What Young people Can Do
By Scilla Elworthy
Founder and Chair of the Oxford Research Group
Founder of the Peace Direct

I want to talk to you about just how bad things are in the world, how we here in the developed world are often the cause of how bad things are, and what can be done.

In his report "A Secure Europe in a Better World" Xavier Solana, EU High Representative for Common Foreign Policy, wrote as follows:

"Almost 3 billion people, half this world's population, live on less than 2 Euros a day [... roughly ￡1.30 or $2.50]. 45 million continue to die every year out of hunger and malnutrition. Sub-Sahara Africa is poorer now than it was 10 years ago. In many cases, the failure of economic growth has been linked to political problems and violent conflict. In some parts of the world, notably Sub-Sahara Africa, a cycle of insecurity has come into being. Since 1990, almost 4 million people have died in wars, 90% of them civilians. Over 18 million people have left their homes or their countries as a result of conflict" ..."

More and more economists are coming to the conclusion that the deeper causes of this situation lie in global rather than local policies: governmental support for a massive worldwide trade in weapons, encouragement of an obsession with consuming - consuming resources, energy, always wanting more new things - and economic policies that penalise poorer countries.

If we look deeply, we discover that ultimately these policies are causing conflict. And yet, ordinary people all over the world are doing something about these huge problems. In our research into more than 200 conflicts worldwide, we found that in every conflict, there are people brave enough to take the difficult and dangerous path of peace-building, rather than pick up an AK 47. It is a privilege for me to tell you about some of them.

Fifteen years after her father was killed in the bombing of the British Conservative Party Conference in 1984, Jo Berry decided to go and meet Patrick MaGee, the man who planted the bomb. She had the courage to reconcile with him. Now they work together to build bridges between those who have suffered in the troubles in N. Ireland - the victims and the perpetrators.

As we speak, there are groups of people in the midst of the violence in Afghanistan, in Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo), even in Iraq, who are risking their lives to prevent other people from getting killed. They are mediating, building bridges between communities, confiscating guns, resolving disputes and protecting the vulnerable. The trouble is, most of these people are completely unsupported and are in danger of giving up through lack of resources.

At the same time, there are all over the world many people who are fed up with war as a way of sorting out conflict, who want peaceful solutions, but don't know what they can do to help. We have set up Peace Direct to offer people a 'bite-sized' piece of the problem of war, by putting them directly in touch with a group of peacemakers in an area of conflict. These 'twinned groups' can learn from each other: those in the west can offer backing in the form of getting media coverage for their 'unarmed hero' friends, sourcing resources (such as mobile phones, or a video camera to record atrocities), helping to change the policies of our own government, or simply sending a weekly postcard of support.

Peace Direct has linked conflict resolution workers in the most violent areas of DR Congo with an individual in London who has helped to raise funds towards a conflict resolution centre in DR Congo.

We are raising money to enable the Headmaster and two students from the City Montessori School in Lucknow to come to the UK to open a dialogue in cities like Bradford and Oldham, discussing how they managed to calm inter-racial and inter-religious violence in the city of Lucknow after the Ayodhya mosque was destroyed in 1992.

We have connected up a website designer in Wales with a network of conflict resolution practitioners in Africa to enable them to build and develop their website, thereby facilitating the sharing of their experience and skills.

So what can we do?

First, understand what we really mean by the term 'non-violence':

In combat you may risk your life to kill others; in non-violence you may risk your life so that no one else will be killed. This requires rigorous training and deep conviction; the effect it has on violent, cruel or angry people is more powerful than more violence. It affects them at a profound level. It is the force of Satyagraha, developed by Gandhi and entirely successful in driving the British out of India. The practitioner renounces the use of force, voluntarily and on principle, and replaces it with determination combined with compassion, combined with courage.

This is the power Martin Luther King taught and used to vast effect in de-segregating the deep South. It is what Aung San Suu Khi used when she walked unarmed straight up to the machine guns of Burmese soldiers who had been ordered to shoot the demonstrators she led. It is what Nelson Mandela developed during 27 years in jail and used to prevent a civil war in South Africa on his release. It was the power behind the 'Velvet Revolution', which brought down the Iron Curtain. It was the power that deposed President Marcos in the Philippines, General Pinochet in Chile and Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia.

Professor Michael Nagler, founder of the University of California Peace and Conflict Studies programme, estimates that nearly one third of the world's people have practised some form of non-violence, or 'life force', for the redress of grievances:

'This is the concept of 'people power'. The idea is that the power of an aroused populace is greater than the power of the state, since the state depends on the consent and the cooperation of its citizens. And when citizens rise up, as they notoriously did in the Philippines twice in recent memory, the state is powerless to stop them. But people power is only the tip of the iceberg. The real non-violence, in my understanding, is person power. That is, the power of the single individual.'

That's you. I know that you've been born into a tough world. But you also have a fantastic opportunity - an opportunity most young people don't have - to talk. To understand the world from the other person's point of view. To step for a moment or two into their shoes, and see the world as they see it. This way you bring about change. This way you'll be a change-maker. This way you'll refuse to do what the media and the culture want you to do, which is to do what you're told and live in fear and learn to hate. This way you'll become what we call an 'Unarmed Hero' and I hope you'll be in the next volume of this book. This way you will make the world a safer and happier and better place than the world you were born into.

Before I finish, let me say one more thing about nonviolence. It requires of those who practice it, from whatever religious or cultural background they may come, an extraordinary commitment. It requires serious learning, which is now available, it requires practice, and devotion; most of all it requires the transformation of ourselves. We have to look deeply into our own anger, our aggressiveness and our fear. It's as hard as training for the Olympics. And the results are no less rewarding. When you meet real peace-makers, they are radiant. They radiate an inner spaciousness, a joy and a power that is greater than any weapon. That power is yours if you want it.

Scilla Elworthy is founder of Peace Direct, and founder and Chair of Oxford Research Group, established in 1982 to develop effective methods whereby people can bring about positive change on issues of global and local security by non-violent means. Previously she was a consultant at UNESCO on women's issues, a director of Minority Rights Group in France and has worked for ten years in southern Africa. In May 2003 she was awarded the Niwano Peace Prize and has three times been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Peace Direct: http://www.peacedirect.org/
The Oxford Research Group: http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/