Foucault defends that not only the way we perceive concepts change in the world, but that these shifts change the concepts themselves, this is, that there is a reflexive relation between human beings and everything that surrounds us and that the names and ideas we attach to an object or an abstract concept, are indeed creating it and forming its characteristics. This is best perceived in the cases of abstract concepts, and can be very clearly found in the way the concepts of peace and war are changing, thus, the way war and peace situations have changed themselves.
A few different shifts of these concepts, perhaps the most important shifts in history and especially in western history are remarkable in this reflection in order to discover its impact on the way we picture them in our minds.
As a first illustration we should go back to Westfalia Peace treaty, when the predominance of sovereign states is said to be born. At this time philosophers like Hugo Grocio would talk of the ius ad bellum, the right to make war, trying to limit it to responses to certain attacks and Vittel would state the requirements for a country to officially declare war in any case its sovereign might want as one of its rights. We then see war as a right to defend, as a consequence of the independence of countries. However, in 1899 and 1907 the Zar Nicholas II would invite all western countries to forbid war in The Hague. Unfortunately, the effort was not entirely successful and war was only slightly limited, but the idea of war as an undesirable right had arrived at the minds of the leaders of the world, and one world war was enough for them to reach the point of prohibition in the Pact of the League of Nations and the Pact Briand-Kellogg.
And not only did the treaties in The Hague make this concept evolve in such a way, but also it regulated how to make war, this is, ius in bellum, a tendency that had been born with the witnessing of the Solferino Battle by Henri Dunant and by his founding of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Before this battle, wars and their horrors were seen from a great distance and not really perceived by the majority of the population, the inhumanity in which they were, and unfortunately are, conducted was unknown to a population that used to perceive them as a pride. This was no longer the case, and citizens started to be conscious, or maybe to change the concept itself into an undesirable situation and a violation of human nature and civilised societies. War, that had belonged to a public/political sphere, entered the private spheres of people who were now able to form their own opinion. The pride for wars that ironically Napoleon had used and that had been use in the teaching of history and the concept of nation and kinship, had shifted into a rejection of it, of course always with exceptions like the education during the Nazis’ times in Germany and many other totalitarian examples. And war itself changed, as it stopped being a domain where anything goes, and started being an increasingly regulated practice in order to become more human.
Unfortunately and due to many other factors, these changes in people’s minds did not prevent the world from suffering a Second World War from 1939 to 1945. After the failure of the League of Nations and its peace order, the world powers were determined to once and for all put an end to the horrors of armed attacks, especially in their own territories. Having the influence of Wilson’s 14 Points and the League of Nations Treaty, peace-keeping was then considered as a global responsibility (that was to be supervised by the main world powers). Any conflicts in any part of the world were a threat to all international society, and thus, this society had the right to respond to it respecting the international law, countries’ sovereignty, and in concordance with the article 39 of the Charter of the United Nations. They could respond through economic, political and even any other means including the force if it was considered necessary. Any country, then, is a police agent (although not all of them are judges) of peace on the basis of an equal relation with each other. This is a global concept of peace, meaning world-wide responsibility. Other peoples’ wars stopped being somebody else’s business and started to be seen as a matter important for the whole globe, because of its impact anywhere else but also because of its relation with human rights violations. Foreign countries’ wars burst in people’s lives and in their interest through the media.
But it did not just become global in the world-wide sense, it also became global in a material sense, this is, including all aspects of people’s lives in the construction of peace and notably stating a relationship between peace and human rights, democracy, poverty and many other factors. This was perceived in the foundation of the UNESCO in 1945, which tried to end violence by educating and teaching moral values and a peace education, and has evolved to an even more globalised idea with the creation of the PNUD in 1971, linking development with democracy, stability and peace, and indeed with the creation of the Objectives of the Millennium, which would have never been supported by so many nations if it was not for the relation between violent conflicts and underdevelopment and their impact on other countries.
Finally, the last remarkable change would have been influenced by the shift in the war actors. With the growth of civil wars during the Cold War times, and with the emergence of the terrorism and especially since it has attacked the west, the war has been brought even nearer to our lives. Western governments have been more interested in other countries’ peace and their development as we have just explained. Furthermore, the image of the enemy also feels nearer than it used to, being very frequently included in our own society. In the case of civil wars, the situation is clear, in the case of terrorism, many times some communities in our societies are formed by the peoples that we have stigmatised as the enemy, a label suffered most commonly nowadays by Muslims in Europe and the United States. This has led to a movement in peace education for tolerance and respect, and the building of peace from bottom to top, this is, starting from our everyday-life in which we might be in contact with others who could be seen, or indeed could be (take the example of civil wars) our enemies, and learning how to live together and not obstruct but be able to find the path to the resolution of conflicts.
