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Education for Peace Program
Meeting of Government Experts to Design a
Draft Program of Education for Peace in the Hemisphere
PERMANENT COUNCIL OF THE
ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES
COMMITTEE ON HEMISPHERIC SECURITY
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OEA/Ser.G
CP/CSH-235/99
28 September 1999
Original: Spanish |
EDUCATION FOR
PEACE IN THE HEMISPHERE: ISSUES FOR CONSIDERATION IN BUILDING THE
PROGRAM
(Document submitted by the Permanent Mission of
Colombia)
EDUCATION FOR PEACE IN THE HEMISPHERE
Issues to Be Considered in Building the Program
Bogotá, Colombia, September 1999
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
This document is the result of work
carried out by a group of external consultants, experts in the field of
peace studies, who were asked to contribute their valuable ideas
regarding the three central themes proposed by the OAS for the
Hemispheric Program of Education for Peace, namely: (1) Peaceful
Settlement of Conflicts, (2) Promotion of Democratic Values and
Practices, and (3) Promotion of Peace among States.
The suggestions made in this document
are for possible consideration by persons attending the Meeting of
Experts to Design a Draft Program of Education for Peace in the
Hemisphere.
CONTENTS
Page
INTRODUCTORY NOTE v
I. FIRST CENTRAL THEME: THE PEACEFUL
SETTLEMENT OF CONFLICTS 1
INTRODUCTION 1
DEFINITIONS 2
PROPOSALS FOR EDUCATION IN NONVIOLENT
CONFLICT RESOLUTION 5
A FEW CRITERIA FOR EVALUATING
EDUCATION PROPOSALS IN THE AREA OF PEACEFUL CONFLICT RESOLUTION 8
II. SECOND CENTRAL THEME: PROMOTION
OF DEMOCRATIC VALUES AND PRACTICES 11
INTRODUCTION 11
PRECONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE 12
STRATEGIES FOR GENERALIZING
DEMOCRATIC PRACTICES 13
INSTRUMENTS FOR TRAINING IN
DEMOCRATIC PRACTICES AND VALUES 16
REVIEW OF EDUCATIONAL DISCOURSE AND
PRACTICE 18
ASSESSMENT CRITERIA 19
III. THIRD CENTRAL THEME: THE
PROMOTION OF PEACE AMONG STATES 20
INTRODUCTION 20
EDUCATION AND THE PROMOTION OF PEACE
20
SCENARIOS AND ACTORS 21
I
FIRST CENTRAL THEME
PEACEFUL SETTLEMENT OF CONFLICTS
INTRODUCTION
During this century the peoples and
nations of the world, and of the Hemisphere, have affirmed the highest
ideals of peace and coexistence, respect for basic rights, and the hope
of building a culture that rejects war and all forms of violence as
instruments for resolving conflicts and defining political power and
social, state, and national policy. However, at the close of the
century, neither the world nor the American Hemisphere is free of
violence. Wars between states, civil wars, and social conflicts that
escalate into violence of different kinds still affect a number of
nations and peoples. /
How is it that just when the world
has made enormous technological progress and acquired greater global
awareness of the importance of peace and respect for human dignity, wars
and other forms of violence have such a devastating impact on the world?
It is difficult to reach an entirely satisfactory answer, but peace has
clearly not been taken on board in the construction of collective
perceptions, in the ethos of nations, in the everyday customs of
societies. Peace–left to the good intentions of individuals, of rulers,
of the wielders of armed power, of those who wage war, and of those who
create networks of violence or support them–is simply a pipe-dream.
Peace has not become a reality because it has failed to shape social,
political, and economic protagonists, both individual and collective, to
assume the task of eradicating all forms of violence. It is clear that
the political, economic, and social foundations have not been set for a
new form of coexistence, that conflicts erupt amidst injustice and
structural imbalances, and that institutions lack the wherewithal for
addressing those conflicts peacefully. Progress in formulating political
ideals of coexistence or in enacting constitutions and laws to safeguard
life and human dignity is of little use if we lack actors with
peace-oriented attitudes, habits, values, and skills.
Shaping social, economic, and
political actors is a human undertaking that differs vastly from other
fruits of human endeavor. Unlike the production of objects–which is
finite, static, the result of external action on controlled matter–the
shaping of actors is endless, dynamic, the result of self-creation, ever
open to changing reality. The metaphor of pottery, which gives form
through molding, with flexibility and creativity, reflects this process
better than that of construction. The fact that actors are the product
of self-training, self-creation, or self-building does not mean that no
others are involved. The presence of others, in relationships woven of
cooperation and conflict, is vitally necessary for the formation of
social, political, and economic actors.
Since the individual is not shaped in
isolation, the context to the formation of human beings must be found.
The formation of social, political, and economic actors involves
preexisting social, political, and economic structures that are
reproduced and upheld in the process of “socialization.” Actors are
shaped by patterns of society, political power, and economic relations.
These are not mere ideals or abstract conceptions. They are working
models that play a role in social relations. Like an artisan who
reproduces a model with slight variations, the invisible hands of the
collective artisan, and of each individual, create a prototype actor to
express a society’s ideals and aspirations. This is the process of
culture.
If war manages to overwhelm a society
or relations between nations and states, if violence takes the place of
social interaction, does that mean societies or nations or states are
following the warrior and predator models? Not necessarily. But when war
and violence are used to settle social conflicts, the reality is that
force and aggression prevail over cooperation, solidarity, and respect
for human dignity, even though these are still present in societies,
nations, and states affected by violence. Clearly the prevalence of
violence points, in one way or another, to a “failure” of the
socialization processes aimed at peace and coexistence that were
espoused by nations during this century--ideals more highly cherished
after the terror of the world wars and other no less horrific conflicts.
This document’s reference point is
the social and political reality of Colombia four months before the end
of the 20th century. It asks what we, as persons responsible for
education, can do in designing education-for-peace proposals, with
particular emphasis on the nonviolent settlement of conflicts. While the
point of reference is Colombia, we would like this document to help
shape education for peace across the Hemisphere, so that the nations and
states of the Americas may knit together to resist the temptation of war
and violent confrontation when internal and external conflicts arise.
DEFINITIONS
We should state what we mean by
certain words. These definitions are not absolute. They are aimed not at
settling any debate but at inviting further thought. For this
Hemisphere-wide discussion, they must be formulated in accordance with
each country's particular situation, inclinations, and identity. The
language proposed here is intended to be both universal and specific.
