EDUCATION FOR PEACE:
ERASMUS, ZWEIG AND ME
Yoad Eliaz
The Max Stern Yezreel Valley College
Author Note
Dr. Yoad Eliaz is now at Department of Education, The Max Stern
Yezreel Valley College. This paper based on N.G.O's projects
author was involved in 2002 – 2008. Those projects were funded by
the New Israel Found and the Abraham Fund.
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EDUCATION FOR PEACE: ERASMUS, ZWEIG AND ME
Abstract
The present essay investigates the role of peace ideology and education for peace within a society involved in violent conflict. At the core of the discussion lies an archive of documents that I wrote during 2002 - 2008 concerning my engagement in four projects of education for peace in Israel. Through a study of two treatises – The complaint of peace written by Erasmus of Rotterdam in the 16th century and a biography of Erasmus written by Stefan Zweig in the early 1940s – I reach a better understanding of my own documents. A perusal of these three resources demonstrates that the goal of peace ideology is not to achieve peace, but to shape the identity of the peace-seeking humanist.
Key words: education for peace, peace ideology, Erasmus of Rotterdam, Stefan Zweig, ideology, humanism, humanist.
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EDUCATION FOR PEACE: ERASMUS, ZWEIG AND ME
“And they will seek peace and never find it” (Ezekiel 7, 25)
Leaping back and forth between centuries, as I am about to do, isnot a feat to be taken for granted; in fact, it might be considered anachronistic. History does not resemble a broad riverwhich flows composedly to the ticking of years and months, and which, if we only tried hard enough, we could sail backward on, look around and retell the past correctly. There is no such river, and there is no way for us to perfectly and accurately tell what did happen. Still, there are texts written in the past,and we can read in them.
My reading of texts dealing with the pursuit of peace began from a place of distress. I wished to comprehend the labor I had invested over several years of education for peace. I read various items within the relevant literature, but did not find a foothold. The discourse of education for peace1 is descriptive, focuses on conceptualization and tries to shape education for peace into a dicipline of study. In the colloquy on the subject,I found texts that outlined methods and means to promote education for peace, as well as apologetic texts explaining why it fails. From all that, I failed to grasp what I myself had doneas an educator and instructor, to what end I had done it, who andwhat I was, and whom I had served.
The old texts I finally hit upon granted me a foothold. The following comparison between them is intended not to provide historical sense, but rather to offer a way to consider my own deeds afresh. Though I do not comprehensively understand the historical contexts, these texts bear ideas that help me understand the peace pursuit in which I was engaged. This is not to suggest that the early texts affect texts of late. Indeed, there is no causality in the present study. I do not claim that words written five hundred years ago, or seventy years ago, led to events nowadays. Still, the hazy distance of the old writings stimulates and sets free the imagination, offering a foothold essential for thinking.
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The current essay refers to three resources: two from the past and an archive of my own documents. First is The complaint of peace, atreatise written in Latin at the beginning of the 16th century by Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536), one of the eminent enlightened and erudite thinkers who shaped humanistic ideas after the MiddleAges. This text was written in reaction to decades of contemporary conflicts and wars between kings in Europe, and also, probably, to the fierce struggle between the Catholic Church and the Reformists. Second is a biography of Erasmus written by Stefan Zweig (1881-1942), who finds his protagonist’s ideas relevant to the age of World War II. He dubs him “the firstPan-European man” and a paragon of the peace-pursuing cosmopolitan intellectual. The last resource is an archive of documents, letters, reports and summaries I wrote in 2002 - 2008 concerning my activity in four projects of education for peace. Those years were highly politically turbulent in the area, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was excessively violent, expressed in the El-Aksa insurgence (2000-2005), the Israeli onslaught on Gaza Strip known as Operation Defensive Shield (2002) and a host of additional violent incidents.
I. Textual Display
The complaint of peace. Sixteenth-century Europe, on the brink of a modern era, witnessed the emergence of several ideas that shaped Western modern spirit. Humanistic thinkers molded concepts such as human being, nature, child and rationality, presenting them as contrasts: man-beast, culture-nature, adult-child, rationality-emotionality. Each new-formed concept was at the center of an ideology: humanism was structured as the ideology of man; civilization as the ideology of culture; modern education as the ideology of children; and reason as the ideology of rationality. Among the newly molded concepts, peace was counterposed with war and formed the nucleus of its own ideology.
Erasmus of Rotterdam, an illustrious humanist, published his Querela Pacis (The complaint of peace) in 1521. Both as a concept and as a desired end, peace is illustrated in the treatise as a
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human figure in a play or novel, around which an ideological plotis woven. Throughout the text, peace complains of being rejected and ignored by the people. Erasmus uses the same rhetorical devices as in his better known essay, The praise of folly, where folly,too, is personified and the text promotes the humanistic ideologyof reason. The ideal of reason is presented by ridiculing its opposite; folly made ridiculous underlines the value of dignifiedreason. In addition to personification and ridicule as rhetoricaldevices, the text in both essays moves to a double beat: folly-reason, war-peace. The Erasmian text marches, as if militarily, following a drummer striking a bass drum: one-two, one-two, with the binary beat of positive-negative, good-evil.
