Educating for Peace through Community Peace Museums

Timothy Gachanga, Community Peace Museums Foundation

Introduction

Many people think that conflicts in schools and society in general will easily be confronted and solved. All that is necessary, they believe, is to involve the activities of seasoned peacemakers using the best of their personal skills and recently developed knowledge about peace building. Conflicts, from this perspective, are simply a result of inadequate application of peace building skills. Peace building however, is not this simple. In many ways, conflicts are symptoms of underlying social and cultural problems of belief and value. Examination of the underlying social, economic and environmental conflicts leads one to the problem of values. Students are daily faced with the necessity to make decisions that affect the lives of other people. These decisions are, to a varying extent, influenced by the prevailing valuative norms present in the individual. Often, the values held by the decision maker affect his perception of peace and lead to the wrong decision from the peace stand point.

One of the aims of education should be to nurture a faculty of judgment and sensitivity that can and should be expressed in the choices people make in their day to day life. These choices impact differently on peace. Museums can be marshaled to help students develop capacities of decision making and understanding that will make them grow ever more keenly aware of the need for peace. It makes sense, then, to ask how museums can perform this function – what sort of content and what sort of teaching of those contents (methodology), museums should focus on in order to raise people who will be more committed to peace building. This is the concern of this paper.

What is Peace?

Coming up with the content for a community peace museum that could educate for peace entails getting abreast with three key issues: What is peace? What language to use to educate for peace? And how to tell a story of peace in a society replete with images of violence, ethnic hatred and intolerance?

Research into peace traditions from various ethnic communities in Kenya reveal that peace entails an active struggle to understand each other, to resolve conflicts and harmonize individual interests. The peace program therefore tries to capture through visual and oral peace symbols how this unified knowledge is enacted in peace building in different ethnic groups. This knowledge builds upon the historic experiences of a people. It also aims at keeping things in their proper balance.

This knowledge flows on into peace building. Through this knowledge, the broad roles to be played by every member of the community in such matters as sacred rituals, economic affairs, marriage, child bearing and death are defined. It warns that if people behave in such and such a way, certain consequences would surely follow: that various taboos and avoidances are to be observed and that various relatives should not be intimate with one another. It also set patterns of behaviours for members of particular social and cultural groups in which their power is acknowledged. Reference to this particular dimension underlies the traditional reliance on a body of knowledge and belief that is relevant not only to the past, but also to the present and the future.

Language

What languages then do we to use to communicate this knowledge effectively to local people who experience ubiquitous conflicts in society? We realized that many people in the rural areas are still oral and visual. They rely on seeing, touching, smelling as their mode of learning. As such, we use a medium that the society would understand and identify with. This is based on the premise that the idea about peace will appear familiar since the local people will relate it to their daily life experiences. This is because in the learning process people see similar things in the context of the similar, that is, when somebody encounters a new situation s/he reacts to those elements of it that are similar with the same behaviour pattern in the past.

Local languages and the use of oral and visual peace symbols come in handy to play this fundamental role. They embody a value system about how a community ought to live and relate to each other. They communicate the full range of human experiences.

How do we tell a story of peace in a society replete with images of violence, ethnic hatred and intolerance?

Opportunities for teaching peace through community peace museums present themselves in various ways. One is through the study of biographies of peace makers. Museum curators document literary accounts of men and women who have helped communities to focus on values that served to propel them to greatness. Greatness is often measured in terms of the contribution made to humankind. While the lives of such individuals uphold important values in themselves, they also serve as models that inspire students to greater living. Students also identify peace makers in their communities. They analyze the reason for their greatness in class. Whenever we spot an opportunity, we invite these peace makers to class to talk to students. Students remember such visitors as real people with whom they can converse.
Two, peace museums has provided a suitable avenue for teaching about the effects of war and violence. Children learn about wars at school through their text books. This learning however is usually a matter of packaging knowledge into the brain and calling it up for tests. This cannot lead to the formation of deeply held values, judgments, about peace itself. School work cannot create the conviction that peace must be upheld; it cannot mould a character that values peace. It is only by appealing to children and expressing your attitude and firmly correcting misguided thinking can you help them absorb the right kinds of sensitivities and spirit.

