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Local and national NGOs dedicated to culture of peace
Among the thousands of non-governmental organizations working for peace, many are adopting the culture of peace as their explicit priority.
In France, the organization Les Amis d'une Ecole de la Paix � Grenoble has launched a book series on the culture of peace. In announcing the series, they write:
'It must be shown that the adventure of peace is worth being attempted. Without attempting to avoid different points of view, this collection invites men and women engaged in action, research or power to draw lessons from their experience and express themselves on the steps that they believe necessary today to best construct a world of peace. We are, in effect, at a moment of great change in the world and not the least of these is the difficult passage from a culture of war to a culture of peace.'
Also in France the organization Mouvement de la Paix has engaged one hundred French and foreign graphic artists to contribute posters to the exhibition '1995: for a Culture of Peace'. The resultant exhibition will tour France and other countries in conjunction with international organizations, local communities and cultural centres.
In Spain the NGO Gernika Gogoratuz hosted in April 1995 an International Convention on Culture and Peace. The convention linked the message of UNESCO's Culture of Peace Programme with Gernika as a symbol of reconciliation and with grass roots peace efforts from Colombia, Chiapas Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Northern Ireland and the Basque Country of Spain. The Convention addressed four themes: humanizing conflict; the reconciliation horizon (see box); the transformation of ethics which support and justify violence; and the influence, function and responsibility of the media in the evolution and outcome of conflicts.
The reconciliation horizon
(excerpts)
In the world today, there is a longing for reconciliation, both on a social and an individual level, based upon people's understanding of the need to build the future on an acceptance of close contact with other people from whom they have been cut off by terrible injuries, wounds, fears and hatreds...
A peace culture should offer a reconciliatory environment in which, over time, those who have been injured can realise the ultimate futility of vengeance and look towards the future together with the perpetrators of the injury and look back at the past without hostility...
Reconciliation must firstly be prepared to wait until the work of justice is fulfilled, secondly inspire that work, and thirdly stand back from its execution. It is fundamental to peace which, without it is precarious and with it, replete...
It is rich in symbols and mysterious but has been proved possible beyond a shadow of a doubt, by the testimonies of reconciliation, both between people and between nations.
There are examples of horizons of reconciliation in Ireland, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Lebanon, the Basque Country and many other countries.
From the approach of Gernika Gogoratuz as explored by the 1995 International Convention on Culture and Peace
It must be shown that the adventure of peace is worth being attempted. It is a moment of great change in the world including the difficult passage from a culture of war to a culture of peace.