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TEACHING PEACE IS THE FIRST STEP
By Diane Strandberg, the Tri-City News
If war-torn Bosnia-Herzegovina can rebuild on a foundation of peace, can North Americans give up their violent ways? A Vancouver lawyer and scholar thinks they can.
And Roshan Danesh says schools are the place to start.
Two high-profile incidents involving a knife and a machete have put the spotlight on violence in schools in B.C. but Danesh said the media and school officials are just reacting rather than changing attitudes.
"We can expel the student who did it but you've just moved the problem somewhere else," said Danesh, who works with the Education for Peace Institute (EFP) to promote non-violent strategies for community development.
Nov. 27, youth "peace-builders" from EFP's New York branch will visit six local schools and attend a community discussion at 7 p.m. at Centennial to talk about ways of resolving weekend problems.
According to Danesh, North Americans view the world through a lens that accepts violence as inevitable. Violent video games and movies are obvious culprits but history books and school curriculum are full of conflict, too. "Shielding your children from TV and video games is one way of protecting them but the reinforcement goes on in so many ways," said Danesh. It's better to let your kids watch and then talk about alternatives to violence, he said, noting he's working with B.C. educators to do that in B.C. schools.
"Instead of giving violence the reality, we should talk about the fundamental nobility and equality of human beings."
In his private practice as a lawyer and a consultant, Danesh gets people to look at the way they think and how it shows up in the way they act. This method, called conflict-free conflict resolution, is an alternative to the law's adversarial approach and to mediation, which focuses on the problem and shared issues rather than beliefs. The fact is, Danesh said, human society is growing closer together. "There is plenty of evidence to support both views," he said. The key is choosing to promote positive change.
His group has worked in schools in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which is rebuilding after years of civil war. By getting people to talk with each other and to look at their shared history in a new way, former enemies are finding common ground.
Danesh relates one story in which a group of Bosnian, Serb and Croatian students sat staring at each other until one boy committed himself to being a peace-builder. He was the son of an official who was to be tried as a war criminal.
"This is a way of starting a counter-culture," said Danesh, adding that schools in the Tri-Cities could do the same. "This could be a model for the world."
