War, Virtual War and Human Security - 2007 Programme Session 12

Session Twelve: Reinventing War and Peace
Chair: Tom Kane

Human Security: A Possible Operational Tool in Conflict Prevention
Claudia Croci
Staranzano, Italy

No abstract is presently available

Teaching Non-Violence
Helen Fox
University of Michigan, USA

In-depth interviews with undergraduates at a high ranking, politically liberal U.S. university suggest that young adults who are most likely to occupy future positions of influence are skeptical of the idea that a world without war is possible. Despite their disgust with war in general and the Iraq war in particular, these students nearly always said they believe that war is an integral part of human nature and that peaceful international relations will always be subverted by individuals and/or groups that insist on taking advantage of others. Students did not cite the need for states to go to war to protect themselves from aggression (a more common argument in the US during the World War and Cold War periods) or from international terrorism, as might be expected. Instead, students tended to justify the need for violent intervention to protect defenseless others, such as such as Jews in Hitler's Germany, or victims of genocide in Darfur or Rwanda. Both the interviews and classroom discussions with some of the respondents suggest, however, that students know little about the prevalence or efficacy of nonviolent movements or the range of diplomatic and political tactics that have been or could be employed to deter violence. Furthermore, students tended equate the idea of world peace with the absence of aggression (or even anger) among individuals, thus making it even more difficult to envision a world without war. The author of the study, a Quaker pacifist who teaches an undergraduate seminar on nonviolence, concludes that secondary schools and universities need to fill the gaps in students' knowledge by teaching historical, social, political, and psychological information about the possibilities of peaceful solution to conflict, and should engage students in imagining and designing both short and long-term alternatives to war.