Peace Foods

Continuing with my highly sophisticated research (ie googling something that pops into my head ), I just found the Peace Foods site.

“Peace Foods is a dessert and food-lover’s company dedicated to producing and distributing only the best all natural desserts and food products within Switzerland. From the classics, to special diet foods and desserts, you will find them all here …”

They seem to have a lot of mouth watering things on offer.  They apparently do some innovative things with food preparation as well:

“Peace Foods products contain no preservatives, and no additives, and by using a process called Flash Freezing, Peace Foods is able conserve fresh baked goods and ship them throughout Switzerland, next day DHL door-to-door, without compromising on the taste or flavor of the product.”

But, most importantly, they represent a model of what I would call a “peace-oriented” business:

“Peace Foods for a Cause

Peace Foods supports a more peaceful world by donating a percentage of all sales to organizations that support peace. This year, we are working with Kiva.org in providing financing for microloans to entrepreneurs in developing countries. With person-to-person lending, we are helping to shatter the poverty penalty, and take part in creating a more peaceful world, one bite at a time.

Additionally, Peace Foods works with companies and organizations to raise funds for their charities with Peace Food products. “

Heck, just about anybody with a business could do this to some extent.  What a good idea.

Well, peace is many things (as I mention over on the right of this page);  I just hope it isn’t also fattening! 

(by the way, usual caveat applies:  just informin’, not endorsin’)

A thousand words?

People who study peace and conflict resolution–like many other social scientists–often make models and draw diagrams.   Here are a few I have come across recently.  What do you think?  Clear, or not?

Admittedly, I’ve taken these out of the contexts where they are explained.  However, I was personally interested in the diagrams in themselves.  I find it interesting how, with the graphic tools we have available to us, we can (with more or less success) portray complex social processes in two dimensions.  So, see what you can glean from the diagrams and let me know if you would like to know from where they came (Hint:  two of them deal with the work of R.J. Rummel ).

IGbarb says:  “Contemplate and reflect!” 

More post-grading thoughts

I just finished grading another set of graduate essays on conflict and post conflict reconstruction.   While this is a completely non objective way to assess things, still if you read enough of these things over time you get a sense for how the “typical” student’s world view might be changing.  Here are a couple of things which I (subjectively and with my peace-oriented agenda which I do not make any attempt to hide in this blog ) noticed.

1.  At least moderately well informed people (ie graduate students in international relations) seem a bit less resigned to the idea that people and states are inherently violent and that’s just the way it is.  They seem to be edging toward that view that “this is unacceptable, this is intolerable, the suffering is too great…and something has to be done”.

2.  A just dawning understanding that if the United Nations is not working adequately to deal with conflict, this is probably because the interests of powerful states are preventing it from developing the necessary capacity to do so.  More are asking questions like:  how much should humanity suffer to maintain a narrow notion of national sovereignty?

3.  An awareness that the current conflict in Afghanistan (obviously on everybody’s mind right now as an important decision about American involvement looms on the horizon) has deep roots (going back maybe to the British and the “Great Game”, if not farther) and is probably not going to be “fixed” over the short term.  In this regard, I have seen in the essays an understanding of the complexity of what I like to call the “conflict formation” in that region, which includes the economic and social issue of the drug trade as well as the whole issue of Islamic fundamentalism, foreign intervention, etc…

4.  Lastly, for now, some case studies show that it is possible to get beyond conflict (Northern Ireland was one case studied).  However, even here it is clear that enormous effort, commitment and perseverance was/is necessary to make even nominal progress.

So, at least this term, I see some signs that my students are getting out of the “resigned, inevitability” (term that comes, I think, from Richard Falk) school of thought about violent conflicts in world affairs, and are starting to grope toward a search for the underlying causes and possible paths to resolution and elimination of these tragedies.

Calling all Peacebuilders (to Canada)

I just came across the Canadian School of Peacebuilding site:  very interesting.  It has a home at Canadian Mennonite University, which according to their site has one of the world’s biggest undergraduate programs in peace and conflict studies.  That is very cool!

Here’s the basic idea:

“How do we support and sustain the imagination and genius needed to shift from cultures of violence to cultures of peace? How do we equip people on the ground to act courageously for peace? How do we resist the temptation to make things bigger, more complex and more violent? How do we cultivate the daily practices that move in the opposite direction?

These are the challenges of peace as set out by Albert Einstein. These are the challenges of peacebuilding the annual Canadian School of Peacebuilding has been designed to address.

The Canadian School of Peacebuilding (CSOP), a program of Canadian Mennonite University, has been created to serve practitioners, professionals, activists, students, non-governmental organizations and faith-based groups engaged in peacebuilding. Its goal is to serve peacebuilders around the world by bringing them together in a collaborative learning community, nurturing and equipping them for various forms of peace practice and exposing them to some of the most significant, emerging ideas and teachers in the field.

This second annual Canadian School of Peacebuilding will be held at Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) in Winnipeg, MB, from June 14 to July 2, 2010. Three 5-day sessions, each with two or three courses running concurrently, will be offered for academic credit or for professional training for practitioners.”

As you might know Canada, along with the Scandinavian countries and a few others, is one of the biggest supporter of U.N. Peacekeeping, and, generally, everything about peace and conflict resolution.

This looks like yet another timely and innovative initiative.

