The first chapter of a book I read recently mentioned that while we can talk of many different types of “war” (international war, civil war, cold war, etc), we can only talk about “peace” in the singular form. In other words, we can talk about ”wars” but not of “peaces”. So the challenge, the authors of the book suggested, is to envision different ways of creating and experiencing peace.
Later in class, someone mentioned that we talk more about war than about peace because war seems to be more exciting, full of action, adventure and adrenaline. Peace, on the other hand, is usually conceived as static, calm, quiet, maybe even boring and dull. Now the question is, how do such perceptions of violence, war and peace affect the way we live day by day? How do they influence our understandings of world affairs?
I think, for example, of the way our entertainment is full of reference to violence and harm. We start with “innocent” things such as jokes about harming others (either physically or verbally) or funny videos of people being hurt (whether intentionally or not), but then we have hundreds of TV series and movies that make violence and war appear funny, meaningless, just a game. In our day to day lives, violence and war are fun; peace is boring.
The challenge of envisioning many types of “peaces” is indeed difficult as our lives are full with references to violence (even if “it is only a joke”). But peace does not have to be boring. Sure, there can be some types of peaces that are less appealing to some. But we can certainly be at some kind of peace and enjoy ourselves. We can be at peace and still laugh and have a good time. I mean, we can, right?
I guess the real challenge comes in times of conflict. Can we think of ways of resolving conflict that do not require violence and aggression? In our daily interactions, can we think of ways of relating to each other that are in essence peaceful? We have become so used to violence that we usually think it is ok to use harmful words and aggressive behavior in our interactions among each other. But is it necessary? Is the only way?
It is no secret that peace is hard to establish and maintain. Will we take the challenge to, in our daily lives, choose peace above violence? As long as we don't choose peace, it will be hard to imagine then end of violence in bigger levels, like in cases of state violence and international wars. Peace is our choice.
