative).(Mendlovitz, 1975)Their core values were:
* Peace (positive), not War (negative)
* Social and Political Justice (positive), not Injustice (negative)
* Economic Wellbeing (positive), not Poverty (negative)
* Ecological Balance (positive), not Decay (negative)
For each of the six perspectives on peace, elaborated earlier in thispaper, we would like to explore below how each could be positively envisioned(not just what needs to be eliminated in each area). We would also liketo suggest that in our globally interdependent world, these positive visionsof peace in each area need to be based on a synthesis of some of the bestideas from different cultures around the world on what, ideally, peace couldand should look like. A few suggestions follow in each area; these suggestionsare by no means definitive, just preliminary and exploratory. It is hopedthat further discussions will occur in the future on how different culturesaround the world can contribute positive ideas for peace in each of thesesix areas.
Peace as Absence of War
This view of peace is usually stated as a negative, i.e., peace requiresthe absense or elimination of war. It would seem that most cultures of theworld would accept this as a necessary, though not sufficient, conditionfor peace in the world. Nonetheless, Western religions have all had, invarying degrees, some idea of holy wars or crusades or jihads to convertpeople to their faith, which seems to go against this idea. Hinduism mayalso believe to some extent--as in the Bagavad Gita--that one must go towar and do battle, although it is certainly possible to question whetherthis was meant literally to do battle physically in the external world,or whether it was meant more allegorically, i.e., that one must do battlewith one's own internal self, and one's own demons, to develop internalmastery over one's baser emotions, if peace is to be achieved--in oneself,or in the world. There are many variations of this idea, including: "Therenever was a war that was not inward: I must fight till I have conqueredin myself what causes war. "--Marianne Moore; "When we do notfind peace within ourselves, it is vain to seek for it elsewhere. "--DucFrancois de la Rochefoucauld; and "He had so much security inside thathe could afford to go without any outside. " --said about Kagawa, aJapanese pacifist. (Larsen, et. al., 1987) Certainly this is a more positiveformulation of "doing battle" in the nuclear age today, and onethat fits well with mystical traditions in all the world's religions.
A positive restating of this idea of eliminating war, as a preconditionfor peace in the world, also comes from Western Biblical text, where itsays: "They shall beat their swords into plowshares." and "Blessedare the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God."(Matthew 5:9). These are certainly positive visions implying that somedaypeace is possible.
Peace as Balance of Forces in the International System
This view of peace originated with Quincy Wright in 1941 in the U.S.It may also parallel and build on the earlier European idea of changingalliances to balance power blocs in Europe, so that no country or bloc ofcountries gained too much power--though it is clear that this idea sometimesbroke down in Europe, resulting in wars. The interesting question is whetherany comparable idea of peace as a balance of forces exists in Eastern cultureshistorically? Interestingly, there is a theory in Japan, about how Japanesepolitics and society is organized, called "the hollow centered balancedtheory, " which holds that there is no person or principle at the centerof power in Japan (unlike Western cultures), but that instead power is balancedaround a void center (so to speak) by different groups--much like differentfeudal lords each balancing off their different feifdoms or kingdoms. Infeudal England, the King also played off one feudal lord against anotherto maintain a balance of power system, to his own benefit.
In international relations today, the idea of balance can be translatedinto the many United Nations Associations and support groups in differentcountries who are concerned citizens who work in support of the United Nations,as well as bilateral friendship societies between citizens in many pairsof countries in the world, who also work towards better relations betweentheir two countries. Citizens diplomacy groups which support exchanges anddialogue between citizens in countries that have been in conflict, suchas the U.S. and the former Soviet Union, are also excellent examples ofpeople taking positive action to improve relations and create greater interdependenceand understanding between people in different countries and cultures inthe world, thereby creating better "balance" in the world. Suchgroups all help create a global network of interconnections between thecitizens of the earth, making us all more interdependent and hopefully moreaware and understanding of each other's cultures and traditions as well.Such groups, through numerous NGOs and INGOS, also help create the underlyingfabric for a more peaceful world in the 21st century.
