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Justice into Our Understanding of Peace
Typically within the U.S. educational system, we are taught to draw from only one cultural tradition: that of the West, which has its roots in modern European civilizations. Thus, we are separated from the wisdom of other world cultures, including Eastern, African, and Middle Eastern cultures and civilizations that existed in the Americas long before the first Europeans arrived. Today at political rallies organized to protest injustices, we frequently hear the slogan: "No Justice! No Peace!" Since in Western societies like the U.S. it is common for people to separate the concepts of justice and peace, many political activists find themselves constantly reminding others that there can be no peace without justice. But where did this separation of peace from justice come from? Can we draw from other world cultural traditions to help us better understand the relationship between these concepts? And how can we use an expanded understanding of the relationship between peace and justice to carry out education in our communities in this period? The following notes are taken from an essay by Sotsisowah [see Sotsisowah, "Thoughts of Peace: The Great Law," Basic Call to Consciousness, edited by Akwesasne Notes (Summertown, Tennessee: Native Voices, 1978), pp. 9-12]. Sotsisowah shares the wisdom of indigenous peoples in the Americas, specifically the teachings on peace and justice of the Hau de no sau nee leader known as the Peacemaker. The Hau de no sau nee ("people who build" — referred to by U.S. historians and anthropologists as the Iroquois) are native peoples of the Northeast. They created an alliance of Six Nations: the Mohawks, Oneidas, Quondagas, Cayugas, Senecas, and Tuscaroras. This confederation lasted for hundreds of years. Their government, their economy, and their way of life have deep spiritual roots. Many of their ideas are embodied in the U.S. Constitution, although most Americans remain unaware of this. The Peacemaker’s leadership resulted in the formation of the Six Nations. His leadership occurred at a time of crisis due to violence among people: blood feuds among different groups in the forests. Initially, his ideas for peace were rejected by Wyandot and other Huron people; thus, he journeyed to land of People of Flint, or Ganienkehaka (Mohawk). The Peacemaker proposed that people must form governments that will serve to prevent the abuse of human beings by other human beings; government is specifically organized to prevent abuse "by cultivating a spiritually healthy society and the establishment of peace." "He argued not for the establishment of law and order but for the full establishment of peace. Peace was to defined not as the simple absence of war or strife, but as the active striving of humans for the purpose of establishing universal justice." Peace is built on a foundation of three concepts: Righteousness, Reason, and Power. Righteousness is "a shared ideology of people using their purest and most unselfish minds." It is based on the recognition that "the creation is intended for the benefit of all equally." "The world does not belong to humans — it is the rightful property of the Great Creator. The gifts and benefits of the world, therefore, belong to all equally." "Therefore all people have a right to the things they need to survive — even those who do not or cannot work, and no person or people has a right to deprive others of the fruits of those gifts." Reason is "the power of the human mind to make righteous decisions about complicated issues." Human beings were "given the gift of the power of Reason in order that they may settle their differences without the use of force." "The ability to grasp the principles of Righteousness is a spark within the individual which society must fan and nurture that it may grow. Reason is seen as the skill which humans must be encouraged to acquire, in order that the objectives of justice may be attained and no one’s rights abused." "The Power to enact a true Peace is the product of a unified people on the path of Righteousness and Reason — the ability to enact the principles of Peace through education, public opinion and political and when necessary, military unity. . . . Peace flourished only in a garden amply fertilized with absolute and pure justice. . . . The Power to enact Peace (which required that people cease abusing one another) was conceived to be both spiritual and political." "The principles of law set forth by the Peacemaker sought to establish peaceful society by eliminating the causes of conflict between individuals and between peoples. . . . The law was also based to an impressive degree on a logic which looked to Nature for its rules. It is one of the few examples of a "Natural Law" which is available to modern man. It is a law which clearly precedes "royal:" law, or "mercantile" law or "bourgeois" property-based law." Sotsisowah, "Our Strategy for Survival," pp. 112-119 According to Sotsisowah, "when history has been presented to us by colonizers, the local elements have always been political histories." Political histories focus on the lives and impact of individuals, such as Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar. However, "the really crucial developments in world history have been largely ignored by historians. The most profound changes which have taken place have been in the areas of technological change. . . . When we are seeking the real cultural revolutions of history, do we not find that the rise of agriculture or animal husbandry or irrigation technology was a thousand times more significant in the history of humankind than were the adventures and political fortunes of the aristocracy and rules of European countries?" Thus, this
essay focuses of "establishing new definitions and new fields of
vision" to better understand the past. This will enable us not only
to more fully understand history but also "to identify the processes
which so often lead people who are honestly seeking to resist and destroy
colonization to unconsciously recreate the elements of their own oppression." "The dialectical opposite of that process would be the rekindling of a planetary basis of locally based culture. Prior to the advent of colonialism, culture was defined as the way of life by which people survived within their own environment, and their own environment was defined as the area in which they lived. Thus the process of survival involved the use of locally developed technologies which met the specific needs of the area. It was mentioned earlier that technologies have political cousins, and locally developed technologies have cousins, too. Decentralized technologies which meet the needs of the people which those technologies serve will necessarily give life to a different kind of political structure and it is safe to predict that the political structure which results will be anti-colonial in nature." Thus, there is a need for "liberation technologies" (i.e., liberation cultures). "The development of liberation technologies, many of which already exist but have been largely ignored by the political movements (even the anti-colonial political movements) are a necessary part of the decolonization process. Liberation technologies are the technologies which can be implemented by a specific people in a specific locality and which frees those people from dependency upon multinational corporations and the governments which multinational corporations control." "Most of the past ‘liberation movements’ have not been successful in correcting the most horrendous wrongs of colonialism, however, because they assumed that the problem lies solely in the fact that private interests controlled the state for their own benefit. . . . they do not attempt to develop even the concept of liberation technologies, and they do not understand the need to become independent of the world market economy . . ." Liberation technologies need to be accompanied by liberation political structures and liberation theologies. "Of these two entities, colonized peoples in the West could be well advised to place considerable energy into the creation of true liberation theologies as a very high priority. Liberation theologies are belief systems which challenge the assumption, widely help in the West, that the earth is simply a commodity which can be exploited thoughtlessly by humans for the purpose of material acquisition within an ever-expanding economic framework. A liberation theology will develop in people a consciousness that all life on the earth is sacred and that the sacredness of life is the key to human freedom and survival. . . . The renewal quality — the sacredness of every living thing, that which connects human beings to the place which they inhabit — that quality is the single most liberating aspect of our environment. . . . A consciousness of the web that holds all things together, the spiritual element that connects us to reality and the manifestation of that power to renew which is present in the existence of an eagle or a mountain snowfall — that consciousness was the first thing which was destroyed by the colonizers."
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