Peace-Keeping, Building and Making

While peace keeping involves imposing some order and enforcing separation of parties to an armed conflict, peace making refers to the process of bringing them to some agreement. Peace building goes further and looks at implementing agreements and building political, economic and social structures that enhance the capacity for peace. Such an approach to peace calls for new partnerships between government agencies, military forces, civil society, international organisations and non-governmental organisations.

Identity, Memories, Trust, Guilt, Forgiveness, Denial, And Victimhood In The Reconciliation Of Intergroup Conflict: Evidence From Northern Ireland.

As the conflict in Northern Ireland stutters to an end after 30 (or 300) years of suffering, one thing has become apparent, which may be of help to other societies facing similar problems. Traditional politics alone can only lead so far down the road to reconciliation. Politics can deal with the concrete issues involved in intergroup conflict, in particular issues of power, demography, and economics.

However, beneath the surface of many intergroup conflicts lie many more symbolic or psychological problems that remain untouched by traditional politics. Many of these involve issues of identity that in turn are bound up with memories of the past and lead to a mistrust between the two groups. Further, part of that mistrust may be because one or both of the groups may invoke denial to protect their present identity. This in turn raises questions about collective guilt and indeed about intergroup forgiveness.

Fortunately attempts to understand these phenomena, both individually and in their relationships with each other, are underway in Northern Ireland, and will be reviewed in this paper.
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This presentation will focus on the spirit that moves some peace-makers and their actions. It is not about religions, although some religions have long histories of peace-making, nor is it a 'hard-sale' tactic for any particular religion. It is however, an opportunity for those whose commitment to peace-making/peace-building has a spiritual core to come together to hear from each other as well as from the presenter.

We will explore questions such as: What are the spiritual foundations of a commitment to peace? How do I work for peace in my everyday life? How do my spiritual beliefs inform my work for peace?
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Moral Courage: Key Concepts In Development Of Local Capacity For Conflict Transformation. Analysis Of Social, Individual And Community Roles In The Development Of Actions Of Moral Courage.

In the area of contemporary responses to protracted conflict and complex humanitarian emergencies there is a need to move beyond traditional statist diplomatic solutions. The development of strategies for conflict transformation which engage all levels of the affected population, support local capacities and address psychosocial issues show the highest potential for conflict transformation (Lederach1997, Spence 2001).

The work of Peace Brigades International has a twenty-year history of delivering peace-building in a strategic framework suitable for dealing with contemporary conflicts. Key aspects of Peace Brigades strategies are (1) Insertion at local level. (2) Peace-building work based on the Gandhian conception of conflict transformation, openness, trust building and dialogue across all levels and aspects of a conflict. (3) Support for local actors who have the capacity to transform a conflict. (4) Use of powerful international networks to bring pressure to bear on actions at the local level of conflict. (5) Moral encouragement of actors experiencing repression and violence.

The area of moral encouragement is a key concept in the work of Peace Brigades and is the focus of research undergirding the ideas presented in this paper. Since its inception in 1983, Peace Brigades central strategy has been the provision of accompaniment to threatened actors attempting to organise social action towards resolution of a conflict.

Actors who continue to work for change in spite of threats and repression show moral courage. These individuals become central agents of conflict transformation. The research attempts to analyse social, community and individual characteristics that support courageous individual actions. Initial research has shown that moral courage is not one action but a set of tasks that are required for continuance of action under threat of brutality. The frameworks for discussion potentially provide a source of conflict analysis as well as pathways for developing support for moral courage development at local levels. The key tasks are:

Recovery from trauma.
Dealing with loss and grief.
Creation of a sustaining vision that is different to the surrounding reality.
Finding a way to have a voice and not be complicit with what is happening.
Finding of pathways that create a sense of safety.

