Ivan Freud from Dawson’s Religion Department calls on us to think about the potential of religion to promote peace in both the socio-political sphere and within ourselves. With references to six religious perspectives, he shows us the peaceful values within the world’s religions, highlighting the necessity for collaboration among religious leaders and followers of the […]
Tag Archives | peacebuilding
Reconciling Red and White Poppies
Pat Romano reflects on some of the difficult truths of war through the lens of the conflict over red and white poppies. Both symbols arose out of the devastation of WWI, the world’s first industrial war. From the start, many perceived the white poppy as offensive to the soldiers who paid the ultimate sacrifice; the […]
Making Peace through Apology
Apologies can be a simple human act, but one that has the potential to transform relationships in our individual lives but also between political communities. Good apologies meet some of our most basic psychological needs; they can erase humiliations, ease our guilt, remove our desires for revenge and rebuild trust. The very fact that many […]
Support the One Million Viewers Campaign
Editor’s note: This wonderful online campaign is now over after more than $30,000 was raised for peace initativies worldwide. The unforgettable film, Beyond Right and Wrong was viewed online by over 60,000 people and watched by up to ten million television viewers. You can still find the film online at this link. In February 2014, filmmaker […]
An Introduction to Our Topic: Teaching War/Waging Peace
This fourth issue of Inspire Solutions brings up a central question – how can we talk about war in a way that promotes the goal of peace? By asking this, we are implying that our discussions in both our classrooms and the larger public domain often serve more to legitimize war than promote real questioning. […]
How Do We Teach Israel & Palestine Without Exploding?
If teaching peace requires us at times to confront conflict, Joseph Rosen asks how we can do this without recreating battlefields in our classroom. In his essay, he examines how we can foster real dialogue on a deeply divisive issue, while emphasizing that, “as teachers, we are in a unique position to encourage peace by […]