ix

INTRODUCTION

Our world is threatened by the prospect of catastrophic changes that may occur as the result of present human behavior. A salient example is the progressive destruction or degradation of critical elements of the biosphere, such as rainforests, the ozone layer and agricultural land. Another example is our global preparation for nuclear (also chemical and biological) warfare. Our collective ability to avert these catastrophes is critically weakened by our deep political and cultural divisions, which reflect entrenched habits of thought and the perpetuation of historic injustices. Our world society remains poised on the brink of cataclysmic (and self-created) failure in its most fundamental task: that of preserving the global conditions for its own continued survival. Our power for destructive intervention is not subject to wise forms of control in which we can have complete confidence.

One of the most obvious and powerful facts confronting us as peace educators is the disparity between this large, global arena, and our own personal experience. Most people will feel powerless in the face of the threat of nuclear war, and similar global problems, because they feel a lack of effective information and possibilities of action. Peace education operates at a personal and face-to-face level, so that the limitations of what can be achieved at this level need to be consciously addressed.

Global problems affect us all as members of the one planetary habitat. I see little hope for the positive solution of these problems apart from a global approach that will embody our collective responsibility for their resolution. This defines our most basic educational and political tasks as being the creation and establishment of a sense of world community in which all people can recognize their membership, and the promotion of activities that make this world community a reality. This requires a realistic assessment of our present senses of identity and sub-global political loyalties, and a commitment to work actively with the challenge of this somewhat visionary agenda.

We can be grateful for the existence and achievements of the United Nations Organization, and many other international organizations, such as the World Council of Churches and our own World Student Christian Federation, while noting the continuing difficulties and constraints under which they work. We can also note

x

the availability to our generation of an unparalleled technology for peace, in the form of international communication and transport systems, while deploring the inadequacies and injustices that vitiate the effectiveness of their use. We inherit forms of power and influence that can contribute positively to the peace of our global society, just as we inherit baleful weapon systems, exploitative uses of technology and entrenched cultural antagonisms that threaten us with the collapse and possible extinction of human civilization.

Everywhere people ask: "What can I actually do?" The answer is as simple as it is disconcerting: we can, each of us, work to put our own inner house in order. The guidance we need for this work cannot be found in science or technology, the value of which utterly depends on the ends they serve; but it can still be found in the traditional wisdom of mankind. (E. F. Schumacher)¹

As Schumacher says, hope increases when we get our inner house in order. We need to acknowledge the disorder, collective as well as personal, that is there, and seek for order and peace. To do this, we must learn to listen to ourselves and to our world; and we need to have the courage to take responsibility for what we are and what we are choosing to become. In this way, inner change works outward into our lives and into our world, resisting those forces that foment destructive conflict. I am painfully aware that changes in individual lives rarely make a discernible impact upon world history; my point is that our individual lives provide the basis for what each of us can really contribute. It is a counsel of despair to look only at the vastness of the mountain to be climbed, and not to look at the path in front of us, and the resources we can carry.

The simple answer is that each of us can study peace, and can make peace through our living to the extent of our power; and that our power of influence and persuasion extends much farther than our coercive power. The hope that our world needs comes from our creative, visionary imagination backed up by action on our collective problems. Peace is made by people, exercising a variety of powers, who make creative responses to situations of conflict. When our conflicts are global in scope, our imaginations and our actions will need to stretch in order to relate to global issues; the origins of peace-making lie in the crucible of each person's inner imaginative life, but we also require outward networks and institutions, ambiguous as these can be, if inner visions of global peace are to become effective.

As an Australian citizen, I share responsibility for the continuance of our national commitment, however nervous, to providing useful facilities to the American war machine. I oppose this commitment because I oppose the continued development of the war machines that threaten global destruction.² While closing the joint American-Australian bases at the North-West Cape, Pine Gap and Nurrungar might reduce our national vulnerability as a nuclear target (and which would also relieve my personal anxiety for my brother and his family, who live at Alice Springs), I would want decisions to be

xi

based upon a positive commitment to world community. We could work to internationalize the bases, so that their global monitoring functions can contribute to the maintenance of world peace. This is an example of how we are all involved in this global problem, and how we can all find a" near edge" which can provide a focus for our creative reflection and action.

Our public life comes close to losing meaning when imagination is silent. Instead of incarcerating ourselves in gigantic institutions, we need to recover the human heart, which can somehow carry the pain of the world, and to restore the human face, which can spread peace. We need to see reality more fully and clearly, and we need to invent fresh responses to it. Working with images is of central importance for peace education (and for education in general) because images relate both to rational analysis and to our feelings, hopes and fears. We need an education that is able to raise questions about lifestyle, attitudes and cultural mores in a way that makes positive change possible; nothing less can deal with our deeply irrational propensities for violent and destructive conflict, for the irresponsible following of leaders, and for blindness of many kinds.

I take as a primary focus for this book the threat of global thermonuclear war, and our personal response to this threat (Chapter One). I do not believe that a satisfactory resolution of the nuclear arms race is possible without the creation of a new global sense of identity that can achieve more co-operative political, cultural and economic structures. Our experience confronts us with difficult general questions about peace (Chapter Two) and peace education (Chapter Three) which dig into half-forgotten aspects of our collective experience, and which can open ways to fresh perceptions and new directions for our living. One of my main concerns has been to understand those perceived necessities (whether inner or outer) that disempower people and make the choice for violence seem attractive.

I am persuaded that images offer understanding and illumination, and a way of working on the less rational and conscious aspects of our experience (Chapter Four), an area that has frequently defeated past programs for peace and peace education. I suggest that peace educators work with images as a way of discerning those questions that really trouble us; and that students be encouraged to discover the transformative power of positive images, as a resource for coping with threat and horror. Difficult images of reality, and hopeful images of peace, relate directly to our sense of personal meaning. Personal commitment to change is not something that we should give over into the keeping of others. Peace education requires personal commitment to a respectful dialogue with other people, whose experiences and views will differ, and to the responsible development of our own view.