Lesson 3 What Broke Peace in the World of Humankind

Opening Stor y Near the border of France and Italy is an area named Modane. 12 December 1917, during the first World War, about 1,000 French soldiers were on a train heading home on special leave to spend Christmas with their family. The train was packed with soldiers. Passengers shouted out in excitement to start the engine right away. But the engine driver refused to start the train and warned, “The train will meet a steep hill and a sharp curve very soon. The heavy load will lead to a grave accident.”

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One of the officers among the soldiers on board pulled out his pistol and threatened the engine driver, “Start the train immediately, or I will fire the gun.” The officer was offended because he thought the engine driver was disrespectful of the troops that fought for their country. Left with no choice, the engine driver started the engine. Soon, the train met the steep hill. The train rushed downhill and picked up speed. Just as the engine driver had feared, the train derailed at the curve.

The accident killed nearly 670 soldiers who even survived the battlefields.

The stubborn ignorance of one officer that chose to overrule common sense and order caused many lives.

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1. The relationship between peace and order

Order is heaven's first law.

Alexander Pope (English Poet, 1688-1744)

Order and cleanliness are the qualifications of a civilized person.

Changho Ahn (Korean Philosopher, 1878-1938)

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What is order, and what is the relationship between order and peace?

“The chaos took on ever more fantastic forms. Soon nobody knew what any article was worth. Price jumped arbitrarily; a thrifty merchant would raise the price of a box of matches to twenty times the amount charged by his upright competitor who was innocently holding to yesterday’ s quotation. ... A man who had been saving for forty years and who, furthermore, had patriotically invested his all in war bonds, became a beggar. A man who had debts became free of them. A man who respected the food rationing system starved; only one who disregarded it brazenly could eat his fill. A man schooled in bribery got ahead, if he speculated, he profited. ... Standards and values disappeared during this melting and evaporation of money; there was but one merit: to be clever, shrewd, unscrupulous, and to mount the racing horse instead of be trampled by it.”

From The World of Yesterday: Memories of a European, a memoir by Stefan Zweig

Stefan Zweig gives a searing illustration in his book The World of Yesterday of a society stricken by inflation after the war without a functioning economy, order, or social values.

What is a state that lacks peace? It would be a state of disorder where order and systems collapsed, and people do not fulfill their roles and responsibilities. When order fails in society, it becomes difficult to coordinate different ideas and arguments or make decisions. That can easily lead to conflict with no alternative. Disregarding one’s roles and responsibilities or not keeping the basic rules can also cause social confusion. Some of them can be directly related to human lives and safety.

1. Disorder which threatens lives and safety For air flights to take off and land on schedule, airplanes must keep order according to the directions from the control tower. Passengers must also keep order in the airport to safely board their flights and claim their luggage on time. Aircraft and people alike, when basic order is not upheld, it can lead to casualties.

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05:06 p.m. on 27 March 1977, a flight ignored the control tower signal and order of traffic, and two planes collided on the runway of Los Rodeos Airport on the Spanish island of Tenerife. The coalition resulted in 583 deaths and 60 injuries among 644 passengers and crew of two flights.

The “Tenerife airport disaster” was the deadliest aviation accident ever recorded.

Even in our daily lives, if drivers on the road did not follow traffic rules, it would cause confusion and congestions. Then it would be impossible even to move a step toward destinations. If that becomes the case, cars or roads would have no use. It doesn’t end with traffic. Directly and indirectly, we experience inconveniences, confusion, conflicts, and disputes caused by the disorder. Peace does not take root in such a state of disorder.

littered airport

traffic congestion

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2. The consequence brought by disorder: war and tragedy Communities, cities, states, and countries have their laws. Individuals or groups are punished when they do not abide by the law, and that keeps order to an extent. But for units bigger than countries, there are limitations to enforcing the law. Currently, international law and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) protects international order, but they do not have enforceable power. So, it is difficult to legally maintain order when a country wages war or resorts to armed forces. If one country puts its national interest first and incites war, peace and order become fragile. It brings longstanding confusion and sorrow for many people.

World War II started on 1 September 1939 when Nazi Germany led

by Hitler invaded Poland. The Axis powers, Germany, Italy, and Japan attempted to absorb other nations and build a giant country. The Allied Powers, the United States, Russia, Britain, France, and China fought against the Axis powers. World War II, which ended in 1945, was the war that caused the biggest number of casualties recorded in history. Including

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Lesson 3 What Broke Peace in the World of Humankind

24 million military and 49 million civilians, approximately 73 million people were injured or killed in the war reportedly.

