School Day of Nonviolence, in memory of Ghandi
The School Day of Nonviolence is commemorated on 30 January in memory of Ghandi and the values he represents. From our feminist, anti-militarist and nonviolent approach, we are convinced that one must work for peace and nonviolence every day of the year.
We believe that war is not innate to the human being, rather a cultural response developed and fed by the powers that be. Being a learned response, we must make ourselves aware of our power and opportunity to unlearn it, to not use war to resolve problems.
One lesson is to internalize the fact that peace must be real in the entire planet. It doesn’t do any good to live in a country where there is peace while contemplating wars in areas that are more or less distant. It must be taught in schools to think about how everything is related in this world and every war affects the survival of the planet. That it’s not enough to be against violence and war and that in the classrooms one must analyze the causes that produce wars in order to avoid them:
♀ If we enrich ourselves at the cost of exploiting the resources of other countries, it will only generate more poverty and destitution in these poor societies, which will cause them to have to seek a situation with more opportunities for a life with dignity, to become emigrants.
♀ If we manufacture and sell weapons, they will be used against the people, their cities or countries and they will become refugees. But when they come to our borders, they find walls and fences, forced return and refusal for asylum in violation of signed international laws.
♀ If it is permitted to backpedal regarding the equality of women to rise to power, as is happening now in Andalucia, those parties are responsible for institutionalizing a policy of violence towards women by an organization of the State. In Spain and the world over women have been considered the property of men and discriminated against through the centuries.
♀ If we take the armies to the schools to talk about peace, we put the work for peace in the hands of the very people who have been trained to make war.
♀ If one doesn’t question the social values of violence that produce fear, social control, male chauvinism, blind obedience, resolution of conflicts through violence…one builds a society without peace and a broth to cultivate the creation of imaginary enemies.
♀ If one doesn’t work against the resurgence of macho values and increase of the power/submission patriarchal relationships among the student body, school is distancing itself from working for peace.
♀ If not denounced, continuing cuts in the budget for public education while increasing funds for private education, leads to social exclusion and reduction of opportunities for the least favored sector of the society.
Women in Black want schools that collaborate in building a society that will struggle for peace and against wars, so we think that:
♀ Work that our predecessors accomplished against war and for peace must be included in educational programs to serve as a model and point of reference.
♀ They must collaborate in unlearning the responses of violence in the face of conflicts and foster solidarity and justice without borders.
♀ It is urgent and necessary to strengthen the work of education for peace with a gender perspective, which has as its goal the formation of nonviolent persons.
It is necessary to work in the schools and in society for an equality so as to not repeat violence or the power of the patriarchy. All and each one of us is responsible for seeing to it that the culture of war disappears from our lives and from history.
Supported by: Asociación Educar en la Noviolencia; Red Interlavapies; Solfónica-15M; Territorio Doméstico y Colectivo Agar Espacio de Investigación y Encuentro desde la Diversidad.
Translation: Trisha Novak, USA – Yolanda Rouiller, WiB Spain
Pictures here