October 29, 2002	Tuesday	Sha’aban 22,1423

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window).

ISLAMABAD, Oct 28: To combat war as the ultimate expression of the culture of violence, issues such as denial of fundamental human rights and democratic freedoms must be addressed, Unesco director Ingeborg Breines said

She was speaking as chief guest on a seminar, titled ‘Peace and Conflict Resolution in South Asia with Gender Perspective,’ organized by the Fatima Jinnah Women University in collaboration with Unesco at a local hotel on Monday.

Other issues that demand immediate attention, she said, were acts of aggression in everyday life, the explicit glorification of war heroes and the implicit glorification of war in the teaching of history.

She read the preamble of Unesco’s constitution to the participants, comprising representatives and educationists from different universities, human right activists and non governmental organizations.

Speaking on the underutilization of women’s potential, talents, experience and visions, Ms Breines said it posed a threat to world peace and sustainable development. Women, she said, formed more than half of the world’s population, yet, on an average, only one per cent were elected heads of state and government. Similarly, only 10 per cent women are chosen ministers, very few of whom head ministries such as foreign affairs, interior and finance. Some 13 per cent of the world’s parliamentarians are women.

Studies, the Unesco director said, described foreign policy and defence as areas in which women and men were deeply divided in their attitudes and policy preferences. This seen in a democratic perspective, largely de-legitimizes a series of male- only-decisions. Due to experience gained from gender specific roles assigned to them, women may have different perspectives, alternative visions and approaches to problem solving and distinct contribution to male-dominated power structure.

Women are engaged in peace initiatives and networks worldwide, which often stem from frustration and anger over decisions that they have not been in a position to influence. Ms Breines hoped to strengthen peace education and strategies for non-violent and gender-sensitive conflict resolution both on academic and educational levels. Peace is not static. It is a dynamic of a society in process of working towards an order of dignity, diversity and democracy. It is necessary to develop a culture of peace for it is the values, attitudes, relationships that make peace possible.

Betty Reardon from Columbia University spoke on peace and peace education with gender perspective. She said peace education nurtured various ways of thinking and developed skills necessary to realize peace values, manifest peace attitudes in social and political process, and establish human relationships and institutions that could overcome the culture of war.

She said it was essential to negotiate differences in a culture of peace. Gender, she said, was the potentially productive as well as essential aspect towards peace education. She raised three important questions: What do we mean by peace and peace education? What is the role of university in the production and application of peace knowledge and skills? And Why is gender central and crucial to the university’s role and responsibility for peace education?

High Commissioner of Sri Lanka C.S. Weerasooriya spoke on various aspects of conflicts in the background of his country’s multi-ethnic society’s and the Tamil situation.

Th university vice-chancellor, Najma Najam, in her welcome speech, said the seminar was the first step in the right direction. Since conflict appears to be endemic to the human beings, there is a growing need for conflict resolution for all types of conflicts — inter-state, regional, local or domestic.

Like many other universities, the subject is taught at the post-graduate level in the department of Defence and Diplomatic Studies at the FJWU. There is a growing demand that it is significant to be studied as a separate discipline at post- graduate level, the vice-chancellor said. It is in this context that the FJWU hopes to initiate a Centre for Peace, Democracy and Conflict Resolution in the near future, she added.

Brig Shaukat Qadir, speaking on the occasion, said eminent speakers had bee invited for the three-day seminar cum workshop to highlight the history of conflict in South Asia, with particular reference to India and Pakistan, military’s perspective of conflict and its resolution, the role of track-two diplomacy, gender perspective and conflict resolution, and the role of FJWU.

— Huma Khawar