Peace Literature

CREATING A PEACE CULTURE AT THE DAWN OF THE THIRD MILLENNIUM

Summary
This article attempts to present a comprehensive vision of the urgent need of a peace culture and literature which includes both regional and global implications. It presents some proposals and programs for the promotion of peace writing and art, including literature, TV scripts, plays, movies, internet programs, video, painting and sculpture. It furthermore discusses the necessity of a new objective trend in the media, that should report on positive cultural developments, and not mainly focus on sensational reporting of crime and disasters that inflates the negative aspects of society, and is a deformation of reality and normalcy.

This new kind of a genuine peace culture and communications is required in order to improve regional and global well-being, and the building of a world beyond war. The creation of a cultural climate of peace will help promote the harmonious enhancement and progress of our civilizations, and it is crucial for the sustainable development of our planet in the third millenium.

I - Introduction
One of the basic requirements for attaining an effective and sustainable development of our world toward the third millenium, is the creation and promotion of a new global and regional culture and literature of peace, as well as an objective, accurate and honest media. This new peace culture and communications, should counteract and replace the culture of violence and crime which is often the main mode nowadays, especially in Western countries. A harmonious peace culture and media that addresses the ethnic and ethical root-causes of conflict, war, and environmental disaster, could help build harmonious bridges of cultural understanding and respect among people and nations.

We should first thoroughly explore what has already been achieved in national cultures around the world, toward the building of a regional and global climate of peace, and utilize what there is for further creating an ethically rich culture and literature of peace and harmony. These various contributions collected from the best that is available in the cultures of the world, and further promoted, should be propagated worldwide, toward the building of a cultural global village beyond war and violence. The new peace culture and harmonious media should be based on a powerful component of understanding and respect for the culture of "the other", especially among former enemies and neighbors.

The building of a harmonious peace culture and media, should be a top priority in government budgets, and in local councils, as well as in global and international programs and projects. This new cultural climate would have a preventive influence on the impending danger of conflicts and wars, as all wars and conflicts have at their roots ethnic and cultural causes. This has become still more evident today, as we witness the tragic cultural conflicts and wars which included genocide and "ethnic cleansing," in Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo.

What we read and watch, and what we are exposed to through the media: the radio, TV, movies, the internet and videos, provide us with basic values, attitudes and norms, which affect and motivate us all our lives. Much of the violent culture, literature and media we are increasingly exposed to, such as the continuously growing amount of murder and crime movies and TV films, present a serious threat to human well-being, and to the healthy and sustainable development of our global village. These murder and crime films are most often inflated, and out of proportion in comparison with the reality, and they provide a distorted mirror which has a disastrous influence on society.

An Indian Professor once asked: "Why is Western culture so enamored with crime? Why has the West made homicide and violence such a major part of its culture? Don't they realize that reflected crime breeds crime?" It was hard to answer his questions, and we should try to deal with them as urgently and thoroughly as we can. It is crucial to use positive and harmonious experiences and resources to counter balance the thwarted image of Western society that is erroneously and irresponsibly reflected and propagated through television, movies and satellites, throughout the world. We have to aim at healing our culture and planet of the violent and immoral climate and values which have infested it and are putrefying, making it a suitable ground for violence, conflicts, wars and crimes against our environment. The recent shooting by two pupils on their schoolmates in Denver Colorado, and the killing and severely maiming several of them, is a mirroring of what they daily witness on TV and in the media.

The shortcomings in some of today's existing national cultures, should be replace by new cultural social structures, processes and programs, which are more meaningful and desirable for the present and the future. One of the major challenges facing us at the end of our "mushroom" twentieth century, lies in establishing an innovative cultural "conflict resolution" view of life, humankind, values, norms and ethics, instead of the culture of despair, cynicism, and the ego-centric and self-pitying Freudian ethos and attitudes rampant today. Freud did not do modern civilization a boon by allowing us to put the blame on our parents for all our failures and weaknesses. Most human beings become parents, and if we persevere in putting the blame for our failures on the generation before us, instead of taking the blame and mending our own faults and ways - there will be no way to beak the cycle and repair our present and our future.

Thorough researches should be conducted to explore the resources and compendium of peace culture, literature and art in all civilizations in the present and in the past. In Western culture for instance, the harmonious creative works of great classical writers and poets, such as Wilfred Owen, L. Tolstoy, as well as Jane Austen, and new lesser known peace writers, poets, film-script writers, film makers, peace - literature researchers, and artists, should be used to build this new global cultural climate of peace and harmony, which is needed for ushering the vision of a world beyond war.

A positive and harmonious culture, based on the understanding and respect of other cultures, can play a major role in regards to conflicts and wars: first as "preventive medicine", when we have listened to the "story" of the enemy, he is not an unknown threat and enemy anymore. An open and harmonious culture can not only help in preventing conflicts, but also in disentangling actual conflicts through the building of bridges of culture, and thirdly, in building renewed trust between people and nations after the conflict or war is over, and yet it has left deep residues of hatred in the hearts of former opponents. These cannot be overcome by guns or bombs, but only by understanding and respecting each other's entity, ethnicity and culture. This is true of both national and regional conflicts, and in general, in the attempt to "unviolence" the world.

Some of the questions that will be posed and discussed in this paper are: How can culture help to repair the world? Can satisfying global living standards only be achieved by homogenizing the world's cultures? Is humankind able to self-organize culturally and ethnically in such a way that international law and customs will render wars and mass destruction, as well as environmental disasters obsolete and unthinkable?

