Educating For Peace: The Sociocultural Dimensions of Grassroots Peace Education as a Tool for National Reconciliation and Social Forgetting in Sierra Leone
The prevention of violence in countries in transition is a central focus in policymaking. However, how to remember the past-how it is regarded and dealt with-remains a major challenge especially where the agendas of different actors and their underlying concepts of justice, peace, and reconciliation do not always go hand in hand. In this paper we explore how the local framing of peace education, and the cultural contextualization of reconciliation have helped the people of Sierra Leone come to terms with the past and transcend their individual experiences as they work to promote national reconciliation. This paper discusses the sociocultural context of peace education in Sierra Leone. It traces and explores the nature of the power of the people and their agency and representation not just in the design and conduct of grassroots peace education in the country, but also in (re)shaping their social ideals and values, belief systems and cultural norms that was created by their local institutions.
The UN, Darfur and oil-deals in Beijing
Largely neglected during the Cold War, UN peacekeeping has moved on from policing existing peace agreements to the much more ambitious task of trying to create peace where there is none.If two gangs start shooting at each other in the street we expect the police to step in and stop the fighting. If two countries' armies start firing we now expect the UN to get agreement on a ceasefireand send in a peacekeeping force. But this is a relatively recent trend - before World War Two there was no UN. Between the two World Wars there was the League of Nations but this was a toothless tiger,debating railway gauges while Hitler invaded Poland.Before the First World War there was nothing in any way equivalent to a global police force and the only hope for external intervention would have been for some more powerful government to bring pressureto bear on the two warring states to stop fighting. Certainly, the colonial powers often justified their interventions as keeping peace between warring groups (as in the Pax Britannica which was an imperialgoal long before it became a board game). Indeed, before the horrors of the trench warfare of World War One, many men glorified war and despised peace.
Working diplomatically
Diplomacy still plays a major role in preventing and resolving conflict, often in areas such as trade rules and breaches of human rights conventions.An ambassador is an honest man who is sent to lie abroad for the good of his country,' commented British diplomat Sir Henry Wooten in the 17th century, and some might say nothing much has changed. Traditional diplomacy .consists of interactions between governments. Professional diplomats talk on behalf of their governments to their counterparts' with each striving to advance their own national interests; not necessarily concerned either to advance the common good or to promote peace.Diplomats speak from a 'brief' with instructions from their political masters, which defines the official position and tells them what their government can or cannot accept. As their biographies show,usually the more senior the diplomat, the more latitude she/he has to stretch the limits and even to suggest new compromises.
The costs of war
The human, environmental and economic costs of warare so great that it is hard to see why people everchoose to fight. Death tolls are only one element. Lifefor the 'survivors', often maimed, widowed, or formerchild soldiers, is harsh. On top come the dollar costsmeasured in billions.In our topsy-turvy world we spend hugeamounts of money on men and mortars, yet verylittle to prevent bloodshed. No-one doubts thatpreventing war is vastly cheaper than mopping upafterwards. Yet to date the world has not been ableto devise a political - or should that be economic?- system which favors peace. The current patternof sovereign nation states enables fighting betweenthem but does not make prevention of war a commongoal. The ED is in an experiment in a new systembeyond the nation state which has yet to be tried inother regions. Within nations War Offices may havebecome Ministries of Defense but Departments ofPeace are still only a dream.