The
21st
century, far from becoming an era of international peace and development as was
once predicted, has seen a proliferation of conflict and violence, intolerance
and inequality, with the renewed menace of nuclear weapons threatening our
entire future. Does not the world
deserve better, a century after the First World War ended, and why do the
lessons of that war still fail to be learnt?
The threat of nuclear conflict, the growth
of terrorism, the rise of authoritarian rule and the warping of democracy typified
by the electoral success of Donald Trump, the growing evidence of climate
change, the spread of civil wars and population flight have combined in a
dystopian storm which overwhelms humanity's general tendency to look on the
bright side and hope for the best. The international system based upon
nation-states with their own agendas and interests and relying in the last (or
often not-so-last) resort upon war or the threat of war, is no longer fit for
purpose, and it will have to change or humanity will face terrible
consequences.
This has long been clear to far-sighted
peace thinkers and over the past century and a half successive attempts have
been made to reshape the conduct of international affairs on a more peaceful
basis. Each attempt began as a response to the shock of war, each was
undermined by a subsequent war, and yet each left a legacy which became the
basis for further action. A new quest was launched at the end of the cold war,
this time driven by wider concerns that included climate change and global
inequality as well as nuclear proliferation, regional conflict (especially in
the Middle East) and the need for UN reform. The failure to fully grasp this
opportunity to re-structure the world system in the 1990s and early 21st
century should be seen as one of the greatest tragedies of our modern age, yet
it can still be redeemed.
This is an entirely practical endeavour:
the
concept of peace has always been much more than a fine sentiment, a splendid
ideal, and the simple absence of war. Over the last two millennia, there has been a powerful
and multi-stranded narrative of peace, expressed in different forms and in
different environments, challenging the more strident discourse of war. In my
book I trace this narrative from ancient China and Greece, through early
Christian teachings to the humanist thinkers of the Renaissance, onwards in an
increasingly rich dialogue through the Enlightenment into the 19th
and early 20th centuries when peace became a political campaigning
issue from which the modern peace movement can be said to have emerged.
The most fundamental lesson to be learnt is that
peace can never be achieved in isolation, but depends upon mutual cooperation between
neighbours, communities, regions and nations. In spite of setbacks and
failures, and the persistence of a political culture which still regards war as
the ultimate arbiter of dispute, the dominant spirit of the human race is and
always has been to prefer peace to war and to develop by peaceful means, and if
this were not the case we as human beings would not still be here today. This
is why we should remain optimistic about the future in spite of today's many
dangers: humanity is fundamentally programmed to survival by peaceful means,
and war and conflict represent not normal health but an abnormal sickness to be
overcome.
As
we approach the third decade of the 21st century, the failed
assumptions of 19th and 20th century nation-state
ideology are no longer acceptable. We need to reject the illusions of war and
strive for the realities of peace while fully aware that this has been and
always will be an uphill struggle. As UN Secretary General Ban
Ki-moon said in 2016: "Peace is not a gift. Peace is
something
we must all work for, every day, in every country".