Peace education: Learning to hate war,love peace,and to do something about it

Peace education should not be only general knowledge but conclude with something the students can do — as when health education leads to hygienic practices. For this to happen, our peace concepts have to come closer to the level at which people live, the local level. It is argued that this points to transarmament rather than disarmament; to defence based on local conventional defence, paramilitary units and non-military defence, rather than (or in addition to) negotiations among governments. It is also pointed out that this would lead to the building of less vulnerable societies from the bottom up. Less vulnerable societies would have great capacity for survival even in times of crisis, including warfare in the country itself, being thereby less susceptible to blackmail. The key to national invulnerability is local-level invulnerability. And a society organised with less dependency on national and international centres will also be a society less dependent on offensive weapons, concentrating more on defensive modes of security. Present and dominant modes of defence not only try to combine a high level of vulnerability with offensive weapons, but also operate at a level so far away from the ordinary citizen that he/she feels there is little else to do than just to be informed and perhaps to have strong opinions.