In memory of Luisa Fernanda Solarte
Who will always be in our hearts .

Peace and word

A long look at the history of humanity gives us cause for optimism in that always, at times of great upheaval, of crisis and war, windows of sanity open, voices of love are raised and men and women who refuse to believe that killing is the answer come forward. For the great majority of people, life is sacred. If, as Elena Poniatowska says in the prologue to the book Words of Peace,

"In 3000 years humanity has only managed to live for thirteen days without war",

we should see those thirteen days as an oasis of optimism where humanity can find the key to peace. The murders of Ghandi, Martin Luther King and many unknown pacifists demonstrate that, for the people of violence, to be a pacifist is one of the most threatening stances to take. It seems that pacifist action calls into question the very essence of the aggressive spirit. This is perhaps what lies behind the attempt to silence those who understand solidarity and love.

But if weapons, silence and death are the means of oppression, then words, used as the expression of reason and the essence of human communication, are for pacifists the only path towards life as a community, as a society.

Humans can be united by language. Only dialogue will help us to discover a pacifist society, a society without violence. We cannot go on seeing the killing of so many as an acceptable part of human behaviour. To accept this is to eliminate at a stroke any possibility of living humanely.

Pain gives rise to hate, the desire for revenge or resignation. But it can also generate another impulse. A pacifist force must emerge, one capable of moving those who use violence. A force with no weapons other than words. The person who takes up arms rejects words, rejects politics, rejects peace. If men and women fight for justice, that fight must be peaceful, it must be political. Respect for human dignity must come before violent struggle. Respect for the life of a single person is respect for humanity.

The failure to preserve human dignity is a political failure. It begins with the imposition of the opinions and interests of one set of people on another, with a political attitude that considers others - other communities, other cultures- as being of less value. This absence of recognition for other cultures is already a reality which threatens human dignity; it provides the soil where the seed of genocide grows and where oppression is nurtured.

Discovering a pacifist society

Discovering the route to a pacifist society may be as distant prospect as its creation, but the right to life and justice are not just part of a utopian vision- they are human duties that should not be neglected-. They need to be built collectively: without lies, without force. A just society cannot have oppression, the loss of freedom or the use of arms as founding principles. If we take up arms to create a state based on the premise of armed struggle, it will inevitably result in endless war.

Just as life must not be violated, so justice cannot be postponed. The just course is to move towards the society we desire through a process of agreement. That is not what the people of violence want. The just course must be to find intelligent ways of respecting other people, with other religions and different ways of living and dreaming. To silence differences is to establish the rule of force, which is the rule of injustice, slavery and oppression.

It is inhuman to believe that our liberty can be achieved by enslaving those who do not think as we do. The reduction of the world to a single political, social or cultural vision or a single hegemony, increases the chances of disaster and is a declaration of war on reason. It is a battle between those who wish to take humanity back to the caves and those of us who believe that human and animal life are the true wealth of this small planet.

We need to pay intense and critical attention to the educational assumption that holds up ambition as the source of success. He re we can find the roots of many of the evils that overwhelm us. Competition between human beings leaves a huge number stranded having failed to reach the humblest of goals. Millions die of hunger in the countries of the south, millions die violently surrounded by fear and hate in pointless conflicts and many commit suicide believing that death is better than life. Millions live in abject poverty so that a few thousand people can enjoy an artificial paradise built with money.

It is not enough to think that peace is simply the absence of violence and death. It is much more: it is the context for a political life and culture that recognise conflicts and set out to resolve them by agreement. Peace is the recognition of human rights in their very broadest sense, encompassing both the inviolable and sacred right to life and the right of everyone to education and health. We must not only understand but also accept that the struggle to achieve human rights cannot be violent. It is contradictory to kill and abuse other human beings in the name of justice. A sincere and intelligent debate is needed to find the best path to a just society. Not simply society at a local level but more urgently, a global society whose development is driven by justice.

This planet is plagued by hunger and the thirst of power. Perhaps the latter causes the former. Hoe can we hope that technological advances will save us from poverty when these advances are fed by a culture of ambition and competition? Development should not be realised on the basis of such a culture; it should be driven instead by solidarity and liberty, or it will condemn us to unequal and unjust growth. It is not just a question of finding a balance between production and consumption.

Although it seems a cruel paradox, the acceleration of technological advance appears to widen still further the gulf between the rich and poor and also to encourage the desire of some peoples to subjugate others. The pointless fiction of the opulent society promotes an unsustainable idea of consumption and exploitation. Man seems to have triumphed as an inventor and failed as a human being. Our capacity for invention elevates our species and yet we are defeated in the attempt to treat our peers justly.

Life is not nourished by inhumane principles -the defeat or humiliation of another person should leave a bitter taste in our mouths. In spite of the apparent contradiction, victory cannot give us peace of mind just as defeat should not bring an end to our resistance. Our failures should teach us how to find a way forward without trampling on others, without leaving a trail of human destruction. We first need to understand other's people's pain and from there begin the construction of what the Dali Lama proposes as sanctuaries of peace, spaces where nature and other people are respected.

The principle behind our actions and the pillar supporting life as a community must be respect. When we respect others we do not abuse their trust, we don't break the loyalties created by friendship, we don't use words as a means of seduction and political demagogy. A pacifist frame of mind forces us to respect our day to day commitment to other people, the commitment between parent and child, between neighbours and friends. If we mistreat a fellow human being it is a significant event that cannot be dismissed. The betrayal of a friend can cause an irreparable rift. The discovery of the means of building a pacifist society involves accepting humanism as a guiding principle. Humanism and pacifism are closely related and work together against violence.

But life is not straightforward and sometimes our desires and our principles do not coincide. Our spirits dream of freedom but daily life is full of temptations and traps that continually push us away from the path of pacifism.