Peace is not only a great idea, but something sacred, holy.<\/p>\n
The number of pointers to peace has to reflect this as a holy number, like 10 for the Ten Commandments.<\/p>\n
But in Christianity 3 is also holy, for the Trinity.<\/p>\n
And in Islam 1 stands for the only One God.<\/p>\n
In Buddhism 4 stands for the Truths, and 8 for the Ways.<\/p>\n
And we find 5 and 7 in many places.<\/p>\n
So let us use them all, bestowing multiple sacredness on peace.\u00a0 Starting with 1-3 for the most basic, adding two more for 4-5, two more for 6-7, with three concrete pointers for 8-10.\u00a0 Here we go:<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 THE ROOTS TO BE UPROOTED<\/strong><\/p>\n [1]\u00a0 The roots of war are unsolved conflict and-or unconciled trauma<\/em>.<\/p>\n [2]\u00a0 The root of conflict is incompatible goals<\/em>.\u00a0 Conflicts are solved by making them compatible, through mediation finding what the parties’ goals and a vision of a new reality with reasonably compatible goals.<\/p>\n [3]\u00a0 The root of trauma is past violence<\/em>. Traumas are conciled by clearing the past and creating a future, through conciliation wishing the violence undone, and proposing future cooperative joint projects.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 BUILDING PEACE<\/strong> ON SOLID GROUND<\/strong><\/p>\n [4]\u00a0 Cooperation, good with good for mutual and equal benefit: equity.<\/em><\/p>\n [5]\u00a0 Harmony, sharing sorrows and joys, through empathy<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 THE BASICS TO BE RESPECTED<\/strong><\/p>\n [6]\u00a0 Basic Human needs<\/em>: survival, wellness, freedom, identity.<\/p>\n [7]\u00a0 Basic Nature needs<\/em>: diversity, symbiosis.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 CONCRETE PEACE POLICY MEASURES<\/strong><\/p>\n [8]\u00a0 The most belligerent states, USA-UK-Israel: Stop it, go for 1-7<\/em>.<\/p>\n [9]\u00a0 UN Uniting for Peace<\/em>, from UNSC to UNGA adding a United Regions<\/em>.<\/p>\n [10] Dialogue of civilizations for mutual learning, from each other<\/em>.<\/p>\n Better some progress on all ten than big jumps on one or a few.<\/p>\n What a good idea to have an International Day for Peace!\u00a0 To take stock. To mark the goal of peace for all, like health for all. To voice old and new ideas. To legitimize talking seriously about peace.<\/p>\n The sacredness has been emphasized: Do not take peace lightly<\/em>.\u00a0 Approach it with dedicated heart and open mind, ready to develop.<\/p>\n Some comments on the points made, although they can also speak for themselves, even as one-liners.<\/p>\n [1]: This is an empirical experience, it is not “innate nature”.\u00a0 And like for everything empirical, truths are not 100%; for that go to mathematics. They are seen as necessary causes, meaning that where there is war–or violence more generally–, whoever searches will identify one or both.\u00a0 They are not sufficient: the classics, intent and capability, are also needed. But intent is based on grievances. Enters [1], leading to frustration-aggression, to shame-guilt and revenge-fear. As to disarmament: the ultimate arms is one human arm. Maybe better, even easier: to learn to solve conflicts and concile traumas.<\/p>\n [2]-[3]: also known as negative peace. For details there are the TRANSCEND University Press<\/a> books A Theory of Conflict<\/a>, Reconciliation<\/a><\/em>; for a general overview that also includes [4]-[5] A Theory of Peace<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n [4]-[5]: also known as positive peace. The sky is the limit. The basic point is to link good–what all are good at–with good, and there is always something.\u00a0 And to think peace.\u00a0 Not to focus only on the bad-evil in Other, thinking only security.\u00a0 And, thinking war.<\/p>\n [6]-[7]: serve to identify the sacredness.\u00a0 Human lives fully lived, nature fully evolving–including humanity evolving.<\/p>\n [8]-[10]: specific practice, not general theory.\u00a0 Focus on the most belligerent, knowing there are others, because of the violence in the wake of their striving for global or regional hegemonies. And it makes sense to improve the UN, adding a UR in a regionalizing world.\u00a0 And to draw on the wealth of civilizations<\/em>; not only the wealth of nations.<\/p>\n However, there is an enormous information deficit in the world about peace.\u00a0 A common misunderstanding is that peace is simply the normal state of affairs between one war and the next, like war between one peace and the next.\u00a0 All you need for peace is a cease-fire.<\/p>\n Try that one on health, seeing health as normal life interrupted by diseases. Up come all the “normal” mistakes we made and often still make: inattention to nature’s hazards, the wrong food and water, the wrong clothing and housing, the lack of exercise, health education, health checks, health care in general. “Normal” was not good enough.<\/p>\n Conscientization was needed, and work much beyond a cease-fever.<\/p>\n The ten pointers above do not come by themselves as an outcome of the normal state of affairs. Again conscientization is needed, and self-control not only control of others, and much, even hard, work.<\/p>\n The media have been updated on health, but not on peace. Imagine media run by the pharma industry.\u00a0 Would we not suspect that self-control info might be suppressed in favor of diseases running their course till time has come for pills?\u00a0 Health news would be bad news; media would be filled with disease and the threat of disease.<\/p>\n That is the media we have, substituting arms industry for pharma industry.\u00a0 Peace news is bad news to some; media are filled with war and threats of war.\u00a0 They do not even know how to identify and write about peace should it happen. The money involved: in quadrillions.<\/p>\n One implication of the US position as world hegemon–fortunately weakening–is “the leading media are the media of the leading power”.\u00a0 The way US media look at peace and war is copied all over, left unchallenged, maybe less out of servility than fear of what the world hegemon might do: almost 250 military interventions since 1801.<\/p>\n The bright side: much peace to be expected from peace information like much health came from health information. But “No to war” is only like “No to disease”.\u00a0 We also need “Yes to peace”.\u00a0 And how to do it.<\/p>\n __________________________________<\/p>\n Johan Galtung, a professor of peace studies, dr hc mult, is founder of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment<\/a> and rector of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Peace University-TPU<\/a>. Prof. Galtung <\/em>has published 1669\u00a0articles\u00a0and book\u00a0chapters, over 400 Editorials for <\/em>TRANSCEND Media Service<\/a>, and 167 books on peace and related issues<\/em>, of which 41 have been translated into 35 languages, for a total of 135 book translations<\/em>, including \u2018<\/em>50 Years-100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives<\/a>,\u2019 published by the <\/em>TRANSCEND University Press-TUP<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The media have been updated on health, but not on peace. Imagine media run by the pharma industry. Would we not suspect that self-control info might be suppressed in favor of diseases running their course till time has come for pills? Health news would be bad news; media would be filled with disease and the threat of disease. That is the media we have, substituting arms industry for pharma industry. Peace news is bad news to some; media are filled with war and threats of war. They do not even know how to identify and write about peace should it happen. The money involved: in quadrillions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[119],"class_list":["post-80347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial","tag-peace"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80347","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=80347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80347\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}