鎌田ゼミ

Kamata Zemi

Essay

Peace Education
～the possibility of the peace education curriculum～

Introduction

　　　In this year 2001, it is said that this year is a year that rethinks about peace and culture in the United Nations General Assembly because UNESCO was decided by the United Nation to do take a lead to the International Decade. From this year, a lot of special events were held in this ten decade. (UNESCO,2001) In advance of this Assembly, we should focus on the peace and culture as following with the Unite Nations because we are convinced that we are peace because of forgot peace, in fact we are not.
　　　How many students or young men do they have conscience of the war history of not only Hiroshima and Nagasaki but also what we did in Asian people? Mr. Okamoto, who is a professor of peace philosophy and peace thought, said, “ Japanese people are too conscious of Atomic bomb and of course, it is good to try to stop Atomic bomb, but they forgot what they did in Asian country.” This statement is to the good point of this problem and my question. I did agreed with this professor, but the other people will say, “What did this professor say?” What is the reason of this sharp reaction against this question? Probably, we are indifferent of it because of forgot peace. It caused the problem of Japanese textbook on history between Korea and Japan, too. Moreover to say, we normally use the discriminated words to Asian pacific people as a result of WWⅡ.This discrimination came from such context of war history and it creates the consciousness of priority in the Asian countries like we are not Asian people, but we are. This consciousness is what we Japanese young men normally have. It makes a small tear in the Asian wall that we try to establish in the Asian safety net.
　　　According to this, if we recognized the damage of Hiroshima or Nagasaki, we　always cried out how we had been damaged by atomic bombs. We don’t consider or state the apology to Asian countries, but the saddest thing that we focus on now is that we are tending to forget even such a memory, war. To pretend such tend, we need to focus on passing the memory of the war down to the next generation as a way of education. To pass it down to the next generation, I think we need to establish the peace education curriculum. That is, I should suggest they establish peace education curriculum in the normal school curriculum, which is consisted with a various kinds of subjects such as philosophy, mathematics, sociology, physic, chemical, biology…etc.

The consciousness of historical problems

　　　Now that this year is passed 56 years after WWⅡ, and there is only little people that know the tragic memory, the real war. Thus, I should suggest that they include such a war story in the school curriculum not to forget realistic memories of the war.
　　　At the present day, even we don’t know about the war history partly because it was like a secret thing in the reason of the Defeated Country or it’s simply that we are not interested in such a timeworn memory. It is good even if this age is peaceful all the time. We are not focused on the conflicts, wars, something that is happened tragic all over the world. It seems that such a world is only in the TV shows or video games that we can do again and again if I only push a small buttom. I do remember what Japanese said when they saw the Gulf War on TV. Japanese said, “This war is like a video game that bullets fly past each. It’s so cool.” This statement shocked my brain so strongly. I was so disappointed the lack of War recognition about the image or history although there are no afraid of War normally if they live in Japan and I understand they are not living in the War ages.
　　　Moreover to say, probably in 2010 most people who experienced war will be died. There are only few people who pass down war history from generation to generation. It encourages that the shortage of understanding War history because normally the knowledge of war is created in the education from elementary school to junior high school expect having grandfather or grandmother who has experienced WW2. For instance, my grandfather was a member of Japanese navy when WWⅡ is happened. He always told me the tragedy of war. What I heard from my grandfather was so realistic, shocking, and sad that I couldn’t explain any of my memory. Only what I did remember was that my grandfather ran away from bullets coming from the enemies and he survived by running away with eating a lot of snakes in a small land, Papua New Guinea. This memory makes me remember the tragedy of the war very clearly in my brain. Therefore, It would be educated better than educated by schoolteacher, but there are only a few such people now as I said before.
　　　To get your eyes in the peace is not easy. Therefore, in the school curriculum we should also include not a history subject but a war history subject, especially World War history that we had already done something clue to the Asian countries as the main subject; Greater East Asia Co prosperity Sphere, Nan king Massacre.
　　　Did you know why the Greater East Asia Co prosperity Sphere was happened, why the Nan king Massacre was done and a lot of Chinese were raped and killed? Such questions show the lack of the recognition in war history among Japanese people. Why don’t Japanese recognize their history that they did? In my experience, this is not the whole ground for the solution to solve this problem, but it isn’t normally know in Japan. That is, the modern history on the world history in foreign country is ten times as much as that in Japan. In my experience, for instance, in Germany there are a lot of history classes in each grade. At first, they dichotomize world history and German history, as the second step, they divide each history into two category, that is, ancient history and contemporary history. What I learned was the ancient history of German till 20 century at that time, but I saw the textbook of contemporary history, which were as many pages as ancient one. It makes me surprised so much in that the number of a lot of pages. This is not main reason, but it should be considered more, but the main reason was on the recognition of defeating in war.
　　　After Meiji period, in the threat of western power on Asia, Japanese government wanted to establish their position to govern not only inside unification but also outside unification in the Asian. At that time, gradually in the Asia Pacific, there were a various kinds of colonized countries such as Philippins. Thus, Japanese government had a great threat for western power. Of course, there were international laws, but it was not functioned in the real world. Finally, they thought we should liberate Asian country from the domination of western country and establish the independent country in Asia. But it was real that to liberate Asian countries was impossible for Japan, compared with their power, therefore they thought” we should form an alliance with Asian countries and be independent with others in Asia. However, such thought is not the main goal, the hidden goal is to govern Asian countries, saying so and what is worse, it leads Japanese to Asianizm, what we call Greater East Asia Co prosperity Sphere. (Eizawa,2001,p5-ｐ20)
　　　Such process is normally ignored or hidden by history curriculum. In history curriculum, it is so complicated that there is little explanation on textbook. Moreover to say, it causes problems about the recognition of war history between China and Korea. There is Nan king Massacre on the date from December 4, 1937 to Mary 28, 1938. The victim of this incident was said to 300,000 people（Kasahara,1997,p23）, but this number is not correct because we can’t circulate the number of victims at this moment. This incident existed really and absolutely. So we must not deliberately false facts. We should recognized there are existed and proved by a lot of grounds even if Japanese government trying to say there were not. That must be learned in the school curriculum and as a next step; I would like to show the possibilities of peace moderator not only an abstract content but also a concrete one.

