PEACEMAKING Albert Einstein once said, "Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding." In the Haiti situation, understanding may be the only way for any peaceful resolution to take place. Will we go to Haiti? Edward M. Edwards, President of WJAC TV in Johnstown, said in an editorial Friday night, it's time America stops policing the world. We don't have the resources to continue going along with "President's War of the Week Campaign." On Friday night, Tom Brokaw reported that in Rwanda nearly 200,000 people are reported dead already due to the internal strife. Will we end up there eventually too? Two weeks ago, America pulled all of its "peacekeeping troops" out of Somalia. After a number of deaths and limited success in providing the native people food, clothing, and some safety for a period of time, the Somalian adventure ended ingloriously. There will be no parades for the warriors coming home from this mission. We call them peace keeping missions, police actions, "making the world safe for Democracy," but in the end it is only sanctioned violence. What leads us down the rosy path to violent crucifixion? How can brothers and sisters shoot one another? How can the colors a person wears mean so much that wanton killing takes place in our American streets each and every day? We don't need to go to Somalia to fight civil wars. They are going on every day in the streets of nearby Pittsburgh. Colman McCarthy, a Washington Post columnist, raised an interesting question: "Supposing no arithmetic or math were taught in our schools? Adding 1 + 1 could mean 6 or 65. Subtracting 5 from 10 could equal 45. After the chaos of this math ignorance became unbearable, would anyone ask the question, 'Could it be that our horrible math deficiency is linked to the fact that the subject was never taught in school?' Regardless of what else we do, it really is impossible not to have a violent society if few have been taught to use nonviolent concepts and skills such as negotiation, consensus, mediation, persuasion, nonviolent opposition for social reform and justice, noncooperation, civil disobedience, nonviolent self-defense, even, believe it or not, nonviolent civilian-based national defense." As children we weren't taught to be nonviolent. During my football career, I was praised for committing an exceptionally violent tackle that stopped a runner so cold they carried him off the field. Eventually, I earned a letter for my on-the-field "heroics." If I were walking down the hallway in the school and someone got in my way and I forearmed the individual with even half the force I used during any routine blocking assignment in a football game, I would face dismissal from school. Same action mind you, but just a different context. Consequences for violence in our society are minimal. In our local school system's behavior code, using profanity in the presence of a teacher can result in a three day out of school suspension. Yet, if a student is involved in a fight, he or she gets a one day suspension. What's a kid supposed to think? What do you think? The average prison term for a violent crime like second degree murder in our American prisons today is about 7.6 years. Many murderers don't even serve the full 7.6 years. They get time off for "good behavior." How can anyone not behave in a prison? What else is there to do but behave? Charles Manson applied for parole seven times since he's been in prison. Someday, when people no longer remember Sharon Tate and the LaBianca's, he'll probably walk out of prison and back into someone's neighborhood. Most people are unfamiliar with nonviolent concepts. Since most parents don't know much about them, their kids aren't exposed to them. On top of all of that, our kids are deluged with violence on the TV. In many social conditions, and in families and neighborhoods, violence often appears to be the only way to solve problems. They learn that physical might is what solves problems. Treatment that demands that you do what I say or else teaches that who is the most powerful will be "King of the Hill." You may be bigger than me physically, but you know, a 38 snubnosed pistol cuts even the biggest shmuck down to my size. We study violence in our military schools, and we support it through our military budget. Interestingly enough, there is no such thing in the U.S. Government as a Peace Budget. Remember the Peace Corps? Whatever became of the organization that was supposed to assist people in other lands to become self- sufficient? Since the Kennedy years, the Peace Corps budget's been cut each and every year. Growing peace requires opening peoples' minds to new ideas, new patterns of thinking, new depths of understanding from which actions, words, and behavioral patterns will emerge. We need to make a decision to study peace and not violence. Only through education can violence be eradicated. We need to overcome the prevalent concept that nonviolence is surrendering to evil. Many believe it won't work. It is doing nothing. It is impractical. Once, a thin little brown man named Gandhi, changed an entire nation without a gun. He said, "When I despair, I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Think of it always." He fasted, and people all over his nation stopped killing one another and begged him to stop fasting so he may live. When asked if the free forces of the world could destroy Nazi Germany using peaceful, noncooperative, nonviolence, Gandhi said, yes, but the cost would be dear in human life. Few possess the courage to commit "non-violence." Many are depressed because the problems seem so vast and complex. The question is where to begin? We begin by eliminating rewards for violent behavior. Imagine how different school would be if there were more emphasis on team cooperation rather than team competition. All of you are aware of the competition between East and West Forest. Only until the schools combined for Soccer and played under the name, Forest Fires, did this rivalry diminish. The outcome of this school merger was that during the basketball season, East and West Forest no longer battled each other with blood in their eyes. Many of the basketball players were soccer teammates, and the chance to play against one another was actually a fun get-together. I noticed less rivalry and more camaraderie amongst all the players. It was neat. Fortunately we don't have football at any of our schools. It took me nearly 30 years after my high school playing days to erase the violence that sport transfused into my body and mind. Think about how different gym class would be if instead of teaching basketball, we learned aerobics, Tai Chi Ch'uan, meditation, and other lifelong physical activities that contributed to overall fitness. I believe violence is not something that exists only in the city streets of our major cities. It is everywhere. It's the inability of a husband and wife to get along with one another. It's the unwillingness of brothers and sisters to share with one another their family's bounty. It's the littering of the earth upon which we live by throwing out of our car windows trash that could just as easily be taken home instead of being deposited on our natural "mother's face." I must only look at myself and wonder, was I more or less violent today than I was yesterday. I need only point my finger no further than at my own face. I am either a peacemaker or a warmonger. It's my choice. And yours too....