Searching pathways to peace education

Important assumptions underlying peace education initiatives need to be discussed critically in light of the realization that the whats, h ows and w of peace learning are all problematic in that there is no a bsolute answer to be found without reference to contexts in which lea rners live their lives and how these contexts relate to the outside w orld. The experience of living provides the learner with the possibil ity of "reading the world" so that they can 1) observe and diagnose v iolence (physical, structural, cultural) in own context and its exter nal relations to other contexts, 2) to search for root causes of such violence both internal to (including the self) and external to own context, 3) to formulate visions of non-violent alternative futures, 4) to reflect upon appropriate means of change and 5) to act with ski ll towards the creation of new peace processes and buildings. It is n ot possible to develop answers to all three sets of questions (the wh ats, hows and whys) in this paper. I shall specifically not discuss t he important problem of acceptable communication (hows) here, but sim ply refer the reader to a forthcoming book, tentatively entitled "Pea ce Learning in Conflict Transformations". The broader framework of th e peace education problematique has been described in my proposal for a panel on peace education in which a global campaign is meant to be launched in the Hague Appeal for Peace next May (cf. www.haguepeace. org). I shall restrict the discussion here to a first proposal of wha t the substance of peace education should be, especially in relation to different contexts.