Contemporary agency practice has tended to focus on the victim status of the affected population and led to the undermining of actual local capacities. Historical evidence supports the view that populations in the midst of violence have an actual capacity for tremendous courage and resilience. Discussion will revolve around the following issues:

Examination of field experiences of local capacity for courage and resilience.
The role of moral encouragement as a key INGO pathway.
Real and perceived capacities of affected populations.
Development of strategic frameworks for conflict intervention that supports local capacities in this area.

Like many other societies that have dealt with the question of how to achieve closure of a past oppression while simultaneously working toward national reconstruction and reconciliation, South Africa turned to the concept of a truth commission. Testimony constituted the central mechanism in the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) process. This presentation reflects on the use of testimony as a mechanism for psychological healing. With reference to studies that analyzed transcripts from public hearings of the TRC and transcripts from interviews with key role-players, multiple understandings of healing are identified. The presentation points to key questions about the relationship between individual healing and national reconciliation.
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Justice Or Rhetoric: What Was Achieved During The Ten Years Of The Australian Reconciliation Process?

In 1991, the Australian Commonwealth Parliament unanimously enacted legislation that instituted a ten-year process of reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. The process was to conclude in 2001 with the centenary of the foundation of the Commonwealth of Australia.

This paper examines this ten-year reconciliation process. Firstly, it briefly explores the political background to the 1991 legislation and argues that the failure of the Hawke Government to keep its commitments to Indigenous people on national land rights and a treaty impacted upon the Government then advocating for a policy of reconciliation, a policy that at the time, was not being advanced by Indigenous people. Secondly, the paper argues that the three broad goals of the reconciliation process - namely educating the broad Australian community about reconciliation and Indigenous issues, improving the socio-economic conditions of Indigenous people, and investigating the desirability of developing some form of document of reconciliation - were predominately not achieved by the end of the process in 2001. Thirdly, the paper explores reasons why the ten years of reconciliation failed to both address its goals, and more importantly, failed to substantially contribute towards providing justice to Indigenous people. It argues that the emphasis on nationalism within the reconciliation debate, with its ignoring of issues such as sovereignty; and the narrow focus of the second goal on social-economic issues, rather than broader notions of justice, both contributed to this overall failure.
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Being "UN-Australian": Preserving Human Security Through Civil Society Action From Native Title Extinguishment, The Tampa, Woomera And Iraq.

Australian society has seen significant social and political changes in the past number of years. The increasing National Security discourse promulgated by the Government in the "War on Terror" has further encroached upon the human security of those living in Australia and those who arrive here seeking asylum. The human rights treaties and multilateral agreements that Australia is a party to have been severely strained and criticisms of the Government have emerged from monitoring agencies and several branches of the UN. However this process of the erosion of the rights and security of Australians pre-existed the events of September 11 and although they gain increasing justification by the securitisation discourse, this erosion has gathered momentum since the extinguishment of Native Title in 1998. As the State has sought to redefine and solidify it's definitions of sovereignty, through concepts such as "border protection", there has been opposition through community and human rights groups which have attempted to preserve human rights and human security. The actions and advocacy which many Australian's have undertaken have filled the media and social spaces with debate and also accusations by politicians of being "Un-Australian" by dissenting. This paper and presentation describes and examines these events chronologically and the strategies and effects of the actions of Australian civil society actions of engaging the wider population and preserving human security.
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Nonviolent Protective Accompaniment - The Work Of Peace Brigades International In Making Space For Peace & Nonviolent Community Safety.

Peace Brigades International (PBI) is a unique grassroots, non-partisan human rights organisation that maintains international teams of volunteers in areas of conflict around the world. For over twenty years, PBI has worked to protect the lives of individuals, organisations and communities threatened with human rights abuses and political repression. PBI currently has over ninety volunteers serving it's four projects in Colombia, Indonesia, Mexico and Guatemala.

