Pax Forum—Appendix II
Building Peace: To Understand, So We Can Act
Contributions by the School of Peace 
to Each Theme of the Debate

At the end of each “work session,” the School of Peace, which jointly organized and funded of the forum, made a contribution to provide the debate with an “added value.”
Except for the first contribution, the team at the School of Peace called on someone who was specialized in the general theme of the discussion that had just taken place.
To put these contributions into context, we present them here each preceded by the abstract of the summary of the debate that had taken place on that theme.
These contributions were originally written in French. Please keep in mind that what follows is a series of post-edited machine translations, with no claim to “human translation” quality. They are, however, free of mistranslation and grammatically correct.
The original versions in French can be found at
http://www.alliance21.org/forums/d_read/pax/syntheses/Ecole_de_la_paix/ 

Contact: ecole@ecoledelapaix.org 
Introduction:
http://www.alliance21.org/forums/d_read/pax/participants/introductions/Ecole_de_la_paix.htm

I. After September 11: Exploring Violence on the Road to Peace

Abstract of the summary of the debate: This text, in short, contains a summary of the topics covered these past weeks in response to our forum’s first topic, the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. Discussion proved philosophical, emotional, and pragmatic all at the same time. From the idea of the attacks on New York and Washington naturally flowed an attempt to understand and define terrorism, as well as violence in general [see on that subject the contribution School of Peace that is also published today, as their closing statement for this item on the agenda]. Defining them proved to be more difficult than expected. Emerging alongside the exploration of violence and its roots was the issue of peace. Again the forum searched to define peace, and how to attain it. In the course of searching for the root cause of violence, thus the root destruction of peace, the issue of inequality ran a strong current, as did the need for cooperation. Tackling these difficult tasks, the forum established the necessity of classifying whose role was who’s in the struggle for peace. Should the responsibility fall to the people, to state governments, or to international bodies?

School of Peace
Acts That Reopen Wounds

Abstract: In the messages of the forum, the terms “terrorism” and “war” appeared regularly. It is why this collective summary deals with the difference between terrorism, resistance, and war. Can we use the term “terrorism” about September 11 given that no precise political aim was targeted and that the attacks have not been claimed? It is rather humankind that has been targeted... The actors of these acts peak on behalf of no one, neither on behalf of the anti-globalization movement nor on behalf of those who are fighting for democracy, whose work they destroy on the contrary. However these acts reopen old sores, linked to the inequalities, to the injustice, to the unbalance of the current world. Such a global act requires “global justice”. 

Terrorism, War, and Resistance

If war, such as it is defined in the legal framework of the Geneva Convention, is a phenomenon that goes back to the dawn of time, the word * terrorism * only appears in 1794 to qualify the bloodthirsty policy of Robespierre during the French Revolution. Terrorism is the systematic employment of the violence against people by any organization in order to reach, or not, a political aim. On the contrary war is held by States or by armed organizations whose objectives are - or should be - military. However, this changed a lot during the twentieth century: from the battle field of the first world war (1914-1918)to the military and industrial targets, to the detriment of the civil populations named * collateral damages *.
The frontiers are blurred because of the existence of terror, which in both cases strikes the civil populations. Can we still call “ war acts” the intensive bombardments on Afghanistan in quest of an unlikely Ben Laden? Here there is a real disproportion between the end and the means....
Terrorism remains the voice of the speechless persons, of those that can only express themselves by violence. Let’s recall that other leaders chose the way of civil resistance or of non violence: Gandhi in India, Mandela in South Africa, Rugova in the Kosovo...

Beyond Terrorism?

What about September 11th?
These attacks provoked terror with dramatic human consequences, and economic consequences that will still remain sensitive a long time. But the attacks have not been claimed even. They merely showed the horrible capacities of human beings, and that with a box cutter one can destroy strategic targets as big as targets of acts of wars.
Fortunately we will be able to say that there has been a fourth plane, informed of what had happened, and where courage, and resistance of some people showed in real time, that precisely, everything is not possible: this new terror can be foiled in the instant, at the well-known cost.
It is perhaps there that these events mostly involve us: of course the States are going to review their systems of information, of course the detection in the airports are going to be reinforced; but each citizen has to react. This can begin with acts of incivility or with the schoolboy who shouts “Ben Laden” during the lesson...