• What do we mean by education, by
peace, and by education for peace?
We use education to mean the global
or overall process of shaping human beings as social, economic, and
political actors with an existing scenario-- the social, economic, and
political structures stemming from an ideal of humanity and from social
and government policies. The process of shaping human beings that we
call education assumes freedom and, consequently, the potential for
transforming social reality, even in the form of disobedience toward
structures of inequality or injustice. It also assumes limitations
imposed by reality and by an existing framework of understandings. This
interaction between the social and the individual, between the limits of
reality and the dreams and imaginings that fuel transformations, is the
cultural process.
Education thus conceived goes far
beyond school work and formal learning systems. It includes social and
political dynamics, economic activities, daily routines, interpersonal
relations, family life, and work–in short, all the dimensions of human
existence. In this way, society as a whole is seen as an educator.
The concept of peace has been
evolving from a negative--the absence of war--to a positive. It now
involves much more than halting hostilities or preventing them from
emerging. Peace refers to structural conditions of justice and equity
and the eradication of all forms of discrimination, oppression, and
violence. /
Education for peace brings together
the concepts of education and peace. It emphasizes opposition to all
forms of violence (including symbolic violence and structures of
exclusion); it sees the transformation of people as the scenario for its
immediate action; it views the assimilation of values that favor life
and respect for human dignity as the free and committed decision of each
actor in the educational process; and it seeks to integrate concepts
with attitudes, techniques, and skills for a peaceful coexistence where
the nonviolent resolution of conflicts is at the core.
• Conflict and Violence
We have said that education is a
process of self-creation in which human beings become social, economic,
and political actor, at the individual or particular level as well as at
the social or collective level. This process is forged in an
interrelation between participants involving different interests, global
views, characters, situations, and, above all, asymmetrical relations in
the distribution of power, income, and wealth. Diversity gives rise to
the potential for conflicts, which, in addition to being inevitable, are
also a part of the structure of human life.
A negative view of conflicts sees
them as harmful and contrary to peace. The ideal of peaceful coexistence
would be a society free of conflicts. Such a view is naive and
represents a moralistic approach to the emergence of conflicts. A
different view, a positive and optimistic one, sees and treats conflicts
as an opportunity for individuals and communities to grow. For that
reason, peace is unattainable without conflicts. Peace stands in
opposition not to conflicts, but rather to violence.
Violence is one way to address and
settle disputes, although it is a precursor to every insurmountable
conflict. Violent solutions beget new and escalating violence. However,
conflicts do not always lead to violence; they can be settled
nonviolently.
Just as conflict and violence do not
necessarily go together, neither do violence and force. Violence is the
extreme use of force, with the deliberate intent of inflicting pain or
harm–bodily, psychological, emotional, economic, or cultural–on a person
or group. Violence can be direct, immediately affecting the body and
mind of human beings, or indirect, acting through structures that cause
poverty or deny basic rights. If violence is always an extreme use of
force, in contrast force is not always or inevitably violence. Force is
an ability to affirm, a vital impetus for attaining goals. Moreover,
countering violence requires the force of those who oppose injustice and
the violation of human dignity. Resisting war and all forms of violence
is an action of force on the part of human beings.
• Nonviolent Conflict Resolution
Nonviolent conflict resolution is one
way to address competing interests. Resorting to war and other forms of
violence as a way to settle disputes is always possible, though not
unavoidable. The use of nonviolent conflict resolution is a sign of
progress in a society’s political culture.
Means of nonviolent conflict
resolution include negotiation, agreement, arbitration, conciliation,
and judicial action. In all these undertakings, dialogue, mediation,
brokership, and serving as witnesses and guarantors are fundamental
mechanisms. Dialogue must be stressed a necessary prerequisite for the
nonviolent resolution of conflicts. The background of the dialogue is
much more important than the content of the conversation and the
achievements reached, in that the experience of dialogue constitutes
learning for peace. Dialogue as an exercise among parties is meaningless
if it does not involve values and attitudes oriented toward peace.
It is therefore essential to base the
dialogue for nonviolent conflict resolution on recognizing people’s
worth, on recognizing the other party, whether singular or collective,
male or female, as someone with dignity, who is worth something, who has
rights, who deserves to be listened to, and who should be respected as a
human being. Without this recognition of the other, resolving conflicts
in a nonviolent fashion will not be possible. Violence essentially
involves ignoring the dignity of others, treating them as disposable or
nonessential objects or a bothersome presence that can be eliminated.
The elimination of others takes place not only through the extreme form
of violence that is death, but also through the exploitation of human
beings, failing to acknowledge their rights, imposing silence, and
ignoring their otherness and their right to be heard.
Dialogue for nonviolent conflict
resolution also requires an attitude of learning. Nobody is born with
the spontaneous ability to dialogue. We must learn how to dialogue, how
to defuse hate and hostility, how to discern the right moment for
dialogue and for compromise. We learn how to dialogue through dialogue
itself, but prior preparation is necessary.
PROPOSALS FOR EDUCATION IN NONVIOLENT
CONFLICT RESOLUTION
a. Defuse hate; teach forgiveness;
work to bring about justice and eradicate impunity: The Hemisphere’s
societies, particularly those that have gone through armed conflicts and
interruptions of their democratic regimes, have experienced periods of
violence and curtailed civil and political rights. Untying the knots of
hatred and resentment and creating the subjective, social, and political
conditions for forgiveness on foundations of truth and justice is of
vital importance. Impunity in great offenses to human dignity and
citizens’ rights of freedom and sovereignty constitutes a permanent
threat to peace. All educational structures, including the school
system, can and must contribute to training in principles of forgiveness
and reconciliation and to ensuring that national societies have the
capacity for truth and justice.
b. Strengthen local government
programs that teach coexistence among citizens: If peace is a commitment
of states and national societies, efforts made by local governments to
forge new relations among citizens that do not rely on force and
violence must be supported and strengthened. This refers to educational
programs dealing with voluntary disarmament, restrictions on alcohol
consumption together with proposals for education on that issue,
programs for public safety with broad participation and an attitude of
prevention and rehabilitation of criminals, practice dialogue and
negotiation sessions between local authorities and communities for
decision-making, etc.
