SUMMARY
Countries should create ministries for peace. Governments already contain institutionalized “military” and “financial” perspectives drawn from the defence and treasury ministries; there is a similar need for a “peace” perspective.
Among the ministry’s initial tasks would creating a “culture of peace”, negotiating disarmament treaties, and preparing for the conversion of military facilities to peaceful purposes.
The first such proposal was made eight decades ago and it was resisted by the Australian government. It continues to be resisted but the idea has not died. It would require only a few governments to create such ministries for the idea to catch on (much the same way that governments all now accept the need for a ministry for the environment – which few had as recently as five decades ago).
The proposal in brief
There is a need to embed peaceful perspectives in government. There are various perspectives already in government. There are, for example, a “treasury” perspective guarding against government expenditure and a “social welfare” perspective in favour of extending the government’s mantle of care over its citizens. However, there is not a distinct “peace” perspective. There is no cabinet minister specifically engaged on peacebuilding activities.
The creation of the ministry would not mean that the peace movement would become redundant. The establishment of environment ministries around the world has not made the environment movement redundant. Instead, the ministries have enabled the movement to do its work even more effectively, not least by providing a cabinet minister as a focal point for some of its campaigns.
Government is organic: it responds to issues. For example, before the 18th century no government had a department of education. Education was seen as a private matter and of little concern to government. Now education is seen as very important. The expectation is that a ministry for peace would over time acquire the same high status.
Learning from History
The proposal is based on lateral thinking drawn from two experiences. First, there is the military-industrial complex. This phrase was coined in President Eisenhower’s 1961 Farewell Address to Congress. It was derived from his own experience of seeing how the US Army had moved from being a small force in the inter-war period to become a large permanent factor in post-1945 American life, not least in politics and the economy.
The complex is now much larger than he could have imagined. For example, in July 2014 there were reports from the US inspector-general for Afghanistan reconstruction that the US companies had supplied more weapons to Afghani forces than they could ever use. The complex has in effect acquired a life of its own, with its own inexorable expenditure patterns all motivated by the desire to make profits.
Second, there is the permanent influence of the public service. Ministers are rarely little match intellectually for the leading bureaucrats. Candid politicians admit in their later memoirs how they were under the influence of public servants. Politicians come and go; bureaucracies remain. There is strength in longevity and permanence to maintain a momentum.
Taken together, the proposal is for a permanent department staffed by public servants who have a vested interest in maintaining their careers – working for the betterment of humankind.
Tasks for the Ministry
Three immediate tasks would be creating a “culture of peace”, negotiating disarmament, and preparing for the conversion of military facilities to peaceful purposes.
The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) launched the concept of a culture of peace at an international congress in 1989 at Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast (I was a member of the organizing committee). “Peace” is no longer just seen as the absence of conflict. “Peace” is seen as more than just passive: it is an active, continuous endeavour. In a culture of peace, dialogue and respect for human rights replace violence; inter-cultural understanding and solidarity replaces enemy images; the free flow of information replaces secrecy; and egalitarian partnerships and full empowerment of women succeeds male domination.
The ministry would publicize UNESCO’s Seville Statement (Adams 1989). In 1986, an international meeting convened in Seville by the Spanish National Commission for UNESCO, adopted a “Statement on Violence”. It refuted the notion that organized human violence is biologically determined. Humans are not genetically programmed to do violence to each other.
The Seville Statement contains five propositions. They all set out what does not cause war: (i) war is not acquired from humankind’s animal ancestors (ii) war is not inherited from our forebears; we cannot blame our parents or “human nature” for our warlike activities; some societies have no tradition of warfare (iii) war is not necessary to ensure a better standard of living; humans can gain more from co-operation (iv) war is not due to the biological composition of the brain; humans need to be trained for combat (v) war is not due to some basic “instinct” or any other single motivation.
It is necessary to gain international acceptance of the Statement. At the end of World War II, UNESCO produced a statement on race, challenging the then fashionable notion that white people were genetically superior to black people. That statement, by receiving international endorsement and publicity, helped reshape attitudes to race.
The intention is to build a similar momentum in favour of the Seville Statement. People may still say that war is inevitable because it is somehow part of human nature – but they will not have the scientific arguments to support their opinions. Ministries for peace would have the responsibility to do this work.
Second, the ministry would absorb existing arrangements for disarmament negotiations and implementation. Disarmament should not be part of the ministry of foreign affairs because the danger is that this issue is then subordinated to the many other concerns of foreign affairs and so not be treated as an important objective in its own right. For example, the negotiations are coloured by the need not to embarrass one’s own allies, while also looking for opportunities to criticize one’s opponents. Disarmament negotiations can easily become a form of warfare by other means.
The ministry would also be the focal point for the creation and maintenance of a country’s peace research institutes. The institutes would not be government controlled. But, as governments provide research funds for science and technology, so there should be more money for peace research and this could be allocated via the ministry.
Third, the ministry would oversee the conversion of military facilities to peaceful purposes. This should include the introduction of conversion over a planned period of time so as to ease the transition of military personnel into the civilian sector. For example, if the USSR had paid more attention to it, then present day Russia would have been spared many of the problems arising from just dumping military personnel and their equipment on the civilian employment market. Russia emerged from its communist era with little planning for peace. The US would have an ever larger challenge.
The Proposal for the New Ministry
One of the world’s first attempts to create such a ministry was made in 1937, when the Australian branch Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) recommended its creation to the Australian Government. The Government refused, arguing that it would duplicate the work of the then Department of External Affairs and besides the “publicly declared policy of the Australian Government was the promotion of harmonious relations with all countries” (Suter 1984: 117) and so such a proposal was unnecessary. In 1982, the UN Association of Australia, of which I was then the National President, again raised the issue and received much the same reply.
Meanwhile, it was unfortunate that the UN Association’s campaign received little support by the peace movement. The peace movement saw it as very low priority and somewhat “boring” because it was grounded in ideas of public administration.
Attempts have also been made in the US, such as in 2001 by then Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, who introduced legislation to create a US department of peace. This department would become a cabinet-level agency dedicated to peacemaking and the study of conditions conducive to both domestic and international peace. There is also a UK campaign.
The architect of the revived Australia campaign in the 1980s, the late Dr Stella Cornelius, often told me in conversations that people in later decades will wonder how governments thought that they could be serious about the quest for peace without having an organization for it. Her imagination and dedication continue to inspire the campaign.
REFERENCES
David Adams (Editor) The Seville Statement on Violence, Paris: UNESCO, 1989
Keith Suter Ministry for Peace, Sydney: UN Association Peace Programme, 1984