The possibilities of peace moderator

　　　As the aspect of concrete peace education, I would like to suggest the possibility of a peace moderator, who is a moderator to check the violent article in the Internet and a moderator try to edit the article as a peaceful article and moreover to say, I believe in the future peace moderators can go to from elementary school to university to spread peace points of views. Therefore, they can go to various kinds of school as something like a guest speaker or volunteer.
　　　In the day and age, there are a lot of newspapers to convey us a number of informations not to fail to keep up with fashion. You might be able to see a various number of vulgar advertising that encourages us to consume something good like. You absolutely can see such violent articles that drive us to make a crime. I really have strong misgivings about this structural and invisible violence in mass media now because it is so structural and invisible that no one can be conscious of these things. Such a way of reporting the truths called “ war journalism”. It is sure that mass media report the truth, but the problem is how they report the truth and what some influence we have if they report the truth by war means.
　　　Prof. Johan Galtung, who is a scholar of mathematics, sociology, peace, noticed this structural violence in Japan and said “ If you see the articles in Asahi newspaper, it occupied 98 % to be reported the truth by war means. Only 2 % of the articles are peace journalism, which means the way of report by peaceful means. Peace journalism is to see the articles in a lot of peaceful viewpoints, that is, non-violence, non-discrimination, the spiritual of equality, helpful…. etc. Peace journalism must be based on especially 4 major oriented, that is, peace, truth, people, solution-oriented. (Johan Galung, 2000,p.3)’ In my experience, I took seminar of peace journalism from him directly and really agreed with his opinion about structural violence, war and peace journalism, but to believe it or to convey it for people is very difficult, because normally such a statement is not acceptable for people and as I said before, only few people can recognize the structural and invisible violence in spite of reporting, furthermore probably they deny to accept such truths, grounds for that realities to be able to see are everything that they have been believe since the days that he can read newspapers. Thus, now it would be better to bring some examples to give proof of the existence of war journalism.
　　　For instance, if you look at sports column in every Japanese newspaper, there are maybe such statements in baseball team’ Giants’. That is that Giants is called ‘ kyojinngun’, which means Giants armies. It makes very correct points of war journalism. Moreover to say, if Matsui, who is a strong and famous player in Giants, blasts a home run in night games, the next day, there are newspapers that was written ‘ Atomic bobs was in the stadium’ with big letters in each newspapers. It’s really unbelievable for me because Japanese officially doesn’t encourage such war words. There is a lot of another article that demonstrates the existence of war journalism. Therefore, I should suggest needs of the experts on peace journalism to check war journalism and of education from elementary school to have peaceful points of views.
　　　But the difficult question is how can we know the border between the war and peace journalism and build the curriculum to be a peace moderator? It is not established or defined clearly, partly because where the border of peace and war is depended on individuals’ sense of ethic, so it is difficult to clarify the border and make a curriculum. However, only because that, we mustn’t say, “Peace moderators are dream or something difficult to make”. There is a peace moderator in fact. For example, on the Internet, the peace moderators exist in CPNN (CPNN,2000), though they are not for students, they are good examples for future peace education. CPNN means that people share the peaceful information as using the Internet and try to make peaceful community to interact all over the world. From this site you can find a lot of peaceful information that makes you peaceful. This is a designed of UNESCO as a plan and a relationship with the International year of a Culture of Peace. (CPNN, 2000)
　　　Thus such idea or school curriculum that makes peace moderator must be considered in Japanese government. If this possibility were realistic, a lot of students could have peace points of views though they live in the daily life. As a third step, I suggest more concrete peace subject and curriculum.