c. Encourage social and political
negotiation regarding major social conflicts: Social conflict caused by
disparities in income and the distribution of wealth continues to be a
cause for dissident social movements in the Hemisphere. Given the
current situation–reduced availability of state funding; macroeconomic
adjustments with the state having a smaller role in resolving social
problems; conditions of poverty and exclusion that have still not been
resolved in large parts of our countries–attaining formulas for
agreement and social and political negotiation that avoid violent
confrontations is of vital importance. Thus, the nonviolent resolution
of social conflicts should make use of popular consultations, dialogue
committees, consensus-building and conciliation, public debates, etc.
d. Promote an ethical reshaping of
societies, based on acknowledging the diversity and experience of
citizens: In the past, the Hemisphere’s societies based their moral
principles on religious traditions, which were transmitted through
experience within the family and at school, through social mores, and in
the arena of religious expression. Today the institutions of
socialization are undergoing a profound crisis and there is no ethical
frame of reference claiming universality. Peaceful, respectful, and
tolerant coexistence requires an ethical horizon, a scale of values that
protects human life and human dignity. This value framework can and must
be constructed on the basis of diversity. It is an ethical system in
which everyone, regardless of their sex, with different perspectives of
the world, different cultural traditions, and specific contexts and
situations, can contribute toward identifying common values that we can
affirm and uphold. The common fact that seems to identify us all is that
we are citizens within a political community. Appealing to citizenship
as a unifying concept for locating the ethical principles of coexistence
helps consolidate the political vocations and identities of the
Hemisphere’s peoples and nations.
e. Train people in positive
approaches to conflict and in problem-solving: If in the past we have
identified peace as the absence of conflicts, we must now understand
that peace is built amidst conflicts and, as a result, society as a
whole–together with the state, which is responsible for guiding and
orienting it–is being called on to approach conflict as something
inherent to the personal and collective lives of human beings. To this
end, educational processes, in their widest sense, must make conflicts
visible instead of hiding them, denying them, or channeling them in ways
that keep them from being solved. It is never appropriate to leave
conflicts without proposals for their resolution. Although conflicts are
positive for social growth, they are not however desirable as a
permanent and undefined situation. The creative search for solutions to
conflicts is the best learning for future conflicts.
f. Establish special training
programs for educators, other individuals responsible for shaping public
opinion, and the local community: Peace does not arise spontaneously.
The attitudes, values, and skills that peace requires, particularly
conflict negotiation, come from learning. Teachers in the Hemisphere’s
countries, together with other people with responsibilities in forming
national societies and local communities (journalists, communicators,
religious leaders, community leaders, etc.), often do not have the
conceptual tools, attitudes, and skills to teach conflict resolution and
the full scope of education for peace. Special programs must be created
for those who perform these tasks and for inclusion in the curricula of
those who are still receiving specific professional training (teacher
training, media studies, journalism, etc.). In countries suffering from
domestic armed conflicts this need is much more urgent and compelling,
and it also involves other components, such as training in how to
approach war victims, the psychological and emotional effects of
violence on children and young people, as well as other problems.
g. Encourage public discussion of the
high levels of television violence and of educational systems that
replicate patterns of violence in the school environment: The impact of
television programming on the lives of children and young people cannot
be denied. The socialization of today's generations now largely takes
place through the daily ritual of long hours of television and in
cyberspace, which are now increasingly accessible to broad sectors of
society. All these broadcasts make great riches available to children
and youngsters, but they also transmit, without effective criticism, a
model of humanity based on the use of violence. School systems sometimes
copy patterns of violence or exclusion taken from societies: unjustified
or disproportionate punishments, competition among students over and
above solidarity, school programs modeled on military life (military
academies for secondary-level pupils). Those of us who are responsible
for constructing the education for peace agenda in national societies
and across the Hemisphere must promote a public debate on these
educational methods and on the avalanche of violent images transmitted
by television and computer screens.
h. Establish within education systems
a dual approach toward education for peace: across-the-board peace
instruction combined with specific training: There are several options
for institutionalizing the teaching of peace in the education system.
One possibility is to make peace, and particularly conflict negotiation,
a subject on the academic curriculum. Another is to incorporate peace
instruction across the board, in all subjects, projects, and programs of
the educational establishment: something akin to a curriculum that is
present beyond explicit formulations and which therefore involves
promoting behavioral habits, attitudes, techniques, and skills for
coexistence, including conflict negotiation. We propose an effort to
combine strategies: on the one hand, an effort to make peace the
“content” about which knowledge is imparted–here irenology, research
into conflict (and about specific conflicts), and theoretical and
conceptual offerings are the order of the day; on the other, making
peace and conflict negotiation (under different guises) take shape
through skills and attitudes put into practice in every endeavor of the
educational establishments–in this way, awareness of the content is
enriched with the nonviolent conflict resolution implemented as a real
practice within schools.
i. Promote training in cooperation,
solidarity, and understanding in both interpersonal and international
relations: While it is true that relations among states are conducted
according to international law through diplomatic channels, peoples and
nations are responsible for building and maintaining peace. Today’s
armed conflicts are frequently internal, but the threat of international
war must not be dismissed. The ethical foundations of societies could
guide them in alleviating the causes and consequences of armed conflict,
in ending wars and finding solutions. It would be useful to renew
efforts to disseminate, within educational systems and to the press and
the public, the Charters of the United Nations and the Organization of
American States. It would also be useful to promote education for peace
projects in border areas, designed by states and governments in common
accord; encourage exchanges of teaching experiences in the specific
field of education for peace; and work to build networks of teachers and
other professionals active in this field. Confidence in international
relations must rest both on the will of states to bring about peace and
on goodwill and fraternity built upon national identities, particularly
in border regions.
j. Promote, strengthen, and develop
alternative justice systems for conflict resolution: The right to
justice is highly cherished in modern societies. Citizens expect
efficient, swift justice that respects the rights of the accused and
determines appropriate punishments to redress harm and rehabilitate
criminals. The justice system does not always meet this aspiration,
however, and on occasion it deals with matters that could be resolved
through conciliation mechanisms placed under the judicial umbrella. The
rechanneling of judicial conflicts into alternative justice through
mechanisms like conciliation requires a process of cultural
transformation: discovering or rediscovering the sources of community
authority and their conflict resolution methods, and imagining and
creating authority among the citizens, with the state’s approval, for
the peaceful resolution of conflicts in which there are no losers and
where the basic principle is that of the agreement that benefits all
parties.
k. Education for peace, and
particularly for peaceful conflict resolution, requires cultural
traditions that foster dialogue, understanding, solidarity, and
cooperation: All the peoples of the Americas rely on age-old traditions
of solidarity, mutual cooperation, neighborliness, and
consensus-building to solve problems and, on occasion, to settle
disputes. Their nations’ development does not depend solely on their
ability to incorporate themselves into globalized markets, their
technological reconversion, and their macroeconomic stability.
