"Peace Studies at Fifty" Conference

Bethel College, North Newton, Kansas, was the site of concurrent conferences of the Peace Studies Association (PSA) and the Consortium on Peace Research, Education and Development (COPRED), "Peace Studies at Fifty: Nonviolence in Theory and Action." The Boston Research Center participated in two ways: Amy Morgante, Publications Manager of the BRC, co-facilitated a workshop with Dale Bryan, Program Coordinator of the Peace and Justice Studies Program at Tufts University on "The Earth Charter: Bringing Earth Ethics into the Peace Studies Curriculum." In addition, the BRC sponsored a plenary presentation on "Building Policies and Institutions to End War" by Randall Forsberg, founder and director of the Cambridge-based Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies. Her remarks were the outgrowth of a five-part dialogue series on "Conditions for Abolishing War," initiated by Dr. Forsberg and peace scholar-activist Elise Boulding, which was convened in late 1997 and early 1998 at the BRC.

Faculty from across the country and as far away as the Philippines attended the Earth Charter workshop to consider integrating the Earth Charter into existing peace studies and environmental curricula.

"How do we get people to think about implementing the values articulated in the Charter in their daily lives?" Ms. Morgante asked the instructors, "and how can we help students to translate those values into actions for peace?"

Referring to efforts to promote the Charter, Dale Bryan posed the question: "Here is a transnational social movement phenomenon. What are we to make of this kind of organizational mobilization that creates value shifts with the public?"

"There's a unique task to peace education," co-facilitator Bryan continued, "and that is to create experiences for learners that teach them that they are empowered to act, that they are not only learning about something, but they are also acting for something. They're acting for peace. Why not teach the Earth Charter for nine or ten weeks and then have a two-to-three-week project where students have to go into the community? They should be working with justice seekers to address structural violence in their community."

Faculty members participating in the workshop shared projects and teaching methods. They also talked about fundamental tenets of their curricula, including: "Every part of the earth is sacred;" "Every human being is important because he or she can make a difference;" "Sustainable development is only possible if we understand that we cannot own the earth; we only borrow this earth from our children's children." The sense of stewardship expressed provided a natural segue into the afternoon plenary session on approaches to the abolition of war.

In the plenary session, Dr. Randall Forsberg shared her views on cooperative security as part of a strategic approach to prevent war. Dr. Forsberg expounded on several key ideas: disarmament is the goal, not arms control; reliance on the rule of law is necessary, instead of the unilateral arrogation of power by individual nations; the refusal to use armed force should become an instrument of policy and international relations; and nations should make a commitment to limiting the use of force to some extremely narrow circumstances.

"There is a precedent for the approach I am taking," she pointed out. "The purpose of the first Hague Conference in 1899 was not to establish conventions about inhumane weapons and rules of war. It was to replace war with an international system of arbitration and mediation to which all international disputes would be referred in the hope of not having any more war. There was a conception of a world without war and a world without arms."

In our day, the peace activist continued, "The idea of conventional disarmament has fallen by the wayside. We have no national campaign to cut military spending. We have no opposition to the idea that the United States should intervene to defend against aggression. There is no call for world disarmament. There is no call for shifting the burden of responsibility from the United States to the United Nations. There's no opposition in our national debate to perpetuating this great power role that the United States took on at the end of World War II."

"What is the alternative to the United States having a two-war military capability?" Dr. Forsberg asked. Attempting to define such a path, she proposed a method that involves several stages, each of which has some specific accomplishments and goals:

• Nations would make a commitment to do more to try to prevent war and other forms of systematic mass violence through a series of treaties that would reduce armed conflict.

• Nations would make a commitment not to increase any of various indicators of military power.

• Nations would make a concerted effort to strengthen non-military means of resolving conflicts.

• Nations would begin a process of arms reductions in which limits would be imposed on production and transfer of major weapons systems. There would be a 10-year period of no increase. A discussion would begin on global reductions in conventional armed forces.

• In the next 10-year period, countries would commit not to intervene unilaterally outside of their own borders for any reason but instead to rely entirely on forces under the UN command.

• There would be continuing reductions in standing conventional forces so that the size and nature of these forces would be transformed to non-offensive defense.

"I think it's terribly important," Randy Forsberg told the assembled peace studies educators, "for peace studies programs to include a component which involves the study of national security policies."

As part of his formal response to the presentation, Lester Kurtz, Professor of Sociology and Asian Studies at University of Texas, Austin, praised the speaker: "I love hearing Randy Forsberg talk, knowing that there's someone who's really on our side, and can bring us a long way toward getting some really good solutions. But," he warned, "we must not begin to think the problem of creating a world without war is as simple as a mere management problem. Let's promote the dialogue in our courses and conferences and continue to suggest other alternatives."

Like Les Kurtz, others acknowledged the significant work that Dr. Forsberg is doing and expressed appreciation for the provocativeness of her discourse.

Barbara Wien of the US Institute of Peace indicated to Randy, "I want you to go even further." Referring to the fact that the Carnegie Commission for the Prevention of Deadly Conflicts has examined the issue of the distribution of world wealth as a major source of armed conflict in the world, Wien also wanted to see a discussion of arms sales and, in particular, of the use of arms sales by individual nations as a way to gain leverage in the world.

Mark Lance of Georgetown University took issue with some of the peace scholar's suppositions: "Without radical transformation in the economic system and the political system, I don't know how you get this faith in vesting power in the UN. Why should we believe the UN will be any better than the US is?"

Concluding the session, Dr. Forsberg told conference participants that despite the fact that there are arms industries and that economic conversion is a problem and that wealthy nations are going to continue to dominate the world even if we end war--despite all this, mobilizing people to care about peace issues is a good thing for the international community. Ending war will not end injustice or inequity or exploitation. "But the more important question is," she concluded, "Doesn't it make sense to think about ending war?"

-- Helen Marie Casey