The subjects of peace education～theoretical and practical methods～

　　　What is included in the peace curriculum? It is very difficult questions, which are considered very much by a various kinds of professor and teachers, but I should suggest some good new subject, as we call, peace study.
　　　As a peace curriculum, there are a lot of possible courses or subjects that we can learn as a peace education. For example, as I said before, in the history: mainly war and peace history, in the biology, science, chemically: atomic bomb, in the mathematics: how to circulate food self-supporting ratio or something good to take statistics to be peace…etc. There are so different kinds of possible subjects to learn as a peace education, but what I would like to say now is that the main points of peace study is to learn how we can be peace, so we should suggest study how to resolve the conflict. Then, I would like to pick up some concrete example subject of peace study; resolving the conflict.
　　　To resolve the conflict is not easy to be done, but now before to think of resolving the conflict, please think of the question “Is the conflict to be resolved?” My answer is “No”. Partly because if we try to resolve the conflict as following the international law, the conflict is not resolved and either country has some opposition against this adjudegment. This occurred from the character of the law, which see things (issues) in black and white. It’s not so good for the conflict because both countries think strongly “ I am justice, the other one is not justice.” That is, each country have own dogged insistence, so we can’ t judge which is better and judge the validity of both dogged insistence. Thus, we don’t need such a law, but something organization, which try to find out the truth and make both countries reconciliation: for instance, in South Africa there was such a organization called Truth and Reconciliation Committee.
　　　But that is another story, from a fundamental point of view, the conflict is not to be resolved, but (I should suggest) to transcend. Transcend means something difficult to understand, but it means to beyond both goals. As I said before, each country has each goal and tries to accomplish these goals. The important thing on this point is to try to accomplish these two goals and find another new goal, which means “transcend”. However to transcend each goals, we must define a few things. At first, we must define two parties of the conflict, as the second step after defining the two parties, we must check both goals and try to judge whether there is the validity of two countries or not. Then as the third step, we try to find a new transcend goal. (Johan Galtung,1996)There are more possibilities (for example, Withdrawal, Compromise) to resolve conflict in this method, but to explain each method is beyond this essay.
　　　Moreover to say, we need not only theoretical one but also practical one. It means there are another practical theory, which is how to reconciliation in each level of conflict.
　　　For instance, the ways of reconciliation after violence are divided 12 ways. I can’t pick up all of these methods, but only one method is very interesting. That is the 12th “ho’o ponopono, which is something like Truth and Reconciliation Committee in South Africa. This way came from South Asia and the approach to resolve the conflict is really interesting. That is, as a first step the negotiator choose two parties and the others that were involved with two parties. Then negotiator try to make them say truth, which means the situation of this conflict or some kinds of information about this two parties. It took a lot of time to reconcile each other but it is good because after negotiation normally both parties have no disgust against each other. (Johan Galtung, 1996) That is really good way to reconciliation.
　　　Such kinds of theories (theoretical and practical)are not known in Japan and normally in Japan such theory was not learned and put such theory into practice. They only cried out such, as they are only victims of war. I disagree with such situation of Japan, which is not conscious of the other Asian countries Japanese had damaged so many times. Such kind of theory must be learned in peace study and must be changed, included in the school curriculum. It is difficult to pick up each subject to explain what kinds of parts there are in a various subjects of peace education.

Conclusion

　　　In conclusion, I should suggest that we must establish new school system for next century, which must be included peace study not to duplicate a mistake of 20th, WWⅠand Ⅱ. In this century, as I said before, there are a number of historical problems that might duplicate a mistake. However, what we get last century are technology and knowledge as the war is becoming bigger and bigger. Technology and knowledge were used good or bad by peaceful or violence means. Then, whether the world will be good or bad in the future is depended on individuals’ sense of ethic. Therefore, we must learn peace study to get peaceful individuals’ sense of ethic. In the future the world is depended on your sense. Please remember the world “ Love and Peace” in your heart.

Reference:

1. Unesco.2001.Retrieved May 31,2001from the World Wide Web: http://www3.unesco.org/iycp/uk/uk_F_sum2.htm
2. Eizawa, K. 1995 Daitouakyoeikenn no shisou
　　[translation:The thought of Greater East Asia CoprosperitySphere.] koudanshagendaibunko p5-ｐ20
3. Kasahara, T.1997 Nankindaigyakusatu [transition:NankingMassacre]Koudanshagendaibunko.p23
4. J. Galtung, Transcend.2000.Peace Journalism, P.3
5. The Culture of Peace News Network (CPNN) 2000.Retrived June 11, 2001 from the World Wide Web:
　　http://www.cpnn.org/about.html
6. J. Galtung, Peace By Peaceful Means (Conflict Transformation By Peaceful Means). 1996
7. J.Galtung, Peace By Peaceful Means (Reconciliation). 1996

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