Upon request, PBI volunteers provide what is called nonviolent protective accompaniment for local human rights workers, trade unionists, Indigenous activists, church leaders, and communities who live and work amid extreme political violence and repression. PBI volunteers literally walk beside threatened activists thereby reducing the likelihood that armed actors will carry out their threats. Nonviolent protective accompaniment is an increasingly sophisticated peace-keeping methodology that combines the deterrence of a international, non-partisan nonviolent third-party presence with the moral encouragement provided when activists under threat are physically accompanied by another person.

But the effectiveness of nonviolent protective accompaniment is not just due to the physical presence alongside threatened activists, something that is dangerously misunderstood by mainstream interpretations and by recent 'ad hoc' protective initiatives such as the 'Human Shields' in Iraq.

The effectiveness of nonviolent protective accompaniment relies on a thorough analysis of threat and conflict, the development and maintenance of a complex network of political deterrence and an intimate assessment of the perceived and actual impact that such deterrence has on all of the actors involved. PBI's protective presence is also backed up by an immense international support network that is judiciously applied. As more and more international peace teams and projects place volunteers in conflict zones around the world, a thorough understanding of how a nonviolent protective presence is applied is crucial.

The presentation will describe PBI's development and application of this highly effective tool for peace and describe protective accompaniment theory based on PBI's experience working in areas of repression and violence. It will also place PBI's work in the context of the growing worldwide use of citizen peace teams and cross-border nonviolent interventions, providing an outline to assess and evaluate the effectiveness of such initiatives.
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Nonviolent Community Safety: Safe and Effective Nonviolent Interventions in Aggression and Violence

An exciting development in many parts of the world is the application of nonviolent peace-keeping and peace-building skills and concepts in the context of local community conflicts and violence. This participatory workshop aims to explore some of the skills and concepts of nonviolent interventions in violent or unsafe situations that many people commonly find themselves in. The workshop draws from the experience and training program of the Melbourne based group, Pt'chang, a unique all-volunteer organisation that fields peace-keeping and safety teams, legal observer teams and provides training in these skills to communities throughout Australia.

Many skills and concepts that Pt'chang uses in nonviolent peace-keeping have been developed, tried and tested in the context of international armed conflict or war, but can usefully be applied within local, smaller scale conflicts present in local communities, cities and urban centres. In this way, nonviolent peace-keeping skills are used by Pt'chang within an overall 'nonviolent community safety' approach.

Nonviolent Community Safety, essentially, brings peace-building approaches together with community development and social activism to form empowering, nonviolent community building approaches to creating safety in local communities.

Nonviolent Community Safety describes approaches to safety that are community initiated and controlled. It is much more of an 'opening-up' and community building process than the common 'lock-up' and isolating 'power-over' responses to safety that tend to dominate in our society. The annual 'Reclaim The Night' marches Aboriginal Night Patrols and the many Lesbian and Gay anti-violence street patrols are just some contemporary examples of effective nonviolent community safety initiatives.

Nonviolent peace-keeping at a community level can be a powerful way of creating safety, intervening in and resolving conflict, interrupting actual violence and controlling our own space. It uses strategies and methods that are safe, effective, creative, empowering, non-heroic, and that do not escalate the overall level of violence or victimisation. It can be used by individuals in many contexts but also used by trained and co-ordinated groups of people in situations that are particularly unsafe or when conflict, violence or repression is anticipated.
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Two local government panels, with representatives from the City of Melbourne, Ballarat City Council, City of Whitehorse and Darebin City Council, will profile the role of local government in issues of peace and reconciliation and building partnerships with community groups such as Reconciliation Victoria and ANTaR (Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation) will also be discussed. Local governments from all over Victoria and community groups have been invited to participate in these discussions and related conference activities.

