Scientific, creative, social manifestations of peace through the eyes of youth
The School of Scientific Leadership of the Kharkiv National University of Internal Affairs organized an international round table on the topic “Scientific, creative, social manifestations of peace through the eyes of youth” (October, 2022).
The round table gathered 50 participants from Ukraine, Latvia, Armenia, Georgia. It is important that each speech was accompanied by a presentation and distinguished by a fundamentally new direction of vision of peace through the prism of civic education.
In his opening speech, the head of the School of Scientific Leadership Vitalii Naida emphasized the uniqueness and extreme relevance of the topic of the round table, because it is Ukrainians, based on the experience of living in war conditions, who can realize the multifaceted nature of the phenomenon of peace and convey to the world the importance of maintaining peace and security, including proposing new ideas, solutions, projects, philosophical concepts and various creative works.
Possibilities of peaceful civic education help to understand, structure, formalize and express such ideas.
Ukrainian Pacifist Movement Board member, Lecturer and Research associate, KROK University Yurii Sheliazhenko prepared for the participants of the round table a speech “Perspectives of peace movement, peace education in Ukraine”, in which he touched on the issues of the normative foundations of peace and nonviolence, peaceful civic education, the history of peaceful movements on the territory of Ukraine, public initiatives and associations.
Separately, Yurii Sheliazhenko spoke in detail about peaceful civic education, which involves teaching the culture of peace, nonviolent actions and conflict management, comprehensive citizenship, critical approaches to cultural and structural violence, and a creative approach to creating a peaceful ethnos. Yurii Sheliazhenko noted that peace education forms skills of non-violent behavior, communication, interaction, conflict management, healthy relations between people and communities, stimulates justice and well-being. Yurii Sheliazhenko also focused on the prospects of peaceful civic education: non-violent atmosphere in educational institutions, demilitarization of education and culture, teaching of all topics in the spirit of the culture of peace, disclosure of topics of peaceful citizenship.
A cadet of the 3rd year of Faculty No. 1 of the Kharkiv National University of Internal Affairs, a senior member of the School, Krystyna Koval, prepared a speech on the topic “International peacekeeping instruments as an effective means of achieving peace.”
In her speech, Krystyna analyzed the activities of international peacekeeping missions and international peacekeeping operations. Christina also described the European Peace Facility (EPF) as an extra-budgetary instrument that strengthens the European Union’s ability to act as a global security provider. According to Krystyna, in the context of civic education, international youth exchanges and training courses, which have the theme of achieving peace, are currently tools for the settlement of international conflicts. After all, during participation in projects, cadets can identify new international peacekeeping tools, develop ideas for solving the problem of achieving peace. Such projects can be Erasmus+, programs from the European Union or from public organizations and other countries.
Andrii Topchii, a 4th-year cadet of Faculty No. 1 of the Kharkiv National University of Internal Affairs, head of the International Center of the School, in his speech “Models of international criminal tribunals in the context of the Ukrainian issue: how ordinary citizens can help gather evidence” analyzed in detail the activities of the Nuremberg and Tokyo military tribunals, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the International Tribunal for Rwanda, International Criminal Court.
Mykyta Belevtsov, 4th-year cadet of Faculty No. 1 of the Kharkiv National University of Internal Affairs, Deputy Head of the School, prepared a presentation on the topic “The role of the UN in maintaining peace”, in which he noted that in 2019 the global strategic document “We are here: a comprehensive approach to peace processes involving youth” was published. At the heart of this global strategic document is the idea of applying a comprehensive and multi-level approach to peace processes with the participation of young people, based directly on the personal experience of young people.
Mykyta drew attention to the fact that usually the participants of the peace process seek to take a “seat at the negotiation table” in order to achieve the greatest influence on their outcome, however, as stated in the strategic document, youth can influence these processes, being both in the negotiation room and in close proximity to it, and also far from it. Young people, unlike other participants, are able to influence peace processes regardless of how close they are to the negotiating table. Young people often play the most important role thanks to their initiative and leadership qualities, contributing to the achievement of even greater legitimacy and durability of peace agreements. When young people actively participate in negotiations, interacting with other participants at all three levels (in the negotiation room, in close proximity to it and away from it), they have a more tangible impact on the development of agreements than if they were simply given a seat at the table negotiations. This strategy paper is the first study to provide a clear picture of where and how young people influence the outcome of peace processes.
The 3rd-year cadets of Faculty No. 1 Hryhoriy Zagrunnyi and Ruslan Kholodniak in the speech “The role of the leader in ensuring peace in the work team” drew the attention of those present that relations at the level of the leader and subordinate deserve due attention in building a peaceful society.
Manifestations of aggression, various manifestations of violence find their expression in the working atmosphere. Therefore, very often the lack of real leaders at the level of various small organizations creates a threat to peace in the country. After the speech, the speakers were asked a question about the difference between a leader and a manager, including when resolving conflicts in the team. Answering the question, Hryhoriy and Ruslan noted the fundamental importance of leadership in building peaceful relations.