The concept of peace existed in days of yore, referring to conciliation, agreement and political rest, as well as the exclusion of war. Querela Pacis, however, provides a humanistic novelty in that it presents peace ideology in a binary pattern oftwo contrasting groups: a peace group consisting of reason, humanism and enlightenment, and a war group consisting of lack ofreason, barbarism and savagery. In brief, Erasmus’ plot is of peace being disparaged: people are ungrateful; peace offers them fatherly love but they reject it. Peace glorifies itself: “without me nothing is flourishing, nothing safe, nothing pure orholy, nothing pleasant to mortals, or grateful to the Supreme Being” (p. 3). Mortals behave stupidly, rejecting all that blessing. Nature begot a one and only intelligent being, and still that being acts feeblemindedly and expels peace. War is in complete contrast to peace,
[…] rushing on mankind, of all the united plagues and pestilences in nature; as if, at its deadly approach, every blossom of happiness is instantly blasted, every thing that was improving gradually degenerates and dwindles away to nothing (p. 3).
On behalf of its complaint, peace enlists nature, that magnificent scenery that the humanists adopted for their drama, of which Man is its principal actor. According to Erasmus, all ofnature expresses peace, harmony and unity of contrasts. Nature begot human beings different from one another in order for them
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to associate and complement each other. It begot each of them defenseless in order for them to ally and form a common defense. Plants and even inanimate objects pursue peace and harmony; behold how magnet and iron attract each other. Hence, rejecting peace amounts to rejecting nature itself.
Alongside reason and nature, Christianity2 is also called up on behalf of the peace ideology:
When I, whose name is Peace, do but hear the word Man pronounced, I eagerly run to him as to a being created purposely for me, and confidently promising myself, that with him I may live for ever inuninterrupted tranquility; but when I also hear the title of Christian added to the name of Man, I fly with additional speed, hoping that with Christians I may build an adamantine throne, and establish an everlasting empire (pp. 9-10).
Alas, peace finds peace nowhere – not among the Christians:
But here also, with shame and sorrow, I am compelled to declare the result. Among Christians, the courts of justice, the palaces of princes, the senate-houses, and the churches, resound with the voice of strife, more loudly than was ever heard among nations whoknew not Christ (p. 10).
nor among monarchs and magnates:
I enter the courts of kings as into a harbor, from the storm of folly. Here, say I to myself, here must be a place for Peace to lodge in […] so far am I from finding in the palaces of princes a habitation for Peace, that in them I discover all the embryos, seminal principles and sources of all the wars that ever cursed mankind and desolated the universe (pp. 10-11).
Deplorably, peace finds nothing but strife and contention among priests, and even inside the erudite circle. In its indefatigablesearch, peace faces disputes within families, and even the individual is absorbed in conflict with himself.
Erasmus finds but one source of peace – in biblical text. He refers not to the Jewish God of vengeance, but rather to the Christian deity, as manifested in the angels’ song at the birth
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of Jesus, a melody of peace and love, as well as in Christ’s teachings of peace and love and his last prayer before his Ascension, bidding humankind to unite. The Erasmian reading of the Holy Scriptures emphasizes the absolute virtue of peace, which is dismissed by the Christian Realpolitik. The peace complaint is about the gap between the biblical text and reality,the discrepancy between the biblical messages of peace and the violent conflict among European monarchs and among clergymen. Jesus mediates between Herod and Pontius Pilate, yet His ministers fight one another. Erasmus unequivocally sides with thetext. The Christian ceremonies of the Eucharist and baptism, he asserts, signify solidarity, harmony and peace. Jews do not fighttheir own believers, he claims, nor do heathens, but among the Christians, the cross – a symbol of peace and love – is lifted belligerently.
The peace ideology presented by Erasmus is not addressed to all classes, and in this differs from other ideologies – religious, national or economic. It is meant to shape the identity of members of the educated and enlightened class, who should not only indulge in learning and teaching, but also become activists for peace. He rebukes Popes who eagerly endorse warfare and urgeskings to keep from warring. Such a newly shaped educated member is aware that a king is expected to protect his country and that the role of a priest is to preach peace.
Erasmus of Rotterdam. Stefan Zweig wrote his biography of Erasmus during World War II, in which he himself had become a refugee. Zweig states that Erasmus “was, of all the writers and creators of the West, the first conscious European, the first to fight on behalf of peace” (p. 4), and therefore his ideas remain relevant to the age of world wars. Zweig sees Erasmus as a pacifist in thewars between the Catholic Church and the Reformists and so presents him as a model of peace pursuit:
He was convinced that nearly all the conflicts arising between menand peoples could be adjusted happily through a little yielding onboth sides, since every conflict lies in the domain of the human, and there is hardly any differences of opinion that might not be
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liquidated satisfactorily were not the area of dispute needlessly expanded (p. 5).