Councillor Risstrom will discuss the City of Melbourne's Indigenous Reconciliation project and his experiences campaigning for Refugee justice. The City of Melbourne will also be represented by Councillors Kitching and Redwood.
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Notions of reconciliation and peace in a still colonial nation like Australia will always be a 'whitewash' until our 'terra nullius' epistemology is deconstructed. Terra nullius is more than a racist colonial legal fiction, it is a way of seeing and knowing and it best describes the inability of non-Indigenous people to deal with the unfinished business of the reconciliation process. The non-Indigenous are blind and deaf to the stories and perspectives of the Indigenous peoples of this land because of terra nullius. Terra nullius is an infection and both the Indigenous and non-Indigenous need to be healed of this sociological disease. It is not simply a question of how to decolonise the Indigenous peoples of the land, the task is also to decolonise the colonisers. The non-Indigenous are sick because we are addicted to our 'white privilege'. Decolonising begins with asking the questions and raising the consciousness of the colonisers. In this way we can enter into a process of exorcism - exorcising terra nullius from our political bodies and our body politic.
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Reconciliation Discourses In South Africa: The Fate Of Reconciliation Post T.R.C.

Reconciliation is a term that was originally the preserve of religious and philosophical discourse. However it was ushered into the wider public domain by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (T.R.C.) and has become a significant civil and political discourse in South Africa. Within the Truth and Reconciliation Act, which served as the legislative anchor point of the T.R.C. process, there was much greater clarity about the parameters of Truth and Justice than about Reconciliation. Truth was to be achieved via the mechanism of obtaining public accounts from victims and perpetrators of apartheid-era human rights violations and from sector hearings. Justice was to be achieved via the mechanisms of amnesty and reparation determinations. Reconciliation, however, was more of an aspiration of the T.R.C. rather than a stated short- or medium-term objective. It was a hoped for longer-term derivative outcome of the T.R.C. process whereby it was anticipated that a process of reconciliation would take hold within civic and political life. It was anticipated it would be a new zeitgeist as opposed to a direct or specific institutional outcome. This general expectation was reflected in the fact that, within the T.R.C. organisational structure, there was no committee mandated to develop reconciliation. It was considered a desirable by-product of the delivery of truth, justice and reparation policies.

The T.R.C.'s record of delivering truth and justice are more directly measureable although these outcomes are still keenly contested, notwithstanding the publication of the final T.R.C. report in April 2003. The major public debate about the finalised report has been contestation over reparation decisions and policies which are seen as a tangible offshoot of justice deliberations. Reconciliation, however, is a more elusive measure and there is little research attempting to both qualify and quantify reconciliation outcomes in South Africa post-T.R.C. Although there is considerable contestation about the necessity or desirability of reconciliation, there appears, in the public discourse, to be a broad sentiment that reconciliation is a desired outcome. But what is quite meant by reconciliation is vague and variously defined.

This paper looks at the state of reconciliation in South Africa by assessing the available 'indicators' of reconciliation. The obverse is also focused on, namely, the tangible indicators of non-reconciliation or polarisation. The paper examines whether the aspirational euphoria of the T.R.C. has translated into a clear spirit and practice of reconciliation and asks the question as to the salience of reconciliation in institutional and civic life in South Africa.

It is also an objective of this paper to highlight opportunities for and impediments to reconciliation within the societal and political landscape of contemporary South Africa. The paper will refer to a case study of a small South African town in its struggle to consolidate a programme of reconciliation as an example of the 'ownership' of reconciliation within contemporary South Africa. The successful and unsuccessful ingredients will be analysed. The paper will close with an examination of the viability of reconciliation within a post-conflict society such as South Africa.
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This paper will attempt to document the range of peace-building efforts in Palestine and to conduct a preliminary analysis of these efforts. This process will aim to identify lessons learnt in these peace-building efforts - defined as any efforts aimed to resolve the conflict through non-military means. Due to space limitations this paper will only provide a short characterisation of these conflicts. It will not attempt to analyse the peace-building efforts in Israel, except when they are joint Palestinian/Israeli activities, due to the author's insufficient knowledge of the internal Israeli peace-building activities.