These were just a few examples of the many changes that war and peace have suffered, but they illustrate how the impact of war and the willingness of people to participate in them have been shifting among times due to many different factors, maybe the change of the economic structure in countries, maybe the impact of the media. Fortunately, these constant changes give hope to peace and a challenge to peace education, as they showed up that by changing our perception of war we can also change wars themselves, and even give future generations the strength to end them.
A few different shifts of these concepts, perhaps the most important shifts in history and especially in western history are remarkable in this reflection in order to discover its impact on the way we picture them in our minds.
As a first illustration we should go back to Westfalia Peace treaty, when the predominance of sovereign states is said to be born. At this time philosophers like Hugo Grocio would talk of the ius ad bellum, the right to make war, trying to limit it to responses to certain attacks and Vittel would state the requirements for a country to officially declare war in any case its sovereign might want as one of its rights. We then see war as a right to defend, as a consequence of the independence of countries. However, in 1899 and 1907 the Zar Nicholas II would invite all western countries to forbid war in The Hague. Unfortunately, the effort was not entirely successful and war was only slightly limited, but the idea of war as an undesirable right had arrived at the minds of the leaders of the world, and one world war was enough for them to reach the point of prohibition in the Pact of the League of Nations and the Pact Briand-Kellogg.
And not only did the treaties in The Hague make this concept evolve in such a way, but also it regulated how to make war, this is, ius in bellum, a tendency that had been born with the witnessing of the Solferino Battle by Henri Dunant and by his founding of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Before this battle, wars and their horrors were seen from a great distance and not really perceived by the majority of the population, the inhumanity in which they were, and unfortunately are, conducted was unknown to a population that used to perceive them as a pride. This was no longer the case, and citizens started to be conscious, or maybe to change the concept itself into an undesirable situation and a violation of human nature and civilised societies. War, that had belonged to a public/political sphere, entered the private spheres of people who were now able to form their own opinion. The pride for wars that ironically Napoleon had used and that had been use in the teaching of history and the concept of nation and kinship, had shifted into a rejection of it, of course always with exceptions like the education during the Nazis’ times in Germany and many other totalitarian examples. And war itself changed, as it stopped being a domain where anything goes, and started being an increasingly regulated practice in order to become more human.
Unfortunately and due to many other factors, these changes in people’s minds did not prevent the world from suffering a Second World War from 1939 to 1945. After the failure of the League of Nations and its peace order, the world powers were determined to once and for all put an end to the horrors of armed attacks, especially in their own territories. Having the influence of Wilson’s 14 Points and the League of Nations Treaty, peace-keeping was then considered as a global responsibility (that was to be supervised by the main world powers). Any conflicts in any part of the world were a threat to all international society, and thus, this society had the right to respond to it respecting the international law, countries’ sovereignty, and in concordance with the article 39 of the Charter of the United Nations. They could respond through economic, political and even any other means including the force if it was considered necessary. Any country, then, is a police agent (although not all of them are judges) of peace on the basis of an equal relation with each other. This is a global concept of peace, meaning world-wide responsibility. Other peoples’ wars stopped being somebody else’s business and started to be seen as a matter important for the whole globe, because of its impact anywhere else but also because of its relation with human rights violations. Foreign countries’ wars burst in people’s lives and in their interest through the media.
But it did not just become global in the world-wide sense, it also became global in a material sense, this is, including all aspects of people’s lives in the construction of peace and notably stating a relationship between peace and human rights, democracy, poverty and many other factors. This was perceived in the foundation of the UNESCO in 1945, which tried to end violence by educating and teaching moral values and a peace education, and has evolved to an even more globalised idea with the creation of the PNUD in 1971, linking development with democracy, stability and peace, and indeed with the creation of the Objectives of the Millennium, which would have never been supported by so many nations if it was not for the relation between violent conflicts and underdevelopment and their impact on other countries.
Finally, the last remarkable change would have been influenced by the shift in the war actors. With the growth of civil wars during the Cold War times, and with the emergence of the terrorism and especially since it has attacked the west, the war has been brought even nearer to our lives. Western governments have been more interested in other countries’ peace and their development as we have just explained. Furthermore, the image of the enemy also feels nearer than it used to, being very frequently included in our own society. In the case of civil wars, the situation is clear, in the case of terrorism, many times some communities in our societies are formed by the peoples that we have stigmatised as the enemy, a label suffered most commonly nowadays by Muslims in Europe and the United States. This has led to a movement in peace education for tolerance and respect, and the building of peace from bottom to top, this is, starting from our everyday-life in which we might be in contact with others who could be seen, or indeed could be (take the example of civil wars) our enemies, and learning how to live together and not obstruct but be able to find the path to the resolution of conflicts.
These were just a few examples of the many changes that war and peace have suffered, but they illustrate how the impact of war and the willingness of people to participate in them have been shifting among times due to many different factors, maybe the change of the economic structure in countries, maybe the impact of the media. Fortunately, these constant changes give hope to peace and a challenge to peace education, as they showed up that by changing our perception of war we can also change wars themselves, and even give future generations the strength to end them.
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