Development also has to do with the growth of cultural identity. Thus,
traditions that favor peace and harmonious coexistence must be
reassessed and rediscovered in order to create a collective ethic that
favors peace and nonviolent conflict resolution.
A FEW CRITERIA FOR EVALUATING
EDUCATION PROPOSALS IN THE AREA OF PEACEFUL CONFLICT RESOLUTION
Adopting peaceful conflict resolution
mechanisms involves a transformation of attitudes, values, and
perspectives that is not always easy to assess or quantify. However,
some assessment criteria can be formulated for high-profile programs and
policies designed to train citizens in building peace.
There are particularly important
indicators for states and governments. It is possible to measure how the
incidence of violence is affected by voluntary disarmament policies and
the limitation of alcohol sales to certain hours. We are talking about
policies at the national and, particularly, local levels that require
programs in training and communication. In addition to these policies
are the coercive measures available to the public authorities regarding
the carrying of weapons and the consumption of liquor and narcotics.
States and governments can also
assess the effectiveness of educational programs on peaceful conflict
resolution through mechanisms such as conciliation, justices of the
peace, and other alternative judicial instruments, by determining the
number of conflicts that reach those agencies and their impact on the
formal justice system, and then qualitatively assessing the extent to
which the conflict resolution mechanisms institutionalized by the state
and society have been assimilated.
In the institutional life of the
Hemisphere’s states and nations, one criterion for assessing education
in the peaceful resolution of conflicts is the level and quality of
dialogue, negotiation, and consensus-building vis-à-vis major social
conflicts. The representatives of the state–of the executive in
particular–as well as the representatives of different social sectors
should be qualified for this. The creation of committees for dialogue,
negotiation, and consensus-building, set up by mutual agreement and
specifically designed to address given conflicts (land disputes, wage
claims, conflicts over unmet basic needs, the quality and coverage of
health or education systems, etc.), is a discernible criterion for
assessment in this regard.
In the formal education system,
assessment of programs for education in the peaceful resolution of
conflicts can take place at several levels. The first is the system
itself: Has the education system, both public and private, created a
specific training plan for peace and, specifically, for conflict
resolution, to train teachers in the necessary attitudes, values,
techniques, and skills? Defining a special training program in this area
largely determines the effectiveness of the proposal for education in
nonviolent conflict resolution. Indeed, the commitment of educators to
such training should be assessed in their performance evaluations.
The education system can use another
important indicator. If training for peace in general and training for
peaceful conflict resolution in particular do not achieve a discernible
level of institutionalization in academic life, they will not be
effective. In other words, the program must be incorporated in some way
into the school’s activities: as an academic subject, as extracurricular
instruction conducted within schools, as a special limited-duration
campaign, etc. If this is not in evidence, the education system is not
meeting the goal of educating for the nonviolent conflict resolution.
Part of education is what really
happens at school. Here the assessment criterion must combine
qualitative aspects that depend on the interpretations of teachers,
parents, and students, but assessment can also be based on concrete
achievements: the creation of rules for coexistence for peace and
respect toward human dignity, the establishment of educational councils
for resolving conflicts among students, bodies for dialogue and
agreement-building involving teachers and students, the level by which
violence among young people decreases (or increases), changes in the
methods of teachers who promote violence and authoritarianism, etc.
For society as a whole and, in
particular, for the academic world, the media, the press, and other
sectors having major influence on public opinion (religious communities,
social and political leaders, etc.), assessment criteria can be defined.
A society progresses toward peace and toward a culture of peaceful
conflict negotiation when it disavows war and violence and when the
public messages of those responsible for leading social perceptions call
for reconciliation, the elimination of hate, social justice, the
eradication of all forms of violence, the struggle against impunity, and
the search for all possible ways to settle conflicts without violence.
Thus, public debate about violence on television and in other electronic
media; discussions about educational models; thought, debate, and
dissemination regarding civic ethics (that is, when concern for the
ethics of coexistence is made a public matter): all these, and more, are
indicators of the progress of societies and states on the path toward
peace.
The international picture can also be
assessed. The important issue here is cooperation between states and
governments to create joint programs of education for peace, with
particular emphasis on peaceful conflict resolution. These programs can
incorporate many proposals: exchanges, study programs in border areas to
promote peace and mutual trust among peoples, advisory services,
academic events, comparative studies of public polices regarding
education for peace, etc. If the states of the Hemisphere are not seen
to cooperate on a real program of training for peace, and specifically
for the peaceful resolution of conflicts, all ideals of coexistence lose
their effectiveness and are reduced to isolated efforts that do not
ensure the experience of peace for all the inhabitants of the Americas.
II
SECOND CENTRAL THEME
PROMOTION OF DEMOCRATIC VALUES AND
PRACTICES
This contribution aims at suggesting
a number of practical initiatives for the design of a Hemispheric
Program of Education for Peace. Discussing and comparing different
national experience will of course lead to their being fine-tuned and
redefined so that, once restructured, they may attain the necessary
level of consensus and viability.
INTRODUCTION
Recently we have seen how efforts to
restore and strengthen democracy in some nations of the Hemisphere were
hampered not only by the precarious state of democratic institutions but
also by a shortage of promoters of democracy, those who would defend,
expand, and strengthen democracy (WILLS, 1999). Clearly this area
requires urgent intervention if democracy is to be seen not as an alien,
imposed objective but as the product of our own traditions, of a culture
within which we live and act.
Thus, the formation and consolidation
of promoters of democracy must take place within the domain of culture;
that is, in the consolidation of an ethos that, as second nature, gives
meaning to our actions. That meaning implicitly contains concepts and
values, and it is expressed in habits and customs that are unquestioned
because they express the common sense of a collectivity.
This ethos is a historical construct.
It is the decanted product of collective experience in meeting
challenges to survival, of adapting to a milieu, of overcoming adversity
and building the optimal social organization. In this varied and
unpredictable range of contingencies, societies learn by trial and
error. But they also define the goals they will seek, the values that
those common objectives enshrine, and the practices through which they
will be made current within society and built into its permanent
structure. This set of options defines the ethical profile of a people
and enables us to speak of a people as such, not only of a haphazard
collection of individuals.