Through Erasmus’ writings and letters, Zweig shapes a figure of amodern humanist, tending to ascribe to him ideas that are contemporaneously applicable. Accordingly, he presents him as “settled in no country and at home in all, the first conscious European and cosmopolitan…” (p. 8). He later describes how, everyfew years, Erasmus gave up his residential town and chose another, for he failed to feel at home in any of them. Zweig seems to assign Erasmus his own cosmopolitanism as a European intellectual at the beginning of the twentieth century. Followingin his protagonist’s footsteps during the stormy events at the beginning of sixteenth-century Europe, Zweig praises Erasmus’ moderate reactions and reservedness. Yet, while animating this figure, Zweig does not refrain from finding fault with Erasmus, pointing to his deliberate absence from the conciliation talks between the belligerent parties, as well as his avoidance of reconciliation with his adversary, Martin Luther.
In Zweig’s peace ideology, we find the political goals of world peace and a Pan-European union. Followers of that ideology, humanists, have a political role – to strive for peace. In wartime, they should not cut off their relations with intellectuals from the other side. Rather than taking a unilateral stance towards issues in conflict, they should adopt an approach that might promote reconciliation. Humanists should rise up against political and religious authorities in an attemptto prevent war. Their loyalty to the peace ideology must exclude any state or church ideology. The main praxis of peace pursuit should be meetings and talks between belligerent parties.
In certain respects, the humanist under discussion is quite puzzling. Zweig’s humanist is a bibliophile and a graphomaniac. He prefers books to reality. Our biographer associates his love for letters with his pacifism: “For books he had a great love because they made no noise, were not domineering, could not be understood by the ‘dull masses,’ and were the sole privilege of the educated…” (p. 49). The humanist’s approach is thus haughty;
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it betrays pretentiousness to represent “justice” which is ever above any social, political or religious controversy. Its aloofness is why humanism always ends in smoke. In Zweig’s words:“It was owing to this disastrous seclusion, this absence of popularity, that the humanists were never able to produce a harvest out of their fecund ideas” (p. 126). Those who placate and pursue peace look for slow reforms, not revolution. And thus,in order to avoid violence, the humanistic attitude turns the scales in favor of preserving the prevailing order. According to Zweig’s version of Erasmus, the humanist is prone to contain and avoid unnecessary disputes. He will pronounce openly his truth only inasmuch as it is likely to be accepted by the people he addresses.
Zweig concludes his peace ideology in a curiously meandering manner. On the one hand, he claims that sixteenth-century humanists created a “promising illusion,” an ideal of peace, progress and Pan-European unity, a vision which was shattered by the religious wars that swept the continent. On the other hand, he presents the peace ideology as a political alternative. He recalls the activity of the Italian erudite, Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), as simultaneous to Erasmus’ activity, indicating
1Notes? The discourse of education for peace is found in essays and articles in bibliotheca and periodicals; at conferences; and in educational and academic institutions. Israeli academicians take part in it, and I will refer at a later stage to some of their studies.2 Peace is deliberated in early Christian writings. Saint Augustine (354-430) stated that Christians ought to pursue peace, nevertheless he,and eight centuries later Saint Thomas Aquinas, mention the concept jus bellum (justifiable war). To wit, the Christian canonical texts that dealt with the question of war and peace put limits to peace pursuit. The very concept of a justifiable war differs from the peace ideology shaped by Erasmus. According to the latter, there is scarcely any justifiable war, whereas peace in itself indicates justice: “an unjustifiable peace is scarce, but even such one is preferable to the most justifiable war.” Erasmus shifted the emphasis in the Christian debate about war and peace. In the earlier debate the issue of peace wasregarded as marginal to the issue of justifiable wars, while Erasmus refers to the scarce inevitable war as marginal to the issue of peace.
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that these thinkers present two contrary types of politics, one of power and one of peace:
Thus, for all time, the two great fundamental forms of world politics were given their intellectual shape, the practical as against the ideal, diplomacy as against ethics, State politics as against humane politics. … In the material realm of history the principle of power has achieved a predominant position. Not so Erasmus’s ideal of politics based upon conciliation and the unity of mankind. The concepts set [by Machiavelli] in Il Principe have heldthe field, the policy of seizing every opportunity to reinforce the personal power of a sovereign has presided over the dramatic development of European history, ever since that day (p. 241).
Zweig tries to vindicate the lack of success and seems to get lost in his apologetic argumentation. He claims that fulfillment of the desirable end is but delayed. “An idea which does not takeon material shape is not necessarily a conquered idea or a false idea. … Those ideas only which have failed to put on concrete form are capable of everlasting resurrection” (p. 243). Even though peace pursuit is but an illusion, there are reasons to maintain it:
With faith ever freshly renewed, men still look to the possibilityof reconciliation between the nations, and the hope arises all thestronger in the human heart precisely at those moments when confusion and horror are abroad in the land. For man cannot live and work without the comforting delusion that humanity is really capable of rising to a higher moral plane, without his dream that in the end he and his fellow mortals will be reconciled and will understand one another. … A promise is thus contained within the legacy, a promise which is full of creative force for the future (pp. 246-247).
In sum, the peace ideology is presented in Zweig’s biography as solace, as a promise, as a potential, as an illusion, as a desirable end in days to come.