Peace museums come in handy in this. Lari Peace Museum is a good example. Through its exhibition and educational activities, it gives a story of dynamics of trauma, the post-war reconciliation and community building.

Lari is located some 30 miles west of Nairobi. In 1953, the area experienced the infamous Lari massacre. Hundreds of people were massacred and buried in mass graves. Many were sentenced to die through hanging. Those who were not hanged died in prison while awaiting their judgment. Families were separated, many were maimed, many were orphaned and many children died due to poverty and malnutrition. As a result of this, hatred, fear, suspicion, and many unhealed wounds got rooted in the society. This problems still lingers in many families even to date.

The peace program, however, has turned this experience educative in peace building. Through the collaboration with the museum’s board of elders – who comprise of ex-Mau Mau fighters and former colonial home guards, we visit schools to offer peace education. Elders talk about wars, the number of casualties, the loss of property and how the war ended. They also impress upon them the potential of more wars if we do not keep peace. They let the pupils know that should there be another war, there will be a possibility that most children will loose their parents or relatives. By letting the elders share their feelings about war and violence pupils feel the horror of war themselves more deeply. They come to hate it. By becoming moved emotionally they will grow ever more keenly aware of the need for peace.

Students learn about wars at school through their text books. This learning however is usually a matter of packaging knowledge into the brain and calling it up for tests. This cannot lead to the formation of deeply held values, judgments, about peace itself. School work cannot create the conviction that peace must be upheld; it cannot mould a character that values peace. It is only by appealing to children and expressing your attitude and firmly correcting misguided thinking can you help them understand the right kinds of sensitivities and strength of mind to fight for what they believe is right in peace building.

Take for example the struggle for independence in Kenya. The history is couched with a motive to portray the deeds of the heroes who sacrificed their lives to the struggle. It does not give an alternative to violence. In their attempt to restore the image of the true African, which they believe was distorted by the colonialist, historians became too fascinated by experiences of war and the struggle and forgot the peace heritage that held the society together even before the advent of the colonialism. War is also portrayed as unavoidable and a sacrificial service to the country and those who are ready to sacrifice are honoured.

A student may wonder during the history lesson what the civilized world did to stop violence and oppression during the struggle for independence. And consequently he may learn that the civilized way to respond to oppression and violence is to be passively silent about it. This wrong learning takes place, due to the negligence of giving the peace side of the story.

The peace museums program emphasize that war is not inevitable; that at any stage there were alternatives to war, and indeed there are alternatives today. As noted elsewhere in this paper, many people adopted pacifism as a mechanism to fight injustice perpetrated by colonialism. They abstained from buying colonial industrial goods from shops, to eat or drink from plates and cups or travel using vehicles, they rejected money as evil. Worshipers had to leave money outside churches before entering. They also thought that God would not give spiritual guidance to his people through dreams if they slept on an imported foam mattress. Instead they slept on indigenous mattress of grass or skin. For them, independence was to be rooted in their own vision, stories, and spirituality in a way that addresses the reality of society and in human dignity where partnership exists.

Peace museums have helped to counteract the feelings of anonymity and a sense of isolation in society. By connecting people through inter-museums’ visits, they provide an avenue through which people from different ethnic communities could get in the thoughts and feelings of people in other cultures and see the world through that other culture’s eyes. When we can share experiences of others our sense of kinship with the rest of humanity opens up. By building connections in this way, peace museums help counteract the feelings of anonymity and a sense of isolation in the society. It is this sense of isolation that makes us laugh or make fun of others because of their ethnic backgrounds, religion or the colour of the skin. It gives us potential to kill what we cannot share.

For minority groups, peace museums have helped in improving their self-concept and develop a positive cultural identity. It has helped them develop a sense of pride in their own heritage and recognize that their own culture makes an important contribution to national and world culture. And when members of a minority group learn about notable accomplishments and efforts to solve problems in their culture, it helps to raise their levels of aspiration.

An example here will suffice.

In 2002, Community Peace Museums organized a pacifist conference in Nairobi. The conference was aimed at connecting pacifist faith groups to share their experiences in peace building. Among those in attendance included the Bahai community, the Quakers, the Akorino, the Holy Spirit churches, and the Mennonites.

