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The Peace Process: Reducing Violence
Grades 10-12 (ages 15-18)
Areas of Study
History, Contemporary Affairs, Civics, Social Studies
Themes
UN function
Techniques for Peace Related UN Function: Peacekeeping and Peacemaking (Secretary-General and Security Council)
Unit Objectives
To understand some of the causes for international conflict
- To learn about the acccomplishments and difficulties of UN peace work
- To recognize that peace is not a fixed state but rather a process requiring skills, continual effort and commitment
Suggested Time
Three or more class periods
Helpful Tools
Basic Facts about the United Nations, UN Chronicle; (optional) Agenda for Peace, Notes for Speakers, Teaching about Peace (DPI video and teaching guide)
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"The search for peace can never end... It has no finishing line, no final deadline, no fixed definition of achievement.
"...Peace is a never-ending process, the work of many decisions by many people in many countries. It is an attitude, a way of life, a way of solving problems and resolving conflicts, It can not be forced on the smallest nation or enforced by the largest. It cannot ignore our differences nor overlook our common interests. It requires us to work and live together.
"...Peace is not only a matter of noble words... We need deeds that will respect those words, honour those commitments, abide by those laws.
"....Justice and peace can only thrive together, never apart ... peace can only be achieved through its own instruments: dialogue and understanding, tolerance and forgiveness, freedom and democracy..."
-President Oscar Arias Sanchez of Costa Rica, address on receiving the Nobel Peace Prize
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Suggested Procedure
To the Teacher
Many approaches and themes can be used to teach about such a crucial topic. This unit focuses on two ways to reduce violence: peacemaking and peacekeeping.
The Unit begins with personal questions which call up students' feelings and questions relating to violence. The hypothetical case, on the other hand, shows the specific accomplishments and difficulties experienced by the UN as it has tried to find effective means to deal with different conflict situations. Out of these two approaches students should become aware that something can, and must, be done about peace, but the task is difficult and requires skill and commitment.
Some teachers have focused only or primarily on conflict resolution in their teachings about peace. However, there is an even more important aspect of the peace process putting back together the pieces fragmented by violence and building a better community.
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To the Student
- Violence in Your Life and Country
- Personal Ideas about Violence
People are involved in conflict every day. Write a paragraph detailing a conflict you were involved in. What was the disagreement about? Who was disagreeing? What did each party want? Why was there a conflict?
How may a conflict grow and intensify into violence?
Under what conditions do you think people use violence?
What are some of the steps which can be taken to prevent violence?
- Causes of Violence in Your Country
A recent issue of the UNESCO Courier on violence in different societies listed as causes: urban unrest; rural poverty; racial or ethnic discrimination; political revolution; unconscious aggressiveness in individuals; myths about brave heroes in the past; irresponsible leaders; and breakdown of civil order.
Give examples of community, national and international conflict; analyze these in terms of the sources of the conflict (conflicts over resources, needs, beliefs and goals).
- The Terms Preventive Diplomacy, Peacemaking, Peacekeeping and Peace Building are Essential to the Understanding of the UN's Efforts.
Research the following:
- the number and location of the United Nations peacekeeping operations from 1948 to the present
- the missions currently under way
- a current example of a peace-building operation (El Salvador, Nicaragua, Cambodia, Namibia or other)
- Reducing Violence
Write a letter to your head of State to suggest the position you think your UN ambassador should take at a meeting tomorrow of the UN Security Council. This meeting is being called to deal with a dangerous development in a new UN peacekeeping operation.
To write the letter, read the information contained in the hypothetical case below. Once you have completed the reading and discussion, you may begin your letter.
- Local Testing
In your school or in the local community, try using one of the UN peacemaking techniques in a real or simulated conflict situation.
- Personal Conclusions
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Look back at Part I. What changes do you find in your ideas about violence and ways to deal with it?
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Consider the following:
- "To have peace, human nature must be changed." Do you agree or disagree?
- "To have peace, there must be a world government with laws and military enforcement power." Do you agree or disagree?
Other Ideas for Teachers
You may wish to do more to relate the peace process to your students' experience. You could ask them to visualize concretely what war is actually like and how it would change their lives. Or they might talk to someone in the community who has experienced war. They might also investigate how conflicts are resolved in their families and neighborhoods.