The Archive of My Documents. During the period 2002-2008 I was engagedin several peace-promoting educational projects. At the time, I initiated two new bodies into being: The Center for Multicultural
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Education at Beth Berl College and the NGO known as Education forPeace in Israel, later to be called Indimage – Education in MixedCities. Over the course of time I was compelled to close both – the center in the summer of 2004 and the NGO towards the end of 2008. The peace-promoting projects were held in mixed kindergartens in Jaffa; in two elementary schools, one Jewish andone Arab, that shared a courtyard (which we referred to as the “multicultural campus"); at Beit Berl, a college with a mixed student population; and with a mixed group of senior educators that composed an educational vision paper for Jaffa (Jaffa Forum). Numerous documents piled up over those years. Some of them addressed to the philanthropic funds that financed the projects; and some were for my own sake. The documents unfold thestory of the humanist which is me, and the plot of my personal pursuit of peace.
II. Textual Analysis
My study of the three textual resources follows criteria of literary criticism. For each criterion I refer first to the textsof Erasmus and Zweig, and then present the relevant utterances from my archive in broad terms. As already mentioned, this is nothistorical research. The objective of this study is not to demonstrate a “development” of ideas over time or an “evolution” of the peace ideology. The staging of ideas side by side is intended here to stimulate the imagination and encourage thinking.
Protagonist. In The complaint of peace, ideology takes the form of a human figure, and in the biography it takes the form of Erasmus. In the archive of my documents, the peace ideology takes the formof an organization. For instance, in a summary paper written in 2002, I present the Center for Multicultural Education thus: “TheCenter … acts inside and upon the Israeli educational scene. Its aim is to create and enable an Israeli multicultural and feministdialogue…” Similarly, a profile page I wrote for the Education for Peace NGO in 2005 states:
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The NGO … is a society for public benefit, established in 2004 to provide an answer to the lack of basic arrangements and schooling programs for peace studies. The society finds it essential to drawJews and Arabs nearer to one another and to spread the teaching ofArab culture and language as a measure of education for peace.
Another example is from a grant application to the New Israel Fund that I wrote in 2006 for Indimage:
Indimage is a non-profit organization for public benefit, founded in 2004 to answer the need to promote education and democratic schooling in mixed cities in Israel, and the democratizing of the educational curriculum and agenda. Indimage is an Arabic term, meaning “hybrid”….
From one document to another the organization keeps changing its name, and each time its definitions and its aims are slightly modified. Like in the case of the two precedent writers, in my archive, too, the protagonist is a valuable rhetoric instrument, by which a plot becomes possible. An ideology, any ideology, would prefer to be carried through by a plot, a story, rather than by a manifest or a list of dogmata. The protagonist is supposed to capture the readers’ attention. My archive protagonist – an organization rather than a human figure – betrays an extra effort to persuade its audience. It is as if each document announces the presence of several voices backing the peace ideology, a whole chorus assembled to sing praise of peace and promote belief in it.
Plot. In both earlier texts, the plot is not joyous. Querela Pacis expresses failure and disappointment. Peace complains that mortals do not recognize its virtues and reject it. It claims that they behave unreasonably by not adopting it as their doctrine. The plot woven by Zweig is less straightforward. His Erasmus is unfavorably trapped between two belligerent parties: the Pope and Martin Luther. He agrees with each side on some principles and disagrees with them on others. The follower of Zweig’s peace ideology is a European humanist who cannot belong to any existing society. He has no nationality, no mother tongue,no religion, no homeland. Since he does not belong anywhere, he
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is bound to be haughty and his deeds are bound to remain ritual and symbolic. That is, he and his deeds are always transcendental. This version of Erasmus transcends the two possible European identities of his days; he is not completely atterms with either his Catholic or his Reformist identity. He is aCatholic priest who evades his priestly precepts, and he is a Reformist who shrinks from promoting reforms. Being placatory andpeace pursuing, he solicits both parties to make concessions. He bids the Vatican to accept some of Luther’s demands and Luther topace himself moderately. What is tragic in Zweig’s plot is the chronic indetermination of the main figure. Even when the two parties are ready to try conciliation talks, Erasmus chooses to drop out of the conference. The end is inevitable and gloomy, like in all tragedies. The protagonist fails, and his adversary –warfare ideology and the immoral Realpolitik – wins.
My archival plot is also not joyous, even tragic. It starts with the section of documents entitled “goals.” The goals are visionary, their rhetoric is immensely promising. A grant application to the New Israel Fund in 2006 outlines the goals of Indimage:
1. To minimize inequality in the Israeli education system …2. To help avoid alienation and racialism between Jews and Arabs
in Israeli society, particularly in mixed cities.
The goals of The Center for Multicultural Education at Beth Berl College are no less promising. As mentioned in a report composed by the New Israel Fund in 2003:
a) To promote a pluralist ambience in the college, with regard forits ethnic variety.
b) To shape a democratic and multicultural outlook among the graduating [future teachers].
c) To translate democratic values into praxis and substance in thecourse of training teachers.
