I'm a teacher at a Catholic boys' secondary school. At the moment, year 8 students are studying the biographical novel "Soldier Boy". It’s about Jim Martin who, at 14, was the youngest Anzac.
I asked my students, "Why were men so keen to sign up for war in those days?" Most students said it was because people didn't know what war was really about; now we have TV and internet.
So, if we know war is so bad, why are we still going to war?
War is like a schoolyard fight, on a much larger scale. When I'm on yard duty I'm looking out for pushing and shoving that might lead to a fight. If two guys are niggling each other I don't step in straight away – I give them a chance to sort it out – but I don’t wait too long either because once a fight starts everyone crowds around egging them on, making it that much harder to stop. Even when it’s all over, the story of the fight goes on.
It’s the same at every school, or so I thought. At my friend’s Steiner school he told me that in six years, he didn’t see one fight; and whenever a fight did look like starting, the other students would pull the two hot heads apart. I was staggered. What normal person would not want to see a fight?
And there was my answer: I needed to change normal – make peace normal. We as a people need to make peace the headline story (not just the feel-good story after the weather). We need to choose peacemakers as our leaders. Publish articles about diplomacy. Sing songs of heroic mediation. Read bedtime stories about reconciliation. Give awards to non-violent protesters. Teach our students the language of compromise. Communicate openly and sensitively with our families. Welcome people of different backgrounds. Live compassionately and creatively.
