Peace

Abstract

Peace is the negation of massive category killing (or genocide) across the fault lines in human construction: gender, generation, race, class, nation, and state. The concept of peace is highly dependent on the cultural background. The European secular concept developed from the Roman pax, based on pacts to abstain from violence, and the Greek eirene, which was more in the direction of justice, also found in the Judaic/Islamic shalom/sala'am. The European Christian tradition developed agape and iustus bellum, a peace based on love and a peace based on just war. The Hindu/Jainist/Buddhist tradition developed shanti (inner peace) and ahimsa (nonviolence). Further east, there is the Chinese/Japanese concept of ho p'ing/heiwa, or harmony, a social order with built-in conflict resolution. Three peace approaches from minor cultures are taken to illustrate the peace as conflict resolution approach: the Polynesian ho'o pono pono, the Cheyenne peace pipe, and the Somali shir. These cultures of peace are then presented in a universal geometric language and as six approaches: global governance, war abolition, conflict transformation, nonviolence, peace structure, and peace culture.