There are so many monuments about battles – we almost forget how war is actually a failure of civilization. Violence is a barbarian’s alternative to risking rejection, a crude option to end disagreement. If there is any heroism to admire at all in war, these came through not because of bloody encounters, but in spite of them.
It is rarer for peace to be sold as an option, hard to justify it against pride, or distinguish it from submissiveness. But while peace is above vindication, it is also not passive. Peace comes from understanding that conflict is inevitable anywhere; it is a preparedness to face differences with only the best of ourselves.
How do we cultivate peace? In the terrible aftermath of WWII’s atomic bombs in Japan, a man named Masahisa Goi decided that he would answer this challenge by putting up a monument to peace. He designed a tall, four-sided pole which would carry the prayer May Peace Prevail on Earth in both English and Japanese, and put it up in his garden. This little gesture resonated, and today there are thousands of Peace Poles around the world.
In the little school in regional Victoria, Australia where I work now, one of the challenges was to help the community come to terms with it’s growing cultural diversity. In memory of a favourite feature in the serene gardens of Miriam College, I suggested planting a Peace Pole.
Process was important, so I asked for help from a group of Grade 6 students – we looked at different meanings of peace and read together from an amazing book called Peaceful Heroes by Jonah Winter. The students then organized talks about peace in all the classrooms, and invited the younger kids to join a poster competition with the theme What Peace Means to Me.
A beautiful pole made of red gum wood was donated by local craftsmen from the Woodturners of the Goulburn Valley. The town’s aboriginal corporation found an indigenous elder to translate the prayer into Yorta-Yorta. Parents provided the translations in Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, Italian, Kiswahili, Filipino, Urdu, French and Dinka. GV Signmakers, another local business, donated the inscriptions.
For the unveiling ceremony, we chose December 10, 2012, the 68th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In Australia, this day also marked the 20th year since former PM Paul Keating delivered his landmark “Redfern Speech” calling for national reconciliation between aboriginal and non-aboriginal Australians. The community was invited and the pole was blessed by both an aboriginal elder and the catholic Parish Priest.
Has the pole contributed to a culture of peace in the school? I’d like to think so. It took a year and a village to make, but by rendering this extraordinary message into a multi-lingual, everyday fixture in the campus, we are questioning the stereotype of war. We are leading people to see strength in compassion, heroism in mediation, and the revolutionary valour of taking the first step towards reconciliation.
Acknowledgements:
Photos by Leo Torres
Further Reading/References/Links:
Keating, Paul. Redfern Speech (Year for the World’sIndigenous People) – Delivered in Redfern Park. 10 December 1992 https://antar.org.au/sites/default/files/paul_keating_speech_transcript.pdf. Accessed December 2012.
Rosenberg, Jennifer. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki http://history1900s.about.com/od/worldwarii/a/hiroshima.htm. Accessed 3 June 2014
The United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights. http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/ Accessed September 2013.
The World Peace Prayer Society http://www.worldpeace.org. Accessed 2 June 2014
Torres-Abblitt, Anna. Pole a Peace Maker. The Sandpiper (Newsletter of the Catholic Diocese of Sandhurst, January 2013 http://www.sandhurst.catholic.org.au/sandpiper/201302/files/assets/basic-html/page10.html
Winter, Jonah. Peaceful Heroes. Levine Books, 2009
THE ECOLOGY OF THINGS 