Palestinian/Israeli conflict is a vertical 'independence' conflict, where a large proportion of the population is in conflict with an occupying military force. As such, a great proportion of the population in Palestine has been actively involved in the struggle for independence (for instance, the first 'intifada' or popular uprising). Palestinian claims for independence and status as an occupied territory has been recognised under international law and UN resolutions. In addition, this conflict is one of the conflicts most commonly intervened in throughout the world and among the longest (more than 50 years).

Palestine has had a great range of peace-building initiatives. As noted above, non-violent resistance has been widespread and often spontaneous among the population, political/diplomatic efforts (including Track II diplomacy) to work for peace by members of the two parties, and member of other countries, have been more or less continuous throughout the conflict, cooperation on issues of joint concern has been ongoing, people-to-people dialogues have become more popular in the previous 10-15 years, and peace-education/building programmes within Palestine have also increased dramatically in the last 5-10 years. Human rights and development programmes, which indirectly contribute to peace-building, have been widespread and extensive for at least 20 years. Of these, political/diplomatic initiatives, non-violent resistance, and cooperation on issues of joint concern appear to be most useful in moving towards a resolution of the conflict in the medium term, while internal peace-education/building programmes and human rights/development programmes are important for sustaining and supporting a resolution in the long-term. In this conflict the key question is to assess which of the many peace-building initiatives are most effective, and in what form.

Themes to be explored in this paper include the relationship between foreign and local peace building initiatives, and the relationship between political and grassroots or community peace-building.

Amanda Melville completed her PhD thesis at the University of Melbourne on 'Conflict Appraisal by Muslims and Anglo-Australians: The role of identity.' She went on to be the Director of the Conflict resolution Centre in Gaza, and then worked for UNICEF on the West Bank. She is currently working for UNICEF in Indonesia.
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Councillor Millane will discuss the City of Whitehorse involvement in building community and democracy in East Timor with the Friends of Oecussi project as well as his involvement in encouraging local governments and community groups to work for meaningful reconciliation with Victoria's diverse Indigenous community.

Councillor Rae Perry will focus on the City of Darebin's projects in East Timor as well as their Indigenous Reconciliation projects and harmony projects with the Preston Mosque.

Rae Perry: It's not surprising peace and reconciliation are considered 'soft' issues of local government local government is, after all, about local issues the 'three R's' of Roads, Rates, and Rubbish. Yet the contemporary local government experience challenges this 'soft' reputation. Peace and reconciliation are increasingly becoming 'the main game' in municipal public policy. Local government is recognising that, in order to maintain the peace, order and good government of its municipal district it often needs to keep its eye on a broader horizon.

The core values associated with peace and reconciliation - a sense of justice, fairness, respect, understanding, recognition - are played out through a myriad of local activities. These activities include building programs, harmony activities, festivals, and community granting programs as well as East Timor and Indigenous relations. The daily exercise of core values through such activities help ensure peace, order and good government at the local level.

Councillor Perry will discuss the vital role that aspirations of peace and reconciliation have for contemporary municipal government and management. Perry contends that the lessons learned by Darebin through involvement in East Timor and with local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities have become fundamental to a renewed understanding of our selves.

Just as Council's initial involvement in the Mindinao Peace Group helped Darebin better understand local reconciliation issues, so ongoing efforts for peace and reconciliation serve to strengthen and focus Council's local governance. Standing as partners in the development of the newest democracy in the world, for example has enabled Council to contextualise and be faithful to our understanding of what democracy, participation, honesty and fairness mean at the local level.

It has been said that, in order to understand democracy one should spend less time in the library with Aristotle and more time on the buses and in the subway. As local governments worldwide strive to develop indigenous expressions of both community and democracy, we need to gain power from persistent and purposeful involvement in struggles for peace and reconciliation globally, nationally and in our own back yards.
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Australia's recent experiences with refugees arriving by boat and being placed in detention raise many questions about the psychological processes which affect people's attitudes and behaviours towards disadvantaged groups. In this paper I will attempt to identify some of the processes by which such attitudes are promoted and maintained. Drawing on social categorisation theory, and group identity theory, as well considering the influence of the way language is used, and the fostering of a climate of threat, I will present an analysis of the factors which bolster adherence to a policy of inhumane treatment of refugees. Data from a recent Australian study of the power of linguistic labels to define the nature of groups will be used to illustrate the process. Some of the avenues through which prejudice against refugee groups might be reduced will be suggested.

