Have you ever wondered why war, not peace, is higher on societies' agenda? People seem more preoccupied with stopping war than building peace. It's an important difference. Cabinet rooms and news desks; in school and university curricula; around kitchen tables and work rooms; the concentration is more on the immediate gunfire and bombings than a long-term look at the tools we all need to get on better with a neighbouring person or country - the very things that will prevent conflict from breaking out in the first place.
Over the last two months Radio New Internationalist has been exploring pathways to peace. Today's program explores the human characteristics that the world needs to put peace into practice – the qualities that we'll need to nurture if we’re going to stop conflict from war-zones to war-in-homes. And it's women who are in the drivers' seat:
• If peace had a personality, what would it be like? Rebecca Spence– founder of Peaceworks, an organization that designs training programs to build peace in deeply divided communities around the world – sketches some profiles.
• Even though victims of conflict are traumatized by the violence they've experienced, many go on to inflict it on others. Robi Damelin – a Jewish woman whose son died in the Arab-Israeli conflict – considers the consequences (with Sally Golding Advocacy Manager for Christian Aid in the United Kingdom, who recorded Robi's story).
• With four coups in two decades in a warrior nation, Fiji's men have problems putting down their guns. Sharon Bhagwan-Rolls – coordinator of femLINKPACIFIC – takes a suitcase radio out into the rural areas of Fiji to record the voices of the people and play them back to policy makers and politicians. She tells us the results. Zena Bacar – the golden voice of Mozambique – sings her way through this week's program from her comeback performances in the CD Yellela.
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