Why take action for Peace?
Woodbridge Trees for Peace were inspired in 2017 by recollections during the centennial commemorations of World War 1. Alongside the sadness then, optimism emerged together with a determination to add to what was already being done to secure Peace.
The United Nations Organisation (UNO), for example, was and is promoting peace in places sorely afflicted by violence among free people. Meanwhile, there are nations that pursue peace based in part on the limitation of individual freedom.
But regional improvements made in those ways appears to remain vulnerable to challenge, conflict and recurrent violence rooted in strong resentments.
Across today's physically limited and globally connected world such violence has economic and social consequences that affect peace and prosperity for everyone everywhere, for example through cost-inflation and population migration.
So is Peace failing?
You decide. But know that in June 2024, annual monitoring of Peace* across 163 nations (97% of the global population) found that:
- since 2023 the quality of peace had fallen in the majority 60% of nations and risen in just 40%
- deaths related to violent conflict were greater than in any year this century
- the quality of peace globally had fallen for each of the last 5 and arguably 10 years
- and the annual economic cost of violence was £1800 for each living person on the planet.
Because many lack such means to pay, the cost for those who can is rather greater; in the UK it's more than 10% of average annual income.
And even at that cost our peace is not secure.
We need more than ever to be better at protecting our Peace.
..* for the Global Peace Index q.v. [ link ]
Peace can be secured
Imagine a world with more serenity, inspired among the the Trees’ visitors, and spread further afield through families and friends, and yet further through this or other websites.
That's a big ambition for a small monument, but there are many good reasons for optimism:
- Most people want peace, and few think peace is a bad idea
- Modern research has been creating a deeper understanding of peace
- There's a pool of knowledge that's 'latent', not yet 'general knowledge' but there to be shared
- Attempts are being made to promote education about peace through the internet and in some schools
- There's a well-informed advice from across disciplines, cultures and generations about how peace can be created, for example:
- "All it may take is for more of us to think and talk about Peace more often" - Yoko Ono
- "Do your little bits of good every day; all those bits of good joined together will overwhelm the world" - South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu
- "Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures " - 1960s US President John F Kennedy
- "Peace cannot be kept by force, it can only be achieved by understanding" - Albert Einstein
The Woodbridge Trees for Peace exude Peace 24/7. Just visit one and spend a little time to hear and feel it. It's there for all of us to experience, enjoy and share.
And people far from Woodbridge can benefit in these ways from their own favourite local trees.
Some Action for Peace* follows directly from that set of ideas and advice.
For example:
- getting to know and understand a bit or a lot more about Peace
- using that to talk more with friends and others about peace
- doing lots of 'little bits of good'
- being reconciled to some things taking time to bear fruit
- applying patience in some of the things we do for Peace
- planning some things to do daily, others weekly or monthly
..* see ideas listed below [ link ]
What more is there to know and understand about Peace?
There's more in the Learning for Peace section of this site.
Just to hint at a little of it here, encouragingly the internet shows there is in many parts of the world a lively interest in Peace.
It's an interest that has grown for more than a century in universities and is beginning to get a toe-hold in some schools even though most of them have little time to teach about peace.
Human knowledge itself has expanded on significant matters such as the relationships between peace, conflict and violence, ways of measuring peace, the depth of peace, peace making, keeping and building.
And there is more to know from the work of major international organisations such as the UN and others dedicated to building peace globally.
For more of that, see Learning for Peace. [ link ]
Meanwhile there's action we can take here and now
First though, let's be a little more clear about Peace.
Peace means different things from person to person, country to country and culture to culture.
What's most widely agreed is that Peace means the absence of war. But for this monument's purpose that's not a useful definition. Few if any of us can abolish war or even deflect violence.
But we do need ways to tell whether Peace is becoming stronger or weaker. Research to evaluate Peace uses in its place 'proxies', such as provision made to secure peace in our day-to-day lives; for example spending on welfare, personal security and defence.
There are proxies we can use to check on the effect of the Woodbridge Trees for Peace. They are capacities that we each have and can use for managing interpersonal Peace in our day-to-day lives.
For example our capacities for giving in the face of need - friendship, generosity, kindness, sanctuary;
other capacities for absorbing discomfort - calmness, forbearance, forgiveness, humility, patience, tolerance;
further capacities for absorbing the unfathomable - attentiveness, compassion, empathy, vigilance
using that to talk more with friends and others about peace
- doing lots of 'little bits of good
- being reconciled to some things taking time to bear fruit
- applying patience in some of the things we do for Peace
- planning some things to do daily, others weekly or monthly
How can we start doing some things that can make peace strong?
Thinking and talking
What are the many pieces that we could join together to make a better peace?
Little bits of good
The following list to be expanded with notes on each
- find a way of committing to action
- start a Peace notebook/diary by noting in it that you read this today !
- use any of the following to bring yourself to Think and or Talk a bit about Peace
- look at the Peace Calendar [Below ??] and choose at least one date to put in your plan
- choose a few dates for simple actions in the next few months
- put an action in your planner on a few dates in your planner dates
- set yourself a reward for Day 21, Day 42, Day 63, Day 84, Day 100
- 'create or join a club' by getting (and wearing) a Peace Tartan scarf
- start a local or neighbourhood peace club eg with a coffee morning and rota
- grow your 'inner peace'
- take stock of your inner peace maker attributes
- commit to strengthening one or more of those capacities
- peace is about relationships so choose to do some of this with a friend
- talk about this with a friend and agree to do one of these things together
- visit one of the trees - or both
- read the Trail for Peace Guide as you follow parts of the Trail for Peace
- advocating for Peace, for example by:
- choosing and supporting a humanitarian charity that promotes peace or supports victims of violence
- finding and responding to other websites about Peace
- erecting a Peace Pole monument in your garden/neighbourhood
- adding to this Tree for Peace monument by-
- nominating a good tree near you to be part of a Virtual Forest for Peace
- suggesting another fine tree in the town to become in 2025 a third Woodbridge Tree for Peace
- suggesting extensions to the Woodbridge Trail for Peace
- tell this website what you think and what you're doing for Peace
planning / building in 'time to bear fruit'
planning for patience
planning for a daily, weekly, monthly rythm
A Peace Calendar
December
-
January
February
Transfer this next section to Learning for Peace
conflict areas of , knowledge and from Internet sites routinely announce or support educational events and course of study about Peace.
Significant researches and studies related to Peace have emerged from the older universities of Europe since the 1920s. In 1973 the UK's University of Bradford opened a department for studies of Peace and Conflict. Since 2000 a Global Peace Index has emerged from work in Australia's University of .....
There is growing international co-operation such as a search for peace education suited to the nations of Southern Asia, and a Global Campaign for Peace Education.
For this website the most immediately accessible information is from initiatives and the UK. From that it is becoming possible to conceive, alongside learning in schools, a peace education learning pathway leading from an age of say 9 or 10 in the junior school years to that of college students.
Some ..(how many) .. UK universities currently offer courses related to Peace and Conflict. Few schools .... (more here from draft material )
For more details of the range of modern knowledge about peace see [link here] the summary of a recent sixth form syllabus for Peace Studies.