Peace is the desire of every member of any community or society. Regrettably, conflict is part of social dynamics, part of any progress and of any human development. Conflict brings crisis. Crisis is a “wake-up call” to tend to neglected issues which are essential for a healthy life together.
With the multiplicity of values proposed for our society today, it is no longer easy to define education. With the current tendency to relativise everything, how can we determine the appropriate education or distinguish between right and wrong? In this article, concerning the values and practices of the Senoufo people of yesteryear, we propose endogenous values and mechanisms as a possible way of inculcating a culture of peace.
While peace may not be of particular worry to some people, given that the realities of their living environment do not seem to frustrate their desire for well-being, it must be stressed that it is a treasure that is hard to come by for many men and women, such as those in South Sudan, who have suffered disastrous fratricidal conflicts for decades. It is impossible to live in such an environment without asking the existential question of education for a culture of peace.
On 11 May 2024, the Rome municipal authority organized a clean-up of the city. Roma Cura Roma (“Rome takes care of Rome”) is an important city event dedicated to the collective care of streets, squares, parks and green areas. Among the many volunteers who participated in the event were the Missionaries of Africa residing in the Generalate.
We are experiencing significant upheavals that affect all aspects of life in society because, as they say, social facts are total and global; for example, an economic crisis can destabilise the educational and security structure and compromise integral development, the foundation of peace.
This subject, education and a culture of peace is vital and remains topical in the Gospel we are called to proclaim in and out of season. It is part of the being of the Church and its action in the world as a gift of Christ Jesus. It is her way of living and radiating peace that she becomes an educator of peace, inculcated in the values of the cultures she is sent to.
Through the internalisation of relational and rational rules, social philosophy presents man as an exclusively social being. For Michel Tournier, man “carries within him a complex scaffolding”. As a result, man has a vocation to build himself by constructing his community, his society and his environment.
After a seven-month stay here in the province of Haut-Katanga, in the city of Lubumbashi, and more specifically in the commune of Katuba, where our parish of Sainte-Bernadette is located, I observed several things during my walks, visits to local Christian communities and sick people and their families.
To talk about human rights in the light of the Gospel, we should first look at the person of Jesus and what the Gospels tell us about him. The first thing that strikes us in many episodes of Jesus’ life is how he welcomes and respects every human being, adult and child alike. He recognises, as we are taught to do, the dignity of every person, created in the image of God.
When I was asked by the editor of the Petit Echo to write an article about the above topic, my first reaction was to give a negative reply. I am no more in Ghana, and even when I was there, I never had to deal with “problems to do with human rights”. When, reading again the topic, I saw the words “in the light of the Gospel” and having been a lecturer in Scripture in various formation houses, I decided that I could have a try, though it will necessarily be more theoretical than practical.
Before and after Mass I saw a charity run for the fight against cancer. People were running to raise funds for the advancement of cancer research. Obviously, the aim is to vanquish cancer. I saw different kinds of runners passing in front of me: young and old, men and women, from different origins. I was flabbergasted by the handicapped persons in their wheelchairs.
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