Early History of the Culture of Peace

From its beginning in Africa in 1989, the culture of peace was conceived as a values-based vision: The Yamoussoukro Conference called for "a new vision of peace" constructed "by developing a peace culture based on the universal values of respect for life, liberty, justice, solidarity, tolerance, human rights and equality between men and women."

The definition was expanded in 1994 in a series of memos from Mr Sema Tanguiane to the UNESCO Director-General in preparation for the International Conference on Education that took place 3-8 October 1994. Mr Tanguiane, now retired, had been the Assistant Director General for Education in 1974 responsible for an important document that was a precursor of the culture of peace, the Recommendation concerning Education for International Understanding, Coooperation and Peace and Education relating to Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. With some modifications his formulation was presented to the 1994 Conference and then became the centerpiece of the 1995 UNESCO General Conference which adopted the following definition:

A culture of peace "consists of values, attitudes and behaviours that reflect and inspire social interaction and sharing, based on the principles of freedom, justice and democracy, all human rights, tolerance and solidarity, that reject violence, endeavour to prevent conflicts by tackling their root causes to solve problems through dialogue and negotiation and that guarantee the full exercise of all rights and the means to participate fully in the development process of their society".

In my own work at UNESCO I found it necessary to develop a more concrete formulation. For this one begins from a disadvantage, because we have very little practical knowledge of a culture of peace. Instead, from the beginning of history the state has been characterized by a culture of war. In fact, Mr. Tanguiane in one of his 1994 memos to the Director-General, made reference to this problem: "tout en etant une demarche fondamentalement positive et constructive, le developpement de la culture de la paix devra comporter aussi, pour reussir completement, un effort visant a identifier et a surmonter, eliminer, combattre ce que dans la tradition et le subsconscient peut contribuer a la persistence de 'la culture de la guerre'. . .Il faut du courage et de la determination pour identifier et denoncer ce qui dans nos cultures, dans la culture de chacun de nous participe de la culture de la guerre". This was then recognized by Director--General Mayor in his book The New Page (July 1994) where, on pages 6-7, he made a contrast between the culture of war and the culture of peace. And at the United Nations, the expert group meeting on Gender and the Agenda for Peace in December 1994 defined culture of peace as an alternative to the culture of war: "We believe that the interests of human security can best be served by an intentional transition from the culture of war, which now prevails, to a culture of peace."

I have therefore preferred to define a culture of peace in reference to the culture of war. It can be understood as the set of alternatives to the essential aspects of the culture of war, i.e. those aspects of a culture of war that are necessary for a war to be prepared and carried out as well as those which are functional and profitable to such an extent that war has continued to be practiced throughout human history. In fact, trying to enumerate the essential aspects of a culture of war, one finds that there are not very many. I have conducted this exercise with audiences from various backgrounds and from all regions of the world and we usually arrive at the same list of eight to ten aspects of the culture of war that are essential in the sense of being necessary and/or functional and profitable. By making a list of these aspects in the left column of a table, one can derive the culture of peace as the dialectical alternatives to each aspect:

Culture of War Culture of Peace

power characterized as the monopoly of force education for culture of peace, including management training

having an enemy tolerance and solidarity

hierarchical authority democratic participation

secrecy and propaganda free flow of information

armament disarmament

exploitation of people human rights

... and nature sustainable development

male dominance equality of women and men

(continued on next page)