Countering violence, promoting peace in South Asia
Pritam Rohila
www.asiapeace.org & www.indiapakistanpeace.org
4410 Verda Lane NE, Keizer, OR 97303, USA
Countering violence, promoting peace in South Asia
Pritam K. Rohila, Ph. D.
Growing intolerance, extremism, and violence in South Asia, but
particularly in Pakistan & Afghanistan, must be a source of great
concern to all those who desire peace and prosperity in South Asia.
Just condemning these evils or arguing with their perpetrators will
not help stem them. However justified, blaming foreign interventions,
colonialism, inept governments, and unfair social structure will not
work either. Participating in peace rallies and vigils, cross-border
peace delegations and conferences will also be ineffective, since the
major source of these threats lies within rather than from across our
borders.
While our governments try to put out the wildfires of hate and
violence which are engulfing our nations, peace workers need to
urgently adopt a long-range, but sustained strategy to safeguard the
rest of our assets and to protect the future our nations.
In each nation, we need to help build a culture of peace. We should
train our children to become good members of their families, schools
and neighborhoods, and good citizens of their countries. We should
teach them respect for the rights of others, cooperative ways to solve
problems, and the art of empathetic negotiation to settle difference.
We should help them learn to respect for nonviolence, tolerance,
harmony, peaceful coexistence.
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Dr. Rohila is the Executive Director of the U.S.-based ACHA, the
Association for Communal Harmony in Asia www.asiapeace.org and he can
be reached at asia...@comcast.net