Questioning the World Order

These acts exceed our understanding because of their inconceivable nature. They appear as a crime against humanity insofar as the attacks aimed at destroying its efforts to live together. It is the extraordinary character of this event that pushes us to question the world order and the system that govern us.
Theses attacks do not have any sense, nor any cause: nor the one of the poorest, nor the one of those that fight for their freedom; they are the spokesperson of no one, nor of the anti-globalization movement nor of those who fight for democracy, whose work, on the contrary, they destroy.
But they are reopening old sores, linked to inequalities, to injustice, to the unbalance of the current world....; these new transgressions require a new type of fight.
So, it is surprising, or even troubling, to see that many political leaders do not question the strategies used to respond to such acts; responses are maladjusted to a challenge of this importance. Why for example not benefit from this situation to finalize the instruments of an embryonic and necessary international justice (What about the International penal Court)?

II. Everything We Do Counts: We Have to Take Chances, Make Decisions, and 
Enact Them

Abstract of the summary of the debate: The first actual debate of the forum was devoted to Humankind, the Biosphere, and Peace. It started with the following question: What does the way in which we humans relate to our biosphere have to do with building lasting peace? There was a general consensus among participants that we have a big problem on our hands and that we need to focus on it in a serious manner. Energy became the running theme of our considerations and led to a discussion on alternative sources of energy that might be more environment-friendly and less conducive to conflict. Competition for resources is a well-known source of conflict, and some believed that sustainable development is a main engine for peace, while others were less certain but nevertheless argued that it is a formidable tool for achieving a greater degree of fairness in access to basic resources for a decent life. We were also reminded that sustainable development is not only based on economic development with a sensitivity to environmental protection, but that it must also deal with every aspect of the human condition, including social and governance issues. A strong theme during this debate was that we, as humans, including our minds, are part of the biosphere. So what can we do? Enhance our awareness and review our everyday actions: thus we can hope to contribute to making the “planetary awareness” factor of the biosphere move in the direction we think is right.

School of Peace
The Distribution of Our Planet’s Resources Holds a High Risk of Conflict: Resources and Wealth Must Be Jointly Managed

with the collaboration of Claude LORIUS, glaciologist

Abstract: In the last few decades, the change of the planet caused by man has quickly accelerated. As far as the discussions of this month (“Humanity, biosphere and Peace”) are concerned, one can remark that the messages sent to the forum are dealing with the environment more than with the biosphere—which comprises all living environments, the other species, and biodiversity. The sharing of the planet resources, which are limited, represents a risk of triggering conflicts. Building peace requires therefore a shared management of resources and wealth. Finally, the role of the citizens is to influence all decision-makers, whether political or economic.

Deterioration of the Environment and of the Biosphere

The biosphere comprises all ecosystems of the planet Earth, that is, all contexts of life and all living beings, among which man. But the fast increase of the human population and the satisfaction of the needs corresponding to it is to the detriment of other species, of which man disturbs or destroys the living environment to his benefit; that is why we can say that after the “Pliocene era,” we have entered a new era, the “antropocen era.” The question of the environment, which is first and foremost, must be widened therefore to all living species and to biodiversity: this is where our aspiration to peace must lie, because what would “peace” reigning on a ravaged planet be worth?...
But what is the situation like in this new century’s beginning? Just to mention the main problems: 
- a deterioration of the environment that endangers the chemical and physical environments, the biosphere, and man’s living conditions
- the earth’s resources are limited 
- 20% of the population benefits of 4/5 of the wealth 
- a short-term management of the industrial sector, as for human activities in general, threatens the quality of life of the living world
What future can there be for future generations if we do not put an end to air pollution, water pollution, to massive deforestation, to the inconsiderate exploitation of natural resources? There are so many conflicts in perspective! Living in peace is not just a question of weapons—it requires a good cooperation with our environment.

Environment, Not the Biosphere, Are at the Core of the Forum’s Debates

It seems that the majority of the messages received during this month on the forum dealt with the environment more than the biosphere, but the objectives that we have to reach clearly appeared:
- equitable management of water in order to fight against the desertification of soils, the pollution of ground water, and to ensure drinking water for all, which too many people are still missing
- preservation of the natural habitat, avoiding intensive deforestation of primary forests, exhaustion of overexploited resources (industrial fishing, etc.) and a reasoned management of wastes (the sea as a trash can)
- birth control in order to avoid an exponential growth of the needs linked to the demographic increase and its devastating effects: global warming, extinction of threatened species, etc.