This ethical consensus was not
defined for all time on a single occasion in a mythical original time.
On the contrary, it is a changing reality, subject to an ongoing
plebiscite involving all the components of the community from their
particular fields of endeavor and their individual interests. This
deliberation is repeated in light of new challenges and during the
ethical crises that tend to arise when the frame of reference, formed by
ideas, values, and practices, is outmoded and moribund.
In recent decades, the order of the
day has been the consolidation of democracy and the restructuring of
coexistence against a backdrop of epoch change and a far-reaching
process of globalization that requires us not only to open up to the
world and establish a dialogue with other cultures, but also to redefine
our internal relations and the relations between different components
and external dynamics in constant, rapid movement.
Our peoples’ cultures possess
valuable traditions of republicanism, solidarity, and patriotism,
together with debatable attitudes regarding, inter alia, social and
political matters. These elements must be taken into account since we
are living in a time of ethical reformulation and redefinition of ideas,
values, and collective practices, and this is a process in which we must
progress with the best of our traditions, projecting them into the
definition of a present that is viable through our assumption of
contemporary changes and in function of the improvement and
sustainability of our societies. The reshaped and redefined consensus
will be the result again of wide-ranging deliberation, in which everyone
is involved with their particular knowledge and expressing themselves
through the means available to them.
In other words, it is not through the
transfusion of supposedly universal values–regardless of how admirable
they may appear or how fruitful they have been in other latitudes–that
we will restructure our democratic ethics. We are not arguing for
blindness toward the world and introspection regarding a past that
should be more than an object of nostalgia and an unfinished identity.
What we are suggesting is the appropriation by society as a whole of the
traditions and new concepts and values that will allow it to survive and
progress while remaining itself.
This means that a training program in
democratic values and practices must be based on the consensus of all
social agents and, in particular, of those who can influence the
formation of opinions (civil and religious authorities, political and
social leaders, academics and teachers in general, media workers,
exponents of the arts). This consensus, which will always be temporary
and up for discussion, must freely and spontaneously commit all these
agents so that society’s construction has a shared orientation.
Creating the conditions for
pluralistic and inclusive debate, stimulating it, and drawing the
relevant conclusions from it must be one of the authorities’ goals, in
the understanding that society itself must define the type of
coexistence it deserves, the values on which it is to be based, and the
quality of citizenship to which it aspires.
PRECONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE
As stated before, this is an age of
changing ideas and social ties. Not only do new technologies and changes
in the flow of merchandise and data abound, but they all are
transforming people’s sensitivities, changing their experiences of space
and time, and modifying the way they perceive reality and interpersonal
relations. Neither economic and technological changes nor the cultural
mutations they cause are understood in their full nature or dimensions,
preventing those who would define cultural policy from acting on sure
foundations.
Current trends can point out the
viability of policies as well as their limits and potential. In
contrast, formulating policies without considering changing reality
could mean doing so from the perspective of prejudice or groundless
desires. The fact is that over the past two decades, radical
modifications have taken place in rural affairs and the lot of
country-dwellers, in the attitudes of young people toward education and
work, in the role of women and family structures, in the use of leisure
time and its relation to traditional forms of high culture, as well as
in other areas.
In connection with this, it would be
advisable to propose creating Observatories of Cultural Change in each
country to analyze the current transformations and to identify their
trends, the factors behind them, and their possible impact. The research
methods and results could be shared and systematized across the
hemisphere, thus providing an increasingly thorough understanding of the
changes in perceptions and culture and ensuring better qualified
elements for defining and negotiating the content of cultural policies.
That precisely is the first component
of the project Culture for Democracy, now being carried out by Brazil’s
Ministry of Culture and the Latin American Studies Center of Maryland
with support from the IDB (Project TC-97-04-24-9-RG). This project’s
first module involves research to draw up and analyze indicators of
democratic culture within the Brazilian education system, mass media,
and other noninstitutional arenas.
Similarly, support should be given to
the proposal made by Néstor García Canclini (GARCIA CANCLINI, 1999) to
create a Latin American Cultural Information System. As its proponent
explains: “Its main function would be to gather together reliable
statistics from all the region’s countries, recording developments and
trends in cultural investments (state and private), in consumption
(especially of cultural industries), and in intercultural perceptions
(images of other countries in the region and of the Euro-American and
North American spaces).” This system could also statistically monitor
changes in tastes and preferences among the region’s inhabitants,
particularly its young people.
These two proposals could provide the
starting point for defining any policy for training in democratic values
and practices: not just for officials in the state sector, but also for
those in the private arena–the cultural industry, churches, or other
areas–who would be involved in training promoters of democracy.
STRATEGIES FOR GENERALIZING
DEMOCRATIC PRACTICES
Democratic values and practices
cannot be consolidated through a process of indoctrination, such as when
efforts are made to take truth or civilization to people lost in error
or barbarism. Having rejected the illuministic approach, democracy must
be conceived of above all as a superior form of existence, as a feature
of a higher quality of life. To that end, democratic practices must be
generalized as proposals for improving life, as tools for better solving
everyday life, and as mechanisms for building a more satisfactory
coexistence. In other words, democracy will be strengthened among us
when we all adopt the practical notion that life is better under
democracy.
Consequently, in consolidating a
culture of democracy, more emphasis must be placed on generalizing
practices than on preaching values. Along with the extension of
practices, and–perhaps more importantly–once they have proven their
usefulness, groups and communities must reflect to discover and build,
with the participants in those practices, the notions and values
implicit in them.
We therefore propose three strategies
for extending democratic practices:
A. Transforming Arenas in Which
Authoritarianism and Exclusion Prevail
Certain arenas are often dominated by
antidemocratic perceptions and practices; some are dedicated to
education and training (schools and barracks), others are major forums
for socialization (sporting groups, trade unions, religious communities,
factories, workplaces), others are intended for reeducation (prisons,
for example). In all these places democracy must be experienced as a
lifestyle so that once it is an everyday reality, it can permeate into
the mindsets of its practitioners.
