Cultures of Peace Conference Series Summaries

Conference One:Creating Cultures of Peace:
Family Life and Education

"What we're here for," Dr. Gordon Fellman, chair of the Peace and Conflict Studies Program at Brandeis University, suggested in the opening plenary session on Friday evening, "is a serious, intense exploration into not only what culture of peace means at the micro and macro level, but how we relate to a culture of peace and how we can contribute to it."

Keynote panelist Michael True, a teacher, author, and lifelong peace activist, underscored the fact that "any effort as humane and democratic as the Culture of Peace Programme obviously cannot be realized without enormous effort on the part of people from the grassroots level to the United Nations. And every person across this wide spectrum, that is, each one of us, has a contribution to make."

Keynote panelist Elise Boulding chose to focus on diversity because, she said, "What we're going through right now is a very painful process of learning about diversity and difference in the world. So when I think of and talk and write about peace culture, I'm writing about how we deal with difference creatively."

Pursuing the notion of how cultures work and interact, Paul Joseph, director of the Peace and Justice Studies Program and Center for Interdisciplinary Studies at Tufts University, suggested that "it is important to recognize the influence and inertia that materialism, consumer life, and the comparative comfort in which we live have on the development of a peace culture. These ideals [of peace] call on us to be comfortable with profound and fundamental change. They're taxing. We could probably agree that they're taxing in a good way, but it's different than the way in which most people live."

"We're trying to reconcile not just the need for autonomy versus the need for bonding," a participant observed, "but also the need for believing in something as true and absolute versus the need to appreciate relativity and difference. For me, the way to deal with that is pluralism itself--pluralism being understood as something beyond tolerance, as an active engagement with that which is different."

Julia Goodman, a sophomore at Tufts, remarked that the manner in which individuals are taught affects what they learn. "If you're taught in a class where you just listen to a lecture, you're not taught to challenge the system. You're taught to accept it." Her observations reinforced the conference assumption that the manner in which we do something is as important as what we do.

In the Saturday morning panel on "Cultures of Peace and Family Life," social change activist Lewis Randa, founder and director of the Peace Abbey, described parenting for peace. "One of the most important lessons I've shared with my children is that one has to risk everything one has." He described the Family Pledge of Nonviolence, an initiative spearheaded by the Institute for Peace and Justice in St. Louis, and indicated that "the pledge starts with making peace within ourselves, within our families. It begins with respecting ourselves and others."

Elaborating on social justice and the reality that what affects one of us affects all of us, former Peace Corps volunteer Betty Burkes explained that "uncritical, unexamined attitudes poison relationships between people. Our ability to empathize and to act in our own best interest is undermined when we are unable to imagine life beyond the moment."

"All our children, and consequently, our future, are threatened by the culture of war we inhabit, whose values and habits permeate every cell of our living," Ms. Burkes alleged. The president of the U.S. section of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom concluded trenchantly, "We live in a spiritually impoverished nation divided from ourselves and isolated from each other, unable to discern where our true self-interest lies."

The last morning panelist, Maria Guajardo Lucero, director of Assets for Colorado Youth, spoke passionately about promoting dialogue and creating trust. "All of our young people need to know, feel, and believe that they can truly grow up to be anything, that their potential is boundless."

In the morning plenary session, in answer to a question about the moral training of youngsters, Guajardo Lucero shared a story of a Native American elder in an Alaskan village. The elder wore a ceremonial scarf with the images of two wolves on it, one on each side. He explained to a child who asked about the meaning of the wolves: "This is the good wolf. This one is the bad wolf. The wolf has much power and much strength. The one who is stronger is the one we feed the most. So we need to feed the good wolf more and feed the bad wolf less."

The notion of developing potential provided a segue into Lewis Randa's video presentation on Stonewalk, a project which seeks to memorialize all the unknown civilians killed in war--all of the lost human potential. A memorial stone will be pulled from Sherborn, Massachusetts, to Arlington National Cemetery, with the hope that the commemorative stone will be placed on the grounds in front of the memorial amphitheater to acknowledge civilian casualties in war with those who died in uniform.

