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Peace Pledge

Peace as an end state of individual and international relations is widely accepted as desirable, yet peace remains elusive. Although it is easy to condemn wanton attacks upon the unwitting and the peaceable, whether that violence occurs at the individual, group, or world level, what is more challenging is the commitment to bring about an end to all violence, including the many harms of racism in all its guises. Such a discipline as a commitment to the eradication of violence is not a task for the faint of heart; it is a monumental challenge. This entry presents a device—the peace pledge—that has been employed toward the cultivation of peace in various different forms and discusses its current and potential use in the amelioration of harm resulting from all forms of social injustice, such as racism.

Peace

Most people understand peace to be an absence of war or conflict. This usage often is referred to as “negative peace,” as when two nations—or two spouses—are not in a state of formalized conflict. Alternatively, “positive peace” is used to describe a state of existence free from oppression, exploitation, patriarchy, racism, and class struggle and characterized by acceptance, love, mutuality, freedom, equity, equanimity, and liberation. The common view has been that the degree to which a culture can be described as positively peaceful is the degree to which that culture is likely to be without war.

Cultural positive peace, according to Johan Galtung, results from a de-legitimization of violence in its many forms (e.g., direct, structural, cultural) and a legitimization of nonviolence as a means for conflict resolution. Examples of direct (verbal) violence include the use of racist labels for people or hurling racial epithets at an individual. Biases designed into or existing in the justice system that, intentionally or not, treat or affect individuals of different races differently are examples of structural violence. Religious teachings that separate races and treat some races as less deserving than others of spiritual merit or forgiveness are examples of cultural violence. It should be clear, then, that racism in its myriad forms is an example of violence and that the general level of violence in a society may well play a role in that society's overall safety and health.

The Pledge

All people have a stake in the cultivation of peace, both positive and negative. A peace pledge is one useful tool employed on occasion in the cultivation of positive peace. Such a pledge is simply a series of statements that an individual formally adopts as a symbol of a personal commitment to peace. Although simple, even naive in appearance, the power of the peace pledge should not be understated. According to many peace activists, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Thich Nhat Hanh, and Mohandas K. Gandhi, the basis of lasting peace is a deep personal commitment to peace on the part of each individual. The peace pledge is both an outward sign of commitment to others and a reminder to the individual of what one must do to help realize the dream of lasting, positive peace. Often, the pledge is printed on a card or document and carried around with the individual as a reminder of its contents and as a symbol of one's pledge.

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