In this regard, we can build a
complex notion of democracy based on recognizing the autonomy of others,
accepting their ability to decide for themselves, renouncing coercion
through force or fear for carrying forward an idea or initiative, and
the possibility of making decisions by appealing more to reason than to
arguments of authority and of accepting compromises in order to reach
agreements and consensus. A complex concept of democracy in which there
is room for difference, be it on account of gender, because they think
differently, because their lifestyle choices differ from the norm, or
because they have different racial or social origins.
Everyday places in which we will have
to learn to build public space and collective endeavors. This does not
mean living in a state of permanent assembly or perpetual voting, but
rather that through the experience, respect toward others as equals will
be internalized as the essential value of everyday coexistence.
The democratic transformation of
these milieus could take place through the deconstruction of
antidemocratic practices and the identification of their protagonists
(both active and passive), the interests behind them, the arguments used
to justify them, and the effective measures that were required to turn
them into habits or customs. This deconstruction should also specify the
effects they have on others, on the type of coexistence involved, and on
the quality of life in general. On the basis of this exercise of
self-recognition and recognition of surroundings, the parties involved
could propose alternative rules of behavior and a plan for transforming
the milieu.
B. Encouraging Associative Practices
The strength of a democratic state
depends on the solidity of the civil society reflected in it. At the
same time, the solidity of civil society depends on how tightly woven
its fabric of organizations and networks is. In an atomized and
disorganized society, collective projects, public spaces, and democratic
culture cannot be built. Contrary to what many people think, civil
society is a necessary prerequisite for a democratic state with a high
level of legitimacy.
On the contrary, totalitarian states
invariably strive to wipe out the vitality of civil society, use terror
to disperse the free associations it has generated, create controlled
organizations that act as instruments for the dictates of power, and
forge obeisant and servile leaders. In contrast, the correlate of a
democratic state is a civil society with a high degree of autonomy,
whose members freely and spontaneously associate regarding the issues
about which they care the most. For their members, these associations
provide schooling in democratic values and customs and serve as the
crucible in which the leaders who reproduce and consolidate democracy
are forged.
In a democracy, and in order to
consolidate a democratic culture, both the state and private sectors
must promote the strengthening of civil society by encouraging the
fabric of organizations and networks that arise from the
self-organization of people.
Hence, associations based on
interests and the emergence of interest groups must be encouraged.
Associations of young people dealing with hobbies, sports, and
recreational activities must be promoted, together with initiatives of
an economic nature. A policy of promoting democratic values and
practices must also encourage the autonomous organization of women and
the development of female leaders, with a view to securing equality
between genders. A dynamic to strengthen social organizations, as the
necessary vehicle for representing majority interests, must also be
designed. But, above all, the formation of associations regarding
matters of public interest, such as the environment and human rights,
must be encouraged.
The incentives for organization can
be varied, with the sole condition that they guarantee the autonomy of
the associations created. Some French municipalities have experimented
with a mechanism known as “AGIR,” which brings together all local civil
associations and through which they participate in local development and
receive municipal resources. Another way to strengthen the fabric of
civil society organizations and networks is to provide training
opportunities for association leaders and facilitators. To avoid giving
an impression of political bias, this leader training should be
conducted by organizations independent of the government, albeit with
state support. The private sector, for example could support the
creation of associations, particularly among young people, by providing
assistance for activities carried out by their organizations.
One valuable incentive for
associations could be a regular national prize awarded to the best
initiative for a public cause carried out by young people. Excellence in
this instance would be determined not only by the organization’s
discourse, but also its internal democratic practices, its relations
with its beneficiaries, and the quality of the impact sought. Such a
contest could help promote widespread altruism, which is a prerequisite
for politics to recover its nobility.
C. Praising Democratic Behavior and
Criticizing Antidemocratic Actions
His conviction regarding the merits
of teaching by example led the liberator Simón Bolívar to extend it into
the school setting: “Morals are not imposed, nor is the imposer a
teacher, nor should force be used in giving counsel . . . extraordinary
acts of application, of honor, and of any other noble sentiment are not
forgotten, but are rather commended to memory with esteem. To this end a
register shall be kept, recording the most notable acts, the author
thereof, and the day on which they were performed . . . the book shall
be decorated and kept with veneration in a visible place.” On the
highest national day, the glories and triumphs of the young people are
to be read out, and eulogies and praise are to be given to those named
in the honored book: a day of celebration and joy.
At the current time of ethical
reshaping, the spirit of the proposal must be readdressed even if the
suggested procedures are not viable. Instead, there are today better
resources for praising notable democratic behavior and censuring
antidemocratic acts. The power of the mass media facilitates both public
recognition and moral sanction much more than was possible at the dawn
of the republican regime.
n principle, both praise and censure
should take place at the local level (school, neighborhood,
municipality) to enjoy the effects of closeness and so that people are
either motivated by the honored example or learn from the other person’s
mistake. Of course, in this globalized age, some will argue that events
in the antipodes are close to us. While true, however, this does not
mean that the starting point in forming civic ethics is not direct
experience within the home community.
This could be the procedure to ensure
that intolerant or exclusive forms of behavior, particularly those
carried out by groups or communities, are considered within our
societies not only as censurable but also as the inadmissible acts of
barbarism that they are.
Public discussion of individuals or
actions recommended for praise or censure would give society an
opportunity to express itself about these issues, develop its moral
judgment, acquire ethical concepts, and achieve higher levels of
dialogue, debate, and consensus-building.
INSTRUMENTS FOR TRAINING IN
DEMOCRATIC PRACTICES AND VALUES
Today, the legitimization of the
relationships between culture and development and between culture and
democracy is an established fact. Culture is at present a strategic
field in the definition of any economic or political proposal. This
reassessment of culture is taking place within a particular set of
circumstances.
On account of new technologies and
globalization, the production of cultural goods has become a genuine
industry, subject to market requirements and models. The centers of the
culture industry lie beyond national borders, without specific reference
to one territory or cultural tradition; this gives rise to a particular
form of public space. New technological resources have transformed
languages, giving primacy to images over the written word and to
narrative over argumentation, in a sequence that instead of being linear
is like a montage of fleeting episodes reeled off in bursts. These
changes, to speak only of those that seem most relevant, impact the
relationships between states and the culture industry’s producers,
between those producers and consumers, and between cultural output and
political discourse and action; most of all, however, they affect the
nature and possibilities of cultural policy.