On wars, the scientist Einstein once said, “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” It was a warning that a third World War could destroy human civilization. “You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.”

Weapons are produced on the preface of hurting or killing people. Once equipped, weapons of war come to use at some point. The nuclear weapons which currently exist are enough to dismantle the Earth multiple times. It is why innovative international law for peace in the international community to bring a complete cessation of wars is necessary to bring lasting peace.

From individuals, communities, to nation-states and the international community, establishing and upholding order is essential for peace.

Individuals find inner peace when they find order in life. There is no question about peace in the global community. It would be impossible to establish peace in the global village with 7.7 billion inhabitants without law or order. Order serves as the foundation to build peace and eventually protect lives.

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Discussion

1. Have you ever had your freedom and rights infringed because of someone else’s actions? Share with your group that experience and how it made you feel.

2. Discuss the relationship between keeping order and peace.

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Application

Try and establish order in your family with your family members. Set order in a way that helps your family work together on dining, using the bathroom, cleaning the house, tidying clothes, and other household chores without causing damage to each other.

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2. The root cause of disorder: greed

The world is big enough to satisfy everyone’s needs, but will always be too small to satisfy everyone’s greed.

Mahatma Gandhi (Indian peace activist, 1869-1948)

Man is the only animal whose desires increase as they are fed; the only animal that is never satisfied.

Henry George (America political economist, 1839-1897)

Even in a house of ten thousand square feet, all you need to lie down at night is eight feet.

Myung Shim Bo Gam (Golden Words for a Clear Mind) Section 6 An Boon (self domain)

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What is the root cause that breaks order?

Many scholars who study habits agree that good habits are hard to build and easy to break. Just like habits, a state of order and peace is difficult to establish. But it could take only a day to break it.

When you look into the cause of conflicts, you often find the reasons are not simple. Most conflicts have complex causes, but by analyzing many cases, you can find a commonality. Most conflicts spun from excessive greed. Greed, in this case, means a state of mind that wants something too much or overindulging. In contrast, disputes that are not caused by greed can usually be resolved amicably.

Let’s take a look at records in history and religious texts to find out how greed disrupted peace and order and caused conflict and discord.

The root cause of disorder: greed

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1. How religious scriptures describe greed

Dhammapada, Buddhism

There is no satisfying sensual desires, even with the rain of gold coins.

Upanishads, Hinduism

Therefore find your enjoyment in renunciation; do not covet what belongs to others. the Bible, Christianity

After desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

Quran, Islam

Follow not the lusts (of your hearts), lest ye swerve, and if ye distort (justice) or decline to do justice, verily Allah is wellacquainted with all that ye do.

Myung Shim Bo Gam, Confucianism

Know how to be content, and you will have pleasure; pursue greed, and you will breed worries and concerns.

Scriptures of many religions teach people that unwarranted greediness brings worries in a person’s heart, causes conflict and discord in society, and is the root of sin.

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2. Tragedies brought by greed 1) Holocaust Holocaust derives from the Greek word holókauston, meaning sacrifice by fire. Holocaust was a systematic genocide committed by the Nazi regime led by Hitler during World War II, which took place across Nazi Germany and regions it occupied in 35 countries. It targeted Jews, Slavic peoples, Roma (gypsies), homosexuals, people with disabilities, political prisoners in the genocide of 11 million civilians and war prisoners. 6 million of the victims were Jews, which accounted for 2/3 of 9 million Jewish population in Europe at the time.

20 January 1942, on the outskirt of Berlin, Hitler’s Nazi regime discussed the Final Solution of the Jewish Question. There, they defined Germans as a “superior race” and decided that they needed to carry out racial cleansing for a world under German rule by detaining and the mass killings of Jews and Roma (gypsy) people. Building a detention camp equipped with gas chambers with the sole purpose of mass murder was what made the Holocaust an unprecedented case in human history. Nazi camps were set up in Auschwitz, Bełżec, Chełmno, and other locations. Nazi camps also conducted human experimentation. Experiments included placing subjects in pressure chambers and freezing rooms, testing drugs on live subjects, injecting chemicals into children’s eyes in an attempt to change their eye color, and heinous surgical experiments. Survivors of the experiments were immediately murdered most of the time and dissected.

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The Holocaust was one of the greatest tragedies of the twentieth century spun by disorder that was brought by human greed under the banner of the doctrine of racism (ethnocentrism). What is even more surprising is that the horrific atrocity happened less than 100 years ago. Records and recounts of the Holocaust lead to the production of movies like Schindler’s List, Life is Beautiful, and The Pianist.

German people teach their children at school these facts about the Holocaust to remember the past and prevent it from happening again.