Once goals are declared, the archival plot turns to outlining operational steps. These are couched in vigorous terms and leave
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an impression of productivity. A draft I made of operations at the "multicultural campus" (final report, July 2006) states:
1. Operating teams – two teams appointed. Each team consists of a few teachers
2. A leading team – … to advance interpersonal and collective dynamics and to arrive at decisions …
3. Meetings exclusively with the school principals – a forum wherecommon policy is determined …
4. Meetings with parents ….
The narration of operations is followed by an anticlimax of obstructions, difficulties, crises. The educational projects for peace, promising as they were, met with resistance from officials, commissioners and participants. At Beth Berl College, the antagonism is ascribed to the management:
The Center [for Multicultural Education] endeavors to prove worthwhile, and yet is not treated like “equal among equals.” Today, at the end of its second year, the Center seems to be accepted by the public mind in the College as an integral part of it. This is true of lecturers and students on campus, yet not of the College administration, which considers the views represented by the Center as too radical.
In the mixed kindergarten project in Jaffa the teachers themselves were opposed to our political agenda. They even warnedus of exceeding “dangerous limits”:
Some teachers objected to the idea of gaining tools to cope with multicultural conditions. They indignantly dismissed a proposal topurchase books in Arabic for their kindergartens. They found it “outrageous” to introduce books in any language other than Hebrew (summary of third meeting, Nov. 2007).
This sort of plot repeats itself several times in the archive, ultimately leading to disappointment, anger and disillusionment. In two of the projects, I found myself compelled to renounce education for peace and to restrict myself to conventional pedagogic training, without an agenda, just to keep them going and to retain the financing guaranteed for them. The closing of
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the project in Beth Berl led me for the first and only time to refer to myself, and not to an organization, as the main documented figure:
[As to the] threat to close down the Center – or the way it is couched “to discharge the principal of the Center and to maintain the Center.” Throughout the three years of my work in the College,operating the Center for Multicultural Education, I have been under threat of being closed down. The threat is steady, and the reasons keep changing every time… (summary report, 2004).
The closing of the kindergarten enterprise yielded an understanding – the participants perceived schooling for peace asan ideology which jeopardized their professional selves:
The kindergarten teachers demand an answer to their job and careerinsecurity. Fostering Arab interests among their pupils seems to them to imply a fatal threat to their professional status and belonging both individually and sectorially (summary of meeting, May 2005).
The essence of the plot told by the archive is this: the organization whose goal is to spread a peace ideology initiates educational projects, but falls short. Its addressees refuse the ideology. All efforts are in vain. Lofty promises turn to abysmaldisappointments.
The fall repeats itself time and again over the centuries. The Sisyphean protagonist hastens to ignore and forget the preceding defeat, and starts a new round, which too is bound to fail. Peaceideology motivates him and his species, producing all over again sublime goals and diligent activity and stupefying their senses so that the predictable fiasco always takes them by surprise.
Rhetoric. The rhetoric in Querela Pacis seeks to persuade its audienceby appealing directly to their reason. The text repeatedly calls attention to the gaps between nature and the deportment of human society, and between the Holy Scripture and reality. It calls upon reason to reject those gaps and disharmonies, and to oppose the disobedience of Christians to the maxims of Christianity.
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While the Erasmian appeal addresses reason, Zweig addresses a complex and self-contradictory mind, like his protagonist’s, leading to a paradoxical end. The rhetoric here tries to work through identification. Zweig identifies with the image of Erasmus and attempts to persuade his audience to identify with it. Indeed, he shapes an image for us to identify with, which in turn will shape our identity as peace pursuers who never obtain what they desire. Zweig wants us to find our image reflected in his Erasmus. Like him, we maneuver between opposing elements; like the paragon he is, we want to make the world a better place;and like him, we are doomed to fail. The rhetoric is both disheartening and solacing. It is spiral, steering us towards a future which is nothing more than a “comforting illusion.”
The archival rhetoric is not elegant. It is cold and lean, like the architectural style of bare concrete. It addresses neither reason nor mind, but rather a purse. The grant application is themost prevalent document in the archive. Most of the reports and digests I wrote were sent to funds as a supplement to an application, with the next application in mind. The structure of most texts is repetitive: aims, measures, results and budget. Their concluding page typically demonstrates financial reckonings. The archival peace ideology talks business. It is wrapped in banknotes and pronounces not only words, but also numbers, which star not only on the budget pages, but in other parts of the application as well. They serve as a rhetorical means of persuasion, and, as is conventional in such texts, they are exaggerated. The number of participants in undertakings is enhanced, the number of meetings is misleading, and costs are inflated.
Some of the documents, though, are not just aimed at the donors’ purse. Those documents record dialogues and discussions from meetings held within the scope of the projects. The records per se render a promise made in the goals section of the archive and are complementary to the operational steps. Without them, the praxis of peace education would not be complete. The documentation of utterances from the meetings is linked to the
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endeavor to persuade. It is as if those summations say, “We are the results of all efforts, the harvest produced by the educational enterprises for peace. The enterprises fail to fulfill a peace ideology, yet they produce summations, i.e., something tangible.”
Praxis. Erasmus’ appeal lacks praxis. His peace ideology is good atcomplaining and is extremely opposed to violence and brutality, but fails to propose positive peace-making actions. Throughout his text I found but a single reference to an operative sort of an action, wherein Erasmus recommends that priests should not bury war casualties in church graveyards. Still, even in that sole case he hastens to add a reservation, allowing Christian burial to the dead of defensive wars, which he considers justified.
