This is a really inspiring talk by Colman McCarthy about peace and the need for peace education in schools.
He started off righly by saying that all of us got to where we are due to the effort and help given by others. And the best way to repay those debts of gratitude is to become a peacemaker.
He rightly points out that "peace is the result of love, and if love was easy, we'd all be good at it." The great peacemakers that he has interviewed, like Mairead Corrigan, Desmond Tutu, Muhammad Yunus, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, always told him that in order to decrease violence, you need to go to where people are.
And thus, he started going to local high schools to "teach peace", and to introduce peace studies. He also mentioned that students today graduate from high school peace illiterate, and are therefore vulnerable to cycles of violence. "If we don't teach the children peace, unless we teach them peace, somebody else will teach them violence."
People would ask him. how would "peace" ever work? He cited examples where brutal dictatorships and social systems were brought down by peaceful, non-violent means. He cited Ferdinand Marcos, Augustus Pinochet, and how apartheid was demolished by non-violent means.
This talk, given at the University of California at Santa Barbara,under the auspices of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation headed by David Krieger.
I found it to be a very inspiring talk on how important it is to teach our children peace. The education system is working overtime to teach children "knowledge" and "skills", but not values that enable them to live the right path in life.
Peace studies, dialogue, conflict resolution are among some important studies that ought to be taught to students in the future, and soon.
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