by Diane Willey

Diane Willey, n.d.s. was assistant director of the Canadian Centre for Ecumenism.

Ce document est aussi disponible en français : Se convertir à une culture de paix.

Inscribed eighty years ago in the peace tower on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, is a phrase from Proverbs 11:14: Where there is no vision, the people perish. Senator Douglas Roche drew attention to that inscription in an address which he delivered in the Senate on November 30, 1999, on "Canada and a Culture of Peace". He went on to say:

As we prepare to move into a new century and a new millennium, we should think deeply about this scriptural admonition. What is our vision? ... When we look at the world as a whole, we should be startled and ashamed of the huge amount of suffering tolerated by the political systems ... The 20th century was the bloodiest century in the history of humanity.

The vision I offer ... is a culture of peace. This is not just a dream, but a practicality ... A culture of peace is the set of values, attitudes, traditions, modes of behavior, and ways of life that reflect and inspire respect for all human rights. It involves the rejection of violence in all its forms, and commitment to the prevention of violent conflicts by tackling their root causes through dialogue and negotiation ... constructing a culture of peace requires comprehensive educational, social and civic action. It addresses people of all ages.¹

He cites United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, reflecting on how elusive yet accessible is a culture of peace:

It may seem sometimes as if a culture of peace does not stand a chance against the culture of war, the culture of violence and the cultures of impunity and intolerance. Peace may indeed be a complex challenge, dependent on action in many fields and even a bit of luck from time to time. It may be a painfully slow process, and fragile and imperfect when it is achieved. But peace is in our hands. We can do it.

That address was obviously inspired by the United Nations' designation of 2000 as the International Year for the Culture of Peace. In relation to that initiative, I have found the following three reflections particularly striking. Each offers a perspective on the challenge entailed for faith communities, in this vision of a culture of peace.

In Reconciliation: Mission & Ministry in a Changing Social Order², Robert J. Schreiter remarks:

It has often been said that the twentieth century really began in August of 1914. In that fateful month Europe found itself embarking on a war that would end the political configurations of the European empires of the nineteenth century. In a similar manner, it could also be said that the twentieth century really came to an end in 1989. In that year the political arrangements that had grown out of the 1914 war, and were consolidated in a second great war, collapsed in a swift and dramatic fashion. The world could no longer be understood in the bipolar way that had characterized much of political consciousness for nearly fifty years. China, the great dragon of the East, shuddered and seemed also on the verge of momentous change ... the challenge is how to come to terms with the violence and suffering in regimes that have (collapsed) or are now collapsing with the end of the twentieth century world order, and then develop a different kind of world, a world that truly moves beyond violence into genuine peace. [This has] pushed a topic to center stage that long had lingered in the wings: reconciliation.

In "Religious Wars? A Short History of the Balkans",³ Paul Mojzes comments:

After the collapse of communism in 1989, several wars broke out pitting various religious groups against each other. In southwestern Asia, Armenian Christians fought Muslim Azeris for Nagorno-Karabakh. Serbs (who are Orthodox) waged war against Croats (who are Catholics). In Bosnia-Herzegovina the Croats and Serbs continued to fight each other while also fighting or forcibly expelling Muslim Albanians from Kosovo ... a nuanced case can be made that religion plays an important, if not decisive, role in many of these conflicts.

Amitai Etzioni, in " 'Kristallnacht' Remembered: History & Communal Responsibility",⁴ writes:

As it met little opposition, domestic or from the outside, Kristallnacht set the stage for the much more tragic, degrading horror of the Holocaust that would stain Germany, and through it, civilization forever: the murder of 6 million Jews, 200,000 gypsies, 70,000 handicapped and mental patients, 10,000 homosexuals, as well as political dissidents and other German critics of the regime.

Beyond merely killing millions of innocent civilians ... gruesome atrocities were committed that make one wonder if there is a God in heaven, if there could be any deeper depths of human depravity ... Kristallnacht was an important threshold ... while the story of the Holocaust and the preceding events and after-effects must be retold, its meaning must be carved out by each generation ... The question we face, two generations after Kristallnacht, is: what is the proper response of this generation, of this age, to the Holocaust?

Some scholars have argued that the Holocaust was the ultimate expression of our unwillingness to accept differences among people ... We may be different in appearance, in manners, even in culture and particular bonds and obligations, but beneath them all, we are equal human beings: members of one ultimate community, the human race. This is our past. It is also the promise of our future.

There is no doubt at all that the cultures of war, violence, impunity and intolerance have been amply tried and found dismally inadequate as means to the realization of the hopes which each succeeding generation dares to hold. In face of those dynamics of despair, the year 2000 feels like an in-between time -- a liminal experience, out of which a new vision can take shape -- on our route to the twenty-first century. That perception is heightened by the markers that begin and end this year: the destructive potential of the Y2K crisis and the arrival of the new millennium. Having outmaneuvered the Y2K bug, can we hear, in the cycle of our respective religious feasts, this year, an invitation to recognize the resources that the traditions of our faith communities provide for creating and sustaining a culture of peace into and through the new millennium?

In this issue of Ecumenism, we explore that possibility in relation to the theme: Issues of Justice, Challenges of Reconciliation, Paths to Peace. We begin with experiences with young people -- Christian and Jewish high school students performing together a dramatic presentation from the Shoah (the Holocaust); a young Muslim woman reflecting on questions of her generation in her community; and an address to 200 young people by Bishop Desmond Tutu on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the U.N. Our second set of articles in this issue examines the inspiration and resources that can be found in the Christian, Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim traditions, for a commitment to justice, reconciliation and peace. Might we discover, in these reflections, an invitation to discern, amid the diversity of these traditions, the voice of a shared vision -- and mission and mandate -- to create and sustain a culture of peace, together?

1. "Canada and a Culture of Peace", given in the Senate by Honorable Douglas Roche, during the throne speech debate, November 30, 1999, cf. excerpts on [ www.salsa.net/peace/canadal.html ]
2. Orbis Books, 1996, pp. 5, 11-12.
3. Commonweal, June 4, 1999, p. 16.
4. Commonweal, February 12, 1999, pp. 12-13.