Akorinu are often considered non-mainstream and perhaps ineffective in the national politic. This may be because they are small in number and ‘simple and spiritual people.’ They are also perceived to be closed and unpatriotic because of their avoidance of war and disapproval of capital punishment. Like the Amish and Mennonite communities of North America whose social systems protect them from insecurities, Akorino have strengthened their community culture throughout Kenya in response to injustice, forced imposition of values, violence and damage done to their community structures by a centrally administered state. These registered and unregistered faith groups are withdrawing from the ‘mainstream’ faiths and disintegrating cultures in pursuit of peace and meaning of life.

During the struggle for independence, Akorino developed mechanisms to prevent them from getting involved in violence. By then the country the country had experienced the colonial rule and especially the returning of soldiers from World War 1 had told the people what violence meant. One mechanism they adopted was pacifism. They chose never to fight back even when provoked. So, whenever they were arrested they offered no resistance. They simply let themselves be arrested by the colonial soldiers. They saw it as an opportunity to preach and pray for peace even in prison. They even preached peace to the white officers.

Akorino also chose to abstain from the white man’s goods, hospitals, schools and religious institutions for they saw the white man as the perpetrator of violence. They also rejected money as evil. Worshipers had to leave money outside churches before entering. They thought that God would not give spiritual guidance to his people through dreams if they slept on an imported foam mattress. Instead they slept on indigenous mattress of grass or skin. They also chose not to take oath. They saw oath taking as a way of perpetrating violence because there was no chance of turning back even when truth was known. Thus, Akorino did not join Mau Mau even though they were anti-colonial rule. This led to severe persecution. Today, Akorino don’t swear even in the court of law and do not join police force.

After the workshop an elder captured the transformation realized when people meet together to share their experiences.

When I started seeing the Akorino after living for fifty five years with Methodost church, I didn’t see Akorino as a religion. The religion I knew was the Methodist….It was after the conference that I started interacting with the Akorino. In fact I shook the hand of the first Mokorino after the conference. I believe the Akorino have succeeded in making many wear turbans (they wear a white turban as a symbol of peace) even if they cannot see them.

The exposure to minority cultures is important to students. It makes them learn to deal with one another with respect and understanding. The peace museum program provides students with accounts that highlight the plight of minority groups. It also provides a forum through which they could interact with other minority groups so as to learn from each other. This also help members of the minority group develop a sense of pride in their own heritage and recognize that their own culture makes an important contribution to national and world culture.

Peace museums offer one of the most appropriate avenue through which students learn about other ethnic groups. This is done in several ways. The program exposes students to experiences that will make them realize that people from other cultures have feelings, emotions and needs similar to their own and that we share with them a common humanity. Whenever we spot an opportunity we read stories, learns songs, eat foods, and wear material cultures from other cultures. This helps students identify with different cultures. Whenever we visit schools or students visit peace museums, we let the children identify in a map where people from different ethnic group lives. Where possible we let them know the kind of environment they live. We mention or describe the major sacred sites in that area, some peace trees, how they were used in peace building, narrate some of the peace stories from that community, mention some peace makers from that community, what they are known for, collect some portraits about them or newspaper cuttings. This enhances their intercultural understanding.

We explain the different kinds of climates where different ethnic groups live. These differences affect the way people live. Various ethnic groups produce different products. The products one ethnic group produces they sell to their own people or to other ethnic groups. This means that people irrespective of their ethnic, religious or cultural backgrounds have to get along. By letting pupils understand how people from different ethnic groups depend on one another, we make them understand the need to accept one another and the need to protect the environment.

For members of a majority culture group, peace museums have helped develop a respect for values and contributions of others. It has broadened their understanding of the complex nature of society. Peace museums has helped them to understand that while cultural groups have different values, beliefs and customs, all must learn to live together in harmony with one another.

Conclusion

Building peace in schools and society in general is littered with obstacles. This is mainly due to lack of resources on indigenous peace knowledge. There lacks adequate learning opportunities and teaching materials that can make students achieve an emotional commitment to peace building. Teachers could expose students to experiences that could move students to compassion and make them realize that people the world over have feelings, emotions and needs similar to their own and that we share with them a common humanity. We are not alone in what we have gone through. Community Peace Museums provide such an avenue. Peace museums humble us by helping us recognize that we are not different from other people. At the same time, they restore our place in the human community from which we thought ourselves excluded.