A Book, About Peace Education

I got the idea of writing a book when I finished my Masters Education in Human Rights and Peace Education at Universidad Nacional in San José, Costa Rica, 2006. I felt that I wanted to share my knowledge about culture of peace, and peace education with more people. I wanted to challenge the common opinion of what peace is, and inspire people to critically examine the society in which we live.

At the time I didn’t know that it all would end up in a book called Mosquito Tactics or that it were to be published through the organisation CISV Sweden. But the fact that it turned out the way it did is something that I am very happy about, and proud of today. I hope that it will become useful to you, and that you keep it and re-use it when you need inspiration.

Mosquito Tactics is created by a large international editorial team, and it’s inspired from my Master Thesis. Within this editorial team we have shared ideas, knowledge, thoughts and experiences. We have been working intensively from different parts of the world to make this book a reality. We met a couple of times in Stockholm and Landskrona in Sweden, but most of the work has been carried out, with lots of commitment and goal directed work, through conversations over the phone, chat and e-mail. Our editorial team consists of committed members of CISV, but also a hired journalist, a translator, an illustrator, a printer and a photographer.

The book is divided into four parts. To start with, we present a number of concepts. Later in the book we show how you can use them in different projects and activities. You’ll find the main text of Mosquito Tactics on the white pages. On the blue pages we present four people that we feel are important contributors of knowledge since they have played an important role for peace education and culture of peace globally. The yellow sections has activities taken from, amongst others, CISV’s activities. The black pages are an introduction to different peace education projects. Lastly, in the orange pages of the book, we describe in short how CISV works for peace.

We have chosen to leave some pages in the book completely blank. We hope you’ll write and contribute to these pages. That is really the main goal of Mosquito Tactics – to get more people committed and interested in creating sustainable peace.

/ Rodolfo Zúñiga, Vice President, CISV Sweden and
Project Manager, Mosquito Tactics

Sweden, July 2009

Mosquito tactics talks to Dalai Lama about peace education.

Mosquito tactics had the opportunity to be present when his highnes Dalai Lama held his speech about peace in Raykjavik, Island. The question we asked was:

Is peace education important? And on which level should it be implemented, on an elementary level or as a university course?

–Well, I think that in the schools of the modern society we pay too much attention on the development of our intellect and forget about the importance of on teaching about morality, ethics and compassion. We should focus more on the significance of having a good heart, then automaticly we will educate our students about the importance of being a kind person. Our own hearts and the compassion within them are important for creating a positive way of thinking, for creating a happy family, happy communities and happy individuals.

When you say peace education I would like to respond with saying that the use of the word non-violence is better than the word peace even thou they both have the same meaning. This because the word non-violence has a stronger impact and expresses an action of compassion. With more love and compassion attitudes and actions change into being non-violent.

Whether one uses non-violence or violence is very much based on the motivation behind the act. With a negative motivation the use of nice words and a smile can be an act of violence because your motivation behind the act is to cheat and maybe even harm someone else. On the other hand good parents and teachers sometimes have to take some harsh actions in order to help their children and students. Harsh words that appear as violent may be non-violente because the motivation behind the act is one of compassion made out of sence of concern.

Non-violence and compassion are acually ancient indian thoughts, so therefore I consider myself as an messenger of ancient indian thought.

At one occasion I met with George W. Bush while he was the president of the United States. I told him “I love you, but I don’t agree with some of your policies”. This is a good example of an act of non-violence.

We should promote the concept of non-violence and teach our students how to get such an attitude that as soon as they see a conflict they'll emediately respond on solving the problem with a dialog. And this should be tought right from the beginning, in the kindergaden.

Thanks to Hanna Mia Brekkan Jonstam (NJR, CISV Sweden) for asking the question.

Work in progress... (5): Youth Meeting in Nairobi

Work in progress... (4): “Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?”

/ Andre Malraux

Work in progress... (3)

Work in progress... (2)

Mosquito camp!

For those of you with a good memory you might remember when we told you that CISV Mölndal were hosting the first ever Mosquito camp.

The camp is now over and was a great success!

Joanda, one of the staffs, kept a blog where she wrote about what they were up to. If you are interested in knowing more about this check the blog out here: http://www.cisv.se/blogg/joanda-svenheden

(you need to either speak swedish or be good friends with http://translate.google.com)