Zweig demonstrates a stronger and more varied praxis. In some of Erasmus’ letters he finds an entreaty to assemble a council of erudite representatives, side by side with Catholic and Reformed clergymen, in order to discuss controversial issues. Zweig elaborates on this as a peace-making practice; he considers conciliation meetings and conferences as a chief measure to arrive at “understandings in the spirit of Christianity” (p. 142). Another operational measure is found in his call to intellectuals of belligerent sides to maintain communication during wartime:
[I]n case of war breaking out the men of intelligence and learningin every land must not renounce their friendship towards one another. Their attitude must never to be to strengthen the contrasts in outlook among the nations, the races, and the classesby means of disintegrating partisanship; they must unflinchingly remain in the sphere of human-kindliness and justice (pp. 111-112).
The archival documents bear witness to considerable involvement in praxis. The practices mentioned consist of running dialogue encounters, developing peace curricula, and struggles for an educational policy. The dialogue encounters are underlined in alldocuments as dominant practice. At Beth Berl College we organized17
a mixed group of Jewish and Arab teachers, ran debates between teams of students of the two nations, and launched courses for deliberately mixed classes. One of our initiated curricula at Beth Berl was designed for an academic course presenting both national histories, the Zionist and the Palestinian. On the multicultural campus, the activity was based mainly on meetings between principals, teachers, parents and pupils from both schools. The dialogue encounter was the dominant practice In the framework of the Jaffa Forum, in which a mixed group of Jewish and Arab principals discussed a shared vision for Jaffa’s educational system. Within the process of developing curricula, alexicon of useful words in Hebrew and Arabic was produced for theteachers of the mixed kindergartens in Jaffa. We also run a campaign for a change of governmental policy towards the languageissue. In 2008, on the Indimage website,3 we promoted a petition against a decision made by the Ministry of Education to stop teaching Arabic in Jewish schools. The campaign for change was also waged in newspaper articles, where I tackled the inequality between the Jewish and Arab schooling systems and urged support for the establishment of an Arab university.
The abundance and versatility of practice recorded in the archiveattest to the pragmatism upon which the archive is based. This pragmatism is evident both from the rhetoric used to mobilize financial resources and from the documentation of utterances at meetings as described above.
Results. Peace is not achieved in any of the three texts under discussion. Erasmus’ complaint continues to reverberate, and Zweig’s exemplary humanist ended in failure. The four projects ofeducation for peace in which I was involved failed as well.
Instead of peace, apology appears.4 Apology is at hand whenever and wherever there is a peace-pursuing debate. In Erasmus’ canonical text, the pursuit of peace is presented as a complaint,an accusation, an all-around apologetic. It never crosses his mind that reality is probably not to blame for its distance from 3 https://zzzen.secured.co.il/sites/indimage/zope/home/8/petition1_he4 The present essay can also be considered apologetic.
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the peace ideology – that in fact the ideology might be responsible for the gap, rather than the mortals who seem to shunthe blessing of peace. Zweig defends the peace ideology by ascribing its failure to its incompatibility with the present ageand suggesting that peace is suspended until days to come. Even when peace adjusts itself to purposefulness and usefulness, it does not fulfill its goal or bring any anticipated benefit. None of my archival documents point to fulfillment of any of the specified goals. Nevertheless, since pragmatic rhetoric ought to be accompanied by a display of actual results, the documents provide hyperboles, vain boasting, compromises and excuses. For instance, current operations are described and presented as achievement of goals. Reports referring to activity in the Centerfor Multicultural Education at Beth Berl emphasize courses that were given based on curricula that we had initiated, yet those reports completely overlook the lack of impact these courses had on the College or on Israeli society. The report concerning the kindergarten and school projects in Jaffa contains a detailed depiction of the various meetings, but says almost nothing about the objective of those meetings, and, as shown above, the utterances of participants are documented as though they in themselves represented fulfillment of the peace ideology. In noneof the organizations that accommodated our activity is any trace left of the projects which I operated.
The archival documents turn apologetic by casting blame on organizational conditions and on participants. Apology also findsits way through the projection of peace to “one fine day”:
Imagine tomorrow a peace process between Israel and Palestine is set forth. It might happen …. The minute it happens, both Israeli and Palestinian educational systems will face a dire need for multicultural education. Both will desperately look for educational models of collaboration. I recommend that the College executive here in Beth Berl prepare for that moment. The Center that I founded can serve as the unit of the College, promoting a possible peace in our region, a unit that works out educational programs, which sooner or later somebody will look for, and there will be such, I already can hear them, crying “peccavi, why didn’t
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we think of it?” So here we are, thinking of it (summary report, 2004).
III. Shaping the Identity of a Humanist as a Fulfillment of Peace Ideology
Perusing the three textual resources, the dominant role of apology in the debate elicited by the peace ideology becomes moreand more palpable. The current debate on education for peace alsooffers quite a few instances of systematic defense of the peace ideology, in light of its impotence. Thus, for example, Daniel Bar-Tal concludes his article, “The elusive nature of peace education”:
Though it is often viewed as mission impossible, in my view it serves a momentous and indispensable function in any society. Peace education provides hope for a better future for the younger members of society, because it indicates that their society is aware of its ills and is striving to remedy them in order to builda better place to live. Such hope is essential as it provides goals toward a better future and places it within their grasp; forwithout such goals, society is doomed to decline and decay (2005, p. 35).
