Cultivating Positive Peace in Word and Deed

By Edison Lee, Justice Rising Co-Founder

In his Nobel lecture, “The Quest for Peace and Justice,” delivered in Oslo, Norway, 1964, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said:

“We will not build a peaceful world by following a negative path. It is not enough to say ‘We must not wage war.’ It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but on the positive affirmation of peace.”

In the wake of the violence the world saw unfold at the US Capitol – less than two weeks before a day we remember a man who struggled in his fight for freedom through nonviolence – we find a nation deeply divided and in need of healing. And amid the tensions of economic uncertainty and racial inequity, all against the backdrop of a global pandemic, you may have asked yourself: How will the world ever come together? Now, more than ever, I believe the words and actions of Dr. King can be instructive in our path toward peace and unity.

Dr. King not only advocated for peace, but for positive peace. We cannot merely eliminate conflict and violence, but we must cultivate the conditions that promote peace. The Institute for Economics & Peace puts it this way: “Positive Peace is defined by the attitudes, institutions and structures that create and sustain peaceful societies.” In short, positive peace seeks to safeguard and uphold human dignity.

Sadly, over the past four years, I have seen words weaponized and used to divide and dehumanize “the other,” stripping people on both sides of their human dignity. Words and phrases like radical liberal, communist, fascist, weak, deplorable. When looking at history, or throughout various conflict settings today, we often see this tactic of deploying dehumanizing language. During the Holocaust, Jews were regarded by the Nazis as rats. The Khmer Rouge regime, who were responsible for the Cambodian genocide, referred to their political enemies as worms. Hutus called the Tutsis cockroaches before calling for their extermination in the Rwandan genocide.

While I am not suggesting that these words and insults exist on equal planes, it’s important to note that words not only have the power to incite violence, but that words can in themselves be violent. In the Book of Proverbs, it says that “life and death are in the power of the tongue.” The biblical text makes it clear that words are powerful, and that we must each exercise that power with great care.

In our Justice Rising schools, our students have learned and understand that words carry power. They are encouraged to speak positively to their peers and to others around them, and even when they disagree, to resolve conflict constructively through compassion, understanding, and dialogue. This is especially difficult when you live in a community that has experienced decades long conflict and violence.

Our students also understand that building peace doesn’t simply stop with words, but requires action. Our students represent the current and future leaders that will build the conditions that promote peace in their own communities. They represent the future educators that will pass on what they have learned, the medical professionals that will one day provide much needed healthcare to underserved populations, the civic leaders and civil servants that will strengthen local governance and the public sector, the entrepreneurs that will create equitable access to good jobs, and so much more.

And we can each do our part to build peace – by speaking truth with compassion, loving our neighbor, advocating for the poor, forgiving our enemies, pursuing justice, and practicing nonviolence – in our own communities. Building peace isn’t easy, but we must always strive for it.

In the words of Dr. King, “Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.”

How will you choose to cultivate peace in word and deed?