Another example of a grassroots initiative that is making a difference is the BELL Foundation (Building Enterprises for Learning and Living). Earl Phalen, co-founder and CEO of the foundation, described the tutoring, mentoring, and academic scholarship programs which, over the next five years, will serve 1500 elementary school youngsters in Greater Boston and he provided the background that had given rise to this program.

The successful young African American attorney, who was given up for adoption at birth, attended Yale and Harvard Law School. He, along with the other founders of the program who have evolved into role models, felt compelled "to give back and make a difference in the lives of children. We believe that each and every one of us has the potential to excel, to develop."

When Alfie Kohn, educator, author, and lecturer, began his remarks at the afternoon panel on "Cultures of Peace and the Schools," he provided a sound bite du jour: "Talk less. Ask more." He was recommending that we spend less of our energy imposing solutions and more of our time discovering what the actual needs of people are and how to meet them. "What do these kids need and are they getting what they need? What would lead them in a different direction?"

Diane Levin, professor of education at Wheelock College, introduced toys that are diametrically opposed to the creation of peaceable kingdoms. She wanted participants to understand the kind of impact that violence-oriented toys make in shaping the way young children see the world. "There are many forces that undermine children's ability to learn the attitude and behaviors they need to feel like they can make a difference. They need to know there are things they can do to get their needs met and to solve their problems."

The message children receive through the media, the author asserted, "is that the world is a dangerous place and they have to work very hard just to keep themselves safe." What they need to develop is a process for making sense of their experiences. "They're not developing that process to be creative in the sense that I'm a problem-finder, a problem-solver, and I can have an effect on the world in ways that are positive ."

Writer and educational consultant Linda Mizell's work focuses on anti-racist teaching practices and the creation of anti-racist institutions. She talked about the "bad black boy syndrome," about the fact that "by the age of three, black boys going into any kinds of institutions are already being described in highly criminalized and sexualized terms." Telling it straight, she summarized: "Not only is what we say to kids about nonviolent conflict resolution important, but also what happens to them in the hallways, on the playground, and in the world around them. We have to give them a place to talk about it; we have to recognize that there are differences in their experiences, and that some of those differences do break down along race and gender lines. One strategy will not fit all. We have to adapt those strategies in ways that empower kids to be safe and be nonviolent at the same time."

Vietnamese immigrant Tri Phuong came to the United States when he was seven years old. Now on the staff of the Cambridge Peace and Justice Corps, a multicultural, multiracial group of high school students, Tri Phuong works to "educate youth about social justice." The violent messages conveyed by the media condition us to be aggressive and not to think of the welfare of the "other," he said. Further, he suggested, our society is highly commercialized by the media and teens and young adults see few positive roles provided them. "Educators must expect low-income kids and kids of color to achieve."

In the final plenary session, Maria Guajardo Lucero shared an analogy of a potluck table to talk about the problem of burnout that educators and activists often encounter. "What is it that I bring to the table?" she asked. We often behave like the folks who come to a potluck supper and complain about the food that everyone else brought without pausing to ask, What did I bring? Each of us has to assume personal responsibility. "Imagine," Maria challenged, "if each one of us in this room decided to be a master of change. Imagine how we would begin to create ripples."

Click here for transcripts of the presentations at the Culture of Peace conference 1.

Conference Two: Cultures of Peace in the Global Marketplace

The noted author continued, "I'm completely convinced that all the very valuable work on disarmament and policy-making and finding ways to come to at least approximate solutions will be futile unless they grow out of cultures of peace."

Let's look at systemic solutions, historian and political-economist Gar Alperovitz, a long-time friend of Harvey Cox, suggested in his keynote remarks to the guests assembled for the beginning of the second in the Cultures of Peace conference series. Let's talk about committing a decade or so of our lives to making substantial systemic change.

Praising Dwight Eisenhower and Admiral William D. Leahy for their courage in criticizing the use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the author of The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb counseled, "I want you to think with me about whether you can rise to the level of challenging your own culture in a way appropriate to your life." He urged "the reconstruction of economic and civil society institutions that can build a sense of cooperation rather than a sense of isolation."