They also built Holocaust memorials. Former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt knelt in penance before the monument to Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in Poland.

Holocaust Memorial

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Auschwitz concentration camp

Lesson 3 What Broke Peace in the World of Humankind

Kneeling Willy Brandt

2) Opium Wars The Opium Wars started in 1840 between Great Qing and Britain over the Qing dynasty’s policy to suppress opium trades. The East India Company of Britain suffered losses in trades with the Qing dynasty. While Qing exported a big volume of tea and porcelain, they did not import British products such as woolen cloth and manufactured goods. In an attempt to increase exports, the East India Company bribed the authorities of Canton to bring opium, a narcotic, to China. Most of the officials and commoners in the Canton region became addicted to opium, and an enormous amount of Chinese silver flowed into East India Company.

The Qing dynasty appointed viceroy Lin Zexu to confiscate all opium in the region and arrested smugglers. It is said that the confiscated opium was 1,400 tons, most of which viceroy Lin Zexu either threw into the sea

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or burned. Merchants of East India Company returned to Britain. They demanded compensation from the government for the confiscated drugs.

The British Government refused to pay for the opium that was taken for smuggling into a foreign country. To find a solution to their loss, the British merchants lobbied the British Parliament to wage war against China. Their claim was put to the vote in the Parliament and was granted approval with a narrow win.

June 1840, about 4,000 troops of the British Army and Navy arrived on the coast of China. That was the beginning of the first Opium War, which ended June 1842 as British forces took over Shanghai and swept into Nanking. The first war resulted in the Treaty of Nanking. The treaty included the following agreements.

1. The Qing dynasty would hand Hong Kong to the British Empire.

2. The Qing dynasty would pay an indemnity of the war and opium confiscation within three years.

The Holocaust and the Opium Wars are examples that show how greed can overturn order, violate the dignity of lives, and dismantle peace.

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Lesson 3 What Broke Peace in the World of Humankind

Discussion 1. Think about whether you have greed, how greed affects your state of mind, and how to resolve it. Share with your classmates.

2.

Research and present cases that human greed threatens the natural ecosystem or humankind and bring disregard for life.

The root cause of disorder: greed

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3. Love, the Beginning of Peace

Because we all share this planet earth, we have to learn to live in harmony and peace with each other and with nature.

This is not just a dream, but a necessity.

Dalai Lama (Tibetan Buddhist Leader, 1935-)

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What is the Seed of Peace which is the beginning of peace?

Once, there was one seemingly peaceful family.

Two parents and their two boys had no fights in the family.

The elder son was an established businessman.

The younger son had lost one hand in an accident while working at a factory, and he was poor.

After their parents died, the two brothers received their inheritance. The elder brother said they must split what their parents have left in 70:30 since he was the elder one.

The younger brother claimed they should cut 30:70 because he was leading a poor life with only one hand.

After a tense argument, the brothers ended up in court.

The judge ruled that they split the inheritance in half.

Does this sound peaceful to you? How long do you think the two brothers can live on in peace? What are they lacking? They lack love for their brothers. What seems peaceful on the outside can easily break apart.

It is because there is no love within.

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1. Love, the foundation for building peace All humanity are like brothers sharing one vessel called Earth. No one has yet succeeded in living outside of Earth, so, in that sense, humankind is one group of a destiny. In one family, parents and children, brothers and sisters cannot make peace if they hate each other. It would even make it uncomfortable to live in the same house. Likewise, each nation in the global village must see one another as brothers and have love for humanity to make Earth a peaceful planet.

The love needed for making peace is not the romantic feeling between a man and a woman. It is a sense of community that enables us to cherish others as ourselves. So, the word ‘love,’ carries many meanings from thanks, thoughtfulness, sacrifice, forgiveness, to tolerance. Those meanings can be summed up as characters of peace. The character of peace is the seed of peace that brings peace.

Also, the character of peace can be the solution to overcome greed. Love allows people to be considerate and forgive. A loving mind guides us to understand and respect our neighbors. So, people who develop the character of peace can be set free from narrow-minded greed or selfishness, and they can walk in the path of coexistence, cooperation, and harmony like nature.

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“All works of love are works of peace. Love cannot remain by itself – it has no meaning. Love has to be put into action, and that action is service.”

Mother Teresa (Catholic nun, 1910-1997)

“When seen from outer space, our beautiful blue planet has no national boundaries. We are all here on this planet, as it were, as tourists. None of us can live here forever. The longest we might live is a hundred years. So while we are here we should try to have a good heart and to make something positive and useful of our lives.”

