Path to Peace

On the blog Scuole per la pace (Schools for Peace) is this post of September 22, 2004, translated here from the Italian text.

"The idea that we would like to share is that peace is not an abstract, but something that should be built together and which is composed of different aspects.

Talking about peace also means dealing with some aspects of our social life, as they impact on the rest of the world, and how we can limit the impact at least in its most negative aspects.

That is why I think that talking about peace should also address these issues:
- Human rights (teaching Justice)
- Energy, production, consumption and pollution
- Conscious consumption and lifestyles
- Right to know, dissemination of knowledge, intellectual property
- Digital divide, new technologies, access to information, accessibility

And speaking about them we should try to change our behaviours, even small ones, but above all always wonder if what we have as "urgent needs" are not actually induced needs or desires of "spoilt children" which seem to us very accessible but we let other people pay for it.

We should think before acting and if it is like this, we should change our actions to make them more equitable to and compatible with the needs of those who still suffer from hunger, deprivation and violence.

Because "there is no peace without justice and no justice if we do not realize that our "advanced" lifestyle is the result of centuries of exploitation of peoples and predation of resources that do not belong to us.

There is no need for this to turn into neo-luddites or to go back to the Middle Ages (remember somebody's statements about sending Iraq back to Middle Ages? Point made, I would say ..), but otherwise you can change our consumption, reduce waste and needs.

That does not automatically give us a better world but we will be on the right track to make possible a different world!"