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The right to life is inalienable to an individual’s liberty and security. Yet conflicts and insecurity occur at many levels of the society between individuals, politicians, military, civil society, the family; between nations and superpowers.
All forms of insecurity and conflicts have a disproportionate impact in further disadvantaging poor, vulnerable and marginalized communities. The victims are often innocent civilians, women and children who often bear the brunt of the damage constituting the majority of refugees across the globe.
These times of heightened conflict and tension have brought in new and innovative approaches to conflict resolution, peace-making and post-conflict reconstruction.
Experience sharing at all levels – local, national and globally – create a platform for providing critical and comparative vein by creating a culture of peace in order to encourage respect for diversity and tolerance, combating a range of fundamentalisms – religious, economic, ethnic, nationalist and patriarchal – untangling their interconnections that are prevalent at the moment; promote the role of actors in diplomacy and non-violent means of conflict prevention and resolution while assessing their successes and challenges, emphasize on the partnerships between international and domestic civil societies in promoting peace and security. In this respect, application of indigenous institutions can by far and wide play a definitive role in promoting and achieving peace and security within communities.
Innovative thinking, strategies and actions have been put down; in order to realise this elusive goal since the Second World War.
The results have enormously been felt in various societies. But now, more than ever, has the need to check on the strategies and re-affirm that something has been terribly going on. Sanctions, pardons, prosecutions have a great instance of failing.
So what is the solution? James Abram Garfield aptly puts it as thus, ‘Next importance to Freedom and Justice is Popular Education without which neither Freedom nor Justice can be permanently maintained.’
If the warring interests are put down, given paper and pen instead of guns and bullets, peace would inevitably be achieved. Internationalism is itself an important task yet not expanded fully. Freedom cannot be found in bushes or though guns or in the streets!
Education develops and realises the intellectual, practical and spiritual potential of every human being. In this spirit, it becomes a fundamental right. Vices associated with health, crime, unemployment, substance abuse, and intolerance should be eliminated while fostering emphasis on interdependent, individualised and proactive learning. Educational programmes and projects that incorporate the promotion of moral values, a sense of civic responsibility and engagement and the concept of global citizenship should be embraced. Providing an affordable and accessible education is vital to the successful integration of finding peace.
Consolidating of lessons learnt from these experiences and on building of a strong knowledge base is essential. The right type of experience should reach those who need it, by addressing issues which discriminate active female empowerment, the youth, indigenous people and those in the rural and remote areas and utilise the appropriate use of technology.
Peace education enhances food security, human rights, sustainable development and a culture of appreciating that every human being, despite the differences is an important person in one way or the other.
In my opinion, peace can be achieved if the following four components are habitually in order to make a lasting human impact and a legacy for the future generations.
Humanity: Like the contents in a book, this is the society. They are a spontaneous element of society’s development – the social ‘artefacts’ which form the core aspect of life.
Democracy: The basic unit of expression. When people are allowed to expresses their opinions without coercion or intimidation, it becomes easy for the society to understand and appreciate that although human beings have different abilities, which if capitalized on and respected, the world would be a home to all.
Education: The non-inherited source of expression. When human family is educated, it is aware of what happens around them. Passion is the believing in attaining a difference committed at making the world peaceful. Persistence, the child of passion, is struggling to gain something no matter how long it might take.
Justice: Decisions are paramount and have to be analysed without taking sides. Justice begets mutual understanding; appreciating people have different views which are the starting point for a conscious society. No one can understand another person unless a mutual understanding is arrived strengthened.
Peace: The end result of all components put together. It is the basic building block for the world’s understanding and promotion of positive living.
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Writer Profile
Mbũrũ
I am a researcher on educational issues especially in the rural areas, with much emphasis on girls' education.
As a trained journalist, I have a lot of concern with the handling of the education sub-sector in Kenya and take a critical role in viewing the reforms currently being conducted to integrate education structures for the sake of the youth in Kenya.
One major aspect, sadly, is that Kenya has been sovereign for over four decades but has been the only African country besides Somalia not to have made education compulsory, free and basic. For Somalia it can be understood - the country had been in civil strife since 1992- but for Kenya the politics of the day have played a negative role in reducing the promotion of education to a system sheer competition, instead of progressive
Apart from that, I write fictitious literature.
Currently I am working on prose on love and betrayal and a collection of poems.
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