 

MLK Peace Speech

Actually Martin Luther King gave a number of speeches related directly or indirectly to peace.  However, I was just looking at his Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech. The speech kind of speaks for itself, so to speak (sorry ).  Anyhow, here are some passages I particularly like.

“After contemplation, I conclude that this award… is profound recognition that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time — the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression.

Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts. Negroes of the United States, following the people of India, have demonstrated that nonviolence is not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation. Sooner or later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood.

If this is to be achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love. The tortuous road which has led from Montgomery, Alabama, to Oslo bears witness to this truth. This is a road over which millions of Negroes are travelling to find a new sense of dignity. “

…and

“I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsom and jetsom in the river of life unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.

I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. “

…and

“When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds and our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, we will know that we are living in the creative turmoil of a genuine civilization struggling to be born.”

Remember, this was 1964.  Nuclear annihilation was a very real prospect, and racism was much more rampant than it is today.  The man had a vision.  He called it a “dream”, but I think we can see now it was a true vision of what was, despite the prevalent darkness, a real possibility of positive change.

IGBarb says:  “Come back and read this from time to time, if you don’t think there has been progress…or if you forget how much there is still to do!”

(Still) More Peace Quotes

Always worth thinking about:

 

“Before the war, and especially before the Boer War, it was summer all the year round.”

George Orwell

—–

“Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.”

Benedict Spinoza

—–

“Once you hear the details of victory, it is hard to distinguish it from a defeat.”

Jean-Paul Sartre

—–

“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings that publisheth peace.”

Old Testament — Isaiah

—–

“If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.”

New Testament – Romans

—–

“Keep thyself first in peace, and then thou wilt be able to bring others to peace.”

Thomas a Kempis

—–

“Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding”

Albert Einstein

—–

(I really like the quote from Sartre…IGB)

The Charter for Compassion (redux)

Some time ago I wrote a post about the Charter for Compassion project .  Well, if you click on the site link you will see that the Charter has been written and now is in the process of being circulated.  Here is the text:

“The Charter for Compassion

The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.

It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism, or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others—even our enemies—is a denial of our common humanity. We acknowledge that we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion.

We therefore call upon all men and women ~ to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion ~ to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate ~ to ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures ~ to encourage a positive appreciation of cultural and religious diversity ~ to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings—even those regarded as enemies.

We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensible to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community.”

You can learn more about the Charterl’s partners, the famous people involved, etc… on the site.

Compassion is  a quality possessed by all truly spiritual people and essential to a culture of peace.

IGbarb says:  “Wage peace compassionately!”

 

Walls

I suppose everybody knows that yesterday was the big celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago.  It was interesting, and inspiring to be reminded of those amazing events (if you are old enough to remember them).   I found the falling dominos at first a strange idea (since in International Relations we used to talk about the “domino” theory–go look it up), but as I learned more about it, I think it was a good metaphor.  As it happens, in the mid 80s, because I was teaching courses to American soldiers in Berlin I could travel back and forth from West to East Berlin, and I visited some people who lived not far from the Brandenburg gate (on the Eastern side !).  I swear that as you went from East to West on the subway you could feel the moment you passed the wall.  To me at least, it was palpable.

Anyhow, I saw on French TV last night that there is a young photographer (whose name now escapes me) who at this moment has an exhibition of photographs of other major walls in the world.   She made the point that  these walls exist to, supposedly, protect one group from the “evils” of another:  poverty, terrorism, illegal immigration, etc…  You probably know where some of these walls are, and I don’t want to point political fingers here.  What came to my mind was how the “fall” (or simply removal) of such walls are concrete signs of peace and can facilitate (obviously) more exchange and unification (or in the case of the Germans reunification) among alienated groups and peoples.   So, in a sense these remaining walls, and what is or is not being done about are gages for the evolution toward peace in the world.   Crudely put:  walls going up, peace getting farther away; walls coming down, the possibilities for peace increasing.

Does that make sense?

IGbarb says “tear down the walls!”

“Everybody together
We should be together
We should be together my friends
We can be together
We will be
We must begin here and now
A new continent of earth and fire
Come on now gettin higher and higher
Tear down the walls
Tear down the walls
Tear down the walls
Won’t you try”

(Jefferson Airplane, “We Can be Together”)

Berlin Wall

Blue Helmets and Berets

I thought it would be interesting to show a few images of peacekeepers.  They are soldiers, but they are there for peace and managing conflict.  Believe me, in today’s world we definitely need them.  They aren’t perfect (there have been scandals) but they are essential.  They come from many places, but all wear the traditional blue headgear.

Brazilians

Asians (from somewhere)

Russians

Spanish

Australians

IGbarb says:  “Keep on keepin’ the peace!”

Peace Today Movie

I just came across nice video of peace images and a gentle peace song:

…and here are the lyrics from the song”A Call for World Peace” by Faith Rivera:

“Peace is the promise I make today
There’s nothing greater for me to say
Than to lay down my fears
Lay down unhappiness
And surrender to
The peace I choose today

Peace is the gift that I give today
No easy shortcut, Peace is the way
I will lay down my pride
Lay down self-righteousness
And surrender to
The peace I choose today

My all, I give My love for all

Peace is the reason we’re here today
No accident, we’ve been by name
Called to lay down our lives
Stand up for greater good
And surrender to the peace we choose today

Peace, we choose – today
Peace, we bring – today
Peace, we live oh-today

Peace today”

IGbarb says:  “Have a peaceful day!”