Expressing his concern that we are in dire straits, the president of the National Center for Economic and Security Alternatives put it this way: "I think that the instability of the global economy, the growing inequality, the racial divisions, the destruction of the labor movement, and the instability of the U.S. highly inflated credit economy could easily lead to major recessions, serious urban violence, terrorism, repression, and to diversions into violent, aggressive activities."

The former State Department employee also expressed hope for systemic solutions as he pointed to "a huge range of both on-the-ground experimentation and people thinking new thoughts." He is encouraged by the evolution of different ways to organize economic activity that are emerging from community activity so that the ownership of resources is democratized. He is also heartened by the renewal occurring at the level of intellectual activity.

Dessima Williams, former ambassador from Grenada, commented on Dr. Alperovitz's views by first acknowledging, "We couldn't really have this conference and engage in these kinds of challenges without saluting the peace movement." The professor of sociology observed that the focus of the conference must be not on talking but on "actually doing something," on engaging with issues simultaneously of political and ethical consequence.

Dr. Williams, an activist in global movements for women's empowerment, criticized the "assumed dominance and assumed superiority of the analysis and experiences of the West." An opponent of what she calls "gender global apartheid," Dessima Williams concurred with Gar Alperovitz that our challenge is to uproot systemic violence and put in place a new international economic order. "We are at a new moment," the co-founder of HAITIwomen asserted. She maintained that we must pay serious attention "not to how Europe developed Africa but how Europe under developed it" and how "the devastation of war and violence have assaulted the psyche of both the oppressed and the oppressor."

"There's going to be a reassessment of the openness of the global economy," Gar Alperovitz conjectured. "There's going to be a need for reconsideration and a re-articulation of the functions of the state." Challenging the conference participants, the historian and political-economist urged, "Get out and say something that your colleagues won't like to hear. People have to speak up. The reconstruction of an experience of a different paradigm in our own society is the precondition of change abroad." He concluded that the idea of "a cooperative economy is as American as apple pie."

In the plenary discussion, Virginia Mary Swain tied sustainable peace to spiritual awakening and contended that there will be no progress toward peace until dramatic inner change occurs. Urging individual action, Dessima Williams distributed postcards so that individuals would immediately write their representatives to lobby for an end to sanctions in Iraq.

Bringing the Friday evening session to an end, Dr. Alperovitz sounded an optimistic note: "There's a lot to do that ordinary people who meet in rooms like this have found a way to do. The people who are here ought to look at themselves as a wonderful resource."

As part of the Saturday morning panel, "Micro Models of Peaceable Economics," foreign assistance policy analyst Patricia Walker argued that "in the informal sector we can find examples of the kind of spiritual wealth needed to create peace culture. What individuals in this culture lack--and what microenterprise programs are designed to achieve--is a state of economic wellbeing that allows them to live their lives with all the power and greatness they infinitely possess." The challenge, the commentator on poverty in Africa indicated, is "for each of us to alleviate poverty while simultaneously increasing spiritual wealth and expanding the culture of peace."

Developing the theme of the importance of individual, grassroots initiative, Greg Watson, executive director of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, described this resident-driven community planning organization. "The Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative," he explained, "is a unique organization based in Roxbury and Dorchester, one of the poorest areas in Boston (and in Massachusetts), which has done an extraordinary job of revitalizing itself." Mr. Watson recounted the evolution of the new community from one of burned-out buildings and 1400 vacant lots to one where the multicultural community came together and said, "We're going to do something about this." The residents have rebuilt their community as an urban village with a self-governing body that is accountable to the community. A land trust has been established; affordable housing has been built, and power is distributed throughout the community rather than being concentrated in a few hands. Echoing the hope that Gar Alperovitz had placed in innovative and democratizing forms of economic experimentation, Greg Watson said, "It is absolutely possible to build a locally-based economy that is vibrant, viable, and sustainable that can compete in the global marketplace."