Previously, cultural policy took
place under the terms of the lettered city, as it has been called by
Jesús Martín-Barbero (MARTÍN-BARBERO, 1999). By this he meant that it
was exclusively restricted to literature, music, and the plastic arts,
and to the framework of so-called high culture. The lettered city
favored written texts as the channel for reflection and the vehicle for
de-alienation. For the lettered city, the culture industry and the mass
media might perhaps transmit high culture, but they neither create nor
recreate it and their spaces are closed to reflection and freedom.
Nowadays, not only do the electronic
media impose new languages; they also build new relations with
consumers. Popular culture and traditions crossbreed and intermingle
with universal languages and resources. Different arts are integrated in
hypertext, which offers consumers different readings. Thus, new
identities are created while traditional ones are resealed and modified.
Expectations to the contrary, new
technologies allow local-level communication initiatives to develop,
offering a vehicle for the interests and expectations of small
communities. Such is the case with community radio and television
stations, and this offers new possibilities for cultural and political
work.
In this connection, we offer three
general guidelines which could be fruitful if they inspire creativity:
Training in democratic practices and
values must embrace new technological resources, their languages, and
the new relationships with the users of those resources. Refusing to do
so would not only deny us possibly enriching media through
shortsightedness; it would above all pose a grave risk of rendering it
incomprehensible to key sectors, such as young people. The aim is not to
develop an instrumental assessment of those resources, but rather to
learn to communicate within a new form of relationship that involves
other languages, other discourses, and different attitudes.
In the policies they agree upon with
producers from the culture industry, states should include clauses
dealing with the promotion of democratic values and practices. The
culture industry, particularly the producers of audiovisual and printed
matter, requires protective margins to ensure both their viability and
competitiveness at the global level. At the same time, guaranteeing a
public space that takes national interests and national culture into
account as a matter of sovereignty could be a legitimate state interest.
With these overlapping interests, states can exchange protection for the
promotion of democratic values and practices as essential aspects of our
collective projects. Such agreements could incorporate democracy into
the most widespread manifestations of contemporary culture. If, for
example, the rationalists used operatic and symphonic music to express
revolutionary sensitivity and the emancipatory aspirations of their
contemporaries, today use must be made of information and the creative
proposals offered by electronic media in order to attain similar
results.
Regardless of the agreements
proposed, the culture industry must adopt training in democratic values
and practices as an aspect of its communications agenda and social
commitment. And this commitment and agenda could well be served through
consensus-building with other social institutions, such as institutes of
higher education, schools in general, civic organizations, religious
authorities, etc.
Those interested in training in
democratic values and practices at the local level must be given access
to the contemporary media, in accordance with their situations and
possibilities, and so the state must facilitate access to community
radio and television by those who have set themselves the task of
building democratic culture. Facilitating access means not only creating
an adequate regulatory framework, but also providing training
opportunities so that community radio and television stations can
develop properly.
REVIEW OF EDUCATIONAL DISCOURSE AND
PRACTICE
While schools cannot be given the
mission of guaranteeing the existence of democracy–that task belongs to
other spheres of social life–creating optimal conditions among children
and young people for their future enjoyment of full citizenship does
seem to be a function of modern schools. The school is thus the seedbed
where the first ideas of civics are learned, where moral education is
furthered, and where early habits of democratic coexistence are
engrained. In performing this function schools cannot be replaced, since
they remain one of the first forums for socialization.
To enable schools to better perform
this mission, educational discourse and educational practices must be
deconstructed in order to determine the features that hinder training in
democratic values and practices. There can be no doubt that the
Hemisphere’s schools have made enormous progress in understanding the
role of education in training citizens. It is highly possible that
today’s teachers are much more aware of the possibilities and
limitations of schools and of their own strong and weak points.
Achieving those levels of awareness and commitment has been the work of
intergovernmental agencies and international cooperation bodies and of
officials at national ministries and departments responsible for
education. The proposal is thus to further those developments and to
consolidate them, in the conviction that educational efforts will never
be superfluous in strengthening democracy.
In this regard the teacher training
process would have to be reviewed so that after assuming the
interrelation between moral education, training for democracy, social
sciences, and, in general, school life as a whole, teachers can have the
academic resources and knowledge necessary to educate future citizens.
In a context of continued teacher training, it would be useful to
encourage systematic exchanges of experiences regarding education in
democratic values and practices, at either the local, regional,
national, or international levels, and to provide communications
mechanisms to ensure that the best experiences receive widespread
dissemination.
With regard to students, schools must
teach them to develop deep self-confidence through self-recognition and
recognition of others. Confidence lies at the heart of autonomous
behavior, reciprocity, and the civic community. At the same time,
confidence in oneself and others is a prerequisite in these times of
turbulence and of economic and cultural globalization. The development
of confidence must therefore be integrated into the process of moral
education and the curriculum as a whole. From the earliest age,
awareness of those who are different and assessing them positively must
be part of intellectual and moral growth. Exercises like excursions and
exchanging letters, resources like film and literature, and subjects
like history and geography are optimal ways in which to discover other
ways of being and living.
ASSESSMENT CRITERIA
The assessment of the program as a
process and in terms of its results should make use of criteria like the
following:
• Breadth and depth of a society's
debate regarding democratic values and practices.
• Breadth and richness of consensus
reached on what democratic values and practices should be promoted.
• Transformation of attitudes toward
democracy and, in particular, the formation of democratic values and
practices, by private and public actors participating in the debate.
• Specific agreements among private
parties or between them and the public sector for developing joint
initiatives to promote democratic values and practices.
• Provision of instruments for
monitoring transformations in cultural opinions and trends.
• Institutions that have undertaken
systematic efforts toward democratic transformation.
• Increased formation of
associations, particularly among children and young people.
• Incorporating the strengthening of
democracy through the promotion of democratic values and practices into
the media’s agenda and institutional vision.
• Formulation of cultural policies
that provide for training in democratic values and practices.
• Quality of the review of
educational discourse and practice, in terms of the program, by country,
region, and locality.
• Plans for reviewing teacher
training.
• Regarding impact, regular
assessments should be conducted of whether the population is developing
greater civic behavior and whether society is exhibiting more of the
traits of a civic community.
III
THIRD CENTRAL THEME
THE PROMOTION OF PEACE AMONG STATES
INTRODUCTION
This document assumes, first of all,
that conflicts among states are inevitable. Secondly, it is not very
realistic to assume that war will disappear as an option in relations
between states. Instead, it would be advisable to minimize the
probability of that option being reached.