Dalai Lama (Tibetan Buddhist Leader, 1935-)

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2. Peace Education plants the seed of peace Even a large apple tree starts from a tiny apple seed. It is the same for human beings. We start from one small invisible seed, which is produced by the joining of an egg and a sperm and then conceived in a mother’s womb. As such, to grow the entire globe into a tree of peace, we need the seed of peace. That seed of peace is love. Love is the trait of peace that makes it possible to make peace. People who have love in their hearts, who have the character of peace, are the citizens of peace, and they are the ones who spread the culture of peace. A citizen of peace sees others as unique and valuable as they do of oneself. Also, a citizen of peace has the role of bringing the cessation of war and establishing global peace.

Peace Education is about planting the seed of peace in the heart. The advanced civilization of humankind, developments of science and technology, or an affluent lifestyle can all go down in ruins in war. Only when peace is secured, they start to have meaning. Therefore, peace education sets the background for all education. Citizens of peace who received peace education can fulfill two roles for peace. First, they can call for the cessation of war to establish peace. Second, they can spread a culture of peace to sustain peace. Peace is not something that can be achieved by the efforts of a small number of politicians. Peace can take root for good through the efforts of the numberless peace-loving citizens.

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Lesson 3 What Broke Peace in the World of Humankind

1. Share what has changed about you through Peace Education.

Discussion

2. Share stories that taught you how important love is.

Application 1. Look around you for ways to put love into action. Try them in your home, at school, and in your neighborhood. Share your story.

2. For peace to realize, wars must come to a stop and be replaced by a widespread culture of peace. What are the things you can do to help achieve those two goals? Think of something you can do and put your idea to action.

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What Broke Peace in the World of Humankind Conclusion The collapse of peace in human society is no different from the collapse of order. Households, schools, workplaces, local communities, and nations have rules to keep order.

Order is what protects the safety of members of society and helps reasonable and natural way of matters. Still, there is a blind spot to this order; that is the international community.

History has plenty of evidence of law and order going out of use when it comes to entities bigger than nations. Although the current global society does have an international order with the United Nations in the center, international law is not binding or enforceable upon states.

Similarly, even with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in place, it cannot exercise judicial power unless the countries directly concerned give their consent. For that reason, the international community still has frequent outbursts of war and conflicts that harm international order. Then where does the power to restore and uphold

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international order come from? It comes from civil society.

When all members of the global village become peace citizens and voice peace, national leaders cannot ignore them.

What is the root cause that brings down order? It is greed. Excessive greed has made countless victims of war as they disregarded order or progress. Excessive greed is commonly warned against by religions as greed was behind many tragedies and atrocities in history. Greed has trampled on human dignity and taken many lives. When you get rid of greed and selfishness, most conflicts can find a peaceful solution.

Earth is a small planet in the universe. All of humanity is sharing this small planet as one family. When peace does not prevail, everybody loses. The global society is already equipped with nuclear weapons that can destroy several Earths. Then what is the seed that builds peace? That is love. Love is at the foundation of the character of peace.

When many of us grow the qualities of peace through peace education, the global village will be able to grow like a big tree of peace.

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Image source p.7 left https://www.hani.co.kr/arti/society/area/782574.html right https://pixabay.com/get/57e9dc434854af14ea898378cf2e30761022dfe05555714f7028 7bd6_1920.jpg p.16 first https://www.amazon.in/Dhammapada-Sayings-Buddha/dp/8189497723 second http://scriptures.redzambala.com/upanishad/upanishads-index-sticky.html third https://pixabay.com/ko/photos/%EC%84%B1%EA%B2%BD%EA%B1%B0%EB%A3%A9%ED%95%9C-%EA%B8%B0%EB%8F%85%EA%B5%90%EC%8B%A0%EC%95%99-70935/ forth https://unsplash.com/photos/7blIFp0kFP4 fifth http://www.newscj.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=173508 p.18 left https://unsplash.com/photos/rPAdf6BWseQ middle https://unsplash.com/photos/zTUoiPYvyY8 right https://pixabay.com/ko/photos/바르샤바-청동-플-라크-483589/ p.16 first https://pixabay.com/get/57e2dc464d5aab14ea898378cf2e30761022dfe05555714f722e78d3_1920.png second https://www.flickr.com/photos/us-mission/25676629286

Data Source Modane train crash https://www.britannica.com/event/Modane-train-crash-of-1917 Holocaust https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/ko/article/introduction-to-the-holocaust Opium War https://terms.naver.com/entry.nhn?docId=1833034&cid=62059&categoryId=62059 Tenerife Airport Disaster https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/comment/tenerife-airport-disaster World War II https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/ko/article/world-war-ii-in-europe

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