January 30, School Day of Nonviolence:
It is not enough to be against violence and war, one must analyze the causes that produce them in order to be able to avoid them. The tendency of our governments to maintain the privileges of the most favored with walls and fences; illegal returns of those without papers; refusal of asylum, violating signed international laws; denial of the universal right to health services; stigmatization of emigrants because of the notion that they take away jobs or consume our resources and the reversal in the rights of women are the way to promote values that respond to a social model of violence fomenting fear and disdain for people who are different.
If one doesn’t address the resurgence of macho values and the increase in patriarchal relations of power/submission among the student body, schools are distancing themselves from working for peace.
If the art of debate is not practiced as a way of listening to the reasons of the other and not just as a means of competition to quash the opponent, schools are distancing themselves from working for peace.
If one doesn’t learn to regulate conflicts for the involved parties in a manner that is just and to mediate conflicts, schools are distancing themselves from working for peace.
If one doesn’t denounce the continuing cuts in the budget for public education, while it increases that for private instruction, social exclusion is favored along with a reduction in opportunities for the less favored sector of society and schools are distancing themselves from working for peace.
Women in Black against War want to build peace, struggling for another society and considering new models. We are on the side of values that lead to a social change equipping ourselves with critical attitudes and being involved in our social reality.
WE RECOGNIZE the work of the teachers who continue to consider these approaches important and who carry them out, often in a minority and alone.
WE DENOUNCE:
* Militarism in our societies that teach the idea of armed defense in which war and violence are the only solutions.
* The models that we are experiencing and those that we are teaching to the infants and youth.
* The disastrous example politicians are offering to the youngest generation, polarizing, lying, occupying themselves with the interest of their respective political parties and not those of the collective.
* The influence all that has in our society and personal relations.
* The cutting of budgets for public education and increasing support for private education.
WE DEMAND of our legislators:
♀ That they always employ dialog and negotiation as democratizing tools and that human rights be above any party interest.
♀ That they practice listening in communication and do not polarize society more.
♀ That they not lie to us and that they treat us as adults.
“We are aware that the army costs us an arm and a leg and that in a critical situation they would not deliver us from any predicament…, all of us being persuaded that any war would end in a major disaster“.