In order to properly focus
educational tasks related to the promotion of peace among states, we
should clarify the problem to which a solution is sought. The problem
is, then, that of armed conflicts between states. It would therefore be
useful to review what is currently known about the reasons for such
conflicts.
In reality, reliable knowledge about
the causes behind wars is scarce. However, in the absence thereof, we
have to work with what is available, particularly information that is
supported by solid empirical evidence. While not ignoring the
psychological and biological factors that can contribute to the
development of a war, the following is a selective recapitulation, with
specific reference to the current context in the Americas, of the
macro-level facts that seem to have a particular influence on the
emergence of violent conflicts.
Wars between states are related to:
• Nationalistic rivalries or
ethnocentrism, fueled by memories of previous hostilities and
exacerbated by emotional messages in the mass media.
• Strategies launched by beleaguered
politicians in an attempt to distract domestic public opinion through an
international conflict.
• Arms races, in conjunction with
deficient communications among states, leading simple defensive measures
to be interpreted as acts of aggression.
• Intervention by rival foreign
powers in internal conflicts.
EDUCATION AND THE PROMOTION OF PEACE
Among the different ways of viewing
the goal of educational processes is one, adopted in this document, that
maintains that said processes are intended to strengthen and/or reorient
adherence to basic values, cultivate attitudes aimed at resolving
problems, strengthen and/or manage emotional reactions, develop certain
skills, and expand knowledge. It should be stressed that educational
processes contribute to the promotion of peace in many ways–some more
remote, albeit no less important, and others more immediately. It is the
latter that are emphasized below.
In light of the above factors that
generate violent conflicts, it is important that educational processes
support the following values and attitudes, teach people how to
understand and manage the following emotional reactions, and cultivate
the following skills and knowledge.
• Basic values: Respect for human
rights, in particular the right to life, freedom, and equal treatment.
High esteem for solidarity and justice.
• Attitudes aimed at solving
problems: Support for international law (in all arenas of application),
cultural diversity, the self-determination of peoples, and dialogue as
the way to resolve disagreements. Respect for the opinions of others.
• Emotional reactions: Feelings of
patriotism, nationalism, xenophobia. Fear of grave threats.
• Skills: For communicating, managing
conflicts, and creating resolution alternatives for the conflicting
interests.
• Knowledge: About the reasons for
wars and their human cost; the importance people place on security and
protecting their lives, honor, and property; the positive or negative
role of the mass media in the origins of violent international
conflicts; the ways in which political leaders manipulate the
population’s feelings; and different instruments for intelligently
resolving conflicts between states (diplomatic negotiation, brokership
offered by third parties, international courts, etc.).
Finally, we believe one of the best
ways to build confidence and, at the same time, to destroy stereotypes
about the people of one state held by those of another is personal and
informal contact between the two.
SCENARIOS AND ACTORS
The initiatives that could arise to
promote peace among states should include activities that take place
both within classrooms and outside them; for example, in parent-teacher
associations, extrascholastic groups, offices where education policy is
decided, and certain international organizations.
The following are a number of
recommended strategies for each case:
a. Educational establishments, at the
primary, secondary, and tertiary levels, could carry out activities such
as:
• Within several subjects,
encouraging awareness among students that conflicts, between
individuals, groups, and states, are inevitable, and that they set the
participants a challenge for maturing as people. In addition,
opportunities must be provided in one or more courses for a systematic
analysis of the nature of human conflicts, their causes and
consequences, and nonviolent ways to overcome them.
• In conflicts between one’s own
country and another, undertaking classroom activities (e.g., role
playing) to assume the other side’s position and to understand the
reasons behind the opposing point of view. Encouraging the
identification of alternative solutions that are acceptable to the
parties.
• Encouraging students to use the
Internet, television, or other mass media to obtain information on
specific aspects of other countries related to subjects studied in the
classroom.
• Organizing visits by young people
to neighboring countries to learn about their people, traditions,
problems, and achievements.
• For problems that affect several
states–environmental degradation, borderland conurbations, the drug
trade, shared water resources, regional development in border areas,
organized crime, etc.–promoting consideration in the classroom regarding
the need for mutual assistance in resolving them.
• Universities should also support
programs aimed at training specialists in the creative handling of
international conflicts and encourage research into such conflicts in
order to better understand them and how to overcome them.
b. Parent-teacher associations
should:
• Take up the Education for Peace
banner in order to cultivate among the coming generations, from the
earliest possible age, a love of the basic values of life, liberty,
equality, justice, and solidarity, and to encourage with their own
example forms of behavior that typify them in everyday life.
c. Leaders of young people’s
associations and other extrascholastic groups are invited to:
• Make use of the conflicts that
arise between group members to stress the importance of understanding
them and seeking out creative ways to overcome them.
d. Governments could, inter alia:
• Encourage social studies teachers
to address, in a critical and documented fashion, current phenomena of
growing interdependence: the reasons for wars and their human cost; the
importance people place on security and protecting their lives, honor,
and property; the positive or negative role of the mass media in the
origins of violent conflicts; the ways in which the population’s
feelings are manipulated; and different instruments for intelligently
resolving conflicts between states (diplomatic negotiation, brokership
offered by third parties, international courts, etc.).
• Create programs to enable organized
groups of teachers and young people to visit other countries around the
Hemisphere more frequently and more easily and attend academic meetings
dealing with peace among states.
• Set up a system for financial
assistance in each country so selected young people can attend forums,
congresses, seminars, and similar events organized to facilitate
meetings between the Hemisphere’s young people.
• Establish youth hostels where young
people from other countries can stay briefly, at a manageable cost,
while they visit the country.
• Organize training courses for
educators and PTA leaders so they can successfully carry out the tasks
described above.
• Require primary and secondary
school curriculums to cover the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
the basic principles of international humanitarian law, and the Charter
of the Organization of American States. Invite teachers to encourage
students to hold those documents’ ideals in high esteem.
e. The Organization of American
States could undertake the following:
• Organizing an American Youth
Parliament, similar to UNESCO’s World Children’s Parliament, comprising
young people from all nations of the Hemisphere, to meet annually, for
one week, in a different capital city, to propose, analyze, and offer
specific recommendations for peace and hemispheric integration. The mass
media should be motivated and encouraged to give wide-scale coverage to
the event.
• Launching on the Internet a meeting
place for the young people of the Americas, in order to create virtual
communities that can chat freely or on specific topics, debate, play,
exchange addresses and files, etc.
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