When results and goals prove incompatible, an apologetic approachis likely to criticize the goals themselves:
The frequentative question is, what is the outcome of those meetings, and how do they affect reality? The answer depends on the objective which is set by the organizers [emphasis added]. Jewish participants usually define the objective as make friends, shatterstereotypes, and some even go as far as to sense those meetings asa redeeming feat amidst the deplorable actuality around us. Moreover, the larger part of researches on that matter … persist mainly in checking among the participants change of attitudes, stereotypes smashed and the like… It seems that we ought to be more humble and less anticipating with regard to the aptitude of such initiated meetings between Jews and Arabs to change reality… (Halabi, 2004, p. 13).
Rabah Halabi and Michal Zack point to a remote vision which conducts their activity:
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At our work we envisage a human society, egalitarian and just. Ouraim at meetings is to cultivate the participants’ awareness of theconflict and of their conciliating role within it, and also to examine identity and build it in the process of facing the other (Halabi, 2004, p. 18).
The apologetic rhetoric in the debates on education for peace is assisted by a whole set of distinctions: the bloody present versus a future of peace and fraternity; a magnificent vision versus humble targets; tough reality versus a marvelous vision; and so on. Such distinctions lead to somewhat strange ideas. For instance, differentiating between societies that are and are not involved in violent conflict, Bar-Tal, Rosen and Nets-Zehngut (2011) propose “indirect peace education” for the former and “direct peace education” for the latter. Whereas direct peace education consists of all relevant practices known, indirect peace education leaves out all conflictual issues and, indeed, the conflict itself:
Indirect peace education does not challenge directly themes related to conflict, such as its goals, its course, its costs, or the image of the rival. Instead, it concerns either very general themes of peace and peacemaking that do not contradict directly the culture of conflict, especially ethos of conflict, or an arrayof themes and skills that do not refer to conflict at all (Bar-Tal et al., 2011, p. 27).
The apologetic string here sounds so dissonant that it destroys the very dichotomy on which the peace ideology is based – peace vs. war. Thus, education for peace should be operated in full only under circumstances of no war, whereas in wartime it should be conducted without mention of actual war or peace.
Peace ideology and peace education do not attain peace. Whenever and wherever peace ideology is on stage, explaining its failure is part of its show. Still, it wouldn’t show up if it didn’t serve anything. So, what or whom is it serving? In order to understand its appearance, we have to silence its complaint and plug our ears to its apologetics.
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To comprehend peace ideology, it is worthwhile to follow Althusser’s (1971) thoughts about ideologies. Althusser presents ideology as a pure dream, illusion, naught, whose entire reality is outside of it. From this, it may be inferred that peace is notthe content of peace ideology. Ideology has no content, Althussermaintains, but it has a target: to control people. In other words, ideology has no object (content) but rather a subject (you/me). It controls subjects by denying their actual circumstances, and planting, instead, fictitious relations with their circumstances. Althusser indicates that ideology is abundant in practices, but being void of content, its practices are nothing but futile rituals. Its goal is to shape the subject in order to suppress it. Ideology imposes the individual’s identity: Jacques is French, Said is Yemenite, Sima is a communist, Yair is a God-fearing Jew and Simon is a woman. In each of these cases ideology employs a whole set of rituals to one purpose – to subjugate the individual, to maneuver the subject into serving interests which are not his or her true ones. Those rituals, in addition to the planted fictitious concepts, delude the individual into believing that s/he acts as a free person.
Althusser’s ideas clarify why peace-pursuing rituals and so-called peace education fail to attain peace. The objective of peace ideology is not to create peace, but rather to shape the identity of humanists. Further, the identity of the humanist serves interests that do not belong to the individual who has been made humanist. This individual is trapped in a net of fictitious relations with his or her actual circumstances. Newly formed humanists become increasingly detached from their true position of existence and true relations with reality; and their membership in a group involved in a violent conflict becomes increasingly vaguer. That is why humanists are always haughty; they do not belong to the group and its violence, but rather hover above it. Nor do they support the opposing group. Like stringent pedagogues, humanists apply their fictitious reference to both parties: both are violent and therefore equally condemnable.
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Humanists fancy their attitude towards reality as rational and, at the same time, fancifully shift to a transcendent sphere and idolize the deities of justice and peace. They deny their real circumstances of existence in innumerable ways. Even when realitymanifests itself and gains entire dominance over their field of vision, they peep above it and fancy some future. When reality continues to refute that future, they indulge in rhetorical gamesand overshadow it with words and more words. In spite of their super-rationality, humanists do not avow their errors; they are skilled vindicators and champions of excuses and cant.