Some schools are experimenting with ways of teaching their pupils skills for dealing with conflicts in their own lives. Some of these are preventive (behaviour which is not aggressive or provocative) or conciliatory (techniques for respecting each person's point of view and reaching consensus).
The class might research actual examples of the UN's recent peacekeeping activities. Note that although the UN has mediated successfully or kept a war from spreading in some instances, there may also be situations which did not respond to UN efforts, and these should be discussed honestly.
Another interesting topic is how the UN's peace work has affected the organization. For example, students could study the role of the Security Council and the Secretary-General and the increasing cooperation between the two. They might discuss how using force to impose peace could change the nature of the UN in the future.
Students might also discuss related themes, such as:
- collective security: "When spider webs unite, they can bind a lion" (Ethiopian proverb)
- the relation between justice and peace (this might be shown through quotes from different world leaders: i.e. "True peace is not merely the absence of tension but it is the presence of justice and brotherhood." Martin Luther King, Jr.)
Comments for Students
Crises ... Dangers and Opportunities
At an international working group of teachers, an upper primary school Croatian teacher began, "I don't know how I can teach about the UN and peace to children who have seen what my pupils have seen and been through what they have experienced."
Secondary teachers elsewhere also wonder how they can teach about the UN's efforts to bring peace and better lives to people. They know, however, that they must somehow help students learn to deal with the gap between ideals and current realities.
Danger. Some Things Today Are Really Bad
First of all, we — and they — must admit that there is violence in many places, terrible and cruel acts even where there is no civil war and where adults teach otherwise. Students sense that this means things are out of control, which sharpens their feelings of fear and helplessness
Crises can help people understand that violence may be caused by injustice and poverty as well as ethnic hatreds. Crises may spur countries and people to take needed action. Students in their personal lives can gain strength by dealing with adversity.
If students have learned to take a long view of human history, they will know that crises are frequent in periods of rapid change and that progress towards a world community is not uniform. Realistic and balanced education about the United Nations helps. Studying the peace process enables people to discover that peace is not a hopelessly idealistic dream, that violence can be effectively reduced.
Crises can also help students appreciate that peace is a continuing and difficult process and that much remains to be done. The earth's population may be growing too fast; there may not be enough time, effort or commitment to make the changes needed in the world system or people may not be ready to discard violence. But in crises UN members and people may feel more deeply the need for a close world community. Crises can thus become a time for rededication to the ideals of the UN.
Positive Surprises
Especially in the UN's fifth decade, unbelievable things happened: the end of the cold war, the independence of Namibia, the loosening of the Israeli/Palestinian situation which had been frozen for more than 40 years, and-in another "hopeless" case-apartheid abolished and the Nelson Mandela/De Klerk negotiations crowned by the Nobel Prize for peace. We can assume that the future will bring more uncertainties and efforts, more dangers and opportunities, and perhaps also more positive surprises.
When the Croatian teacher asked her question and told about her pupils' experiences, an educator from Zimbabwe replied, "We know just what you mean. We too found it difficult to teach during our civil war. It lasted 15 years. BUT PEACE WILL COME..."
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Broadcasts for Peace
In Sarajevo, since the summer of 1993, a radio programme called "Colourful Wall", planned by children and supported by UNICEF, has been bringing education, entertainment and psychological support to young people whose childhoods have been disrupted by war.
To produce "Colourful Wall", 18 child editors, aged 10 to 13 years old, meet regularly with the adult editors of Radio ZID. The young people determine the needs and interests of other children through polls; children city-wide bring interesting neighborhood news to special "press centres", where they are phoned in to the radio station.
For children who no longer have a school to attend, there are educational segments planned by children and adults together. They include children's literature, geography, astronomy, art, health, war and the environment, and English language) ... The psycho-social segment and a "Columns" feature help children deal with special emotional needs of children in war .. Child -disk jockeys shape the popular entertainment section.
Eighty per cent of the citizens of Sarajevo - adults and children - listen to "Colourful Wall", which the eager editors plan to expand and send to other parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina. They have refused to let their spirits be crushed by war and are offering every day to their peers learning, recreation, emotional support and hope.
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