II - Repair of the World
Culture in general, with its main components: Literature, Drama and Art, are basic and powerful determinants of how we see the world and interpret it. As they can be used for either good or ill, it is vital to promote a culture based on values of peace and harmony, when we aim at attaining a truly effective and sustainable development in our world. Together with the development of this new view, we have to raise public consciousness to the power of culture to improve the world through its conditioning reflections and influence.

This new view of a harmonic culture does not by any means imply an escapist, unrealistic or simplistic one. We have on the one hand to deeply examine and delineate the actual and real that exist in society and nations, and to accurately and vividly depict the underlying sources and grievances of people and nations. However, on the other hand, we have to attempt through cultural means, to describe too the joy of life and of creation, in themselves, and in their power of abating and overcoming conflicts, while maintaining a realistic optimism for the present and future.

Literature, films and art, are some of the main building blocks for the creation of bridges, since they involve a sharing of stories, poems, myths, paintings, sculptures, dance and experiences. They also entail a graphic and artistic portrayal of the now mediated by what might be, as well as what should not be. The resulting tension between the actual and the hoped for, is what produces the central dilemmas that lie at the heart of a positive culture and great literature and art. It involves the passion, vitality and ethical intensity of the literary and artistic wisdom of writers, poets, artists and people in the cultural media, who want to creatively improve our world. This implies a caring and reforming attitude, and a deeply responsible love of humanity and of life. It also involves as well, the innovative courage to want to change the world for the better. In Hebrew culture, this responsible and engaged attitude is summarized by the pithy epithet "Tikkun Olam" - Repair of the World.

III - Program for a New Culture
It is important for governments, city councils, universities, researh institutes, scholars, peace researchers, writers and literary critics, to set up global and national organizations and programs which would research and present the best national, and international literary and cultural harvest of artistic works on peace. It is likewise vital to set up effective infra- structures which would explore, coordinate, promote, and spread such works.

IPRA: The International Peace Research Association, has been a pioneer in this required new trend, when it set up a "Peace Through Culture and Literature Commission," in July 1996, at its bi-annual General Conference, held at Queens College, in Brisbane, Australia. The title of this conference was: "Building Non Violent Futures." On this occasion, it inaugurated the founding of the PTCL, and of its magazine HORIZON: PAVE PEACE, which has contributed to the crucial effort of building a non - violent international culture. Its main aims are to pave a global cultural climate of peace and harmony, and to create a new "horizon" of peace and harmony, which would outlaw the concept and practice of war.

These aims and ideals were further elaborated at the IFLAC "International Congress on Conflict Resolution Through Literature and Culture," taking place in the Galillee, Israel (June 27-30, 1999). The following program, suggestions and recommendations were endorsed by the Board of IFLAC at the founding meeting (June 27, 1999).

Goals of IFLAC
To organize international and regional research on Peace Culture: Literature, films and TV scripts, Theatre, Video, Visual Arts, and Music, as a compendium of what is available, and to present the fruit of the research to the wide public globally and regionally, through every possible media and educational vehicle.
Empowerment of electronic peace media programs and films, literature and art, that deal with real life and the yearning for harmonious creation and peace. Programs that promote violence, crime and murder should be banned.
Building of infra- structures and various institutes to encourage and promote the writing, presentation and distribution of peace literature, TV and film scripts, videos, and web sites, etc - and to discourage violent TV programs, movies, videos, and internet programs.
Organize and spread nationally and internationally, the "Turn Off Violence on TV Project," which discourages sponsors, directors and editors from creating and showing violent programs, by notifying the sponsors that their detrimental crime programs have not been watched, and that the public wants creative programs and not destructive ones, that offer a bad example to society.
To establish IFLAC: PAVE PEACE Literary, TV and Movie Script Contests to enhance the writing and publishing of films, stories, poetry, legends, visual arts and music based and on the theme of peace.
It is recommended to establish an "International Translation Institute," as well as an international translation fund for the translation and the awarding of International Prizes to outstanding regional and international Peace Literature and Art.
It is recommended to suggest to world governments to promote Peace Culture Education at all levels, and to discourage adversial and violent cultures, for all ages, including for children, youth and adults.
It is recommended to develop through research, creativity and and bridges of creative works, the understanding and respect of the culture of neighbors, especially those we are in conflict with.
International and National Peace Awards should be allocated to top peace writers, TV playwrights, dramatists, poets and movie script-writers.
Prestigious National and International Peace Awards should also be allocated to the visual and plastic Arts, to dance, and music, as well as to the Directors of the electronic media, and the regular media.

Conclusion
How right the French poet Paul Valery was, when he commented:

"In all arts there is a physical component which can no longer be considered or treated as it used to be, which cannot remain unaffected by our modern knowledge and power .... We must expect great innovations to transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby affecting artistic invention itself and perhaps even bringing about an amazing change in the very notion of art." Paul Valery
The innovations that are rapidly transforming the technique of culture and the arts, which Valery so well describes, are already with us, and they have gained a tremendous boost with the use of the Internet and the Computer. These new communication tools are indeed bringing about extraordinary changes in the very definition and conception of the arts, culture and literature, and they can be a major force in the "unviolencing of our global village, if we know how to manage them to democratize, harmonize and humanize the mainstream cultural processes based on: prose, novels, poetry, stories, TV and Movie scripts, plays, drama, theatre, and radio programs, that shape the cultural environment in which we live. Innovative peace building artistic ventures can help build the new edifice of peace and harmony we all yearn for.

Reproduced with kind permission by Prof.. Ada Aharoni;

Conflict Resolution, Pres. IFLAC International Forum for the Culture of Peace
57 Horev Street
Haifa
ISRAEL 34343
Tel: +972-4-8243230
Fax: +972-4-8261288