PEACE IN PAKISTAN

Arshad Masood Hashmi

Besides Hindu nationalism and Muslim separatism, there are a host of issues that have
been plaguing the Indian society for a long time. These include caste conflicts, crime against
women, child abuse, unrest in the North-Eastern states and Kashmir, and human riots violation
of minorities and marginalized groups, and of dissenters. Some of these issues loom over the
curriculum of different schools in India that are either affiliated to School Boards or run by
private management bodies. There is no system to check and evaluate the books or study
materials being prescribed in the schools run by hardcore Hindu nationalists or Islamists. Such
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institutions and the people associated with them are a great hurdle in initiating peace keeping
and peace building. Similarly, in a multiethnic country like Pakistan, there are the factors that
do not allow normal democratic process to function.
Jinnah Institute (JI) recently organized a discussion during a seminar on curriculum
reforms to combat growing intolerance in Pakistan. The participants unanimously resolved to
introduce peace studies as a subject in schools because the textbooks used in Pakistans schools
are rife with factual errors, bias and hate towards a number of religious groups and nations.
Peace Education needs a language of conviction that is to be concerned with the
totality of reality. A peace educator is supposed to use this convictional language that speaks
about the totality of reality as he sees it in the light of his specific conviction as a peace
educator. In a pluralistic society a peace educator, on account of his convictions, is morally
bound to express himself in a specified policy of behavior because students are faced with,
according to Simpson, conflicting sets of core values from which they must create their
individual belief systems. In such a society where many students feel alienated due to any
number of factors it is imperative that the students be encouraged to express their feelings and
negotiate their understandings so that they do not feel torn between the teaching at home and
those in the classroom.
Peace Education is a state of mind, and language is the most effective tool to promote
peace, imbuing self-respect and respect for the others too. Language leads to violence too. It has
always been a means of conflict and confrontation. A teacher must be careful in the classroom
about the kind of language he/she uses while dealing with the topics that speak about any
conflict. Then language would become a tool of conflict resolution. When a teacher acquires this
role, addressing the classroom involves the whole personality.
Niebuhr alludes that to think in the language of revelation is to think with poets rather
than with scientists, likewise, to think about oneself in the classroom as belonging to a specific
group is to think with a language that can be conceived not to exist rather than with a language
which cannot be conceived not to exist. JI should have realized that if peace education reflects an
attempt to respond to the problem of conflict and violence on scales ranging from global and
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national to the local and personal then there must be an atmosphere of change in the classroom
and school environment wherein language becomes a tool for creating harmony, self-respect and
respect for others instead of continually glorifying ones own creed and belief on the cost of
demonizing and dehumanizing the other group. The discussions and conclusions of JI reminded
me of a course book, Know Your World: Social Studies for Pakistan authored by the American
educationist, Farhat Mansoob. This is certainly the first course book in Pakistan that presents an
excellent example of religious tolerance, peace building, human rights and ethical values.
Sometimes education itself can result in the absence of peace. It depends on what is taught
and how it is delivered. Fostering of tolerance and positive attitudes of other ethnic and religious
groups in the safe environment of the classroom remains a pivotal issue in peace education,
argues Farhat, positing that culture is not only the collection of certain ways of living; it also
includes the values that people hold dear. Therefore coercive and intolerant attitude and ideal
manipulation of a teacher (motivated by some or the other bias on the pretext of cultural
domination) are constraints in building a peaceful global society. The rampant use of abusive
language or verbal violence will have never come about had one not thought ill of another
culture. In the classrooms of a multicultural and pluralistic country like India or Pakistan
teachers must not use a language that makes them appear a firm believer in the superiority of
their own culture. It is imperative that a teacher must avoid imposing his personal ideology on
the learners to help the communities come to terms with past hatred and violence.

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