I believe the Culture of Peace transcends boundaries. It transcends differences in age, and it transcends differences in culture. It is the most universal thing that you can have.
I worked for a decade for the United Nations and as an Ambassador for Bangladesh, but this mention of the decade has a different significance for me. It was on 31 July 1997 that I wrote to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, at that time Kofi Annan, as the Bangladesh Ambassador, asking him to circulate my request for a separate agenda item on the Culture of Peace for the Plenary sessions of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Since then, it has been nearly ten years, just fifteen days short. That very letter has mushroomed in a big way to this global movement for the Culture of Peace.
The subject matter under the euphemism “Towards a culture of peace” was debated for a number of years before it became a separate agenda item of the UNGA in 1997. The Secretary-General was asked to present a draft program of action, which, after long negotiations for nine months, was adopted in September 1999. Earlier in 1997, the UNGA adopted another resolution declaring the year 2000, the millennium year, as the International Year for the Culture of Peace. The next year, the United Nations adopted a very significant and promising resolution to declare the years 2001 to 2010 as the International Decade for the Culture of Peace and Non-violence for the Children of the World. I believe that during these last ten years, from July 1997 to this day, the international community has reached a point where we can surely call it a Global Movement for the Culture of Peace. For that, all of you deserve a big “thank you” as well!
Peace is integral to human existence — in everything we do, in everything we say and in every thought we have, there is a place for peace. Absence of peace makes our challenges, our struggles, much more difficult. I believe that is why it is very important that we need to keep our focus on creating the Culture of Peace in our lives.
Sometimes we see peace as the opposite of war. That is not at all what the Culture of Peace would mean. Absence of war or absence of violence is not peace. It may bring cessation of hostilities, but it is obviously not peace in its totality - for sure it is not sustainable peace. That is why I believe that the Culture of Peace is essential in our lives for many reasons, and I will come to that a little bit later, but the most important thing to realize is that the absence of peace takes away the opportunities that we need to better ourselves, to prepare ourselves, to empower ourselves to face the challenges of the world. Absence of peace takes away that opportunity and that is why peace is essential in our lives.
I have, for many years, and for the last five years with a specific UN responsibility, spoken up for the most vulnerable countries of the world - the impoverished, the poorest and the weakest countries of the world. Advocating for these countries, I found that absence of peace or recurring conflicts cost them so much, particularly in terms of their human development prospects. I will just tell you that in the year 2000, the cost of conflict was measured by the Carnegie Foundation to be $200 billion for the poorest countries of the world. That cost in the year 2000 was ten times more than the official development assistance that these countries received at that time. What a waste! That is why I strongly believe that peace and development are two sides of the same coin. One is meaningless without the other; one cannot be achieved without the other.
When we talk of peace being integral to human existence, we also have to bear in mind that, as the UNESCO Constitution pronounced, it is in the minds of men we have to build the defenses of peace, because it is in the minds of men that the seeds of war germinate. That is a crucially important thing that we need to keep in mind.
The quest for peace is as old as human history. The prehistoric cave man was also looking for peace, and we are here today talking about peace, trying to see how best to achieve an enduring Culture of Peace. I say that it is the longest human endeavor or quest going on, but it runs alongside many of the things that we do on a daily basis.
Do not isolate peace as something separate. It is part of our very existence. Anything that we do or say or how we interact with one another is very important. We should know how to relate to one another without being angry, without being violent, without being disrespectful, without neglect, without prejudice. Once we are able to do that, we are able to take the next step forward in advancing the Global Movement for the Culture of Peace. Start with yourself!
We need to do that, but at the same time, I must say that we are lucky that we have a global body, an international institution, a universal organization - the United Nations, that is dedicated to the cause of peace. The United Nations is working to bring development as the other side of the peace efforts in the world.
The contribution of the United Nations sometimes is also seen as something that is universally applicable. It is as if a big organization is moving in to create something called “peace”. However, remember, that the work of the United Nations is also to empower people to talk about peace. We at the United Nations devise, arrange or work with people to empower individuals, and that is very important. Therefore, while there are efforts to bring peace in a conflict situation, we must also try to empower people.
This empowerment comes from participation, particularly from democratic participation. I think that is why one of the eight areas of the Culture of Peace Programme of Action is democratic participation. This is very important in the lives of people, in the lives of nations that there should be a participatory democracy encouraging an environment to create the Culture of Peace. I would like to emphasize that dimension of our efforts to build the Culture of Peace.
In this context, I should mention here that the 21st of September every year is observed as the International Day of Peace. The United Nations observes it every year, and I would like you - in your own ways, in your communities, in your workplace, in your schools, in your neighborhood activities - to please observe 21 September as the International Day of Peace. Try to do something to talk about the Culture of Peace, to do something that contributes to it. That will generate interest, and the impact can be enormous. I am requesting all of you to go to the United Nations and other peace websites and find out about the International Day of Peace.