Scientists Must Share the Results of Their Research, But Also Their Uncertainties

Citizens must play a role in the implementation of the required measures. Citizens must become aware of the problems in order to influence decision makers, whether economic or political. This awareness must be encouraged by education and dialogue: scientists have the duty of sharing their knowledge among themselves and with all citizens; this is all the more necessary that experimentation remains uncertain (the amplitude of the climatic warming must be measured better; the link between health and the environment is complex; etc.). Democracies have a major role to play: collaborating for the globalization of an equitable management of resources and wealth, and of sustainable development—which means sustainable for the coming generations; they must allow each of us to participate and to share, the condition of an equitable and sustainable development.
This is the price we have to pay for peace.

III. Should a Socioeconomy of Solidarity Be a Goal? If So, How Can It Be Reached?

Abstract of the summary of the debate: This session on the socioeconomy of solidarity involved the following course of action: the identification of a problem, the establishment of term definitions, the presentation of solutions to the problem, and/or subsequently found problems. For many in our forum, creating a socioeconomic solidarity can only happen with the elimination of economic inequality. Inequality can lead to societal instability, and, at times, to terrorism. For others, the link between inequality and terrorism is indirect. In large part, participants agreed that the clearest route to achieving socioeconomic solidarity, and global economic impartiality, is the coexistence of fair justice and fair trade. The ingredients for this call for participation, namely that of transnational organizations, state governments, nongovernmental organizations, civil society, individual citizens and consumers. 

School of Peace
Putting Man back in the Center of the Economy

with the collaboration of Hugues PUEL
ECONOMIE ET HUMANISME 
http://www.economie-humanisme.org/Accueil.html 

Abstract: The economy of solidarity is an economy that responds to the fundamental needs of the human being. Today, classic economy is characterized by an excessive financial capitalism which, with a merely utilitarian vision, transforms the companies into financial institutions with speculative aim. The problem is that the companies, legally, have no social objective, they therefore have no social responsibility. However the problem to which is confronted the economy today is a problem of * limit *, and therefore an * ethical * problem: the production of wealth is not an evil in itself, it is the unlimited expansion of the financial capitalism that we have to challenge. At the level of the international institutions, the plutocratic system - power depends on State wealth - reflects the economical inequalities: maybe it would be necessary to introduce a variable related to the demographic weight of each State also? Finally, the debt must be annulled but provided that social programs are implemented.

Classic Economy versus an Economy of Solidarity

The economy is characterized by three types of channels:
- exchange, that is to say, a market economy, which relies on the confrontation of supply and demand with a monetary mediation
- redistribution with public subsidies, for collective facilities for example
- donation through volunteership without any immediate financial counterpart or without any monetary counterpart.
Facing the dysfunctions of the economic world system and the risks of conflicts that it generates because of the enormous disparities between the GDP of the different countries and between the different incomes, we must implement an economy of solidarity project. What is this? It is not a particular sector of the economy but a general economy of production and real or monetary distribution, which also meets the fundamental needs of the human being: food, clothing, housing, health, education, (the structures of daily life). This economy combines the three elements stated earlier: it is a mixture of exchange on the different markets existing in a diversified economy, of redistribution (social policies) and of donation ( in the case of domestic economy for example.).

The Negative Drift of the Production System and the Problem Raised by the Status of Companies

Indeed, what are we witnessing today? An excessive financial capitalism which, in a merely utilitarian vision, transforms the companies into financial institutions with a speculative aim, into companies whose objective is profit, instead of being a tool of production of goods and services. When the profits of a large company are more due to its financial activity than to its industrial production, trade or making services available, one can say that there is a perversion of the economic system.
What is at stake, is the necessary diversity of economic activities, without the domination of the financial sphere, to refocus on the needs of the populations with more difficulties and on the appreciation of the workers at the expense of the owners of capital, even though it is fair that the contributors of funds should be remunerated in exchange for the service (free capital would be wasted). We must therefore question the status of the company as capital companies. It is necessary to promote a European society with joint management along the lines already advanced in some of the work of the Alliance for a Responsible, United and Plural World.

The Case of ENRON Shows in a Grotesque Way the Negative Drifts of Financial Capitalism

This case challenges the whole financial system of capitalism. It calls into question the very function of auditing and consultancy, the reliability of the financial accounts announced by a company, the financing of political parties by private businesses, the reliability of our information, the fate of people wishing to have savings.

What reforms can we undertake?

