News
Participants in the 2015 Agape International Political Camp have explored the concept of security and issued a call for a “pedagogy of and for peace” founded on justice.
Some fifty church pastors, activists, students, social workers, artists and teachers, representing diverse nations and backgrounds, joined the camp from 16 to 21 August at the Agape Centro Ecumenico in Prali, Italy. The centre, located in the Italian Alps, was hosted by the Waldensian Church in Italy, a member church of the World Council of Churches (WCC).
Dr Aruna Gnanadason, former WCC director for Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation, was among the keynote speakers. She stressed the need for a “new language” to engage in peace efforts. She said it is important to “challenge the dominant discourse of profit, military control and distorted definitions of security” that to often stand in opposition to “the rights and dignity of people and of all of creation.”
“We must explore how we can challenge the new political language which promotes the abuse of power and the use of force in political, social and economic life,” said Gnanadason.
Reflections on empire and a global “war on terror” perpetrated in the name of promoting security were shared by Dr Corinna Mullins, who serves as research associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and is a visiting assistant professor at the University of Tunis.
Mullins asked: “Security for whom? Who is secured from whom? Who benefits?” She continued, “The current atmosphere of insecurity is very profitable. My government, the United States alone, allocates over 4 trillion US dollars a year to military expenditures.”
“Pedagogy of nonviolence cannot be learned in formal universities,” cautioned Daniele Taurino of the Movimento Nonviolento in Rome. “It is learned from our everyday engagement with the people around us, institutions and society at large,” he added.
The camp also produced a manifesto on the theme “Peace Pedagogy: Towards New Paradigms for People’s Security,” resonating with the WCC call for a Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace, as issued by the WCC Busan Assembly in 2013.
The manifesto reads: “From the standpoint of people and communities, genuine security may be articulated as the holding together of justice, peace and integrity of creation. Therefore, promoting people’s security entails protection against such threats as hunger, homelessness, joblessness, disease, violence in all its forms including against LGBT communities, and human-induced ecological disasters such as nuclear contamination and global warming.”
The statement concludes: “[I]t is essential to expound a pedagogy of and for peace in order to have the tools and the means to: challenge dominant narratives that rationalize and justify wars; resist violence and oppression in all forms; defend life; and advance social, economic and ecological justice which form the foundation of a genuine and lasting peace.”
Manifesto of Agape International Political Camp 2015