Professor Margot Prior currently works in the psychology department of the University of Melbourne. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, in October 2001 spent three weeks in Hanoi on a Fellowship jointly funded by the Academies of Humanities and Social Sciences in Australia and the Centre for the Social Sciences and Humanities in Vietnam. Margot has published many articles and books, and lists her research interests as autism spectrum disorders, temperament and behavioural disorders and early language and literacy development.
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The Nonviolent Peaceforce is an international nongovernmental organisation (NGO) working to create a professional international civilian nonviolent peaceforce to protect human rights, prevent violence, and enable peaceful resolution of conflict. At the invitation of local groups, the Peaceforce will deploy hundreds of peaceworkers using proven methodologies such as international presence, protective accompaniment, witnessing, and interpositioning.

This talk will locate NP within the tradition of third-party nonviolent intervention, and trace the short history of this project from the 1999 Hague Appeal for Peace through to the present, including the International Convening Event in India in late 2002 and progress on the Sri Lanka Project.

We will also build a case for the feasibility of the envisioned peaceforce and discuss challenges for its implementation, particularly those of a cultural and organisational nature. Finally, we will explore the possible relationship between the peaceforce and proposals for Civilian Peace Services.
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The future for relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in our country has to be about rights and honesty.

To be concerned about human rights is to be concerned about another person or peoples as human beings.While to be concerned about human rights is to be concerned about equity in access to education, health services to decent housing and to fairly paid work, it is not only or indeed mainly about these practical aspects of our lives.

To be concerned about human rights is, as Gaita has said, to be concerned about what makes us human. It involves a profound and fundamental level of equality, of respect, one of recognition of our common humanity and of respect for the humanity of others.

This is what Reconciliation must be about. It must be about honestly facing up to the past 215 years and the past denial of Indigenous peoples as human beings. It must be about recognising the harm, the hurt, the destruction of individuals and peoples caused by this. It must be about racism.

Reconciliation must be grounded in the rights we all have as individuals and as peoples and it must champion the rights of Aboriginal Peoples as the first peoples of this land.
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What does Reconciliation between Indigenous and Non Indigenous Australians really mean?

We ask this question in the context of a 200 year history of the dispossession and disadvantage experienced by Indigenous Australians.

The basic meaning of 'reconciliation' must surely include an acknowledgement of past wrongs, an undertaking to remedy them as well as the injustices continuing to this day and some tangible progress towards these aims.

The Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation included in its final report to the Federal Government in December 2000 a "Roadmap for Reconciliation".

This document details strategies to 'Overcome Disadvantage', to promote 'Recognition of ...Rights', to achieve 'Economic Independence' and finally, to 'Sustain the Reconciliation Process' between Indigenous and Non Indigenous Australians.

That program has also become known as "Unfinished Business", and indeed, some two and a half years after the Howard Government received that report it has yet to respond to it, let alone make a start on implementation. Senator Aden Ridgeway has initiated a Senate Inquiry into the Government's (non)response, an inquiry which is due to commence shortly.

From its 1997 beginnings as 'Defenders of Native Title', Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (ANTaR) has always seen its task as 'changing the hearts and minds of the Non Indigenous community' to make it more aware of our true history, both as an end in itself but also to build a constituency for appropriate Government action, in the knowledge that as a rule politicians do not lead unless they feel the pressure of public opinion.

To that end ANTaR has been developing a broadly based community education campaign, using a decentralised model based on some twenty ANTaR groups across Victoria and working in conjunction with other Non Government Organisations and Local Government in an effort to multiply the message.