Polina Suslova, a 3rd-year cadet of Faculty No. 1, who is the head of the Center for Social Projects of the School, prepared the presentation “How to tell children about peace” based on the Center’s experience.
Polina noted that the concept of peace means something different to each person. For an adult peace is stability, seeing loved ones joyful, smiling and happy. Children feel exactly the same way, they just call it different words. Peace for a child is to see that parents are alive, happy and healthy. To know that in the summer you will go to your grandmother in the village for 3 months and there you will play with friends, swim in the river and fall asleep to your grandmother’s stories.
Polina emphasized that it is very important for us as police officers that children perceive us as their friends and protectors. That is why we pay great attention to the formation of “friendship” with children. To do this, we hold lectures for them in schools, where we try to show in every possible way that we are friends and they should not be afraid of us. Nowadays, under the conditions of martial law, we try to morally support children. So on weekends we draw and play with them, trying to show that life still goes on. Such work is carried out every week at the base of the center for forced migrants.
Victoria Kolesnyk, 4th-year cadet of Faculty No. 1, secretary of the School of Scientific Leadership, with her speech “Peace and War in the Work of Remarque” turned the discussion into a fundamentally new direction of literary creativity.
Victoria notes that Remarque mainly writes about the so-called “lost generation” – people who survived the war and are trying to adapt to ordinary life, but due to certain psychological traumas and tragic memories, they cannot do so. In the works of Remarque, the themes of loneliness among seemingly native people are raised; searching for oneself; friendship and love; a peaceful world that turned out not to be the world for which so many lives were given. Analyzing the works of Remarque, Victoria drew vivid parallels with our modern life and Ukrainian citizens who suffer from the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation on the territory of our country. Just like in Remarque’s novels “On the Western Front Without Changes” and “Return”, now very young guys defend the territory of Ukraine, get wounded, return to their hometowns on vacation, but cannot live as before.
The very sharp and painful topic of war refugees is also revealed in the novel “Shadows in Paradise”. Currently, about 6 million citizens of Ukraine have left the country because of military operations, occupation, shelling, and because of the feeling of constant danger. All of them cope differently with going abroad, the feeling of guilt for leaving the country, friends and home, constant stress. Viktoria concluded that it is necessary to learn from the mistakes of the past in order to prevent violations of the peace in the future.
Oleksandr Kurilkin, a 2nd-year cadet of Faculty No. 1, in his speech “Understanding the role of creativity in preserving peace” notes that with the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Russia into Ukraine, creativity took a leading place in raising the spirit of the entire nation, became a source of energy for maintaining the national idea.
According to Oleksandr, any type of art can reflect a certain idea, a certain thought, a mood, but it is music – a combination of sounds and words – that can evoke real feelings. In a fairly short time, such hits as: “Oh in the meadow red viburnum”, “Don’t stand under the window”, “Stefania” were released. The song “Stephania” became another anthem against the war in Ukraine after the triumphant victory of the Kalush Orchestra at the international Eurovision Song Contest 2022. Such songs show the whole world how Ukrainians love their country, have an extremely rich culture and are a peaceful, open, sincere nation.
Natalie Gamtsemlidze (Georgia), Yelena Amiryan (Armenia), Kristine Lomako (Latvia), as well as about 30 cadets participating in the School of Scientific Leadership and cadets of the 2nd, 3rd, 4th years of Faculty No. 1 of Kharkiv National University of Internal Affairs also joined the work of the round table.
Thus, on the basis of the event we were able to formulate the definition of peaceful civic education, which is a system of educational institutions, courses, webinars, international exchanges, educational art projects, social projects, volunteer movements, in particular in the field of intellectual volunteerism at the level of an individual, family, labor collective, state and international space aimed at teaching the culture of peace, non-violent actions and conflict management, comprehensive citizenship, critical approaches to cultural and structural violence and a creative approach to the creation of a peaceful ethnos, international peace-making tools as an effective means of achieving peace, as to tell children about peace, the activities of volunteers as a manifestation of peacemaking processes, the place of peace in creativity, manifestations of peace in national cultures, the role of diplomacy (youth diplomacy) in maintaining peace, the phenomenon of a peaceful personality, the functioning of peacekeeping missions and the relationship between morality and peace, peace and religion (faith), which forms skills of non-violent behavior, communication, interaction, conflict management, healthy relations between people and communities, promotes justice and well-being.
We found out that the current framework of peaceful civic education is, on the one hand, aimed at awareness of peace at the level of the individual, family, collective (labor, religious, ethnic), state and interstate space, which expresses a complex multifaceted object of such influence of education and, at the same time, the subjects (actors) of the implementation of instruments of peaceful civic education at separate levels, and on the other hand, the thematic frameworks that were outlined by the speakers at the round table: international peacemaking instruments as an effective means of achieving peace, how to tell children about peace, the activity of volunteers as a manifestation of peacemaking processes, the place of peace in creativity etc.
The discussion has been funded by the Federal Agency for Civic Education using funds appropriated by the Federal Foreign Office, Expanding Cooperation with Civil Society in the Eastern Partnership Countries and Russia (Eastern Partnership Programme).