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The Organization of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was born on November 16, 1945. The most important thing for the UN agency is building schools in devastated countries or to publish scientific findings. The objective of the organization is much broader and more ambitious: to build peace in the minds of men through education, culture, natural and social sciences and communication.
During the year 2001, the Education Sector of UNESCO launched an initiative calling for "best practices" on the conflict resolution in the field of formal and non-formal education. To accomplish this initiative, it requested numerous partners, namely, UNESCO National Commissions, NGOs, various associations, schools, research institutions and universities to contribute to this work by sending clear and simple written articles relating their experience in the prevention and transformation of conflicts.
This publication would to inform teachers, trainers, educators, parents, youth, students, who one way or the other, are confronted with the phenomena of violence in the school or in non-formal community education, and are looking for practical solutions. The intention of UNESCO in this project is to inform them what is best internationally on materials related to education for peace and non-violence, but above all to supply concrete pedagogical tools to prevent and transform the violence with which they are confronted on a daily basis in their work.
Actual situation of the problem and expectations:I first experienced the absurdity, the horror and the futility of war at a very early age: I was living barely a hundred kilometre from Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped on the city in 1945. I can confirm that what happened to the two Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki still resonates today, and will continue to do so for a long time to come, not just in my own memory, but in that of the entire human race.
It introduced a new level of conflict, with unbelievable powers of destruction capable of putting an end to the living world. A frontier, a hitherto sacrosanct boundary tacitly respected by all humankind had been crossed: an infringement that opened the floodgates to all other forms of violence.
Violence, from the mildest forms (insults, rudeness) to the most appalling (rape, murder, massacres, terrorism), some of which occasionally seek justification in the others, is deeply rooted in people’s consciousness and strongly permeates twenty-first century culture.
The preventive action that it is UNESCO’s mission to promote through education, science and culture is still very far from being fixed in people’s minds and from finding concrete expression. Many regard the substitution of a culture of peace for a culture of violence as a Utopian ideal. Yet it is well known that violence, fuelled by common ignorance, often stems from the rejection of others and the fear and even hatred of differences. It pits individuals, groups and cultures against one another, leading to withdrawal and escalating aggression. A healthy and balanced awareness of otherness, on the other hand, can be achieved only through peaceful dialogue.
Education is therefore fundamental to peace-building. Education for peace, human rights and democracy is inseparable from a style of teaching that imparts to the young, and the not so young, attitudes of dialogue and non-violence – in other words, the values of tolerance, openness to others and sharing.
In publishing this text, Non-violence in Education, UNESCO is seeking to enhance knowledge of and insight into the basic concepts of peace and non-violence in many regions and countries around the world. The definitions and philosophical thoughts developed here by Jean-Marie Muller will, I am sure, be very useful to teachers — those day-to-day “builders of peace” — and schoolchildren, and also to a wider audience.
We are, in 2002, at the beginning of the United Nations’ International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World (2001-2010). One of UNESCO’s tasks throughout that decade will be to promote the teaching of the practice of peace and non-violence. I hope that distributing this book will play a part in efforts to achieve that goal, and will bring us ever closer to the objective of constructing a culture of peace.
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