Carol Grodzins, co-founder of the Boston Committee for Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, observed, "It seems to me that the paths to peace are through participation and through democracy--the real participation of people and access to choices within their lives and economic improvement in their lives." She talked of the power of individuals to make change and illustrated her remarks with references to women who have initiated micro- enterprises to provide a broader range of economic options for women in India.

Activist Jim Wallis provided another illustration of a grassroots effort that is making significant change when he spoke of the increasing role of faith-based organizations (FBOs) and of the emphasis in both the Old and the New Testament on issues of wealth and poverty. "We're already feeling the impact of hunger and homelessness." The editor-in-chief of Sojourners suggested that a real networking has begun and that "out of that we're creating a national federation of faith-based organizations who are working to overcome poverty." The task before us is "to aggregate those voices into a national voice to change policy. That's what Call to Renewal is trying to do."

Research director Barbara Brandt spoke of the international initiative, Alliance for a Caring Economy. "In order to create a culture of peace," she explained, "we need people who feel loved and cared for. People who feel loved and cared for have experienced a model for extending love and caring to others and they are not going to initiate violence or war." She deplored the fact that our economic system either devalues or simply ignores caring work. The goal of the new organization is to confront this paradox and to alter the rules by which our economic systems operate so that caring work will receive the recognition it deserves.

Environmental economist Frank Ackerman asserted, "We live in an era of increasing inequality and an era of impending environmental crisis." He continued, "Almost 90 percent of all personally-held stock is owned by the richest 1 percent of the people. Inequality became slightly less in the two decades after World War II, reached a trough somewhere in the seventies, and has gone sharply up." Because of trade, technology, and institutional changes, we've lost large number of blue-collar jobs.

As for countering the environmental crisis caused by deforestation, destruction of the ozone layer, nuclear and hazardous waste problems, and global warming, a restructuring of urban land use and settlement patterns would have to occur. Concluding, the founding editor of Dollars & Sense asserted that "a peaceful, just, humane society will need to build different things because we have built so many of the wrong things."

Lucy Webster, executive director of Economists Allied for Arms Reduction, expressed the wish that "we could just all perceive ourselves as members of the world community where we all have something to contribute," and declared, "The situation of violence and trading on violence is a serious problem in the world today." She urged conference participants to engage in the politics of transformation.

Professor of sociology Charles Derber summarized what we're up against in dealing with the new global economy: "The new global economy is being governed by very powerful forces and very smart people who don't know how to think with their heart. I take it that's the sort of mission the BRC has, getting us to think rigorously but using our heart as well as our brain ."

Dr. Derber expressed grave concern about the sovereignty of corporations, entities which are not held accountable to the people, and about "job genocide," the actual destruction of jobs, as differentiated from outsourcing and downsizing. "When an economic system progresses and creates wealth at the expense of the health and well-being of the citizenry, that's structural violence."

When Brandeis student Lucas Baker- Siroty shared his thoughts on a more just economic system, he posed a hypothetical question: What are we looking for? Is it better that the economy grows 20 percent with 19 percent of that going to the wealthiest 10 percent of the population or is it better if the economy grows only 2 percent with a more even distribution of the wealth?

Concluding the two-day conference, thirty peace campers bounded into the conference room to share their experiences. They showed the grown-ups the puppets they had made and talked about how much fun they had had imagining what a world at peace would be like. Brimming with energy, they were a kind of personification of the theme: Let there be peace and let it begin with me.

Click here for transcripts of the presentations at the Culture of Peace conference 2.

Conference Three: Practices of Peace in Religious Communities

"I would challenge us," keynoter Victor Kazanjian began, "to go beyond our familiar conversations about ending war and establishing peace and to envision a new paradigm."

The dean of religious and spiritual life at Wellesley College continued, "peace is a practice which expresses itself in action." The exclusivist claims to truth of religions must, Rev. Kazanjian proposed, "transform themselves by moving from exclusivism to pluralism and from tolerance to interdependence."

