Civic and Peace Education

Why it is not easy to define ‘peace.’

• Peace is not monolithic

• Peace is not universal
• There are diverse, often contradictory, array of interpretations of
peace.
• Its state of being and methodology vary according to the prevailing
cultural, social, economic, and political conditions in different
societies across the globe.
• Peace has a time and a place, as well as representatives and
protagonists in diplomatic, military, or civilian guise, and exists in
multiple forms in overlapping spaces of influence (Richmond
(2007:264) .
• Collective narratives (Biton and Salomon, 2006:167)
• Peace is understood differently by the politically strong and weak or
the conqueror and the conquered (Salomon, 2004:6)
Consider this:

• Dietrich (2002) - peace research tends to idealize a Western

conception of peace that contains the insight that respecting the
otherness of others must be one’s own principle of peace.
• Herman Schmid (2000) - peace research adopts a perspective that
aims at the “control of and integration of the international system.”
• Bernice Carroll (2002) - peace research had become preoccupied
with “the cult of power” and that it had failed to challenge “prevailing
conceptions of power as dominance.”
• Skelly (2002) - peace research has failed to reflect on the character
of the knowledge it produced.
• Skelly (2002) - the language peace researchers use “deeply embed
the problem culturally by reinforcing the cult of expertise.”
Why has the studies of violence been seen as studies of peace?

• Diverse, often contradictory, array of interpretations of peace. These

different understandings indicate the confusion between peace as the
presence or absence of certain phenomena or qualities.
• Violence is the reference point for peace.
• Conflicts are perceived as a historical inevitability.
• Difficulty of ascribing moral or ethical responsibility in historical
explanation of conflicts.
• War centered nature of history. History tends to be organized around
conflict. War forms and mobilizes society.
• Violence-centered nature of history. Violence tends to be a focus of
attention within history.
• Peace building is fraught with images of despair.
• Values being propagated in schools and society.
• When war is covered it is done with a sense of passion and
excitement, while peace when it is included, it is portrayed as
boring.
• Literature being taught in schools; it does not give an alternative to
violence.
We cannot achieve what we cannot imagine.
It is difficult if not impossible to imagine a
world without weapons while we inhabit a
world overwhelmed by weapons. In order to
imagine a world without weapons, we must
move into a future and inhabit a world where
no weapons exist. Only then can we look
around them and begin to understand why it
was necessary for them to arrive in such a
world in the first place.
(Boulding in Crews, 2002, p. 79)
Defining peace

• Inner state of emotional calm or tranquillity within an individual.

• Absence of physical violence. At the school level it might be taken
to imply absence of strikes.
• A condition where there are no disagreements, conflicts and people
live in calm and serenity.
• A network of relationships brought about by transformation of
conflictual and destructive interactions
• Galtung (1973) distinguished between positive, negative peace and
structural violence.
i. Positive peace - denotes collaboration, integration, and
cooperation.
ii. Negative peace - absence of physical and direct violence
between groups
iii. Structural violence - denotes societal built-in inequalities and
injustices.
• Peace is also defined in terms of inner peace and outer peace.
• Inner peace refers to a state of being that centers on accepting
reverence for others, peace with self or self-contentedness.
• Outer peace refers to peace with natural environment, culture and
other outermost interrelationships at both the micro and macro
levels.
Note

i. Inner peace is significant because it promotes peace-making and

peace building skills and values including empathy, compassion,
and the understanding of the multiple perspectives of reality.
ii. Outer peace or social peace on the other hand assists in
supporting harmony in human relations, democracy, unity and
peaceful coexistence.
• MoEST (2014) - a state of tranquillity and harmony at the personal
and interpersonal level that entails a set of skills, values and
attitudes that if internalized leads to constructive, non-violent
resolution of conflicts. It is supported by social institutions that
prevent occurrence of violence.
• The International Alert (1996:2) defines peace as when people are
able to resolve their conflicts without violence and can work together
to improve the quality of their lives.
• Ekanola (2009) - definition of peace must describe those features that should be
in place to rightfully describe a situation as peaceful or conditions that hold when
peaceful state is maintained and promoted.
• These include:
i. An efficient system of governance,
ii. Reasonable measure of physical security which ensures that people are
relatively free from physical harm, threat to their health and life.
iii. Emotional well-being of members of society.
iv. Harmonious relationship between all members of the society in spite of any
difference in systems of beliefs and values.
• Patricia Daley (2006) notes that the conventional definitions of
peace refer to an end to war, reconciliation and the establishment of
civil order.
• A peaceful society is presented as one in which conflict is resolved
through debate and compromise and where the rule of law is
effective, thus providing the conditions for stability.
• Racial and cultural homogeneity is also seen as a prerequisite for a
peaceful nation-state.
• United Nations interprets the concepts as having many
components: peace making and peace building - use of diplomatic
means to persuade parties in conflict to cease hostilities and to
negotiate a peaceful settlement of their dispute.
• African traditions - the cosmos, the nature and society are seen as
being in an inextricable reciprocal relationship that when balanced,
is experienced as peace.
Reflection Questions

1. Distinguish the following terms

i. Structural violence & cultural violence
ii. Positive peace & negative peace
2. Describe peace according to Ekanola (2009)