Peacebuilding &conflict transformation A ... - Peaceworkafrica

3.1 What is peace education?Peace education is built mainly on two pillars:▶ peace and conflict research (see chapter 4. Peace & Conflict Studies),▶ recipient‐oriented practice which involves teaching peacein the classroom and beyond.The foundation for all peace education work is the belief in the learning and educationalability of people. It therefore focuses on acquiring capacities, skills, values andknowledge that contribute to the establishment of a global and sustainable culture ofpeace. Peace education concerns all the stages of the individual and social lives ofhuman beings.It is, of course, correct to believe that human beings are capable of learning andthat mankind can live peacefully together. On the other hand it is also correct to saythat we humans are responsible for violence and war, and that we could — if wewanted to and were capable of it — end and prevent them. No doubt these issuesunderlie the phrase from the preamble of the 1945 UNESCO constitution “Sincewars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peacemust be constructed.”However, the transition from changing the attitudes of individuals to changingsocial and international power structures is a long, difficult and exhausting road.Still, peace education makes sense and is one way to prepare towards achieving aculture of peace on the premises that no one is violent by nature and people want tolive in peace and harmony. But the limitations of peace education have to be takeninto account to avoid illusions concerning the effectiveness of its measures. Peaceeducation can neither solve basic social problems, or unjustly distributed materialresources, nor balance out the neglect of education.The starting point for all forms of peace education is to recognize the following facts:1) the existence of various conflicts between people, societies and states,2) the existence of power structures on all levels of societies, and▷ the prejudices and stereotypes used to maintain unjust power structures,▷ the use of power structures to manipulate and exploit individuals towardsreadiness for and contribution to the outbreak of violence.This clearly shows that it is necessary to analyse and understand social power structuresand the interests and needs of the various parties at all levels and to find nonviolentways of transforming conflicts. For peace education in general it is not enoughto concentrate solely on changes in individual attitudes, but it is necessary to includethe social, economic and political environment. Education and upbringing thatfavours humanitarian values tend to lead the individual to reject violence, to search3 . P e a c e e d u c a t i o n 37