Disarming Our Hearts and Our Nations.

• Author: Dear, John
• Position: Brief Article

TOWARDS A CULTURE OF PEACE

On 19 November 1998, for the first time in its history, Ambassadors to the United Nations spent an entire day discussing in the General Assembly the meaning and practice of non-violence. Representatives from over 20 nations agreed that if the world is to survive, non-violence must be adopted by the nations of the world. Invoking Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Assembly declared the years 2001-2010 to be "A Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-violence for the Children of the World".

What does the world expect from the United Nations at the dawn of a new century? The world expects the Organization to help lead us on the road of non-violence to a new culture of peace. Four basic steps can start us on that journey.

First, if we want to build a culture of peace, we need to publicly recognize that we live in a culture of war and violence, and commit ourselves to practising the way of non-violence. Today, over 35 wars are being waged; over 1 million Iraqis have died during the last 10 years from economic sanctions; over 40,000 people die from starvation each day; over 25,000 nuclear weapons continue to be maintained; and violence, injustice, poverty, racism, sexism and environmental degradation spread like a plague among us, threatening our existence. The world is waiting for the United Nations to defend the simple truth: violence does not work, violence does not solve anything, violence is a never-ending downward spiral. It is immoral, illegal and impractical. And the only way out of this addiction to violence is the sobriety of non-violence. "It is no longer a choice between violence and non-violence", Dr. King said the night before he was killed. "It is non-violence or non-existence." I suggest with Dr. King that the o nly way toward a culture of peace is through active non-violence.

At the heart of non-violence is the vision of the all-inclusive community, the insight that all life is sacred, and that we are all equal human beings. Non-violence is active love and truth that seeks justice for everyone, resists systemic evil, persistently reconciles all sides, but adamantly renounces violence as a means toward peace. As we seek truth and justice for all humanity, we insist on the bottom line of non-violence--that there is no cause, however noble, for which we are willing to kill.

Second, the world expects the United Nations to help abolish all nuclear weapons and all weapons of mass destruction...