If you want peace, educate for peace: Dr Richard Schneider
Embracing Peace consortium kicks off at MLCU
By Our Spl Correspondent
SHILLONG: The three-day consortium on ‘Embracing Peace Education: Empowering the Individual, Institutions and Communities’ with special focus on India, took-off on Saturday at the Martin Luther Christian University (MLCU). Hosted by the Peace Studies Department of MLCU, the workshop aims at deliberating on the special educational needs of the country through global networks and alliances.
Delivering the keynote address, renowned peace scholar Dr F Richard Schneider, Chief Executive Officer of the Institute of Global Education since its inception in 1980, said, “War and other violent behaviour is not genetically programmed into human nature. We must free ourselves from the restrictiveness of our past beliefs and remove the blinders we are accustomed to and which we are, often, even unware of.”
Dr Schneider called upon the participants to correct the learned premises they carry about each other and the world. Quoting Mahatma Gandhi, he said, “Listen to your inner voice and become the change you wish to see.” The peace scholar was emphatic that the same species that invented war is capable of inventing peace.
Citing the example of Costa Rica where the army was abolished by public vote and the money that should have been invested in the army was instead used to set up public schools, Dr Schneider said this is an example of a best practice in acting for peace.
Guest of honour, Ms Roshan Warjri, exhorted the participants to come up with specific recommendations after the workshop. She expressed the hope that the three-day brainstorming session would also come up with required tools for activists to engage in peace building. She observed the world is becoming more aggressive — despite the millennia of religion — and said peace now deserves a chance.
“Although conflict is inevitable, there is need for inter-disciplinary approaches to resolve and de-escalate conflict by seeking victory for all parties,” Ms Warjri added.
Chief guest Rev C Khongwir, who is also member of the MLCU Board, lauded the efforts of the University for its path-breaking efforts to engage in meaningful discourses with a view to address problems in the field. Stating that MLCU is pro-people, pro-development and aims at sustainable and equitable growth; and that these aspects are the foundations for peace, Rev Khongwir added that in trying to create peace the parties in conflict need to work for a win-win situation. “There can be no losers or winners when negotiating for peace,” Rev Khongwir pointed out, saying he himself is a peace activist who had travelled to Nepal at the height of the Maoist insurgency.
The peace workshop has international and national participants including several from different conflict-ridden states of the North-East. Noted African scholar on Matriarchal studies, Ms Bernedette Muthien, a feminist and co-founder and director of NGO Engender, will initiate discussions on the role of matriarchal/matrilineal societies in peace building.
Others who spoke on the occasion included Dr KM Shyamprasad, Chancellor, MLCU and Rev E H Kharkongor the Registrar.
Source: The Shillong Times