A community organizer for most of his adult life, Victor Kazanjian insisted that "any real change must emerge from an inner transformation." Suggesting that the spiritual waters that nourish us are all derived from a common source and that we come to know truth as we encounter one another, the Wellesley academic acknowledged that "the future of humankind depends on our ability to realize that our lives are inextricably linked to one another."

Co-director of the Women's Theological Center Donna Bivens provided a bridge between the keynote remarks and the plenary session declaring, "I believe the spiritual has to be the ground of our liberation movement. But it takes a lot--that work of contemplation, that work of prayer, that work of nourishing spirit."

Language itself can be a problem, the keynote commentator said, that keeps people from resolving the issues between them. The spiritual activist summarized. " We have to come back and sit with each other and listen to each other. It takes a lot of clearing out to be able to do that, to see how we got here and how we are going to continue our commitment to transform the world."

In the Friday evening plenary discussion, Michael True reflected that at the same time that we value the beauty and sacredness of all religious traditions, each of us needs to select one way, one religious tradition, lest we spend all of our energy in distraction and continual searching.

"I'd like to suggest," Elise Boulding offered, "that we think of religions, of faiths, as languages. I have come to feel that every language that has ever been spoken is very precious. It's sacred. The things you can say in one language you simply can't say in another language. Each religion has developed a language of spirituality. We need to know as many as we can."

In a Saturday morning panel called "Practicing Peacebuilding Locally," short presentations on a variety of religions were made by individuals representing those traditions. In his comments on Judaism, Gordon Fellman observed that "one of the odd things about being a Jew is that Jews are simultaneously an ethnic group and a religious group. One doesn't have to believe in God to be a Jew." He noted, "What I find remarkable is that peacemakers in the Jewish community tend to be the less religious Jews, in fact. Within the Jewish community peacemaking is often rooted in cultural issues having to do with universalism and peace and interpreting Jewish experiences historically."

Soka Gakkai-U.S.A. member Jim Hill shared his story: "I've been practicing Buddhism for 22 years and it's just coming to me that everything in our life can be used to promote world peace. We're able to tap into our compassion, which gives us the wisdom to know how to use what we have to contribute to world peace."

Zina Jacque, Bentley College chaplain and assistant pastor of Union Baptist Church, Cambridge, added her own observations to Jim's: "For you to overflow and bring anything to the world, you must be filled. A half-empty cup cannot overflow. You have nothing to share until it is brimming."

"Peace be upon you," Imam Taalib Mahdee began. He explained, "Peace comes from somewhere. Peace doesn't just happen. From the Islamic perspective, peace starts from God. He is peace. Peace comes from understanding that all of us came from God and all of us will return to God. The holy Koran tells us "I have created you different that you may get to know one another."

Quaker Harold White described the spiritual and cultural values he has found in the Religious Society of Friends: "A peace culture exists in Friends meetings. I have found a sense of community, a place of worship, and a use of silence and exploration of my own inner light in gratifying, meaningful, and life-changing ways. This culture provides support for those who discover a conscientious resistance to the use of violence in life."

As the discussion about peacemaking activities neared its end in the meeting room, some of the rules the Peace Campers created for themselves while they played on the top floor were shared: "Touch gently. Be friendly. Clean up. Share. Be safe. Be polite. Enjoy yourself. You can yell.

Before the lunch break, educator Jacquelyn Smith-Crooks described the Interfaith Pilgrimage of the Middle Passage, which is about retracing the journey of the slaves, in reverse, from New England back to Cape Town, South Africa. One year ago the journey began in western Massachusetts. Travelers proceeded down the East Coast to New Orleans, a journey of some 2,400 miles. The racially mixed, interfaith group took a bus to Key West, Florida, to board a schooner to Cuba, the Caribbean, and on to Cape Town. "They came through the cities and towns and hamlets and villages with the drums as a wake-up call that we still have work to do to bring about healing."

"I get to tempt you," activist and journalist Stephanie Spellers began, "with at least one path of action, one with particular import for those concerned with practices of peace within--or sustained by--religious communities. That path is through the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO)."

