Prof.Kalaneethy
Christopher and Dr.J.Christopher Daniel
Humankind
has been experiencing a crisis of values over the centuries. Crime,
clashes, racial discrimination, communal ism ,disintegration, war,
ethnic cleansing and indifference to human suffering have spread to
all aspects of life. It is distressing to notice that leaders who
profess peace and goodwill are dethroned or done to death. At the
same time, those who harp on peace clamor for war. People have
always wanted peace. Today they seem to want it more than ever. Yet,
notwithstanding the efforts initiated by world leaders, we see
terrorism, rebellion and conflicts among people.
War
has been a major preoccupation with man in this century-two world
wars and 140 or lesser wars since the second. The world had
witnessed world war type situation in Kosovo in 1999 which became
more ‘sophisticated’ and horrendous.“O
war, thou son of hell!” William Shakespeare’s lamentation today
rings even more accurate a warning than four centuries ago”.
The
great Frenchman Victor Hugo who made a pronouncement with the
following words more than one hundred years ago at the Peace Congress
in Lausanne, Switzerland, a slogan beneath which every peace loving
person who values his/her peaceful life and peace for his/her
children would sign ‘WE WANT PEACE, PASSIONATELY WANT PEACE. PEACE
FOR ALL PEOPLE, FOR ALL NATIONS, FOR ALL RACES’. Late Thomas
Jefferson, the outstanding American democrat had had a dream of
‘peace ,commerce, and honest friendship with all nations’.
Unfortunately, peace as a ‘value’, a ‘virtue’ and a ‘force’
seems to have been forgotten by humankind over the centuries. To
quote from the book ‘May you live in peace’ written by Vladien
Kachanov(1986)’If durable peace has not triumphed on our planet
yet, it is not the peoples of the world who are at fault, but those
who aspire to increase their wealth be seizing and exploiting others
lands and by producing instruments of annihilation’.
The
biblical connotation of the term peace (Gk.eirene) is a state of
harmonious relationship between God and people, among the people,
nations, and families. Jesus as Prince of peace gives peace to those
who call upon Him for personal salvation. Peace is not the absence of
conflict. Peace is a state of rest, quietness and calmness; an
absence of strife; tranquility. It generally denotes a perfect well
being. Conflict is an inevitable fact of daily life-internal,
interpersonal, inter- group, and international conflict. Peace
consists in creatively dealing with conflict. Peace is the process of
working to resolve conflicts is such as a way that both sides win,
with increased harmony as the outcome of the conflict and its
resolution. The resolution is peace-full if the participants come to
want to cooperate more fully and find themselves enabled to do
so’.(Kathleen and James McGinnis,1990).’To work for peace is the
concern of all individuals and of all peoples. And because everyone
is endowed with a heart and with reason and has been made in the
image of God, he or she is capable of the effort of truth and
sincerity which strengthens peace’(Pope John Paul II, 1980)
The
knowledge and understanding of what peace means has grown
tremendously since the Second world war in the light of the nuclear
catastrophe. Interestingly enough, there are biblical evidences to
the value of peace openly averred by the Hebrew prophets who called
the people of their time to respond to Yahweh’s call for peace
which has justice as its precondition .