Peace as Negative Peace (No War) and Positive Peace (No StructuralViolence)
Johan Galtung first propounded the idea of positive peace as no structuralviolence--in the international system or within domestic systems. This viewof peace says that if people are starving and there is food in the worldto feed them, or if people are sick and dying and there is medicine in theworld to treat them, then the failure of this to happen are examples ofstructural violence. Abuses of human rights, as documented by Amnesty Internationalin various countries around the world, are additional examples of structuralviolence. One might also add that authoritarian or dictatorial politicalsystems that deny individuals basic human rights, or legal protections underthe law, with the right to have their case heard if they feel their rightshave been abused, are further examples of structural violence in the politicalarea. All of these ideas seem to originate in Western cultures, where individualism(a Western invention based on individual identity) is seen as a necessaryfoundation for Western democracy, which is in turn based--for its effectivefunctioning--on individual rights and responsibilities. Since politicaldemocracy is now a global trend, this will hopefully lead to increased opportunitiesfor more members to participate politically in their countries in future.
Positive reformulations of the above would include peace based on socialand political justice, protection of basic human and individual rights,along with opportunities for everyone in a society--including minoritiesand women--to get a good education, so that they will all have positiveopportunities to better their life situation and as a result also be ableto make constructive contributions back to their societies and cultures.
Feminist Peace--on Macro and Micro Levels:
The women's movement, which says that peace must occur not only on macropolitical, economic, and social levels, but also on micro family levelsthat apply to women and children, first arose in Western, democratic countries,but has now spread to cultures around the world. While the situation ofwomen and the major problems faced by women vary in different cultures aroundthe world, there has emerged ahnost universal acceptance today (as seenin the recent United Nations Conference on Population in Cairo, Egypt) thatworld population, food, energy, and environmental issues and developmentissues of different countries around the world will not be able to be adequatelyaddressed until women, like men, gain access to adequate education and healthcare. Improving the status of women will help to solve many of the issueshaunting humanity today. Increasingly, countries are realizing that womenare an important resource that can help the world to establish peace. Indeed,women have often been quite active in peace movements in the world, andhave resisted efforts of men to send their sons off to fight wars. The existenceof religions historically or still today based on the goddess, or a combinationof both gods and goddesses, also indicates that women once held more powerat certain times historically than they often do today in both Western andnon-Westem cultures.
Holistic Gaia-Peace: Peace With the Environment
There is no question that non-Westem cultures, including Eastern cultures,that developed before the industrial revolution, had more of a culturalvalue of living in harrnony with nature, since they saw themselves as partof nature, not separate from it. With Western individualism came the ideathat we are all separate individuals and also separate from nature. Thusthe goal changed to how we could control and "harness the forces ofnature" for human ends. This was also coupled with the industrial revolution,which began in Europe and the West, but which is now sweeping the planet.Even in non-Westem cultures, which have a cultural value of being part ofnature and living in harmony with nature, this cultural value has oftenbeen lost as such countries moved rapidly ahead with industrialization,modernization, and economic development, often initiated from the top down,leaving behind a trail of pollution in countries--Western, Socialist, andnon-Western--throughout the world.
While it would be easy to conclude that Western individualism is thesource of all this environmental pollution, one positive thing can be saidfor such individualism. Democracy is based on the idea of individual rightsand responsibilities. This idea has often empowered individuals in Westerncountries to believe that they have a responsibility to take personal initiativeon issues that they perceive to be important--whether that be the envirorunent,peace, women's rights, or whatever. In this respect, there are a numberof individuals and groups in Western countries that are active on environmentalissues around the world. Sometimes countries with group cultures may takelonger to develop a group consensus and to mobilize people on such issuesbefore group action can be undertaken by their society.
In summary, it would be a positive development in the environmental areaif we could combine the Eastern value of living in harmony with nature withthe Western democratic value of taking responsibility for one's own actionsbased on an internalized value of the need for all of us to be caretakersof planet earth.