Speaking with energy and optimism, the Harvard Divinity School admissions officer elaborated, "Just as often as religions have served as the catalyst for splitting human community, they have also inspired us and reminded us of our common call to serve and, yes, to create peace together." Nearly 100 churches, synagogues, temples, community development corporations, health centers, education centers, and unions and cooperatives of diverse backgrounds and traditions have come together to form a single, broad-based community organization. Out of the relationships developed in GBIO, "We're learning that, no matter our circumstances, each of us has power."

On the afternoon panel, "Interfaith Initiatives toward Peace," Harvard Master's candidate in theology Anne Custer addressed the issue of world religions and ecology. She observed that "there really has not been, at least until recently, a movement to understand the connection between the world's religions and the environment." Relating the new field to overtures toward peace, the graduate student said, "It is no surprise to any of us that war almost inevitably brings not only human devastation but also environmental degradation to the lands upon which it is waged. Academic inquiry and discussion on the topic of world religions and ecology," Anne Custer surmised, "can lead to peaceful relations not just between people of different faiths and cultures, but can also lead us to more peaceful relationships with the environment itself."

The founding editor of Buddhist-Christian Studies , David Chappell, spoke of the dilemma of losing his faith yet yearning to live a religious life. Following his study of China and Buddhism, he said, "Buddhism has been nurturing my life since." He stressed the importance of people getting to know each other, of relationships, and suggested that the Parliament of the World's Religions has encouraged dialogue since 1893. The second Parliament in 1993 was especially important because of the work on global responsibility of Hans Küng. You can't have world peace, he asserted, unless there's peace among the religions. What is particularly innovative is the effort of the Parliament to formulate an ethics for institutions in A Call to Guiding Institutions.

When Preminder N. (Bawa) Jain, director of International and United Nations Affairs at the Interfaith Center of New York and the Temple of Understanding, addressed his colleagues and friends, he shared some of the fundamental beliefs of the Jains. "The teachings and principles and practices of Jainism are very similar to that of Buddhism," he began. "There's a strong influence in Buddhist practices of ahimsa --nonviolence in thought, word, and deed. There is multiplicity of fruit, seeing a truth from its different perspectives. There is respecting our interdependence, the fact that all creation is one." Bawa Jain works to bring the principles and practices of nonviolence into the work of the United Nations.

In the afternoon plenary discussion the questions of inclusivity and of being nonaligned with a religion but wanting to lead a spiritual life resurfaced. How do we represent everybody? David Chappell responded that what we need is global democracy if we are to achieve inclusiveness and participation. He added, "Each religion has a responsibility to commit itself financially--and with time and personnel--to network with others."

As she summarized the proceedings of the conference series, Elise Boulding expressed her gratitude to the BRC, declaring, "This is the only kind of setting I can think of that can address these questions in this wonderfully diverse and joyful way."

Echoing Elise's sentiments, Paul Joseph noted "how much we have to offer in terms of both ideas and engagement. This is very important work." Dr. Joseph praised the "reservoir of what we have collectively."

The very successful three-part conference series on cultures of peace concluded with a festive dance performance by the Tibetan Association of Greater Boston and a circle dance in which all the conferees--from the youngest peace camper to the eldest peace activist--participated with a sense of joy and renewal.

What difference did it make to the achievement of global peace that more than 100 theologians, educators, and activists convened in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to discuss cultures of peace? For starters, the visionary activists assembled at the BRC circulated a petition which they sent to the White House, A Call to Peace in the Balkans, asking for a cessation of bombing and a return to the negotiating table. They strengthened their own resolve to do what keynoter Victor Kazanjian referred to as "relational work," the work of being in relationship with others and learning from the experiences of others, and they built networks to assist them in furthering the difficult, necessary work of peacemaking.

Perhaps ten-year-old peace camper Olivia Schaeffer summed the tenor of the day--and of the conference series-- best when she explained, "If you talk about things, you can figure out a peaceful solution if you really want to."

Click here to read transcripts of all the presentations given at the Cultures of Peace conference series.

--Helen Marie Casey