Individuals who have been made humanists are found worthy by peace ideology to wear the identity of a peace pursuer, from which they also gain advantage. Fed up with being part of a violent society, they conceive themselves, fictitiously, as “human beings,” as ennobled subjects of humanism, and they sense that these self-attributes have suffered heavy damage. So, soon they will become pursuers of peace and achieve harmony between the fictitious images they have of themselves, their situation and their relations with the society in which they exist. Among those images is one of being exceedingly good-natured and understanding. This image, like all the self-made images of humanists, is incompatible with their reality as individuals and with relations to others, as they are not really better-natured or more understanding than the rest. As humanists, these individuals are aware of that truth, which is anchored in the humanistic principle of equality. Becoming peace pursuers distinguishes humanists from the plebeian society in which they exist, providing harmony between the contradictory concepts within them. The identity of peace pursuer enables humanists to believe they are equal to all human beings, and at the same time worthier than anyone. In like manner, humanists mold their fictitious position and role in society, recognizing themselves as members of society, anchored in the humanistic principle of fraternity and social solidarity, but at the same time they feel repugnance towards people. This contradictory movement within theself is reconciled by fictitiously believing that they, and they
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only, act not for their own sake, but for the sake of society andin its service.
These contradictions, which are reconciled within the imaginationof humanists, remain blatantly clear to those around them, who are rather perceptive of the disharmony embodied in the peace pursuer’s performance. Reality is not activated by the imagination of humanists; it remains indifferent to their fictitious affecting. How, then, are the conditions for the humanist’s functioning possible? In what manner does the peace pursuer serve society?
Conclusion
Peace ideology shows up any time there is war. Violent conflicts blaze the trail for its appearance and for the humanist’s performance. The current study of the three textual sources enables me to refute some of the assumptions on which the peace ideology is based, and to invalidate some of the ideas extended by the humanist. The first lesson to draw is that peace is not the opposite of war. War has no opposite; it only has an end. Thetermination of warfare is good enough an expectancy. Evidently, during warfare people anticipate its termination, so that peace as a “comforting expectancy” is superfluous. In addition, violence does not pertain to war exclusively. Violence is there even when peace prevails. Hence, defining peace as contrary to war and violence is wrong. Further, it is wrong to point out two kinds of politics, one of peace and one of power. Politics is always based on power. Backed by powerful politics, peace can be lasting. It seems, therefore, that peaceful politics is irrelevant and does not exist.
Peace ideology being void, we are left with the puppet identity of the humanist. Why do wars fabricate their humanists? In what manner are humanists expected to function in the service of warfare? It is likely that humanists are designed to personify the “illusion of peace” and prove by that the fairness of war. During wartime they perform a role similar to that played by Pierrot in a Commedia dell’Arte. Pierrot is a sad clown who
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struggles in vain to win her heart. The symbol of naivety, his role is designed to hold lofty ideas up to ridicule. Humanists follow the same design. Ridiculous is their mode of complaining about the gap between reality and abstract ideas, and ridiculous is their complaint that reality dismisses the Holy Writ. Ridiculous are their haughtiness and aloofness, and their endeavor to assume an identity not their own. Ridiculous are their bibliophily and graphomania, on which they establish their haughtiness. Ridiculous are their contradictory standpoints. Theybelieve in the idea of justice, but avoid any reference to a possible just party in a conflict. They preach conciliation in the name of everybody’s membership in the “human domain,” yet consider themselves superior to everyone. And finally, for the sake of so-called conciliation, humanists will keep silent and not reveal the whole truth, lest it incite controversy. They represent reason pathetically. In its name they fail to take a stand; and in its name they end up compromising on justice and truth.
Above all, humanists flinch from violence. Their procured identity consistently leads them to side with conciliation, thus serving the prevailing order. It is exactly in that manner, and to that end, that the peace ideology controls and maneuvers the humanist. Be the prevailing order unjust, humanists will be thereto issue an appropriate utterance which is meant to spare those who profit from injustice. Humanists are manufactured to serve the masters of the prevailing order. Their ludicrous complaint provides evidence of the hopelessness of attempts to promote an honest issue in the real world. Societies always produce violenceand injustice. They need humanists who will consistently point out the political conflict as the source of all evil – and the enlisted peace-pursuing humanists meet that need. The affirmatives that they issue are paradoxical. The ridiculous phenomenon of the peace pursuer asserts what a serious matter violence is. The subject of peace ideology is on stage for everyone to point at and say, “Look at that Pierrot, look at him,he wants it so badly, he tries, but never succeeds …”.
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References
Archive of My Documents, 2002-2008.
Althusser, L. (1971). Ideology and ideological state apparatuses (notes towardsan investigation). Lenin and philosophy and other essays. Trans. Ben Brewster. New York: Monthly Review.
Bar-Tal, D. (2005). The elusive nature of peace education. In G. Salomon & B. Nevo (Eds.), Peace education: The concept, principles, and practices around the world (pp. 27-36). Psychology Press.
Bar-Tal, D., Rosen, Y., & Nets-Zehngut, R. (2011). In G. Salomon & E. Cairns (Eds.), Handbook on peace education (pp. 21-44). New York: Taylor & Francis.
Erasmus, D. (1917) The complaint of peace. Translated from the QuerelaPacis (A.D. 1521) of Erasmus. Chicago: Open Court.
Erasmus, D. (2003). The praise of folly. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Halabi, R. (Ed.). (2004). Israeli and Palestinian identities in dialogue: The school for peace approach. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Zweig, S. (1934). Erasmus of Rotterdam. New York: Viking Press.
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