These are conflicts: at least two clashing goals are involved, beyond the acceptability of goals and adequacy of means.\u00a0 Solutions?<\/p>\n
Putting the teddy-bear with a K<\/em> label, for Kindergarten, hanging around the neck in the center, singing together for him; he is ours, we are his. Children besoul<\/em> such tools whereas adults desoul<\/em> “strangers”, enemies.<\/p>\n Letting the teddy-bear rotate, each child waiting for his\/her turn.<\/p>\n Listing games to play, learning to argue, maybe agree to play all, during the day, or the week, taking decisions seriously.\u00a0 Taking great care that nobody is excluded asking, with care, why?<\/p>\n Togetherness around the toy, sharing, rotating. Skills to learn.<\/p>\n Presently Japan and China have some teddy-bears in the China or the Eastern Sea, both shouting “Mine!”, showing off arms, guns; not fists.\u00a0 Had they been to the Kongsvinger kindergarten at some early age they would have agreed on a label–East Asia Community-EAC–assigned to the islands, ours<\/em>, enjoying them jointly; zones, ocean floor, all of it. Caring for them jointly as they are lonely, uninhabited. Or rotation, five years for each?\u00a0 But Kongsvinger hadn’t arrived yet.<\/p>\n A mom gives her girl a beauty-kit with two mirrors tied together; she shows it off but one day breaks it, separating the two mirrors. The teacher asks, “But why?”\u00a0 She answers proudly: “Sharing. One mirror for mom, one for me”. Can be discussed, but not even that approach has arrived in Beijing-Tokyo.\u00a0 Comparing these kindergarten kids with geopolitics is an insult to the kids.<\/p>\n Rector Knut of the elementary school: “Bullying has gone down; the children learn what their conflicts are about, clashing goals<\/em>, and help design ways out.\u00a0 But free from bullying our school is not. Nor is that the objective. The aim is to know how to handle bullying positively, learning from it, making the bully devise better means-goal relations, making the bullee understand, help.\u00a0 To bring bullies to me for the ultimate threat, expulsion, is good for nothing.”<\/p>\n The children seem to take to it like geese to water, swimming. Adults need time: their preoccupation seems to be about who is right<\/em>, who should be punished, who should come out on top, who wins, who loses.<\/p>\n Some global bullies invented a new play: the nuclear game. One child had the monopoly for some time, refusing to give it up to that big kindergarten called the UN.\u00a0 Then other children came, more and more. What to do?\u00a0 Give all the weapons to the UN for destruction and then celebrate their demise from earth. How about rotation, sharing; now it is Iran’s turn (like the Soviets\u2019 turn to have nuclear missiles next to the other superpower).\u00a0 Very bad idea, but pedagogically useful, teaching the Kantian “Have only those arms that you would accept others to have”<\/em>.<\/p>\n Children understand Kant immediately as simple justice; but they have to be told, they have to clothe it in words.\u00a0 Adults learn<\/em> Kant but the teaching enters and exits.\u00a0 There have to be concrete cases, in weekly hours for social and conflict skills.\u00a0 What do I want, what does he want, are our goals reasonable? If yes, how can we meet both of them? Try it out; if it works fine, look at the goals again.\u00a0 They even have a tool, the sorting mat<\/em>: walking four fields and telling their dream wishes for the future, what actually happens, good memories, and their nightmares.\u00a0 When the parents quarrel some kids would say: \u201cMom and dad, I see a solution.\u201d Well, it is to be seen if the skills stick, for adult life.<\/p>\n Maybe geopolitical kids could pick up better toys than missiles, rocket shields, speculation?\u00a0 How about the conflict resolution game?\u00a0 What do kids like USA, Israel, Syria, Iran, China, Russia want, by what means? Walking the sorting mat in search for acceptable, sustainable solutions would be a much better game to play; with no one excluded.<\/p>\n Please see: <\/em>SABONA: Searching for the Good Solutions-Learning Solving Conflicts, TRANSCEND\u00a0 University Press<\/a>, 2011.<\/em><\/p>\n ________________________________________________<\/p>\n Some global bullies invented a new play: the nuclear game. One child had the monopoly for some time, refusing to give it up to that big kindergarten called the UN. Then other children came, and more, and more. What to do? Give all the weapons to the UN for destruction and then celebrate their demise from earth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[120,1778,680,442,809,689,1334],"class_list":["post-21587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial","tag-conflict","tag-conflict-analysis","tag-conflict-resolution","tag-conflict-transformation","tag-johan-galtung","tag-sabona","tag-social-conflict"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21587\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/220px-Johan_Galtung-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a>Johan Galtung, a professor of peace studies, dr hc mult, is rector of the TRANSCEND Peace University-TPU<\/a>. He is author of over 150 books on peace and related issues, including \u2018<\/em>50 Years-100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives,\u2019 published by the TRANSCEND University Press-TUP<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"