Critical Pedagogy and Peace Education: Understanding Violence, Human Rights, and the Historical Project of Militant Peace

Abstract

Panayota Gounari examines some of the limits of peace (as) discourse in this chapter. By critiquing the dominant discourse on peace and human rights, she exposes some of the fundamental elements of hegemonic Western teleology. In “critiquing the discourse of peace as agency,” she proffers a critical review of what has taken place internationally during the past ten years that reveals how violent and bloody this decade has been despite a designation in 2000 by the United Nations for an International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-violence for the Children of the World. Despite the hard work, strides, and achievements made by peace organizations and movements worldwide and despite the positive interventions and the increasing awareness on issues pertaining to nonviolence and peace, the history of humanity remains one of atrocities, pain, and devastation. Calling for a deeper reflection and understanding of the multiple forms of economic, political, symbolic, and discursive violence, and their very real human consequences, as well as an intensified move toward militarization worldwide, Gounari wonders how do we reconcile a decade dedicated in the “culture of peace” with the ongoing wars and aggression? Furthermore, she acknowledges a tension that exists at the discursive level, as well: through the designation of an International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-violence for the Children of the World, institutions like UNESCO that are legitimized to define, process, and work on peace produce their own discourse in reports, news briefs, and other antiviolence and pro-peace material and provide specific recommendations and directives. Gounari analyzes the dominant discourse and “universal” character of peace and human rights and the way they have been used to neutralize or even promote aggression. This has been done in the context of a liberal ideology of missionary politics that promotes tolerance. She interrogates this missionary politics of tolerance and provides some thoughts on violence drawing on the seminal work of Slavoj Zizek, Herbert Marcuse, Walter Benjamin, and Hannah Arendt in an attempt to provide a theoretical framework of understanding the ongoing aggression worldwide. Finally, Gounari looks at peace education through the lens of critical pedagogy as a radical educational discourse and pedagogy, to suggest ways to integrate pressing questions about violence in the curriculum.