One could consider therefore that these companies should become companies with joint management, where the employees would sit at the board.
On the other hand, the idea of a top salary should become necessary to palliate the enormous disparities of income and heritage that one observes today.
However, we should not maintain the illusion: no reform of structure is sufficient. A good structure doesn’t necessarily entail good behavior; inversely, good behavior is not enough to guarantee the working order of a system, if the structures are not sufficiently adapted.
At the level of the international Institutions such as the IMF, the representation of the states at the Board of Directors depends on the countries’ GDP. So this plutocratic system only resumes the economic inequalities: it would be necessary to introduce the variable of the demographic weight. Besides, one accuses the IMF of being only dependent on U.S. decisions, but we must not forget that if the USA represents 18% of the vote, the European countries represent 28%: Europe should speak as one and be united in order to influence the decisions. At the WTO, representation is made by state, each state has one voice. It is in conformity with the spirit of the United Nations, but the realism of the power struggle also imposes itself.

Debt against Social Actions?

Structures are worth what those who use them are worth. So the abolition of the debt of the poor countries is only worthwhile if measures aiming at encouraging more democracy and equality are taken. The results of the experiences of debt condonation under condition are very variable depending on the countries. In Uganda for example the debt condonation was successful, to the benefit of health programs (AIDS programs among others); conversely, in Cameroon, social programs have been delayed because of the leaders’ lack of political determination.
In conclusion, in order for the economy to go towards peace among men, men must act: there is no fatality or divine curse linked to money. It is legitimate that shareholders enjoy income; what is not, is the excessiveness, the absence of limits put to profits, to which all human rights are sacrificed. Civil society must react; it already has, as this forum shows.

IV. Bad Governance, Anarchical Societies, and Democracy: Democracy Needs to be Improved and Extended

Abstract of the summary of the debate: At first glance, the problem at hand is that of bad governance by governments, the solution for which seems to be democracy. At closer inspection, however, findings prove more complicated than initially thought. The optimal solution for combating bad governance—democracy—in itself contains kinks and problems that need to be ironed out. These past few weeks, forum participants explored not only the issue of bad governance, but also the issue of democracy, both its current global status and condition, as well as whether or not citizens can count on it as a viable tool for promoting good global governance as a basis for building global peace. To improve democracy, it has to be used, and this, in turn, requires everyone’s awareness of public interest as more important than personal interest. And, with the added practice of active subsidiarity--a decision-making process that requires agreement among different scales of interest--public interest will not contradict personal interest. 

School of Peace
Governance as an Art of Peace

with the collaboration of Pierre CALAME
Director of the Charles Léopold Mayer Foundation for the Progress of Humankind 
http://www.fph.ch 

Abstract: Governance is inseparable from the construction of peace because its aim is to manage society peacefully and in the long term. The idea of governance is innovative because it takes into account other actors than those of the public sphere for the management of public affairs: it takes in account a large set of regulations and actors: civil society, firms, non-state actors. On the other hand, local and global scales are in constant interaction. Globalization amplifies this phenomenon. Therefore, a serious problem can no longer be solved on the sole scale of the territory: it can only be treated in a multilevel way. This is in fact also the case for the construction of peace. Finally, the question of the * legitimacy * of a system is essential: the constraints deriving from public management must be accepted and perceived as a necessity of the common good.

Governance Is an Art of Peace

In order to survive each society needs regulation and therefore a minimum of consensus on socially admitted rules. Governance, that is to say a political and social regulation system, is inseparable of the construction of peace. Indeed, it aims at:
- managing society peacefully, limiting the recourse to the violence
- guaranteeing the long term
- ensuring a voluntary movement and not a simple mechanical reproduction (because of the capacity of the human societies to think their regulation).
Otherwise, one notes that there is a universality of the principles and a diversity of the solutions: Universality, because all societies are confronted to the same problems to survive and to develop itself; Diversity, because the answers are multiple considering the extreme variety of historic, geographical, sociological conditions.
Since the questions are common to all men, it should be therefore possible to agree on common principles, whether on a local scale or on a global scale.

Governance Allows Us to Consider a New Relationship between the Local and Global Levels

Today, we cannot say that there are on the one hand the local problems and on the other hand the global problems. The case of drug in Colombia illustrates this statement: the local problems of production are inextricably linked to the problems of marketing and consumption of drugs. The local and the are in constant interaction. Moreover, the consequence of globalization is to amplify this phenomenon.
A serious problem cannot be solved therefore at a sole scale of territory: it can only be treated by the way of an inter-scale management. It is exactly the principle of active subsidiarity. This concept is very useful because it allows us to perceive reality in an other way: reality must not be considered as a series of distinct and closed territories but as a relation between different scales of territory.

