A call for a culture of peace

NO TIME is more apposite than currently to build a culture of peace in a world lacking peace in all senses.
Evidence abounds in the world today. No social responsibility is more superior, no task is more substantial than that of securing peace on planet Earth and on a sustainable foundation.
The sheer magnitude of shrinking physical continental borders and of problems and challenges becoming increasingly more interdependent and interconnected is the basis for working together.
Trust, dialogue, and collaboration are the bedrock of global peace and reconciliation.
International Day of Peace (IDP), observed around the world on September 21 every year, is a declaration by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), and is devoted to strengthening the ideals of peace through observing 24 hours of non-violence and cease-fire.
‘Never has the world needed peace more’, was the 2023 theme. It was a call for action of our individual and
collective responsibilities to foster world peace and comes as a pertinent
challenge for all of humanity. United Nations (UN) Secretary General Antonio Guterres said:
“Peace is needed today more than ever. War and conflict are unleashing devastation, poverty, and hunger and driving tens of millions of people from
their homes.
“Climate chaos is all around. And even peaceful countries are gripped by gaping inequalities and political polarisation.”
It is extremely disheartening that in the 21st century, violent conflicts are wreaking havoc, death, destruction, torture, rape, and trauma to combatants and civilians, and triggering permanent environmental damage to the land, sea and air at an unparalleled scale.
It is further tear-jerking that in this 21st century, violence has been justified when nations possess perceptions that others humiliate them or commit an injustice against them.
They are frequently willing to fight and even die for the defence of their physical, social or cultural identity.
Every angle of the globe seems to be engulfed in a violent conflict of some sort.
For example, mother Earth is bleeding ubiquitously, in Sudan, Ukraine, Central African Republic, theSahara-Sahel region, Yemen, Syria,
Iraq, and Afghanistan.
This is, notwithstanding, 2023 being the 20th anniversary of the UN resolution on the Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace.
Humanity must take serious action informed by the Constitution of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation which states: “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed.”
Humanity must awake from its laxity of acceptance of violence andembrace a culture of peace.
Humanity must acknowledge that peace, which is not only the absence of conflict, requires a positive, dynamic participatory process where dialogue is invigorated, and conflicts are solved in a spirit of mutual understanding and cooperation.
A paradigm shift to embrace a culture of peace is imperative.
The UN, an organisation crafted to maintain world peace and security through its five Security Council permanent members, has an immense task to align itself to its philosophy, failure to which the world will fall deeper and deeper into endless ‘senseless’ violent conflicts.
The USA, one of the permanent members of the Security Council, has, in the view of some, participated and continues to participate in direct violent conflicts under the pretext of defending ‘human rights’.
At present, Russia, another permanent member of the Security Council, has undertaken a “specialmilitary operation” in Ukraine, a
sovereign state, driven by its own stated sense of insecurity.
It begs the questions: what has happened to dialogue between and among nations? What develops from all those ‘never again speeches’ by world leaders espousing their detest for violent conflict?
This week, world leaders are meeting anew, for the 78th time since its founding at the UN General Assembly in New York, USA, to subject global citizens to what seems to be monotonous pronouncements of ‘never again’ speeches, whilstmanifesting insignificant or no action
to halt the senseless violence.
Johan Galtung, a renowned Norwegian peace scholar, in his model of conflict, views conflict as a triangle with attitude, behaviour and contradiction at its vertices.
For Galtung, parties’ attitudes which are perceptions and misperceptions of each other and of themselves have a prodigious influence on the violent conflicts being experienced in the world today.
To address the violent tendencies, humanity is urged to embrace a culture of peace by dealing with the violent structures created through structural and cultural violence and particularly cease the endless building and stockpiling of arms, armaments, missiles, and bombs, including the socalled ‘smart’ ones!
The world cannot afford the existing endless violent conflicts. A culture of peace must jerk humanity from this complacency of being oblivious to violent conflict for as long as it has no direct consequence on them.
Humanity should not stand aloof while numbers of wars and environment refugees soar, while poverty becomes rampant, and money for education, health, and other needed services are ‘stolen’ to pay for weapons.
In conclusion, the adoption by the UN General Assembly of the Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace in 1999 was a watershed event which should now evolve into a process to support humanity in our embrace of a culture of peace.
A cautious reminder, however, is that peace seems not to be part of humanity’s DNA and so should motivate us to ensure that deliberate efforts are made to promote a culture of peace by all – be it here in Zambia, known for its commendable but still negative peace, or any place on the planet.
The author is a lecturer in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of Governance, Copperbelt University.