How to defang a dictator, end repression, recall a corrupt politician, and/Or repeal an unjust law
The need for education
Building on the values and methods of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., non-violent activists are making major waves around the world. Some of them have been trained at the annual Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI) at Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) in Harrisonburg, Virginia or have been trained by people who came through SPI. With the rise of the Arab spring and U.S. “occupy” movements, the power of nonviolent social movements has again come to the fore. These movements have given a new generation hope that it is possible to overcome corruption, wrestle power from oppressive leaders, and gain control of the direction of the societies in which we live.
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In August of 2010, the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) released a special report titled, “Graduate Education and Professional Practice in International Peace and Conflict.” The report details findings from a study conducted to measure the level of academic preparedness of graduate students and professionals looking to establish careers within the field of international conflict. The results of the study do not bode well for graduate students or their academic institutions. In fact, Carstarphen, Zelizer, Harris, and Smith (2010) state, “Graduate-level academic institutions are not adequately preparing students for careers in international peace and conflict management” (p. 1). And this is just the first sentence of the summary.
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Conflict is like air; almost nothing escapes its touch.
Peace and conflict studies, like most things in life, evolve. If we can agree that conflicts are inherent to human beings, that they are a universal, natural, and timeless phenomenon, then we could agree we have experienced changes in the ways of solving and transforming them, and with this idea, we could also agree that conflict resolution systems evolved too. This evolution is very old, and probably very slow when compared to our history as a human group.
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