I would like to tell the United Nations that the International Day of Peace is not just a UN resolution, or a little message here or there, or a token celebration. That is not the type of International Day of Peace that we are thinking of. I am going to create some benchmarks for the United Nations, for its Secretary-General and others to report how many times the senior officials of the UN spoke about the Culture of Peace in their statements and speeches; how many times they involved young people in promoting the Culture of Peace; how many times the special representatives of the Secretary-General articulated the Culture of Peace in the undertaking of their responsibilities. We have to create such benchmarks to ensure that there is accountability. We talk about the accountability of other peoples, other nations, other organizations – but we need to make the United Nations also accountable – more so for peace. This will be our role during the International Decade for the Culture of Peace. You know, we are reaching 2010, the final year of the Decade, very fast. What have we done to promote - globally and nationally - the Culture of Peace?
We need to really build up a momentum so that by the time we reach 2010, there is a global awareness about what we need to do to build the Culture of Peace. Again, for that I come back to you repeatedly to see what we can do to promote an effective observance of the International Decade for the Culture of Peace and Nonviolence for the Children of the World, that will leave its mark in the communities and nations of the world.
I keep saying that the young people are and should be the core of this Global Movement for the Culture of Peace. The reason I say this is because I have seen time and again that the young people who are in schools, colleges and universities have the most open minds. They want to reach out to other people, they want to know about other parts of the world, their religions, their societies, their countries. But, the pressures of their subsequent professional careers create a situation that brings in the prejudices, that brings in the indifferences, that brings in the intolerance of other people.
Why does this have to happen, when as young people you have the broadest of minds? You are all embracing, but when you get into your professional life, when you get into your adult family lives, somehow these prejudices creep in. That question bothers me all the time. That is why I believe it is necessary that we build the Culture of Peace in the minds of young people, so that when they grow up, it will stay with them always whatever their profession will be, whatever their way of life will be. We have to empower them in a manner that it stays with them. It should not be a transient thing with them. That is why I believe that this initiative that the SGI has taken to get young people motivated is very important. I am impressed by the logo of this lecture series showing the exuberant, empowered young people. That is what they should be.
When speaking about the Culture of Peace, I often mention an incident during my visit to Kosovo in 2000. As you know, the two communities there - the Albanians and the Serbs - had been antagonistic to each other for decades, and they reached a very bloody point in 1997, 1998 and 1999. This was immediately after the United Nations- and NATO-imposed peace came into existence. In April 2000, I led the UN Security Council’s first-ever delegation to Kosovo. On the first day, we visited a school where the young children from both communities were turning a garbage dump into a garden. They were clearing the garbage and planting trees and were doing so like friends, just like members of the same family.
Then we went to meet with the elders in the city hall to talk about the peace process. Very soon, the elders started blaming one another. The blame game nearly started a verbal fight. I told them to calm down, saying, “I just saw your children playing as friends. They have no animosity for each other. They are just friends. Let them grow up as friends. Why are you bringing the past bitterness, animosity into their lives? It is your responsibility as adults to see to it that it doesn’t happen. If we as adults have failed, we should not let the shadow of that failure creep into the lives of the young people, into our children.”
We need to encourage the young people to be themselves, to build their own character, their own personality, which is full of understanding, full of tolerance and full of respect for diversity. I believe that to be very important, and we need to convey that to the young people. This is the minimum we can do as adults. We should do everything to empower them, and I feel that such empowerment is going to stay with them for life. That is the significance of the Culture of Peace. That is its essence. It is the process of changing each one of us so that we become the agents of peace. It is not something temporary like resolving a conflict in one area or between communities without transforming and empowering people to sustain peace.
Start changing yourself; that is the most important thing we need to keep in mind.
Worldwide, globally, there are many groups, some big, mostly small, even individuals working diligently for building the Culture of Peace. I believe that if we can create a network to connect all of these dots, dots representing hundreds of such organizations, hundreds of individuals, that way we would empower them in a big way and enhance the Global Movement for the Culture of Peace. A small group in Afghanistan or a group in Angola or a group in Albania will know that they are not alone. They will know that they have hundreds of other groups worldwide who are working for the Culture of Peace. They would not feel isolated any more. That is the empowerment that I would like to bring in. This is my dream - to create a global network, a global alliance of organizations, groups and individuals joining in the Global Movement for the Culture of Peace. Then, we can add others to the network, like schools, institutions and professional bodies. When you connect these dots, we will have a wonderful image for the Culture of Peace. This is something that I dream of, but I need to give this dream a real shape. So I am on the drawing board, and I am thinking about how to create this network. I know that I have all of your best wishes and all of your support in the realization of my dream. That is my wish and my hope.
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