Holistic Inner and Outer Peace
There is no question that the focus on achieving inner peace as the bestway to achieve peace in the world is a stronger view in Eastern religions(such as Hinduism and Buddhism), where the mystical traditions of theirreligions are still stronger, than in Western religions (Judaism, Christianity,and Islam), where more exoteric, outer forms of organized religion are moredominant, even though all religions, including Western religions, beganby someone who had a mystical revelatory experience which they then triedto share with others, who became their followers and who often helped createa new organized religion around the teaching of their original founder.(See the authors' article for UNESCO, 1995, on "Spirituality, Religion,and Peace: Exploring the Foundations for Inner-Outer Peace in the 21st Century"for more substantiation and elaboration on this point.) It is thus not surprisingthat Western religions tend to focus more on achieving social justice andhuman rights in the world as a necessary preconditions for achieving peacein the world. We are arguing here that both perspectives are necessary.Either perspective alone makes it more difficult to achieve the other perspective.For example, if one tries to achieve outer peace in the world only, butdoes not deal with inner peace, then one's inner conflicts can be projectedout onto the world, making it difficult to achieve outer peace--the supposedgoal. Likewise, if one tries to achieve inner peace only, but does not payattention to creating outer peace in the world, then the social injusticesand structural violence in the world will make it more difficult for mostpeople experiencing those conditions to be able to find inner peace--thesupposed goal. Thus the achievement of either inner or outer peace helpscreate the conditions necessary for the creation of the other type of peace
Summary: Developing Indicators of Positive, Multicultural Visionsof Peace
Concerning each of the areas of peace, it is interesting that from theexamples cited above, Eastern cultures have made especially strong contributionsin each of the last two more holistic areas of peace (environmental andinner spiritual), while Western cultures have made especially strong contributionsin the previous four areas, focusing more on changes in the external world,including social justice and human rights issues, and women's issues. Thereare also a number of Western activists in the environmental area. In theanti-war/peace area, there is especially strong citizens' support for peacein the form of opposing the sending of national troops abroad in both Japanand Germany, due to the consequences of such actions in the past. It wouldappear that as different cultures and countries, there are important thingsthat we can all learn from each other about the many dimensions of creatinga peaceful world. Hopefully, we can move towards some kind of a global consensuson these issues over time.
Once some kind of global consensus could be developed that transcendeddifferent cultures, but yet was based on input from the best ideas and traditionsfrom various cultures around the world, the next step would be to try todevelop indicators that could measure movement in a positive direction ineach of the six different areas of peace discussed in this paper. Then somekind of international U.N. or private group could monitor events and activitiesaround the world for progress in each area. These positive developmentscould then be highlighted by the world's media and by the U.N. to give publicityto what is working in a positive sense in the world, which could then serveas possible models that others could also emulate or learn from. Internationalrecognition and awards or prizes could also be offered to groups and peoplemaking the most progress in developing new ways to create the foundationsand conditions for peace in a positive sense in each of the six areas. Inthis regard, even behavioral, social learning theory notes that people aremore likely to change their behavior-especially over the long run--if theyare rewarded for positive behavior, than if they are just punished for negativebehavior (which only modifies their negative behavior in the short run,while the threat of punishment is there). A more permanent modificationof behavior in a positive direction requires that people be recognized andpositively rewarded when they do things that contribute positively to worldpeace as well. Beyond this external recognition for positive behavior whichcontributes to peace, it is of course also desirable and ultimately necessarythat people develop internalized peaceful values which they are willingto commit their lives to and live by.
There is not time in this paper to articulate adequate indicators forcreating positive conditions for peace in each of the six areas outlinedabove. Real multicultural dialogue must continue until some kind of globalconsensus emerges that includes the best ideas from different cultures aroundthe world on how we can best create peace in each of the six areas. Thispaper only suggests a few multicultural visions of peace in each area ofpeace (above); many more good ideas await inclusion in this global, multiculturaldialogue. The authors of this paper would welcome further suggestions ineach of the above areas
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