What is important is doing things together

Before, one thought that the management of problems consisted in making a choice among several solutions. But one realizes that finally, in all decisions, the result is less important than the process that led to this result. Governance consists in drawing up processes of working together, to make emerge elements of cooperative solutions and create partnerships. What counts, is doing things together, much more than each one at his place and with his skills.
Analyzing the evolution of the management of companies, we find the same conclusion: experience sharing, learning process, retraining of the acquirements.
Historically, the beginning of the construction European has been really innovative concerning governance. The States organized the joint management of war factors (coal, steel) to turn them into peace factors. However, it is managing something in common that people become brothers. The progress of the construction of a pacific Europe since 50 years illustrates the fact that governance and the management of processes, conducts to peace.
Today we should create such management processes in order to manage in common other resources like water for example.

The Difference between Legitimacy and Legality

One notes that the representative democracy over valorizes two things:
- The delegation to elected official: we delegate decisions and then we doesn’t exercise any control thereafter on the elected official
- The moment of the decision (voting, law, arbitration.)
It is to palliate these shortcomings that we are speaking today of participatory democracy.
Today, what is at stake is to reoccupy public places, create places of dialogue, at all scales, from the district to the planet, putting the emphasis on the processes and not on the results only.
One of the big problems the present international system presents is that it is not perceived as legitimate because of a lack of both democracy and efficiency. Indeed, a system can be legal—deriving from norms, or from traditions consigned in a constitution—without being legitimate—feeling that the power is exercised by the “right people,” according to the “right practices,” and in the public interest.

V. Cross-cultural Interaction Will Generate a Global Culture of Peace

Abstract of the summary of the debate: Our final thematic discussion, on culture, values, art, education, and peace, produced many interesting exchanges. Dominated by the topic of education, the discussion was launched by a lively debate over religion and conflict. We then moved on to talk about the importance of education in generating a culture of peace, and the role that art might play in opening up the minds of children and more generally as a vessel to help us pursue the truth. In terms of giving youngsters a strong grounding in ethical values, families were deemed as important, if not more, than teachers. We then saw how a world that propagates a global culture of peace and tolerance of diversity is, in effect, one that generates a universal culture. Finally, at the macro-political level, it was argued that leaders who make the decisions about war and peace lack any kind of imagination, a void that should be filled by the development of a global culture of peace and greater cross-cultural interaction. 

School of Peace
Imagining an Education Serving Development in the Search for Peace

with the collaboration of Gilles LIPOVETSKY, French philosopher

Abstract: Education is an indispensable factor of development. We know that countries developing themselves in a peaceful context have all invested in education. But this education must be a * practical * education, allowing the children to insert themselves later in society. The school must be a school opened to the world and to the diversity - teaching about all religions of the world for example -. It is also a question of the responsibility of the governments: they must implement policies in the country to dispense the means to reach such an education. Although the globalization has consequences within the national borders, the responsibility of the elite and the national leaders is also very important and often underestimated.

More than ever, in the world following the September 11, education seems to be the primordial vector able to conduct to peace. One knows in fact that the countries developing themselves in a peaceful context have all invested in the education.

The Context

About the recent events of French political life, in which the second round of presidential elections featured an extreme-right-wing candidate, a General Inspector of the National Education recalled on the front page of the newspaper “Le Monde”: “School, from the top to the bottom, just before the terrifying century that started with September 11, and which could laminate us, has only one aim: transmitting, learning, raising to revolt, reasoning against contempt, fighting selfishness, confiding the future to young people who have been toughened, and opening all the windows to themselves, France, Europe, and the world.”

Opening Up to Others, Teaching to Work for the Construction of the World

If it is true that education is an indispensable factor of development, still it is necessary to define its methods and its conditions. If education consists, as a new catechism, in promoting values, or even ideological principles, we risk to be in a dead end, and to open the door to all forms of fanaticism. If on the contrary, instead of locking the children in a closed system of single thought, education opens to the knowledge of the other, to the knowledge of the different religions of the world, that are the underpinnings of all cultures - or very concretely of all social organizations -; if it gives them the opportunity to find their right place in the society where they were born, if it allows them to work and contribute to the creation of wealth in the respect of the other, then such an education will be able to be a good peace factor; hence the democratic, humanist, spiritual, values will be able to be embodied in the action.

Two Challenges

In other words, education meets two challenges: 
- teaching with the view of creation of wealth in order to contribute to the development within peace; this training requires energy and imagination 
- the responsibility of each one to the community.

Responsibilities

The responsibility of implementing the necessary policies in their country to dispense the means to reach such an education belongs to the government. Each country must recognize here its own responsibilities in a field that conditions the future of the world: in the search for peace, all national societies, all countries, need to maintain their lucidity and their democratic strength.