As many readers will know, the UN and people around the world mark 21 September each year as the international day of peace. Whilst we would naturally hope that peace is something that is a year-round commitment, it can be useful to have a focus at this particular point in the calendar. And this year the theme is ‘Cultivating a culture of peace’.
Our current century began with a UN Decade for a Culture of Peace, and there was some valuable action and learning that happened during that period – although we are also, sadly, still living with the legacies of wars and decisions of the decade that shifted the dial the wrong way, leaving many grieving for lives lost and opportunities missed for a genuine and just peace. The scale of the challenges facing us today in terms of war and other contributors to insecurity, from climate chaos to political and economic instability, can often feel overwhelming. Many are now very aware of the systemic nature of global conflict and tension, and the way that military responses to these are embedded in much of what passes as security.
So what’s the point of seeking to cultivate a culture of peace rather than working to tackle these systemic issues? Perhaps the point is that culture informs policy; decisions taken by those with power don’t exist in a vacuum. We can all both promote but also put into practice a different vision of how to engage with one another.
In Quaker terms, this is about living with integrity, respecting others, engaging constructively with conflict, caring for the planet and for fairness in people’s lives. These are broad themes, but there are skills and actions that make these a reality. What can we do to nurture these?
Through letting our lives speak, we can communicate a different culture. We can also more explicitly speak up and advocate for a different way of being together in and between communities, local to global. And if we are working on the bigger political issues, the way in which do that can sow the seeds of transformation, seeking truth and speaking with peace to and with those in power.
In this piece, I’ve referred to culture of peace in the singular. But American Quaker and academic Elise Boulding, who wrote and spoke widely on this theme, referred to cultures of peace in the plural. This year, the Quaker world plenary was based around the theme of Ubuntu, just one of many approaches around the world from which we can learn in seeking ways of changing hearts and minds, our own and others’, towards peace, and taking action to make that a reality.
Categories Culture, Human Rights, nonviolence, peacebuilding, Quakers, social conflict