It is part of that campaign to generate debate on the prospect of a Treaty - Australia is now the only Western democracy not to have concluded a treaty with its Indigenous peoples - as a means of focussing the discourse on reconciliation, at the same time as Indigenous people are discussing the desirability or otherwise of a treaty or treaties within their own communities.

The ANTaR campaign towards genuine reconciliation has been supported by a number of philanthropic foundations and has now received a substantial State Government grant which will enable us to meet the basic costs of expanding the campaign during the next three years and to further refine and evaluate the model.
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Terrorism is woven into the fabric of contemporary wars, and youth are often the perpetrators. In addition, cycles of violence are often perpetuated by the failure following a ceasefire to meet the human needs of youth and to address the issues and causes that had led youth into terrorism. This presentation will analyze how factors such as ideology, religious fervor, social identity, hopelessness, threats to meaning, and socialization into systems of violence lead young people into engagement in terrorism. It examines how post-conflict reconstruction efforts can assist in peacebuilding through the constructive engagement of youth. Using the case of Iraq as an example, it also analyzes how flawed reconstruction processes can create colonial images and systems that foment terrorism.

Michael Wessells, PhD. is Professor of Psychology at Randolph-Macon College and Psychosocial Advisor for Christian Children's Fund. He has served as President of the Division of Peace Psychology of the American Psychological Association and of Psychologists for Social Responsibility. His research on children and armed conflict examines child soldiers, psychosocial assistance in emergencies, and post-conflict reconstruction for peace. He regularly advises U. N. agencies, donors, and governments on policies regarding child protection and well-being. In countries such as Angola, Sierra Leone, East Timor, Kosova, and Afghanistan, he helps to develop community-based, culturally grounded programs that assist children, families, and communities affected by armed conflict.
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Avery, Trisa, Kate Ingram, Hiromi Traill, Suan Ooi, Mew Cheng Hoh, Yin Mei Yap et. al. (Soka Gakkai)

"A great human revolution in the life of one person can change the destiny of humankind and our planet" -
[daisaku ikeda]

The Lotus Sutra (LS), considered to be the Buddha's most important scripture, encourages and enables each person to become aware of, and use their compassionate wisdom to lead the most fulfilling life possible. For most of us, the way to bring forth these qualities at the times when we most need them remain elusive. Nichiren, a Buddhist priest that lived in 13th century Japan showed us that we can bring forth the Buddha life condition from within us when we recite the title of the LS. In fact, he asserts that peace cannot be truly achieved until each person is able to live to her full potential. Peace is not simply an absence of war.

While considering the principles of the Earth Charter, and in particular the one that exhorts us to 'Recognise that peace is the wholeness created by right relationships with oneself, other persons, other cultures, other life, earth, and the larger whole of which all are part', a group of women who practise Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism have come together to reflect on how we can contribute to peace in our daily lives using the principles of Buddhism as our springboard. So we will share our learnings based on the following Buddhist concepts:

The oneness of life and its environment: Our environment, ie. the people in our lives and the conditions that we live in, are a reflection of our inner state of life.

Wisdom arising from compassion: "To possess wisdom and compassion is the heart of our human revolution. If you have wisdom alone and lack compassion, it will be a cold, perverse wisdom. If you have compassion alone and lack wisdom, you cannot give happiness to others. You are even likely to lead them in the wrong direction. You also won't be able to achieve your own happiness". When we harness the inherent compassionate ability that is within all life we trigger the wisdom to act that has the same powerful effect of a parent's love for her child.
Human security: Leaders must act in the interest of the people whom they represent. Respect for the dignity of life as the basis for tolerance and conflict resolution.
Value creation: Makiguchi's (a Japanese educator) principle of education for value creation.
Dependent origination: All life is interconnected - no beings or phenomena exist on their own. Everything in the world exists in relationship to others, nothing can exist on its own.
These principles will be illustrated by anecdotes and actions that have guided, touched or inspired our lives to move in the direction of becoming a good friend to others in society, to our family members and co-workers, and to our own selves.

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